What Never Was                                                         

By Nadja Lee       23/05/01

English is not my native language. Please forgive me my mistakes.

Disclaimer: "X-men" and all the characters here belong to Marvel, 20 Century Fox and I intend no infringement, this is a piece of amateur fan fiction, and I make no money of it.

Only the original idea contained within this work is the property of the author. Please do not copy this story to any website or archive without permission of the author.

Timeline: Set in an AU (alternative comic world).

Pairing: None

Summary: Someone thinks about life and death…and what could have been.

Archiving: Want, ASK, take, have.

Feedback: Yes, please. My e-mail address is [email protected]

Dedicated to: Jemisard. Your words are as beautiful as your mind.

Rating: PG-13

Warning: Mild character death.

With thanks to Misty and Maria for keeping me writing with their gentle words and kind encouragement. 

Thanks to Christina for the Beta.

Part 1:

" Dinner," the guard says and a tray table is rolled into my cell. It looks good, just as I have ordered; a nice beef, potatoes and salad. I'm sure the colors would have been nice on them as well but I can't see them. I start eating and it tastes okay. When I'm done I see that someone have left a newspaper by my plate. Since I have to kill time somehow I pick it up. That rich playboy, Warren something or another is getting married to the model Jean Grey, the mutant-human relationship is getting worse and ……….oh, what's the point? The whole world sucks away. I put the newspaper down and sit in silence for a while. Thinking…I've had good times, sure I have…bad times as well or I wouldn't be here. When looking at my life I don't see failure, as I know others do; at least I got somewhere, I became someone even if it wasn't someone I wanted to be as a child. I went all the way, I tried it all; from pills and drugs to prostitution and murder. Yet it did nothing to ease the pain I felt inside. That priest who came by earlier asked what went wrong. Maybe I should just have told him; told him about abuse, beatings, humiliation and finally retaliation in the most extreme manner.

I pull my legs up under me on the bed and put my arms around my knees. My eyes catch the scars I have on my wrists. Now, I wish I had succeeded then in ending this. I absentminded rub my left arm and remember a knife wound I got there. I covered that scar with a tattoo, my first tattoo. It is of a firebird. Strange, I know…yet, sometimes in my dreams I see a firebird and its fire brings life instead of death.

Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been different if someone had gotten me off the streets, straitened me out. Maybe……….I don't know. I don't think much about maybes but lately I have had little else to do than think so………but then again, who'll ever try and help another without hidden motives? No one I know, that's for sure.

I hear footsteps approach my cell and I get ready as much as I can. I wish I could remove the helmet they have put around my head to prevent me from using my powers. It is ironical to have been so feared on the outside and be so helpless in here just because of that helmet. I close my eyes for a brief moment and call the image of the firebird that warms my cold soul to me. Then I open my eyes…and I'm ready.

" Scott Summers……….it is time," the officer says and I start my last walk through the prison hallway. Yeah, maybe if things had been different…this walk would be one I'll never be forced to make.

The End