Goodbye Beneath the Pines

Posted on Fri Jun 5th, 2026 @ 7:51am by Narrator & Maeve MacKenna

3,834 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: Woods Outside of the X-Mansion
Timeline: March 16, 1992

Maeve had chosen the woods on purpose.

Not because anything was wrong with the mansion, but because this place had always felt like theirs. Quiet without being lonely. Honest in a way walls never were. The air smelled of damp earth and pine, and somewhere deeper in the trees something small rustled and moved on with its life.

She liked that.

The clearing opened up ahead, and the deer stood where it always did—half art, half memory. The carving had softened since they’d made it, the lines weathered, the antlers smoothed by rain and time. Moss had crept into the grooves of the wood like it belonged there now.

Maeve stepped closer and rested a hand against its flank, thumb tracing a familiar cut. She could still remember how they’d laughed when one antler came out crooked, how Desmond had insisted it gave the thing “character.” How warm it had felt, standing shoulder to shoulder, talking about nothing and everything at once.

The date had been like that too.

Easy. Warm. Real.

And afterwards… not cold. Not gone. Just quieter.

She hadn’t imagined it. Maeve trusted her instincts too much for that. Desmond hadn’t pulled away completely—he was still kind, still present—but there was a hesitation now. A carefulness. Like he was holding something back, or stepping around a thing neither of them had named.

She hated that feeling more than arguments.

Maeve dropped onto the fallen log opposite the carving, elbows resting on her knees, hands loosely clasped. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t hurt.

She was worried.

And she was done pretending she didn’t notice.

A heavier set of footsteps sounded through the trees, slow and familiar. Maeve lifted her head, heart giving a small, traitorous thump.

“Hey,” she said softly as Desmond came into view.

There was a pause—just enough to matter.

“I’m glad you came.”

“Of course,” Desmond replied while rubbing the back of his head out of nerves. There was never a time when he wasn’t nervous about Maeve but today, it felt worse. “I’d do anything if you asked me to.”

With a few long, easy strides he made his way over to the log she was sitting on and after a moment of hesitation, he sat down next to her. Despite the dense weight of the log, Desmond’s body made the wood creak in response. “How are you feeling?”

Maeve watched him as he sat, the way the log creaked under his weight, the way he hesitated just a beat before settling. Small things. She noticed all of them.

“I’m alright,” she said at first, because that was the easy answer. The automatic one. Then she exhaled through her nose and shook her head slightly. “Well. I’m… me. Which I reckon is closer to the truth.”

She shifted on the log so she was angled toward him, one knee drawn up, hands laced loosely together. For a moment she didn’t look at his face, just at the deer carving ahead of them, its antlers cutting a familiar shape against the trees.

“You don’t have to look so worried,” she added gently. “I didn’t bring you out here to drop bad news on you.”

That got her eyes back on him at last, searching, open.

“It’s just…” Maeve trailed off, then gave a small, crooked smile. “I’m not great at pretendin’ I don’t notice things. And I’ve noticed you’ve been a bit… farther away lately. Not gone. Just… quieter.”

She bumped her shoulder lightly against his, the contact deliberate but soft. “If I’ve done somethin’, I’d rather know. And if I haven’t—” Her fingers tightened together for a second before relaxing again. “—then I don’t want you thinkin’ you’ve got to carry whatever it is on your own.”

Her voice lowered, losing the teasing edge.

“I like what we had. What we have,” she corrected, quick but sure. “And I don’t need perfection, Des. I just need honesty.”

A pause. Then, quieter still, almost vulnerable.

“So… how are you feeling?”

“I…I…I don’t know.” Desmond said with a creek and a crack to his voice that went beyond his tree-like mannerisms. “I miss my family, my home, my life. I feel terrible saying that because it seems like an insult to you and this place when in reality, you’re great.”

Despite the compliment, Maeve noticed that Desmond refused to look at her, his eyes remained locked forward at the woods in front of them. “I’ve been talking to Ms. Grey about it and she’s doing her best to make me feel welcome here because I felt like I couldn’t go home… My physical appearance is such an obvious indicator that I am a mutant, it put my whole family in danger. I convinced myself that I needed to stay away to keep them safe, that is until….”

Desmond shoved his hands into his sweatshirt’s pockets and he touched the item inside that he had been holding onto for a few days while he considered what he had been offered. He paused for a moment and set his jaw before he finally continued, his voice soft and low.

