Fade Out: Part 3
Though Lovers Be Lost
by Laersyn
Here is my last real story folks. I hope you enjoy it. I apologize for anything that seems redundant, but I tried with this to allow for people who may not be as familiar with these characters as some.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Marvel. The world belongs to Marvel. The author belongs to Kielle.
Author's Note: This story takes place just after the most hated Excalibur issue#120. I could have gone the cheap route, but I decided to give myself a challenge. Oh, and warning, there's a lot of accents in here. I apologize if they're wrong or inconsistent. There's also a lot of techno-babble and phony medical terms that would make anyone who knows their stuff laugh, but hey, I'm not Chris Carter. I don't have a team of scientists helping me out.
There's something wrong
It's hard to believe that love will prevail
It won't rain all the time
The sky won't fall forever
And though the night seems long
Your tears won't fall Your tears won't fall
Your tears won't fall forever
~~It can't rain all the time...
~~by Siberry Jane
The living quarters were quiet, but the silence was not peaceful. At the moment, the only sound was the steady patter of rain on the window. It had been raining forever, it seemed. The woman in the bed could hardly remember the last time she had seen the sun.
Kitty was quite aware of how she looked. She had seen it when she had first awoken in the infirmary just a few hours ago. The pain that had greeted her as soon as her eyes had opened had told her without a doubt that something was wrong. One glance over her body had told her the rest.
And if she herself could not perceive it, she could see it plainly reflected back at her now in Pete Wisdom's eyes. He was the man she loved, the one who knew her best and the man she knew like her own soul. He was putting on a bold front, of course, but the anxiety was obvious to anyone who knew him.
Moira had stopped the internal hemorrhaging, but there nothing that she could do about Kitty's loss of ninety-percent of her body fat.
"Well, at least I don't have to worry about dieting for a while," she thought now with a sickly twist of her stomach.
The Legacy Virus was taking her apart.
She had suspected that she was infected weeks ago, and Moira had soon confirmed her fears. Since then, the disease had been doing the very thing that it was designed to do - erode one's control over their mutant power and cause it to attack the body. Her phasing ability had slipped farther and farther out of her control. Pieces of her body had phased and not returned.
Now she was bedridden and on an IV and looking even to her like a woman with one foot in the grave.
Pete stopped just inside the doorway, staring at her. He was, for the first time she had known him, at a loss for words. Moira would have told him, of course, what to expect; she would have tried to prepare him for what he would see. But how could one ever be ready for this...?
Her brown eyes, sunken in and surrounded by dark shadows, wearily met his. "You look like you're about to break into a chorus of 'My Heart Will Go On,'" she joked with a wan smile.
His stubbled face broke into a ragged grin. "You know I can't carry a tune in a bucket."
"Yeah..."
Pete settled into the chair beside her bed and took her hand. "I never took you for the dramatic type, Pryde. All this fainting about and such...playing like you're not going to get better...If you don't knock it off, I might start to worry."
Her faint smile softened. She was so tired... "I'm *not* going to get better, Pete."
For just a moment, she saw a look cross his face unlike any she had ever seen on him. It was the look of a little boy who had been slapped and had no idea why.
His defenses reasserted themselves almost instantly. "Oh bugger that! The brain-trust will work out the kinks in that cure and you'll be back on your feet in no t-"
"Pete."
He stopped and just stared at her helplessly.
She was terrified of facing this, but she knew that she had to. The cure that her doctors had been banking on had failed, and it did not appear as though a second solution was near. She had no idea how much time she really had left, and so she had to face all her fears now.
No one had ever called Katherine Pryde a coward.
"You know I love you," she whispered.
"Kitty, it's not time to say goodbye," he interrupted her, his tone pleading.
Tears burned her eyes. "We may not get that chance, love. It could be my heart or my brain that phases next." She shuddered at th thought. She had been through something similar once before, after a Marauder attack had caused her to phase nearly out of existence, but that had not been nearly so awful. Then she had only to fear fading away...now she had to fear which critical part of her she would lose and how awful...how painful the end would finally be. "I...please, Pete... I can face it if you can."
He squeezed her hand gently. "Okay," he said quietly.
"I just need to know one thing," she told him. "I need to know that you're going to be okay."
