[Mulligan]

Ten years.

Ten years had gone by.

Ten years ago planes had reflected violently in the painstakingly cleaned surfaces of high-rise windows. Ten years ago glass and security had been shattered. Ten years ago fire and smoke and ash had filled the streets of New York City.

Ten years ago the world had changed.

As Alex stood, hand on his heart, the anthem to his country being sung at the anniversary of such an ordeal, his mind joined in with the minds of others, flipping the pages backwards and looking to what had been before.

Clementine had only been ten, living safely with his parents half an island away, over bridges and rivers, off at the private school he helped to pay for, being innocent and young. His mother was living the housewife life she'd always wished for, playing hostess and soccer mom like she'd been born into it. Between the money that Alex made as a successful corporate attorney and the wages that the city paid his father, their family, and the little blonde girl who looked remarkably like her brother, was comfortable, having everything they needed and not really wanting for anymore.

But money and finances wouldn't save them just as much as it wouldn't save everyone else. Alex was thirty-two, successful and what he considered to be happy. He had a wonderful family and a promising career to make up his world, one that he was all too content to live in.

Of course, then the hiccup came.

It was quarter to nine and Alex had just arrived in his office, his briefcase having just settled on the polished wood surface of his desk. Sunlight poured in through the windows, warming his skin, just as did the heated cup of coffee in his hand. The city was spread out before him, open wide and promising, offering itself up with the gorgeous view that he'd been lucky (and skilled) enough to obtain. Glistening the Hudson lazily wound between the two states which made up either shore, the river, too, beginning it's day.

A smile played at Alex's lips, the weather was clear and there had been no notion of anything else, all in all the hours that followed were sure to be glorious ones. Sunlight refracted, glinting off of something out of place, and drawing Alex's attention. A plane, flying too low and too fast. Alex knew nothing of aeronautics, he just knew what boarding passes were and that he preferred first class. Still, even with his lack of knowledge he knew that what was happening wasn't right, it wasn't what was supposed to be. It was most assuredly wrong.

And then it collided with a building. Glass and flame shot in surreal fountains, Alex rocking on his feet at the sight though his own building was unaffected by the physics of the blow. What? How? Instantly and without thought Alex reached to the thing which made him a mutant, pulling the entire universe back five seconds, him trying to think as he did so, through the pain and anguish, how he could fix it. He had to fix it. He had to.

Tears welled in his eyes as he was forced to watch it once more, to know that death was occurring, that horror was unfolding and that there was nothing he could do. Already the side effects of using his power had brought him to his knees, coffee spreading like a blood stain across his carpet, rolling in dark, hot waves from the overturned cup. Never had he used his power consecutively, and never would he do so again, but in that moment, as he watched the collision for a second time he couldn't help but to. Once more he reached deep within himself, feeling his body refuse, feeling pieces of himself rend as he did so, the skip occurring yet again with only the same outcome.

Nothing, there was nothing he could do. Not with his power as a mutant, not with his power as a man. Blood oozing from his nose and ears, Alex watched as it happened a third time. In his life he'd seen things, and heard stories from his father, but never had he seen anything like that. Unconsciousness threatened to take him, everything in his body over taxed by what he'd done, but white knuckled Alex clung to the windowsill, saline making trails down the skin of his face, needing to look away, needing for it all to be a dream, but unable and knowing that it wasn't.

In a blink he was back in his present, the anthem finished and applause sounding. With all the fanfare that should have been present the lights representing the now gone duo of towers sprung to life, the sound of the wattage that created them as loud as the moments of silence that followed. Then he'd had no idea why or how, no one in the city had, and now he knew all too much. If man was capable of doing that to each other, what stopped them from turning against differences in their species? Terrorism existed long before both that even and the newly public presence of mutants. Alex assumed, as he stood there, watching people filled with hope and hearts joined together by sorrow, that such horrors would only continue, but this time he'd do what he could to stop them.

[Mulligan]

His father's hand was warm and familiar, firm in his grasp; their smiles echos of one another as the photo opportunity was taken. The District Attorney of New York City and it's Chief of Police, related by blood and genes, separated by only a generation and some minor differences in opinion. Together they were a pro-mutant force for their city, and hopefully an example for the country. Together they stood against terrorism of any kind, united in much more than just a simple handshake, frozen in time by the camera's flash, captured in pixels and stored in digital memory for all the world to see.

