Past, Present, Future - Cable, Deadpool 2

7.

Abruptly and sharply she was snapped back to reality - a strike of pain shot through her head as the memory was cut off and she collapsed to the floor in a heap.

The pain was now a dull pounding, though it felt as though the image was seared permanently onto her eyes, into her mind, always there to haunt her.

She realized that she was a blubbering, shaking mess on the floor of his hotel room, but didn't care. Thinking back, she later realized that her reaction had probably caused him to think that she was horrified by their future, the fact that she was his wife. And while that had come as a shock, that wasn't exactly the most shocking part.

Only it was. She already knew of her death, had seen it happen thanks to him traveling through time to reach this year to try and stop it, and now with the trauma of pretty much witnessing her own death and then seeing her own dead body, and so clearly from his vivid memory, had knocked the air from her, making it hard to breathe and think. Everything was a whirlwind.

He had been right, she shouldn't have looked at those memories.

She almost didn't dare look up at him. Her head swam, leaving her feeling dizzy and nauseous. I think I'm going to be sick... Her stomach and head were both spinning equally fast, though not in rhythm. She had witnessed death before, but seeing your own dead body, along with that of your child was very much something else entirely.

It was only then that she realized he was speaking to her, or trying to. His voice sounded distant. "Nina? Nina?"

Finally, she looked up at him, to see his expression laced with concern, tears glistening in his eyes. It was obvious that he wanted to comfort her, but seemed to almost be holding himself back from doing so.

Only then she noticed the wedding ring on his finger that he was now twisting - when she had seen him fiddling with his fingers before that was what he had been doing.

"We're - you're my - I'm your - we..." She couldn't get the words out, couldn't form any coherent thoughts. We're not just friends, or close in the future. We're married - I'm your wife. We have a child, a daughter... Hope... She now understood why it had seemed like we as struggling to explain everything to her earlier - it wasn't exactly easy to explain, especially for him when it was his reality.

She had to get out of here. That was all she could clearly process at the moment. Like with reading and feeling his memories, her teleportation ability was based on her concentrating on a few small fragments of reality of the place she was and the place she wanted to be. She knew exactly where she wanted to be then.

The world around her began to fade, slower than usual as she was having trouble concentrating. He seemed to know what she was doing for he got to his feet.

"Nina-" But she didn't hear the rest.

Soon, sure enough, the dingy carpet she was lying on faded into the intricately patterned, coloured rug outside Charles's office back at the mansion. Seeing it again was the most comforting feeling right then and there.

She collapsed on the floor right outside the office door, exactly where she wanted to be right now.

He must have heard her shaking sobs for moments later the door opened, and he wheeled out of the room. "Nina! What's wrong? What happened?" It was impossible to mistake the obvious startled sound of his voice.

She didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She still couldn't quite believe it herself.

She didn't say anything and instead raised herself up to kneel so that she could grip the front of his shirt and bury her face in his chest. Being the compassionate soul he was, Charles didn't press, and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

"Charles," she finally managed once her sobs had subsided a little. "I-I'm scared..."

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Wade was back. Turned out he had served a short time in the Ice Box, the massive mutant prison outside the city. Cable had attacked the prison, attempting to kill the mutant boy Russell. Yes, the same Cable who had asked her to help him do this. The same Cable who was her future husband.

Wade was now on a mission to stop Cable and save Russell. He'd come back to the mansion in hopes of recruiting some help. Colossus was still bitter to say the least about what happened last time, and refused to even see him, and Negasonic wasn't about to help Wade, only if Colossus went too. In the aftermath of meeting her future husband and catching a glimpse of the dark future and her death, Nina wasn't up for any missions at the moment, and didn't end up seeing him either.

She was back in Charles's office a couple of days later. She hadn't even been able to confide in him what the vision was, what it meant, and that was saying a lot. She always confided in him. He was the one person she trusted unconditionally.

The two sat in silence across from each other at his desk, the silence only broken when she spoke:

"Take them away, please." It sounded like she was begging, and maybe she was. She just couldn't get the image out of her mind. Of course, not all of it was a bad shock, like the fact that she got married and had a family in the future, however, that didn't make it any less shocking. Part of her felt guilty, reacting so strongly against that, but the fact was she hadn't seen it coming, at all. Possibilities of marriage and children hadn't ever really crossed her mind - her unaligned timeline had prevented it, or at least she thought it had. In many ways she always thought she would stay at the mansion with the X-Men forever, and she was content with that.

Charles sat back in his wheelchair, eyeing her from across the desk. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She answered almost instantly. He did so, and it would be like she had never experienced them and they couldn't trouble her and haunt her as they were doing now.

But then she would never know.

But that was just it, she wasn't supposed to know what happened in the future, but now she did. It felt like cheating, and she felt guilty; she could do something now that she knew, even though she was never supposed to know in the first place. It was complicated, as her whole life and power-set seemed to be.

Charles was just reaching out a gentle hand to place against her temple when she cried, "Wait!" He drew back. She shook her head. "Erasing them would be the easy way out. Now that I know, I have to do something." If she did nothing, she would basically be condemning herself to death in the future, as well as her future daughter. She couldn't do that, especially not to the little girl. Hope. "I know I'll regret it if I don't. I have to stop him."

Charles wasn't sure who she was speaking of, but he watched as she quickly fled from the office. If she left now she might just be able to catch up with Wade...

(Whew, that took me longer than I'd hoped but there it is! I imagine Céline Dion's 'Ashes' playing during this chapter and the one before when she sees the memories, Nathan losing Nina and Hope mirroring how Wade lost Vanessa... :( (it's a beautiful song though!)

Thanks so much for reading and the 700+ reads! :D and I hope you enjoyed! Also, I finally updated the first couple chapters of my 'Infinity War' story, so please check it out if you're interested - thanks! :))