"Oh don't you worry about me. I'm a survivor," he replied dismissively.
"I know. You've survived an awful lot," she murmured. "But it's my job to be worried about you, you see. Part of the package deal I bought when I fell in love with you."
"Hmmm, I see," he replied with a faint grin.
"What are you going to do...after...?"
The question hit him like a punch to the gut. His face fell in a defeated manner and his eyes fixed on their linked hands. "I'm still not accepting that I'll have to think that far ahead," he told her seriously.
"I'm sorry..." she told him sincerely.
"Sorry for wot? You aren't doing anything," he returned intensely.
She looked away from his haggard face. "I'm sorry I'm leaving you alone."
"Oh."
She found courage and pressed onward. "Where will you go? What are you going to do?"
He shrugged uncomfortably. It was obvious that this whole discussion was killing him. "Something will come up. It always does."
"You could stay with Excalibur," she suggested.
Pete snorted sardonic laughter. "I don't think I really fit in."
"You do," she urged. "You belong, Pete Wisdom."
He shivered slightly, rallying his defenses. "Maybe."
"You can't go back to Black Air. They had already sold you out, and then after destroying their facility...well, they'll kill you if they ever find you."
"There's an appealing thought," he muttered morbidly.
"Don't you even think that way," Kitty flared, the color rising in her cheeks.
Silence reigned for a long moment. She was exhausted and needed sleep, but there was still more to say...so much that she needed to say...
"I wish the rain would stop," she sighed listlessly.
"Doesn't seem likely," Pete replied.
More silence.
"I..." Pete struggled with himself. "I...should thank you, I suppose... Damn it! I'm not ready to say goodbye," he hissed, clutching her hands tightly and looking deeply into her eyes. "But I couldn't live with myself if I never got the chance to say..." He took a deep breath. "Thank you...for making things matter again."
Tears spilled down her pale cheeks and she bit her lip. "You matter, Pete... You matter to me..." she trailed off into sniffling sobs.
Pete gently took her into his arms and held her, giving her that quiet comfort that only he could give. Of all the men she had known - even those that she had loved - only this one reached the innermost depths of her heart and soul.
"Why don't you get some sleep," he whispered. "It's late."
"You could use some yourself," she told him as he settled her back beneath her covers.
"In a bit."
Kitty shook her head. "No, now. I won't be able to sleep until I know you're in your bed." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And you'll be spending enough time in that chair over the next few days."
Pete kissed her hand and then her lips. "Okay, if you insist," he told her softly, planting a final kiss on her brow. "See you soon."
She watched him pad quietly out, seeing the grief bowing his shoulders. Tomorrow, she would talk to Meghan. The empath would be able to best help him through this.
Her eyes drooped slowly shut, feeling calm and at peace. The end would come, she knew that now, and accepting it brought her a certain cold comfort. And, at the very least, she knew she would not be facing it alone.
The halls were quiet. It was well past midnight, after all. The facility on Muir Isle was dark for the most part. Only the lab, somewhere on the other side of the building, still thrummed with activity, as it would perpetually while the scientists struggled to find a cure.
Pete shuffled through the shadowed passageways with a heavy heart. His talk with Kitty - and how she had looked - had left him with a sick feeling in his stomach. Kitty had given up, accepted that she was going to die. Was it better for him to do the same or continue to be the voice of optimism?
He did not know.
Pete reached into his jacket pocket for his smokes and lighter, his hands shaking as if palsied. Exhaustion mingled with anxiety was sapping his strength, making it hard to keep his hands steady or his shoulders straight. Drawing forth the battered package, Pete soothed himself with the anticipation of the calming nicotine.
The pack was empty.
Pete crushed it in his fist and punched the closest wall. "God damn it all!" he snarled and hit the wall again. "Damn and burn it all," he gasped, focusing his helpless rage on the unyielding wall.
"Why her? Why...?" he choked out.
Pete Wisdom put his back to the wall and slid down to the floor. "Why her?" he sobbed, letting his head rest on his knees. The grief that he had been fighting back swept over him and he cried like a hurt child.
No one happened upon him and not even a moonbeam disturbed the darkness of his prison. Only despair sat beside him, consuming him. He wept with great heaving sobs, choking and gasping with the weight of his sorrow.
