good grief (what a wild world)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe, but no matter what you do, don’t dial my sister because she’s a ginger and she has a really bad temper and she’ll throw a fit! Anyways, I’m listening.
Seventy-two saved wireless voice messages, from Jean Grey to Sara Grey.

Notes:

Sequel to "running up that hill (a deal with god)".

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

—

before

September 21, 2024 (12:42)

Hey there—

Sara for fuck’s sake.

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (12:45)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today—

Sara I swear to fucking God I don’t care that you’re two and a half years older than me now I don’t fucking care that you’re going to call me a fucking potty mouth like I haven’t been your big sister for most of your life if you don’t answer your phone in this fucking instant—

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (12:52)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe, but no matter what you do, don’t dial my sister because she’s a ginger and she has a really bad temper and she’ll throw a fit! Anyways, I’m listening.

[pause]

Sara Joanne Grey, I swear to—

[shaky breathing]

Please, please, I’m begging you, I—I, God, please, I’m scared, Sara, pick up, please—

[click]

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (16:07)

Hey—

You mind controlled me. I know you fucking did. Don’t you dare deny it.

How dare you Sara. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you to hell and back. You had no right. How dare you stop me, how dare you get into my brain and puppeteer me, force me, pretend like I’m another one of those poor souls you have to go and save, I—

Please, say something—

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (16:33)

Hey there—

So I found your phone. They threw it out. They must have thrown it out on purpose. I was passing by when I saw it. If I didn’t look at the right moment I wouldn’t have seen it. I don’t know why they would throw it out. Maybe they thought no one would care about a lost phone. Phones get lost all the time. The things we care about get lost all the time, and no one bats an eye.

I found it in the pond. It was wet. My shoes are wet. My socks are wet and my pants are wet and my sleeves are soaked and my hands are freezing and I’m cold and I’m hungry. You had our lunch money and so I didn’t have lunch and I’ve just been walking around the park all day long. Everyone’s probably looking at me and pitying me.

I don’t know where I should go. I know I can’t go back to the McCleans, Sara, they always liked you better and they always thought I was the problem child and without you I don’t think they’ll want me any longer and I—I swear, where are you, pick the fuck up Sara, come home with me Sara, why aren’t you coming home—

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (18:01)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day—

There’s no way they can keep you locked up, I know you, you’re the fucking angel of Annandale-on-Hudson and you could take out every single last one of them with your powers so why aren’t you coming home, why aren’t you coming back to me—

[beep]

September 21, 2024 (21:42)

Hey there—

They said you were adopted by some government program for supes. Department of Damage Control or something, the old hag got a visit from the feds earlier in the day, and they told her you’d agreed to go with them, and there was nothing to worry about, nothing at all—

I leapt into the old hag’s mind. Just like you taught me, just a little. She got paid off to keep quiet. She’s keeping the bills in the upstairs closet next to the mop and the shelf with the old teddy bear that’s got a torn-off ear. Two grand in one-hundred-dollar yellow crunchy bills—that seems to be the price for a fucking human being—

[gagging sound]

I swear, I—

I don’t know what I should do Sara what am I supposed to do?

[beep]

September 22, 2024 (09:27)

Hey—

So I told them at breakfast that they shot you in the neck with a tranquilizer dart and tackled you to the ground and you were crying and I tried running after you and they didn’t believe me and the old hag asked me if I had any more lies to say because if so Stevie McClean would be happy to do his mother’s bidding with his big fat hands and I didn’t want to get hit again and I really should have told you they were hitting me but I didn’t want to because I knew you were already so tired taking care of me so I shut up—

[beep]

September 22, 2024 (11:35)

Hey—

So I should run away, right?

[beep]

September 22, 2024 (12:02)

Hey there—

What am I even doing? I have your fucking phone. Only I’m gonna hear this, after all.

[beep]

September 22, 2024 (13:49)

Hey—

I could never be as brave as you.

[beep]

September 22, 2024 (14:45)

Hey there—

So I stole the bribe money and I don’t think they noticed but they did find me packing and unpacking my bags and they guessed what I was thinking about doing and they told me that I should be grateful that they’d allowed me to stay with them for so long and if I wanted to be ungrateful I could run off and see if I could join you, and really, we don’t have any belongings between us, you and me, and so I slung your backpack over my shoulder and grabbed that big winter jacket you got me for Christmas that final year with mom and then I ran off and I think I cried a little and I didn’t look back.