“A few days ago, Jean found one of Hank’s old image-inducers. I guess a student named Ethan had been wearing it and when he left, he left it behind and it was lost in the clutter.” He pulled out the item he had been hiding in his pocket, it was a small device that looked like a complicated wrist watch. “It creates a hologram around the wearer that allows them to appear normal. Hank made it so he could go to the store or walk around without being stared at. If I wear this, it means that I can blend in and look more like my old self… it means that I could hide in plain sight and be with my family again… it means that I can go home.”

Maeve let the silence sit after he finished.

It pressed in on her chest, heavy and tight, the way it always did when someone said something that shifted the ground under her feet. She stared at the little device in his hand, then at the trees beyond it, blinking hard once before she trusted herself to speak.

“Okay,” she said quietly. Not calm. Just careful.

She drew her knees up a little, arms wrapping around them like she needed the anchor. “I do understand missing your family,” she said. “More than you probably realise.” Her voice wobbled despite her best efforts. “Mine are so far away it feels like they belong to another lifetime. And I don’t ring. And they don’t ring. And every year it gets easier to pretend that doesn’t hurt.” She gave a short, humourless breath. “So no. That part doesn’t insult me.”

She glanced at him then, really looked, and the fact that he still wouldn’t meet her eyes made something ache sharp and deep in her ribs.

“But when you say you miss your old life…” Her voice dropped. “That’s the bit that gets me.”

Maeve rubbed at her thumb with her nail, a nervous habit she didn’t bother hiding. “Because it makes it sound like this life—like you, as you are now—is some sort of mistake. Like somethin’ you have to undo to be allowed back into the world.” She swallowed hard. “And maybe that’s not what you mean. But it’s how it sounds. How it feels.”

She finally reached out, hand trembling just slightly as it settled over his forearm. “I need you to know… I never once looked at you and thought you needed to be different. Not once. I didn’t fall for who you were before. I fell for who you are when you sit next to me and don’t know what to say. When you worry too much. When you make space for me without even realising you’re doin’ it.”

Her eyes burned now. She didn’t look away.

“So when you talk about goin’ home like this,” she gestured weakly at the device, “it feels like you’re already leavin’. And I don’t know where that leaves me.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know if I’m part of the life you want back… or just somethin’ you’re afraid to say goodbye to.”

She drew her hand back, curling it into her sleeve. “I’m not angry, Des. I’m scared. And sad. And tryin’ very hard not to pretend I’m fine when I’m not.” A breath, shaky and honest. “If you go, I’ll understand. I will. But I need you to look at me and tell me what you want. Not what you think you should want.”

Her shoulders sagged a little, the bravado gone entirely now.

“I don’t want to be brave about this,” Maeve admitted softly with a sniffle. “I just don’t want to lose you quietly.”

“I don’t know what to do. I feel like shit no matter what choice I make.”
Desmond’s voice rose, louder than it needed to be, as the swirl of conflicting emotions threatened to overwhelm him. He stood abruptly, the familiar instinct to flee and run from this gripped him tight.

“I want to stay here. I want to help people. I want to…” He faltered, then forced the words out. “Be with you.”
His broad shoulders slumped before he continued, quieter now. “But I also want to go home. I miss my mom… and my sisters.”

For a long moment, Desmond stared down at the image-inducer still clutched in his hand. Then he slid it onto his wrist and pressed the button at its side. The hologram shimmered to life, and his appearance shifted.

He was still tall, still broad-shouldered, but the bark-like texture of his skin smoothed into warm olive tones. The moss that had once formed his hair gave way to a neatly cut fade of dark curls. When he finally looked up at Maeve, she saw his face clearly for the first time.

His features remained strong and square, but softened now by human skin. He was conventionally handsome but no longer something astonishing or uncanny. He looked younger, too, more like an exceptional teenage athlete than an X-Men. But the most striking change was his eyes. The green was gone, replaced by deep brown. The forest had left him.

“I want to go home, Maeve,” he said, his voice steady with the calm that often comes once the truth has finally been spoken. “Not because this place is less. Not because you aren’t enough. But because I’m not ready to be here.”

Maeve flinched when he stood.

Not a small startle. Not a normal jump at sudden movement.

Her whole body did it, sharp and instinctive, like something inside her had yanked a string.

For half a heartbeat she wasn’t in the woods at all.

She was back in a narrow space that stank of salt and old diesel and bodies packed too close. Men’s voices cutting through the dark. A shout. A hand grabbing someone’s arm. The scrape of a boot on metal. Girls going quiet all at once like the air had been punched out of them. Maeve’s breath stuck in her throat, the old reflex of don’t make a sound, don’t draw eyes, don’t give them a reason slamming into place before she could stop it.