Kitty was going to die and he could not save her.
News travels at the speed of light among tightly-knit families - and it was no different with the unique group of individuals who marched under the banner of Charles Xavier. Once Excalibur had been told of Kitty's condition, it had not taken long for the news to cross the Atlantic.
In the wee-hours of dawn, the Blackbird landed upon Muir Isle
As Cyclops and Jean handled the shut-down sequence, three anxious, worried X-Men rushed down the ramp.
In the lead was Logan, of course. Wolverine's history with Kitty went back as far as her first days at Xavier's school. Just as he had later with Jubilation Lee, he had taken the naive, wide-eyed young mutant under his wing and turned her into an X-man.
The news of her illness had hit him very hard. He had said virtually nothing since word had reached them, and anyone who knew him understood what that meant. Logan was deeply worried.
Ororo had known her as long, and was nearly as fond of her as her taciturn, feral teammate. Kitty had been a sister to her for a very long time. They had been through horrors and trials side by side, and each hardship had bound them closer together.
Now there was a new tragedy unfolding, and Ororo knew her place.
Rogue's friendship with Kitty did not run so deep, but her history was as long. Kitty had always lightened her heart with her unique brand of humor and courage. Rogue had relied on the younger woman on more than one occasion. Now, it was time to repay that debt.
All three were determined to do exactly what Moira had asked - to give Kitty strength through their love where medicine had failed.
Hank McCoy had reached a point in his research that he had never thought he would see. Sitting in the laboratory one rainy afternoon, a realization swept over him that made his stomach churn and his heart stutter in his chest.
Hank McCoy had run out of theories.
Every solution that he had conceived of...every possibility that he had seen...everything...it had all lead to the same dead end.
He set his pen down and placed his elbows on the desk, feeling the weeks of failure and frustration crushing him. Resting his face in his great paws, he let out a long groan of defeat.
Reed tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. "Another negative?" the older scientist asked.
Hank sighed heavily. "I know not what else to try, Dr. Richards. I have examined every conceivable possibility to no avail." He could not believe that he was speaking of surrender...that he was admitting failure. But the sad truth was, he could not see any way to save Kitty.
Reed eyed him speculatively. "All that we can do is try. The struggle itself is what's important."
"Saving Kitty is what's important," Hank whispered. "Reed, I do not mind admitting that this virus scares me. I cannot help but consider how many more of my friends will die from it, and myself being helpless to cure them." He shook his head. "All the years of racism never threatened mutants as much as this."
Reed did not respond for a long moment, idylly studying a monitor screen. "I have a confession, actually."
"Oh?"
Reed's worry-lined face was solemn. "Saving Miss Pride is important to me, but I have a more personal reason for being here." He paused as emotions flickered across his face. "My son is a mutant. I...cannot even imagine how I'll feel if he contracts this disease."
Hank could have kicked himself at that moment. He had overlooked entirely the issue of little Franklin Richards. No one had as yet fully defined the child's physiology, but he was certainly a mutant of *some* kind.
The hirsute scientist did not know quite what to say. He loved children and fancied having them himself one day, but only once it was safe. Reed was having to cope with the very real possibility that this lethal disease - the monster that none of their knowledge had been able to stop - would come one day to his only child.
"The work goes on, Reed. No matter what happens...with Kitty. We have come too far to give up."
For the first time ever, Beast saw doubt in the brilliant scientist's eyes. "I have never encountered a puzzle that I could not solve." A softly self-mocking smile creased his face. "It's very humbling to discover that you don't know everything."
Hank felt comforted in some way that a man who awed him with his intellect was feeling the same sense of futility that he himself was suffering from. "We'll find a cure, Reed. Maybe not today, maybe not for years, but we will beat this killer."
Reed smiled faintly. "I think I'm going to go stretch my legs."
"Your choice of words might suggest you have a sense of humor, Dr. Richards," Hank observed wryly.
"Try telling Ben Grimm that," he returned.
Hank was left alone with his research again, feeling less glum than before. Questions stirred in his brain, forming new possible avenues. He smiled to himself, fascinated by the notion that while trying to bolster Reed's flagging confidence, he had re-inspired himself.
It was minutes later that he realized that *that* had been Reed's intention from the beginning.