Even with all that togetherness, though, it didn't mean there weren't differences. More so was there a painful rift between them, one which threatened to tear asunder the very foundation that made them whole. A dangerous and excruciating truth that only one half of the father-son duo was aware of.

It was difficult for many men to be raised by metaled veterans from Vietnam. It was also difficult for many men to be raised by fathers who were successful and dedicated police officers. Combine those two difficulties together and you would get a glance at what Alexander's childhood was like. Alex had been born of a mutual love for a brother and friend who had died heroically, named for the same man, for ever held up to the standards of the original. Often times young Alex wondered if the legacy that was left by his namesake was genuine, sometimes wondering if, perhaps, his parents had exaggerated the greatness of the late Alexander, placing him on a pedestal that only such a death could earn.

He only wondered this sometimes, though, in those rare moments where he was made unhappy by a comment from his father or a remark made by his mother. For the most part Alex was contented to strive to be everything they both wanted, trying his best to fill out the shadow that had always been draped across him. In most things he succeeded, and as far as his parents knew, they were satisfied. To them Alex had become everything they'd ever wanted him to. Fiscally sound, successful, attached to a beautiful and powerful woman, on his way to being mayor or more, making his path in the world and bringing honor to the family name.

Just like his father had done. Just, too, as the original Alexander had.

So Richard Valentine tended to save his disappointed looks for his bubbly (intended pun that he often used, paired with a crinkled fatherly-smile) twenty-something daughter, not quite approving of her career choice or her partying habits, both of which he was constantly made all too aware. Alex had no difficulty seeing Clementine dressed in very little, parading about on television and/or using her and her good looks to his advantage. Dick Valentine happened to be slightly more protective of his baby girl.

Even those looks, though, never had they been filled with the venom like the one his father threw at him years prior. The words disgusting and freak had dropped from his lips, cutting valleys through Alex's soul deeper than any knife would have been capable. He'd clung onto Nick then, his fingers digging into those of his partner, knowing that he couldn't live a life in which his father looked at him like that.

So he didn't.

Instead he'd used his power and pulled everyone back in time, taking back the words both he'd said and heard. Instead he left the man he loved, loved so much that life without him seemed unbearable. But while life without Nick felt like it wouldn't be worth living, Alex knew that he couldn't live in a world where his father wasn't a part of it. He'd worked too long and too hard to earn the respect of the man, loosing it wasn't an option.

[Mulligan]

When he'd woken, ten years ago, finding himself on the floor of his office, crumpled into a heap from where he'd stood and then knelt and then collapsed, Alex looked out the window once more. The first tower had fallen, and somehow the other was burning, smoldering, before it too collapsed. The sheer shock of seeing such a lifelong symbol of American strength crumbling into powder and ash, it made Alex woozy, or maybe, perhaps, that was due to the over exertion of his body.

He'd been left alone, no one had come to check on him, for his assistant hadn't even known he was there. Though always punctual no one had seen him enter the office, and after, well, everyone had been far too preoccupied with what had been happening to care. Head swimming he'd stood, grasping once more for the sill that had supported his weight, and once more he looked out onto the horror of it all.

Even with the stories his father had sometimes told of Vietnam after one too many glasses of whiskey, or when he was feeling exceptionally nostalgic for the original Alexander's company, even with Alex's fully functioning imagination and his father never shying from detail, even then Alex's brain simply couldn't fathom the scope of what had happened. Hod long had he been out? How many people were in the building? Could it all possibly be a dream? (Please, please let it be a dream.)

As the wheels in his mind turned light once more caught his attention, the flashes and flickers of red and blue through the cloud of ash and smoke that was beginning to rise and smother the city. Red and blue, red and blue, red and blue. In his numbed and uncertain state he could recall that they symbolized something, something but what he couldn't remember.

Until he did.