Then the trees were back. The deer carving. The damp, living earth underfoot.

Maeve forced her hands to unclench. Forced her shoulders down. She hated that her body still remembered things her mouth would never say.

She watched him, all of him, as the image-inducer shimmered and rewrote him into something the world would accept without flinching back.

He looked… good. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was the way her chest tightened when he said it.

My mom.

Maeve’s face shifted before she could stop it. The hardness she’d been wearing like armour all day slipped, and for a second she looked younger than she liked to look.

Her eyes stung.

She swallowed and it didn’t help.

“Oh, Des…” she managed, and her voice went rough, like the word had scraped its way out. She tried to breathe through it, tried to keep it steady, and failed anyway. “Don’t— don’t say that like it’s small.”

Because it wasn’t.

Because missing your mother was a kind of pain you didn’t get over, you just learned how to carry without dropping it in public.

Maeve stepped closer, slow, careful, like she was approaching something skittish. Not him. The moment.

“I get it,” she said, and this time the tears came properly, hot and humiliating. She didn’t wipe them away straight off, just blinked hard like she could will them back. “I get it, yeah? I’d give… I’d give anythin’ to hear mine say my name again. Even once.”

Her breath hitched. She looked away, jaw clenched so tight it hurt, like she could lock the feelings behind her teeth.

“I miss my sisters,” Maeve whispered, quieter now. “All the time. In stupid little ways. Like I’ll hear a laugh and my head turns before I remember I’m not there anymore.” She let out a broken laugh that didn’t have humour in it. “And then I feel stupid for even turnin’.”

She looked back to him, eyes wet, honest.

“So no, I’m not gonna stand here and act like home doesn’t pull at you. It does. It’s supposed to.”

Her gaze dropped to his face again, to what the inducer had changed, and she forced herself not to recoil from it. It wasn’t betrayal. It was survival. She knew that better than most.

“You look good,” Maeve said softly. “Like… really good.” A beat. Then the truth, quieter, more personal, like she was admitting it to herself first. “But I miss your amber eyes.”

Her throat worked around the next part.

“I liked the way you were,” she said, voice trembling but stubborn. “The way you are. Not because I’m some saint or because I’m tryin’ to prove a point. I just… I fell for you like that, Des. The real you. The you that didn’t have to apologise for takin’ up space.”

She reached out, tentative, and touched his wrist where the device sat. Not grabbing. Not stopping. Just… there.

“If you go home,” Maeve said, and her voice cracked on it, “I understand. I do. I won’t make you feel bad for it.”

She took a breath, eyes shining.

“But don’t you dare think it’s because you weren’t enough here. Or because you couldn’t hack it.” Her hand dropped, fingers curling into her palm like she needed something to hold onto. “You’re not runnin’ away. You’re tryin’ to breathe.”

A pause.

And then, smaller, because she couldn’t keep all of it brave:

“It’s just… I’m scared it means I lose you.”

Her mouth pressed into a line, fighting another wobble.

“So tell me,” Maeve asked, voice barely above the rustle of the trees, “is this you goin’ home for a bit… or is this you sayin’ goodbye?”

“I don’t know…” Desmond said with a heavy shrug, the kind that came from being frustrated with his own feelings and whether or not he approved of them. “I’m not sure how I’ll feel later today let alone in a couple weeks. All I know is that it’s hard being here, and it’s also hard saying goodbye to you. Asking me to tell you if this is the end or not… I can’t do that.”

There was something so unsatisfying about his words, a refusal to give her the closure she was so desperately asking for. Desmond took another step away from her as he spoke, the desire to place physical distance between them to make this farewell easier.

“Thank you for being so understanding about all of this, I honestly didn’t expect you to be so… I don’t know… empathetic about it.” He attempted to compliment her, to acknowledge her pain and her compassion. “I just wish things were different.”

Maeve held his gaze for a second longer after he stepped back.

It was the distance that did it. Not the words.

Something in her chest finally gave way.

The tears she’d been fighting slid free, quiet at first, then steadier, and she let them. Her nose went pink and she dragged the back of her hand under it without ceremony, sniffling once in a way that would’ve embarrassed her on any other day.

“Empathetic?” she repeated, her voice wobbling despite the faint grin trying to push through. “That’s what you’re goin’ with?”

She huffed a soft, watery laugh.