[beep]

September 29, 2024 (21:29)

[long silence]

Talk to me, Sara.

[beep]

October 19, 2024 (10:11)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe, but no matter what you do, don’t dial my sister because—

So I’ve been homeless for a month.

At the start I tried checking in at motels but the receptionists would always ask me for my age and then I’d say that I was eighteen and then they’d ask for my ID because I’m so clearly a kid, and I didn’t know how to sweet-talk them so I’d just feign confusion and say that I’d wait outside for my parents. Then I’d go out and I’d run.

I’ve been sleeping on benches. It’s not that bad so long as you can find the good ones. I guess I’m saying this while the weather is still bearable.

I don’t know how you’re sleeping. Please tell me you’re sleeping. I know I haven’t been sleeping.

[beep]

October 20, 2024 (01:44)

Hey—

I can’t sleep, Sara.

[shuffling fabric]

[muffled sobs]

[beep]

October 24, 2024 (09:04)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because—

I almost got caught by the cops yesterday night, Sara. Some son of a bitch snitched on me, called the pigs on a street urchin who had too much money and apparently that was suspicious but two bigass armoured vans worth of pigs kidnapping a teenage girl isn’t. I got away from them by a hair. Too big to run after a little girl in a tiny alley.

I lost your bag though. I’m sorry about that. You’ve had that bag since you were eight and I was still your older sister, before I got blipped, and now it’s gone because of me. Maybe you were always right. Maybe I should have been the younger sister all along. Because I can’t help but mess up this whole older sister shtick, huh?

[low exhale]

God I should stop talking, this is pointless.

[beep]

November 10, 2024 (14:11)

Hey there—

So we were completely wiped from the internet. Like, scrubbed. Movie-style. I went to the library and tried searching for our names on the internet, and I couldn’t find anything. Not even the old photos of us with our—our mom, at the Annandale Elementary Fun Fair, or Buffalo Junior High while we were there, or even the patient lists at that horrible ward, or—or anything.

I don’t know what I should even say. Is there anything to even say?

[lowering voice]

I’ve been trying to get the powers to work. But it’s always like… like there’s a block in my brain that stops me from taking control of someone else like you do. Like I have the key but it doesn’t fit into the lock.

If you were here, I know you could have taught me what’s wrong with me.

[beep]

November 12, 2024 (21:34)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno—

Something weird happened earlier today.

Like some kind of tingle coming from over in New York City. Just before sunset. It was in the wind. I could feel it, you know. Entering everyone’s brains, rummaging about, rearranging reality. At first, nothing seemed to have changed. Then I went digging for a bit into the news and I saw the Statue of Liberty and all those other incidents on the news and I knew.

Peter Parker, you know? Spider-Man? Yeah.

For some reason, everyone’s forgotten about him.

[sigh]

Why do I even care?

It’s not my life. It’s not worth thinking about this.

[beep]

November 18, 2024 (17:18)

Hey there, it’s your lucky—

I need to wash. I need to eat. I need to sleep. I need to remember that I’m—that this isn’t just a bad dream, that I’m supposed to be looking for you. There, there it is, some point to this whole thing.

[beep]

November 24, 2024 (07:01)

[long silence]

Happy birthday, Sara.

[beep]

April 16, 2025 (12:00)

[light smirk]

Happy birthday to me, your dearest once-big, now-little sister.

[beep]

December 12, 2025 (19:07)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

It’s been a while, huh.

The power cord for my phone broke, and my phone’s an old phone so I needed to get the chance to buy a new phone before I could call again.

Well, call.

I ran out of money this month. So I moved into one of the Global Repatriation Council’s refugee camps. The big one down on the outskirts of Albany. They’re still around, you know. There’s still a good chunk of blipped folks who haven’t made it back home yet. And at this point many of the people inside just don’t want to go home. For some, there isn’t a home for them to go back to.

I know what you’d say. They aren’t safe. Mom tried to call them on me when I came back, and that was the reason we ran, wasn’t it? But I should have been sent here, right? Maybe it was written for me in the stars in the first place, to wander forever.

And besides, it isn’t that bad. No one cares about us, and that means that no one cares about what we do. We get communal showers and the water’s almost always cold but at least there’s soap. And the food tastes like piss but at least we can eat, and the clothes are donations that scrape at my skin and they’re never the right size but at least they’re clean and warm to wear.

I’ve still kept your jacket though. Three separate people tried to steal it. I dealt with them, don’t worry. I’m always faster. I was on the track and field team back in middle school, don’t you remember?