His father. The man that he'd so strove to please, the man which he attempted to duplicate no matter how foolish that might have been. His father was a decorated police officer, and it was rumored a possible Chief in the near future. When tragedy struck or violence occurred, Dick Valentine was there to save the day in his own right, braving the wilds of New York much as he had the wilds of Vietnam. Clementine and his mother might be save, but his father, his dad, Alex knew he had to be down there. And knowing that without knowing more, well it wasn't knowing enough.

So he raced to what would later be labeled ground zero. First through the building to the collective shocked look of his coworkers and then through the city streets, on foot. There were no cabs to call and traffic was so backed up that driving would have been impossible. He didn't know where he was going, except towards the center of it all. Yes it was foolish and arrogant and yes someone likely should have stopped him, but Alex didn't care, he didn't care about anything that moment but that member of his family. Besides, everyone else was too damned busy worrying about everyone else to notice the man in the suit and coat dashing across streets and poorly erected barricades.

For the first time in his life Alex didn't give a whit to his appearance, he'd not even checked his reflection in the glass door as he left his office. The blood which marked his face had clotted on his skin sticky and red and as his hurried stepped brought him towards where he hoped his father was flakes of ash polluted his hair and the perfection of the black of the wool of his jacket.

It was Sam he spotted first, a long time friend of his family and his father's old partner before they were both promoted up and out. The tall and lanky man's arm was held in a badly fashioned sling, wet darkness spreading through cloth.

"What're you doin' down here Alex?"

The man's voice was gruff and his face even more so, his surprise and somewhat indignation showing on his face. How had the young Valentine even gotten there.

"Were you in the towers, kid?"

The question came with a backwards glance to the rubble behind him, a radio squawking and crackling from the grasp of his injured hand.

"No matter what, you're going the wrong way, boy. No civilians are allowed back in."

Distracted and agitated Sam had been asking questions quicker than Alex found he had breath to answer. Dust clogged his lungs just as did the exertion his body had been through. Normally active such a trek wouldn't have phased him, but that paired with his earlier exercise Alex had yet to find his breath.

"Dad?"

He finally managed in question, brows drawn and green eyes filled with concern.

"Is he?"

With no lack of annoyance Sam shook his head, cutting of Alex before he could say anymore.

"Not even this shit could take out Dick. Your old man was helping a group out of the second tower when it fell, he got some metal in the back, but last time I saw 'im he was bitchin' and gripin' in the med tent."

Irritatedly he waved off to his left, where finally Alex recognized what looked to be some sort of shabbily erected structure, a sheet practically, strung up likely to prevent the falling of ash and dust.

"You ain't supposed be there, but get yourself check out while you are. Your ears are bleedin'. I got other shit to do, get a move on."

And then he was done with the conversation and Alex himself. For a half a second Alex stood, watching as ash fell to the ground, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. His dad was alive, but injured, and he had no idea how badly. Ash fell like snow from the sky, creating drifts and mounds, but instead of the silence and calm that generally came with such lazy flakes screams and sirens and the roaring of flames could be heard.

The triage area was a mess, injured people were everywhere, and everything smelled of burned flesh. It wasn't just people though, it was pieces of people, or people missing pieces, flesh that had been sloughed off by heat and flame, others who were bleeding and disfigured. For years Alex would have nightmares, for years he would be scarred because of what he'd seen. He might be many things, but he was never meant to see things like that.

But even though he saw it all, he didn't process it. He was too busy searching faces for the one he wanted to find, hunting out the familiar set of a jaw, the wrinkles that his own would one day match. And it was then that he saw Nick.

Of course he would have been there, the absolute love of Alexander's life, and why not? He was a doctor, a great one, if Alex recalled correctly, and a man made to be a hero. Of course he would have found his way into the belly of the beast doing what he could to save the world, one life at a time. For half a second, for less than that the entire world stopped. There, searching for a father he feared lost, Alex found the man that he'd given up, and inside of him, because of it, something else broke. Across the mess of it all their vision met, electricity running through Alex's veins in response, and then it was over. Nick went back to being hero, as always putting those in need before himself (or others), and Alex went back to doing what he did best, being his father's son.

Sitting amongst the wounded, looking insulted at being categorized at such, Alex finally found his father, wordless cry falling from his mouth as he did so. Clicking his tongue Richard looked up to see his son, before shaking his head and turning his gaze away, gritting his teeth as a medical worker of some kind stitched up an oozing wound in his back.