In a sick room, not too far away, a young woman lay in her bed, listening to two of her closest friends reminisce about the old days. Her body, weakened and throbbing dully in pain, was covered in a thick layer of blankets to keep her warm. She was very vulnerable now, and even the slightest touch of flu could be disastrous for her.
Kurt Wagner, the ebony-skinned mutant who had fought beside her and eventually lead her in Excalibur; who had watched over her and called her "kaetchen" when she had first come to the X-Men, was perched on the footboard. His smile, the very one that had lightened her heart countless times, showed no hint of the gut-wrenching sorrow he felt.
Sitting in the chair, holding her hand, Logan was more obviously tense. Wolverine had been her big brother, father-figure, guardian and knight-in-shining armor all rolled into one. The gristled, hard-edged soldier had taken it upon himself to train her for life with the X-Men.
Lockheed rested beside her, his head laying limply in her lap. The dragon had not left her side in days and showed no signs of budging. As long as his Kitty was here, he would be too.
Pete Wisdom had finally been coerced into getting some sleep. The man she loved had argued, threatened and wheedled, but the presence of Kitty's friends (who would cold-cock him if she ordered) persuaded him to be reasonable.
"....and then there was the follow-up," Kurt was saying. "Lockheed the Space Dragon and his pet girl, Kitty," the elf grinned brightly. "Lockheed, Kitty, Nightcrawler and Wolverine; space-faring adventurers."
"Versus the White Queen," Kitty murmured with a faint smile. "I doubt Emma would be amused to know that she had been the villainess in Illyana's tale."
"Not that it was far from the flaming truth," Logan growled.
"Well, I don't know..." Kitty whispered. "I would *never* do anything as impetuous as I did in that story."
"Uh huh," Logan grunted. "I seem to remember you running off to Japan when you were just a scrap of a girl...stowed away on a plane and didn't tell anybody where you were going. Sound familiar?"
Kitty blushed a little. "Well, yeah..."
"Of course, my friend, you rushed after *her* without telling anyone..." Kurt put in with a wink at Kitty.
"And nearly got my sorry butt killed too," Logan grumbled.
"But,, in the end, you saved me," Kitty argued.
"Hardly," Logan countered. "You saved yourself."
"Stubborn," Kitty sighed. "I probably would not have survived my first few X-Men adventures without you two."
"You always handled yourself pretty well," Logan insisted.
"Ja, even against the Brood, you were very brave," Kurt put in.
"I seem to recall being scared out of my wits," Kitty joked.
Her friends grinned at her. "Well, you did stay one step ahead of them. And if it hadn't been for you, in the end, we all would have died."
The door opened and Ororo walked in. Dressed in more practical clothes; a sweater and jeans, she hardly revealed herself as the veteran X-man that she was. Her long white hair hung freely down her back, as was her habit. Her ebony skinned face, so soft and flawless, was serene.
"You two planning on keeping the poor girl up all night?"
Kurt's expression became guilty. "Storm, we were just talking and..."
Ororo smiled gently. "I know, Kurt, but the rest of us don't appreciate you monopolizing her."
Logan stretched out in his chair. "Sorry, 'ro."
"Oh fine, I'm stranded in these bloody frozen islands for years, and now, just cause I'm about to croak, you all start fighting over me," Kitty quipped.
The stricken looks on her friends' faces told her that her that they were not ready for her macabre humor.
"Ooops," she murmured. "C'mon, guys, don't mourn me yet! You're gonna depress me!"
Logan chewed on his lower lip. "It just ain't right, and it ain't fair."
Kitty actually laughed. "This from you? Don't you remember what you told me during that whole Ogun business? Life isn't fair. It wasn't for Illyana, it wasn't for Doug, why should I be any different?"
"I said that?"
"More or less."
"What a flaming jerk I was...."
Kitty rolled her eyes. "No, you were teaching me a hard lesson. One I've never forgotten. Logan, you big goof, you call me brave and everything, and yet everything good about me is just something in you I was trying to imitate."
Logan's eyes fixed on her sharply, a lightning-storm of pain and self-doubt flashing in them. He took her hand and squeezed it. "You remember how after that whole ugly business, we were all worried that your soul was forever tainted?"