Do you remember when we would race up that hill? Of course you do. I never did race you properly, come to think of it.

Perhaps I should have raced you once for real.

Perhaps I would have then known what you’d do.

[beep]

May 20, 2026 (10:09)

[slow swallow]

I’m forgetting how you look.

I remember that you have green eyes like the ocean and yellow hair like sand aglow in the sunrise. I remember that your shampoo smells like oranges and your body wash smells like sage and you would never change the scents since you were little, back when you were littler than me. I remember that I bought you a blue-gold scrunchie when our stepfather started lying to our mother about us and I would put it into your hair every morning and when I came back to life you would always refuse when I asked you if I could do it like I used to. It made you feel older, you said, to do it yourself. It made you feel steady.

I remember, and yet—yet I can’t put together the sight of you, you know.

I started forgetting how dad looked, because dad was dead. I started forgetting how mom looked, because mom thought us better off gone from her life.

Tell—tell me, Sara. Are you dead? Or do you want me out of your life?

[pause]

God, I’m pathetic. What am I even saying? You got fucking kidnapped. And I’m supposed to be looking for you, not—not moping about like this.

Fuck.

[beep]

November 25, 2026 (20:09)

Hey there—

I wish these powers would just fucking work. If they were just fucking simpler to use. I can see into people’s minds but I can’t puppet them around like you would. All those superheroes, they just have their powers and use them, right? It can’t be that hard. So why is it this fucking hard?

[beep]

April 06, 2027 (10:07)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because—

Almost three years and not an iota of progress.

[beep]

October 04, 2027 (19:44)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe—

I’ve looked into every Damage Control site on the East Coast. Short of breaking in, I don’t know what I’m supposed to fucking do. And I don’t have my powers yet. I’m older than you were when you got your powers and I still don’t have them. I’m just a girl, Sara. I’m just a little girl.

[beep]

January 02, 2028 (06:42)

Hey there, it’s your—

I’m scared.

I’m scared I won’t live to see eighteen. I’m scared that I’ll die one day soon and I’ll never know what happened to you.

[beep]

March 03, 2028 (21:33)

Hey there—

Please—if you’re there, if somehow you’re still listening to me—please, send me a sign. I know I’m the one who’s supposed to help you, rescue you, but—

[beep]

April 19, 2028 (03:13)

Hey—

Never mind.

[beep]

June 15, 2028 (04:18)

H—

V-Max.

That was you, wasn’t it? I saw it. Dream that wasn’t a dream.

V-Max.

[beep]

June 15, 2028 (04:19)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara—

You gave me a clue, Sara. You heard me.

You’re alive.

[choked sob]

Thank God, you’re alive.

[beep]

June 17, 2028 (15:04)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because—

I did it, Sara.

I leapt into someone’s mind and I could control them. It was like—it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Like I was seeing through four eyes and walking with four legs and I had four arms and four ears and everything was double, like a lucid dream, and it was like being stretched like spaghetti.

No matter. I’ll do what I’ll have to do. I’ll learn how to use this power.

[beep]

August 14, 2028 (12:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today—

I’m coming for you, Sara. I swear this on everything I’ve ever held dear.

[beep]

August 22, 2028 (17:38)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

I’ve already figured out how I’ll go about this. I’ll hit all the places DODC runs in New York State, and if that doesn’t work I’ll hit their headquarters in Manhattan. I already have some words planned for their dear boss, this Director Metzger.

I’m almost there, Sara. I’m listening to your music. You love Patti Smith and Stevie Nicks and any kind of distinctive vocals, any song that wouldn’t make you fall asleep. First thing after arriving in New York City I went to the bodega and I had the breakfast you liked the most when we would go out on weekends to the cafe and scrounge up our allowances. Bagel with cream cheese and honey and smoked salmon, a glass of almond milk to down it all. You love bagels and can’t stand English muffins, and if someone offers you a bag of blueberry muffins you could down them in one sitting.

I remember you, Sara. I’m still remembering you. And I’m getting you back soon. It’s only a matter of time.

[beep]

September 05, 2028 (20:49)

I think you’d love New York City. I can’t wait to see it with you.

[beep]

—

after

October 13, 2028 (08:38)

[inhale, exhale]

I’m taking a bus out of New York City.

I’m going south, and then westward, because maybe I’ll have more luck westward, like all the Hollywood stars. Or maybe that’s just bullshit, like the rest of my life. Maybe I’m just running, still running.