"Stop fussing, Alexander."

He chastised, using the only name he ever did for his son. Always, and forever it had been Alexander. Never had his father called him Alex, or Lexi, or any other such nickname, nothing so intimate, nothing so caring. Just always Alexander.

That had been the reunion he had been granted, and that had been the comfort he'd received after such a harrowing event. His father was made of dirt and steel, and while Alex was far from weak, he hadn't been crafted from such strong stuff. Standing at the memorial, posing for yet another picture, Alex couldn't help but to remember the strength of the man beside him, and what he'd given up in order to keep it in his life.

[Mulligan]

Clementine Valentine meant the world to her brother.

Before it had been his father, the only person that meant absolutely everything to Alex, but at some point in time over the last decade there'd been a switch, a change in focus, Alex knowing in his heart of hearts that if a choice was ever to have been made, it would be Her. There'd be no hesitation, no vacillating, just Clementine as the victor.

For so long it had been his father, for so long Alex only strove to please that one person in his life, willing to forgo all the rest. But since that part of him had changed, a piece of his soul switching over, it had been Clementine that mattered the most.

She was there, too, like he had asked her to be. He was sure that being at the dedication of the memorial wasn't on her to-do list, but she had agreed, as she often did. Maybe that was the difference, as hard as Alex worked to earn Clementine's respect and as much as he tried to be worthy of her love, it much more often felt that Clementine was willing to do the same in reverse.

Standing there in the spotlight, listening as speech after speech was given, Alex held onto his sister's hand. Shaking his father's in front of the cameras had been symbolic and purposeful, and yes, Alex still felt the bond which kept him. But the lightness of her fingers wrapped around his, her smile aimed sometimes in his direction, it was that which felt right, and that which made him whole.

After his father had been located and tended too, Alex ignoring his own injuries (because he knew of their source), Dick'd sent Alex to the family home, telling him that just because he'd gotten some rebar lodged in the muscle of his back, it didn't mean he could go home. Things had been worse in 'Nam.

How Alex had grown to hate that statement.

And so he journeyed through the insanity that was once New York City, heading for the Valentine home, unable to even call because all of the lines in the city were jammed by over use. It took hours to go no more than a few miles, most of which was traversed on foot, the soles of Alexander's dress shoes more than shot by the time he arrived.

White as a ghost his mother had answered his knocking, locks of blond peeking out from a nearby corner as Clementine looked to see who it was. Later Alex would realized that such a moment was a horrific flashback for his mother, a memory of receiving her brother's ashes, all that was left of him held in the hands of the man who would be Alex's father. The lines of her face were taught and exhaustion was written across her features. Alex was there, yes, but just as Clementine would one day become more important to Alex than anything, Richard had been and always would be the thing that mattered most to her.

"He's fine. Working." Alex managed, more tired than he ever had been, wanting to sink to the floor in the hallway, wanting to just collapse now and let it all be over and let it all never have started, but he knew, he knew if he did that he'd hear about it later.

So he didn't. Instead he recanted all the details that he could, baring the bit that focused on his mutation, forgoing the part about seeing the man he loved. Everything else, though, that he told with honesty, mostly reassuring his mother that her husband, his father was the man she'd always thought he was. Valiant, hero, brave.

It wouldn't be until later that Alex would be able to take off the mask of obedient son and collapse into a bed he hadn't slept in for more than a decade. It would be long after midnight when his door would open and feet would patter across his floor before weight would be deposited onto his bed. In that later, in the afterward a small body would mimic the curves of his, looking for protection against her nightmares while giving comfort of her own. It wouldn't be until then, until it was all over that he'd bury his face in his sister's hair, clinging on to her, so damned grateful that she was alive, that she hadn't been one of the ones to die, silent tears streaking down his face as he finally let go all that he'd held in that day.

On that day, in that night, because of her Alex would never again be alone. That tie would bind them together strongly, that silent and unspoken moment, likely meaning more to him than it ever could her. And again, in the now, as he clung to her fingers, squeezing her hand every once in a while just to obtain her attention, Alex knew that she would always been there, and because of her he'd never have to face such madness by himself again.