Can you fix this? It's a broken heart

It was fine but it just fell apart

It was mine but now, I give it to you

Cause you can fix it, you know what to do

Rachel Summers paused on the stairs, caught mid-step. She'd been heading for her room for a few hours sleep after spending all night planning defense for Askani Hold. Some of the traps Boak and Codella proposed were really nasty, but Rachel had approved them all. Next time a gang attacked looking for the nonexistent 'treasures of the Askani' there would be more death. More.

Rachel was tired, tired of being the leader and making hard choices, tired of killing boys who joined the soldiers or joined the gangs because there was no other way to survive. They weren't innocents, but no one else was either. Somewhere along the line this world had soured Rachel's dream and left her alone trying to do something so big she couldn't see it.

She moved towards the source of the music, to listen for just a moment.

Let your love cover me, like a pair of angel wings

You are my family

You are my family

She stood outside the nursery door, looked in at the youngest fosterlings, the children. They were humming along with the teacher's voice, smiling.

We stood outside in the summer rain

Different people with a common pain

A simple box in that hard red clay

Where we left him, to always remain

Let your love cover me, like a pair of angel wings

Somewhere in another time Rachel's parents were living. Rachel hadn't thought about them for years, but now memories unfolded around her. Moments with Scott, serious planning sessions or accidental meetings over breakfast when her too-serious father would clown around and make jokes. Nobody else but Jean ever saw that side of him. Rachel remembered leaning over the table and demanding incredulously, "You said *what* to a Sentinel?!" and they'd both laughed.

The child who played with the moon and stars

Waves a snatch of hay in a common barn

In the lonely house of Adam's fall

Lies a child, it's just a child that's all

Crying

Being friends with her mother had been harder, too much like looking in a mirror. They'd both seen the stars from above and below. Rachel had incarnated Phoenix for years without trouble, but Jean still loathed the firebird goddess. And she was terrified of it. Terrified too of the future Rachel represented, the lack of choices, the fate thing. They had so much in common, friendship was easy once they could see each other as just people. Just people who had played with the moon and stars, and were trying to stay sane.

Let your love cover me, like a pair of angel wings

You are my family

You are my family

Even Phoenix was part of their family. The Summers Family curse, Rachel guessed. She had never minded though. The Avatar had been an alien voice in her mind when she'd been younger, then had offered her the power she needed to survive in her world. It had been her protector, golden wings folding over her to keep out the world. And though Rachel never forgot how evil Phoenix could be, it was… beautiful. Truly beautiful.

The song was over. Rachel pushed off from the wall and headed back to her room. Her feet were a little lighter.

THE END...Return to Fan Fiction