Maybe this is what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. Running. Running forever. Running to who knows where.

[beep]

October 13, 2028 (10:40)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today—

Leather and dust, morning light through grime-stained windows, I’m rocking back and forth and up and down and left and right and I’m trembling all over. I’ve got my legs raised into the seat, arms wrapped around my knees, head to the glass, and the jacket hood has slipped and the glass is warm against my cheek and a loose strand of my hair red over the air vent and I’m counting the blurring trees, one, two, three, gazing at the passing birds, tracing the clouds with my index finger on the glass and right now I’m thinking of fat sheep grazing on blue meadows, hills carved from sunrays, racing to the top.

I feel like I’m dreaming. I feel like I’m feverish. I want to wake up, and that’s the catch, isn’t it? I’m already awake. This is a dream from which I’ll never escape.

[beep]

October 13, 2028 (12:32)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

Pitstop near the state border. It’s a little past noon. It’s easy to slink away here because I have no baggage, I’ve never carried more than my jacket and at the start your backpack ever since I started my search, and now I just have my jacket. For the longest time it’s just been me and the faint hope of you. The material never figured much into my calculations.

I was famished. So I walked into the diner and pulled out my last thirty dollars from New York City and paid for a chicken sandwich and an iced coffee, sugar and extra cream. As I was eating I looked out the window over the barstool and tried to imagine where to go next. I didn’t pay for this bus ticket, and now I don’t have a clue where exactly I want to go. Regardless of how much disarray the Department of Damage Control has been plunged into, some group or another of feds are bound to be searching for me in every big city.

I should be laying low. I can’t be using my powers willy-nilly now.

[beep]

October 13, 2028 (14:06)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone—

Back on the bus. There’s an old woman with cat hair all over her handbag sneaking glances at me with faint concern, and a young boy trying to sneak a peek at my face, and a couple whispering that I must be a runaway, possibly from my family, or maybe a cult?

Oh, the pity. Oh, the sympathy. Oh, to feel good about yourself by imagining the shape of a little girl’s misery.

I could pluck those thoughts right out of their heads along with their sanity, their consciousnesses, their very minds, and oh am I tempted. But I am a human and not a goddess to rain burning punishment down from above and I never want to be a goddess, because to be a goddess is to stop feeling.

To be human is to feel. To be human is to mourn. To be human is to remember. To know that the past has meaning, that time lost has meaning because there is only so much time you will ever have with yourself and the ones you love.

[beep]

October 14, 2028 (08:55)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

It’s … it’s really pretty, so I’d like to describe the view to you.

We’re passing by a town. We’re passing by one of those rural towns that are a dime a dozen around these parts, that are shaped like a splatter of paint tossed by some sky god onto the landscape, houses over here, shopping mall over there, school way over on the edge of town by the highway.

The bus is passing near an elementary school, and there’s a playground at the front and to the left of the entrance and it’s before school so there are children racing each other in the breeze, on the road.

I can feel their minds, you know. I’m passing from afar and the children are tiny blurs but I feel them regardless, little lights on the horizon. I can feel them from afar, like apples on a too-high branch and I’m too small to reach them. I’m feeling stretched like an elastic band stretched taut and thin and strained all over and the thing is that I’m not going back to when I was small. Sure, power seduces and everything. But in truth, I think I would do anything to go back to being small.

To be small is to be a child. To be small is to be too short to see over the metaphorical fence and behold the ugly truths of growing up staring you down on the other side. To be small is to be young, unblemished, unsullied. I wish I could go back to being small. I wish I could go back to being a child, a daughter, a sister.

God, I’m wishing for the few things that will never be true.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round. Remember? Back when we were still children, when we could still think of ourselves as children and back then we went to school. We went on a school bus, once, when we were little, when our class went to Niagara Falls. It was the first time we left town. Annandale Elementary was a small school so all the primary school children went together regardless of homeroom and grade and age, and I found you amidst the throng and we went together to watch at the railing’s edge and you slotted a nickel into a tower viewer and we took turns surveying the waterfall.

Look, you said to me, look, isn’t the sight incredible? And I agreed. Our mother believed in God, believed that our home and our family was situated squarely in Goldilocks’ little corner of Heaven and Earth, and she said that it was the only world we should need to worry about. It’s an ordinary world, our mother would say, and the outside world is a bad place, a dangerous place. As the adage goes, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

And gazing at that roaring mountainous gush of water, I had to say I disagreed with our mother. Sure, it might be dangerous out there. Sure, it might be extraordinary, and it is safer, better, to be ordinary, to live an ordinary life.