The ronin, Ogun, had been an ancient Ninjitsu master with powers far beyond the mortal realm. He had trained Wolverine, long ago, in an attempt to make him his successor. When that had failed, he had taken Kitty and imprinted his soul upon hers to get revenge on Logan.
"Yeah?"
Logan stood, obviously struggling with his tumultuous emotions. "Well, it turns out, that there wasn't anything to worry about at all." He sniffed and rigidly maintained control. "You've got the purest soul I know," he whispered.
"Oh Logan..."
Wolverine leaned over her and kissed her cheek. "Love you, pun'kin. Sleep well."
A single tear trickled off his face and landed on her cheek, mingling with hers.
Wolverine padded out of the room then, his shoulders sagging. Ororo and Nightcrawler watched him go, their own hearts heavy. Logan was a man who kept his feelings buried. For him to show his hurt like this....they both knew how badly he had to be doing.
"I'll go after him," Kurt murmured.
Ororo nodded and took the seat Wolverine had vacated. Her slender fingers entwined with Kitty's and they shared a look. No words were needed. Everything that had to be said passed between them in that single glance.
The following day, Kitty's health took another turn for the worse.
Like the inexorable erosion of the rocky shore by the sea, Legacy Virus assailed her immune system relentlessly until it wore her down. No treatement had been found. Nothing could be done to ameliorate her symptoms.
Four men who had gathered here on Muir Isle to do battle with the viral juggernaut now stood waiting within the lab for news.
Hank Pym was an outsider. He had little or no connection with the X-Men or Excalibur. In fact, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were the only mutants he knew except for Hank McCoy. He was an Avenger, though, a man who had fought numerous battles to save lives. He had been honored to have been asked here where he could use his scientific skills rather than his powers to combat a killer.
It was a cruel irony, though, that Dr. Hank Pym had been unable to do with science what he had done with size-altering powers and sheer brute force. Even now, as he leaned against a table and waited, questions gnawed at him.
What had he not done? What had he overlooked?
The questions would plague him long after today.
Dr. Stephan Strange was also an outsider. Though known to most every spandex-clad hero on Earth (and even a few outside our solar system) he had ever remained aloof. The Sorcerer Supreme, some called him, and indeed he was one of the most powerful practioners of the art, he had also found his knowledge and skills useless.
Once upon a time, he had been a doctor - and a good one. A car accident had irrevocably altered the course of his life. Still, with his vast experience and talents, a virus should not have thwarted him. Yet it had, and continued to elude him.
This failure was bringing back haunting memories of a time, years gone, when he had been summoned to help save the life of Captain Mar-vell, a Kree who had lived on and fought for Earth. The hero had been stricken with a unique and deadly form of Cancer. Nothing Strange had done then had mattered either.
Reed Richards had been with Strange in that fight - as had Hank McCoy. Richards was not so pre-occupied with those memories as his companion, though. His thoughts, complex and winding as they were, were focused on a more personal dilemma.
He had helped Kitty Pryde once before. When a Marauder attack had left her in her intangible form and she had quite nearly phased out of existence, Reed had found a way to save her. But this was also not the reason for his worry.
His son, Franklin Richards, was a mutant; perhaps not the same as the X-Men, but his genes were certainly extraordinary. That meant there was a significant chance (87.846% - damn his calculating mind for giving him the figure every time!) that his son could be infected.
Without success here, Reed was forced to face the idea of another battle against this disease, with his son's life hanging in the balance. Such a conflict, with so much at stake... Reed doubted that he would be able to handle it.
Hank McCoy, the Beast, was a friend of Kitty's, though not close. They were both members of the extended family that Charles Xavier had brought together , and that bound them together in a very special way.
Dr. McCoy had been working on a cure for Legacy with Moira for a very long time. Their research had laid the groundwork for the studies done by this most amazing collection of minds. It was unfathomable to him that so much brilliance could fail in any task
Most of Hank's friends were mutants. Who would it strike next? It was not a question of if, only when. Or, worse, if this plague went unchecked, would he lose his friends' children to the disease? What of the youngsters studying at the Massachussetts Academy? They were just as vulnerable.
