Dear Scott

by Twiller

You're not really dead. You can't be. You're the Leader Of The X-Men. You're not supposed to die. You're supposed to live, and get older, and putter around in a wheelchair like the Prof and teach the next generation of X-kids everything that he taught you.

You had no right to die on me, dammit.

Of course, to be fair, you thought _I_ was dead this past year or so, so I guess I don't have a lot of room to talk.

Do you know how wrong this situation is? _GAMBIT_ is leading the X-Men. I know that'd have you turning in your grave. If you _had_ a grave.

See, that's why I know you're not dead. We've never seen a body.

Everybody else thinks Jean and I are crazy for believing you're still alive. You'd think they'd remember how many times some of the rest of us have 'died'. Jean, me, Sam, the Prof...

There's so many things I never got to say to you. It's funny, but I can't remember the last time we sat down and talked like people about something. It was either a 'business' meeting about X-Factor and the X-Men, or it was you yelling at me about being a slacker.

I was, you know. You were the driven one of the family. I was always content to screw around, like Drake. A lot of times we yelled at each other, but deep down inside...

I was proud of you. I was jealous of you, too, though. You had it all. A wife, a direction to your life, and friends who respected you.

I didn't ever feel like I had any of that. I didn't know how to do all the things you did. So I slacked, and I let life slide by.

Then I got sucked into that parallel universe. And somehow things sort of changed for me. You were different, for one thing. You were...more like Dad. And a little bit like me, too. And I was...more like you. _I_ was the leader of the Six. _I_ was the responsible one.

I had a son.

Sometimes Scotty(yeah, I named him after you, apparently) would just look at me like I could reach up and stop the sun for him. He had such faith in me, that I knew what to do, and what to say, all the time.

And I wanted to make him proud of me. So I _became_ the responsible one. I became a leader. It was almost like I finally became worthy to be your brother.

And now I'm back, and I can't tell you any of this. Because you're dead.

I'm going to go, and see if the X-Men will have me back. And this time I won't fuck it up. I'll work hard, and who knows? Maybe someday _I'll_ lead the X-Men.

I want...I want you to be proud of me. I want you to see that I'm not a slacker anymore.

I want you to come back, dammit.

Love, Alex

back to Twiller's stories | Cyke and Logan archive | the Summerlands | comicfic.net