But there was no denying that the outside world beyond our hometown was the most incredible thing we’d ever seen.

[beep]

October 17, 2028 (02:19)

I—

I just want to hear the sound of your voice again. Before I go to sleep.

Is that too much to ask for?

[beep]

October 18, 2028 (18:42)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe, but no matter what you do—

Peter calls me everyday.

I don’t even know how he got my number. Something something he’s super savvy at tech and whatever, I guess. I wasn’t really a student of technology, and neither were you. When we were in school I liked algebra and you liked drawing with chalk pastels and we both loved to read.

He says he wants to check in on me. And I can’t help but remember his blood on my hands and his fucking aunt in my head or was it inside his fucked-up head, and the way he breathes and also the way he isn’t supposed to breathe with blood in his lungs and a bullet in his spine, and the fact that he’s so disgustingly kind that it makes me nauseous from the inside out—

God.

I tell him what he wants to hear. He laps it up. He probably knows I’m lying, about being okay and all. But he’s kind, and because he’s kind he doesn’t push.

He doesn’t get me. No one gets me like you did. I don’t think anyone else ever will.

[beep]

October 20, 2028 (11:22)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe—

I’m headed westward. Two months ago I came from up north in Boston and I arrived in New York City believing I was alone save for you, and now I’m leaving New York City in the rearview mirror and this time I—I guess I really am. Alone. Now.

Except I’m not alone. If Peter is to be believed. He’s just like me, he says. And I’d like to believe him, oh, I really do want to believe him.

But really, I know he’s a fool.

[beep]

October 24, 2028 (07:10)

I’ve moved onward. I’ve gone westward and the autumn has settled in and the foliage has faded from green to gold. I’ve passed through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington DC, before making a hard turn westward, and then I threaded through Kentucky, and now I’m in Illinois, a backwater town with more cows than fellow human beings.

I learned from peering into the locals’ minds that there’s a farm half an hour’s walk from the bus station, that once belonged to an old man that now belongs to no one because his daughter, the last bit of his family, died years before he did. It was abandoned only two months ago, so it would make for good shelter for a few weeks before anyone might come by and check for squatters. It’s the third such place I’ve taken shelter in. It’s stripped of almost everything down to the lacquer on the floorboards, but I unearthed a mattress from some storage closet. It’s better than a lot of places I’ve slept in.

I can’t stop dreaming of you.

[beep]

October 27, 2028 (05:09)

[hanging silence]

Was it painful to die? Or was it a relief?

[beep]

November 02, 2028 (10:06)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

I’ve started wearing your scrunchie. It keeps getting tangled in my hair.

How did you do it?

[beep]

November 13, 2028 (11:04)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara—

I love you and I hate you. I hate you for leaving me behind. I love you for everything else.

[beep]

November 24, 2028 (00:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaara Grey!

Happy birthday, Sara. I wish you were here with me.

[beep]

December 05, 2028 (19:18)

Hey there—

So I just remembered that they still probably have your body.

[beep]

December 08, 2028 (05:13)

Hey there—

They’re shutting down the DODC but they still have some data centres up and running for ‘legacy’ reasons, and one of those is in Chicago. Call me reckless. Call me regressing into old ways. But I took control of this IT guy’s mind and made him access the mainframe and apparently the remains of all their ‘human’ experiments are kept for archival purposes in these special storage facilities, and they have a dozen of those across the nation.

[beep]

December 09, 2028 (09:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day—

I’m being hunted again. They figured out it was me who hit that site.

I’m so tired of this shit.

[beep]

December 18, 2028 (18:30)

Hey there—

So Peter Parker found out. He’s on vacation for the December holidays, apparently? And he tracked me down to Seattle and saved me from a bunch of feds who were about to pound down on the door of my place. Fucking Peter. He says that the Punisher and Daredevil have New York pretty much looked over for the month. He says he’s coming with me on the mission. That I shouldn’t be alone with this.

Oh, and his friends are here too. The ones who forgot about him but now are maybe kinda sorta starting to remember him. Ned, the energy drink addict. And, and—

MJ.

[beep]

December 19, 2028 (14:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone—

I talked to MJ today.

Ned, too, but he was easier. Everything rolls when it comes to him. He’s a naturally jovial guy. I can see why he and Peter can hit it off so easily.