“Careful, Des. That almost sounded like a dig. Like you’re shocked I’m not throwin’ rocks at your head for considerin’ leavin’.” She sniffed again and shook her head. “I’ve got layers, you know. Terrifyin’ amount of emotional depth. Very on-brand.”

The joke was thin, but it steadied her enough to step forward again.

She reached up and caught his chin gently between her fingers, guiding his face down just a fraction so he had to look at her properly. Not accusing. Not demanding. Just close.

“You don’t owe me answers you don’t have yet,” she said more softly now. “And I’m not askin’ you to promise somethin’ you can’t keep.”

Her thumb brushed once along his jaw, grounding herself as much as him.

“I just needed to know it wasn’t me you were runnin’ from.”

She rose onto her toes and kissed him. Light. Careful. Not desperate, not clinging. Just a soft press of lips that lingered long enough to mean something, and short enough not to trap him there.

When she pulled back, her forehead hovered near his for a beat.

“I wish things were different too,” Maeve admitted quietly. “I wish the world wasn’t so complicated. I wish home didn’t pull like that. I wish we’d met in a version of it where you didn’t have to choose.”

She let out a slow breath and gave him a small, brave smile through damp lashes.

“But maybe it doesn’t have to be some dramatic goodbye,” she added, her tone gentler now. “Maybe it’s just… I’ll see you later. And we figure out the rest when we get there.”

Her hand slipped from his chin to his collar, smoothing it absently before she let go.

“I don’t want to lose you quietly,” she said again, softer this time, less frightened. “So if you go, you come back and tell me how it feels. Even if it’s messy. Even if it changes.”

She wiped her face with her sleeve and gave a half-laugh at herself.

“And if you come back still callin’ me empathetic, I reserve the right to deny it in public.”

There was still hurt in her eyes. Still fear.

But there was something steadier there too now.

Hope that this might be a see-you-later, not an ending.

“Yeah that does feel better, doesn’t it?” Desmond agreed despite the fact that his stomach was in knots and his heart was in his throat. All of this was so much harder than he wanted it to be, which meant she meant more to him than he was ready to confess. “We’ll keep it as that then, this isn’t a goodbye but I’ll talk to you later.”

He didn’t want to lie to her and he didn’t want to promise her anything that he wasn’t certain that he could provide but the idea of talking again one day, of reconnecting when life didn’t feel so hard, that felt good.

“Just send me postcards from all the amazing places you’ll see as an X-Men.” He looked down at his feet and kicked the dirt before he continued “And make sure you check in on Rahne from time to time? Make sure she doesn’t just live in the woods all the time.”

She stepped in closer again, this time without hesitation, resting her hands lightly against his chest. Even with the inducer smoothing him into something easier for the world to digest, she could feel the steady thrum of him beneath her palms. Real. Still him.

“Postcards?” she echoed, one brow lifting. “You think I’m goin’ to be jet-settin’ around the globe like some mutant travel brochure?”

Her nose wrinkled faintly.

“Fine. You’ll get one from somewhere dramatic. ‘Dear Des, fought a supervillain today, nearly died, weather’s lovely, wish you were here.’” She sniffed theatrically. “I’ll even draw a wee stick version of myself so you don’t forget what I look like.”

Her expression softened at the mention of Rahne.

“I’ll check on her,” Maeve promised quietly. “I won’t let her disappear into the trees. Not completely.”

Then she reached up, tugged gently at the front of his sweatshirt, and pulled him down into another kiss. This one wasn’t careful. It was warmer. Slower. The kind you give when you’re trying to memorise someone without making it obvious.

When she pulled back, she didn’t step away.

Instead she slid her arms around him and tucked herself against his chest, cheek resting over his heart like she was claiming the sound of it for later. Her fingers curled into the fabric at his back, holding but not clinging.

“I’ll see you later,” she murmured into him, voice soft and steady now. “Not goodbye. Just… later.”

She nuzzled her nose lightly against his collarbone, a small, almost shy gesture that didn’t fit the stubborn, sharp-edged girl most people saw.

“And when you’re ready,” she added, barely above a whisper, “I hope you come back with those green eyes and tell me about home.”

Her arms tightened for just a second more before she let the moment settle between them, quiet and honest and unfinished in the gentlest way possible.

"I'd like that." Desmond finally agreed with her after a long moment of silence, she felt him relax as they held one another one last time. The hard part was over, now they both had to come to terms with what is meant for them not just as a couple but as individuals.

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