Really, I was scared of MJ.

Because I took over her mind and I made her kiss Peter and then I taunted Peter using her body and then I threw her off a building and back then I was scared and I thought that Peter would ruin everything so I did what I thought I had to do to keep him off my back, but really I was doing to him what was done to me, taking away his choices and hers.

I asked her if she was angry at me. She said she was.

But then she also told me that she could understand why I did what I did. Because I was a kid who just wanted my world back and who’d been hurt by others and so wanted others to be hurt the same way I was hurt.

She also told me that I’d knocked a few of her memories loose, too. From the spell, the one that made her forget Peter. They were coming back to her, it was all coming back. And for that, she’d be eternally thankful.

I don’t get where they make these people. Really, I don’t.

[beep]

December 21, 2028 (14:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

Ned and MJ learned today that I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. They tried teaching me statistical mechanics over lunch. I tried my best to listen. They ended up explaining trigonometry to me.

[beep]

December 22, 2028 (12:29)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone, or I dunno, call later maybe—

They found my stash of cigarettes.

I’m still shaking. Of laughter, of course.

Oh God, the verbal lashing Peter gave me. I thought I’d never get told off again that way. They treated me like I was a kid, and I—I don’t know why, but I missed that. Was I that annoying to you back when I was older than you?

Though MJ let me take a drag of her cigarette after dinner, when we went up to the rooftop for some air. She smokes, you know. She says it’s for the stress. She says she’d get why I do it even though it’s destroying my lungs and all. I guess she kinda felt sorry for me.

She said she almost had a newborn sister when she was seven years old, but her mother ended up miscarrying. She always wondered what having a little sister would be like. I told her you were born when I was three, and then I got blipped and suddenly you were two and a half years older than me, and you had powers, and mother neither of us could recognize anymore, and nothing was ever the same again.

I wonder how our mother’s doing. I know you’d say I shouldn’t go back. But I can’t help but… but wonder.

[beep]

December 24, 2028 (20:08)

Hey there—

So we’re really doing this. We’re really breaking into a DARPA facility that’s a former DODC facility that’s a former Stark Industries warehouse five miles south of Seattle on Christmas Eve and Ned’s flying a drone and MJ’s hacked into the surveillance feed and everything will surely go fine.

[pause, then softly]

See you on the other side, Sara.

[beep]

December 29, 2028 (22:17)

[long pause]

So, uh.

First things first. This isn’t Jean. It’s Peter.

And you’re—Sara, right? Jean’s older, once-younger sister? Sheesh, the Blip stuff is hard to wrap my head around. And I fought Thanos myself. And still had to wrap up my last year of high school after that. Never mind all the—all the rest.

Jean’s okay. By which I mean she’ll pull through. She’s in the hospital right now. I’m sitting next to her right now. Don’t worry about her getting caught, I pulled a couple of favors through Yelena. No one passed through Seattle General tonight except for a UWashington girl who got caught in a bike accident and needed some time to recover. Nothing noteworthy.

[sigh]

She’s such a self-sacrificial idiot. You knew that, didn’t you?

[beep]

December 29, 2028 (23:00)

Peter again.

I should explain myself, I guess.

We found your body. Then the guards found us.

I think they must have gotten the memo about Jean’s powers, because they just started shooting at me and her, on sight, no warning at all. I knew they were coming and yet even I wasn’t fast enough, and I—I’m so sorry, Sara.

Jean threw up a shield and stopped all the bullets, and I webbed all the guards up, and then we grabbed your body and we ran out of there and then we went to the seaside and we burned your body with her powers and we scattered your ashes in the waves.

Then she collapsed next to me.

[shaky breath]

She’d—she’d taken a bullet to the stomach.

[shuffling fabric]

She’d kept the blood in with her powers and forced herself to keep going until that moment she couldn’t keep going anymore, and so she was lying on the sand in that jacket with the hood and all her hair was spilling out and that scrunchie of yours was wrapped around her wrist and there was blood coming out of her mouth and she started spewing all sorts of nonsense about maybe how this is how it should have happened in the first place, it started with her and you and it should end with her and you.

She said something about some race up a hill between her and you, and how finally she could race you for real and then you’d both learn who would really win.

She said it was alright. She told me to go. She said that I said that to her when Frank shot me, it’s what I wanted for myself.

She should have known the guards were coming.

She should have been able to just freeze all the guards on the spot.

She should have been able to stop all the bullets.

[voice cracking]

I—I think I need to stop talking.

[beep]

December 30, 2028 (06:53)

I listened to all her voicemails to you.

I know I shouldn’t have. Guess I’m nosey that way. I’ll just say that I wanted to know, in case she, uh—in case anything happened. So that at least someone would know.

She loves you so much. And I—I can only imagine how much you loved her.

[beep]

December 30, 2028 (17:30)

Back when—when we were at odds, I told Jean that she wouldn’t be doing the things she was doing to the people I loved if she ever loved like I did.

I understand now that I was a fool. I should have understood then, too. Love makes you capable of wondrous but also terrible things.

When my Aunt May died, I—I almost stopped being myself. I almost became someone else. Someone who didn’t care about others. Someone who didn’t care for even myself. The only reason I didn’t is because of the people around me.

[shaky exhale]

They were keeping your body in a vat.

They were keeping your brain separately, in a jar. And your face—I, I don’t know if I’ll ever get the sight of your face, your head, what they did to you, any of it out of my own head. When I got to the hospital I wanted to go back and burn that place down to the ground, and it was only MJ and Ned who reminded me that my place was here, looking after Jean.

MJ’s been remembering me more. MJ told me Jean reminds her too much of me.

[beep]

January 01, 2029 (00:03)

The view from the window is beautiful. In twilight skies, blooms of celestial scarlet and gold. Like a phoenix reborn from the ashes of winter.

Goddammit Peter, making me adlib poetry again. You know I’m terrible at this.

Anyways.

MJ, signing out.

[beep]

January 01, 2029 (01:09)

Ned here. Uh, Spidey’s best friend? Once-and-future-friend? You know about King Arthur, right? Yeah, you probably do. Jean told me that you were a bookworm. Jean told me that you would read like you were trying to carve a library into your memory.

Speaking of memory. This was Peter’s idea. That we should leave a little something for Jean. So that she remembers that she’s not alone. That she has people on her side, no matter what. So this might sound cheesy, but .. if you wouldn’t mind, please pass this on to Jean.

I’m not really the best at words, so I’ll say this. I really want to play Elden Ring with you, Jean. I think you have great reflexes, and I think you’d love its worldbuilding. And I think you’re an ordinary girl with extraordinary powers, and maybe that means you’ll live an extraordinary life.

But never forget that it’s your life. That it’s your choice how you want to live it.

Ned here. Be seeing you around.

[beep]

January 05, 2029 (12:02)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today—

Peter again. She woke up this morning, Sara. She’ll be alright.

[beep]

January 05, 2029 (19:33)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara—

You’re probably so pissed at me, Sara, aren’t you?

I’m such an idiot.

[beep]

January 17, 2029 (14:09)

Yeah I do, my stomach hurts like a motherfucker.

[beep]

February 21, 2029 (14:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day—

I got discharged today.

Peter said it was probably my telekinesis or something, knitting my insides back together faster and better than a regular human would heal. Not as good as his own spider thingy. But still not nothing.

MJ left me five grand of her pay from her new job at NASA, and Ned left me a stack of books and his own number, and Peter left me a pager. Said he understood that I needed to go my own way. But if ever I wanted to call him… it’d be safer if we ever needed to talk for us to talk that way.

I—I miss you so much that living is an agony. But I’m—I’m starting to think it might be worth giving this life my best shot. I’ve decided I’m going to try living, Sara. Living for the both of us.

[beep]

March 10, 2029 (15:02)

When I lost you I think a part of me started believing I was better off dead as well. Maybe I was trying to become a ghost myself. Maybe I was just searching for the ghost of you, so we could both be reunited in the next life. Because I couldn’t imagine living a life without you in it.

[beep]

April 12, 2029 (23:47)

I’m living with some roommates in Alberqueque. Yelena knows Peter, because of course he does, and she helped me get papers so I could get settled. I’ve gotten a job at a coffee shop and I get free pastries in the morning. I’m studying for my GED. I’m starting to learn the guitar.

It’s my birthday today. The four of us made a cake together. We blew out the candles together and afterward we danced to The Strokes.

I’m eighteen, Sara. Can you believe it?

[beep]

May 27, 2029 (00:09)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey! Leave a message after the tone—

So I’ve been selfish.

There was this guy. He was sweet. He was getting picked on by a bunch of older kids for his funny glasses, and that was earlier this month behind the coffee shop, and I kinda maybe probably scared those bullies off. He thanked me for saving him. He said his brother usually took care of him, but he and his older brother got separated after the Blip and he’s been travelling between cities looking for said brother.

Sound familiar?

Maybe I have a type, huh.

He said his name was Scott, Scott Summers. That he was eighteen just like me, that he came from Nebraska. We started going out on bike rides and plucked apples straight from the nearby orchard and graffitied abandoned walls in all the colours of the rainbow. He paints, you know. He taught me what he could. Colour theory, complementary hues, types of strokes and lighting and contrast and all. I liked it when he taught me. I found myself smiling around him. I found myself liking him.

We kissed. Then we went further, and did more, and I thought to myself that maybe I could use him to make myself happy, make myself forget. I didn’t want to think that it would ever have to end. But his brother came along with some diamond-skinned girl and some ice-breathing boy and said that he’d be taking Scott to a school where people with special powers would be safe. He said I was special, too, like Scott, and I think he meant whatever powers you said I shared with you.

I asked if they took people who dropped out of school years ago. They said they took anyone who wanted to learn.

Anyways, I refused.

They said they’d let me reconsider if I wanted an in later. That I’d always be welcome with open arms. They gave me a business card. Some old money place in Westchester County, upstate New York. Apparently the school opened just after the Blip, and it’s been growing in enrollment numbers.

So yeah, I broke up with my first boyfriend because he wanted to go to a school that I didn’t want to go to. After all these years, I get to talk to you about my first breakup, huh?

[beep]

June 19, 2029 (15:02)

I think I might actually go to that school Scott’s going to. I called Scott yesterday, and he says the summer term’s almost finished and that the fall term starts at the end of August, but there’s always extra space in the dorms in case I ever want to move in early. Most students arrive at the start of August. Tuition and housing is all free. Apparently it’s all on the dean’s buck. There’s a webform I have to fill out, but after that I’m in.

[beep]

July 12, 2029 (18:33)

Hey there, it’s your lucky day today because it’s Saaaaaaara Grey!

I just got my GEDs and my SATs back. I did really well. Ned and MJ and Peter helped me study for them. Cramming four years of high school into half a year was certainly an experience.

I told them about the school. They were super excited for me. Ned and MJ gave me lots of tips on first year life. Remember that life isn’t your dorms and your classes. Take the weekends off in town. Make sure to start all your assignments early, and don’t be afraid to ask the TAs for help.

I’ve bought the bus tickets back to New York. I’m going back a little early, because there’s one last thing I want to do before I get to Westchester.

[beep]

July 29, 2029 (14:00)

[deep breath]

Hi, Sara.

So I went back to Annandale-on-Hudson.

When I arrived I found that our childhood home had been bought off and demolished. As for mom, she’s in a nursing home. I visited her. Said I was a distant relative from the West Coast. The nurses didn’t question me. Mom didn’t recognize me. She was fidgeting with crayons when she saw me. She was wearing a shift, and her hair was falling out in chunks.

I thought about telling her everything. About—about you, about me, about all these past years. But then I realized that for all I’d imagined this conversation over the years, there was nothing I could ever say to her that would change anything about me, about you. There was nothing I wanted from her anymore.

I was done letting the past write my future. I was done letting others write my story.

So I left. I went down the street like we used to walk, past our school and the lake and the train station where dad would take the morning shuttle to New York City to go to work, and then I reached the park, and it was sunset, and I found the hill where we used to race each other to the top and every time I’d let you win and I stood there for a long long while.

I think I glimpsed you in that instant.

I think I saw the both of us, two little girls, the elder and the younger then the younger and the elder, and you turned around and you winked at me, and the breeze picked up, and you were running. So I started running after you. I was running, and running, and you were laughing, and I was laughing with you, and then we reached the top of that hill and out of breath you declared yourself the winner. Then you told me to turn and close my eyes and I felt your hands in my hair and when I opened my eyes again you’d tied your scrunchie into my hair.

Sage and oranges. Eyes like the ocean and hair like a tender sunset.

“I’ll watch over you for the rest of your days,” you said.

“I’ll remember you for the rest of my days,” I said.

Goodbye, Sara.

I’ll love you forever.

[beep]

—

End of saved messages.

Notes:

In my thoughts, you're far away
And you are whistling a melody
Whistling a melody
Crystallising clear as day
Oh, I can picture you so easily
Picture you so easily

— "Good Grief", Bastille

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