The work would go on. It had to. But standing here, mired in their regret and their failure, not one of the scientists had any idea how to even proceed. Doubt gnawed at each of them, beginning with a single, terrible question that no one had dared ask:
What if there is no cure for Legacy?
**"With Ms. Pryde's condition weakened to the extent that it is, it is unlikely that she would survive any treatment that would kill the virus."**
Reed's words. Bitterly, coldly, unavoidably true.
Beast wanted to break something. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry.
He wanted more than anything to save Kitty.
Moira came into the lab, her pale face drawn and haggard. The woman had hardly slept or ate, despite everyone's insistences. She had been their inspiration when their willpower had waned. She had been their strength when any of them had wanted to simply give up.
So the defeat writ on her face now was as heartbreaking as the news she next delivered.
"An hour ago, several critical blood vessels phased out and did not return, causing severe internal hemorrhaging that I...god help me...couldnae stop." Her glassy eyes fixed on each of them with nothing but world-weary grief. "It won't be much longer. Her sufferin's almost over."
"Out of my way, tovarisch!" Piotr Rasputin snarled at the man blocking his path.
Brian Braddock did not comply. Kitty had requested to be alone with Pete Wisdom, and by god, she would be, if Brian had anything to say about it. "Calm down, Rasputin," he ordered.
"Piotr, stop this!" Ororo snapped, standing just to the side.
An unbearable grief contorted the tall man's face. He struggled and wrestled against the powerful grip of Britannic, gaining not so much as an inch. "That is my place in there. I belong with her!"
"Not unless Kitty says so," Kurt told him in a low voice.
Senseless with grief, Piotr continued to thrash and resist. Nightcrawler sighed heavily and teleported away, knowing how best to settle this argument. His patience with his Russian friend were completely exhausted.
"Why do you insist on interfering?" Piotr demanded. "You don't understand..."
"You are correct in that, at least, Piotr," Storm hissed. "I do not understand what has happened to you. I do not understand how the good, honest man I knew so long ago has turned into an unreasonable bully. At this juncture, however, the why is not important. Either cease and desist or we will stop you by force!"
"No! I will not let you bar me from my Katya!" Collossus bellowed, transforming his skin to steel.
"She's not 'your Katya' anymore, russkie."
In his rage, Piotr had not noticed the sulfurous smell that marked Nightcrawler's return. Not that it would have helped him much. Kurt's passenger was quite adept at remaining unseen.
Colossus was yanked away from Brian and slammed hard against the wall. For a moment, he was too stunned by the hateful rage in Wolverine's eyes to offer any resistance. Logan had been his friend for as long as he could remember. The fury in his eyes, the berzerker rage, was a part of the man, but it was foreign to Piotr.
"Wolverine...my friend...you don't understand...I love her..."
"Love?" Wolverine snapped. "You got a funny way of defining love, kid. You said you loved her, until you met that healer Zsaji and then it was, 'Kitty who?' You never caught on and didn't want to hear that the love for that girl that you thought was so pure was just a side-effect of her healing power. No, you didn't want to hear it, and then you broke your Katya's heart. Right in two. Did you know her parents had just divorced? Course not, that would have meant you'd have had to crawl out of that self-absorbed, 'pity-me' dreamworld you like to live in.
"Now she's found someone that makes her happy. I don't know the guy, but I saw the way her face lit up when he entered the room. You bother to notice that yet? Maybe you should have, and then you'd see that *she doesn't love you anymore.* The girl that you had your little high-school romance with is gone - been gone for years. Again, you've got your head where the sun don't shine, so you didn't take notes.
"You gave up your place in there, bub. You gave up any right you had to be in there, so don't you even try to muscle your way back in. These are...Kitty's last moments, and she'll spend them with who she wants - and that ain't you. You'll have to kill me to get in there."
"Logan, please..." Glittering tears slid down the steel cheeks. The fight was over, but the struggle, the pleading continued. "I have to make her understand...before..."
"You had plenty of chances, bub. Plenty."
Ororo and Kurt moved in close, their expressions equally intense.
"I...I...never wanted to hurt her..." Piotr whispered.
"But ya did, russkie, and there should be no forgiveness for that," Logan snarled. "But I know that..." He shook off the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. "I know that she...she's too kind to..."
The expenditure of emotions had left him shaking and vulnerable, unable to speak around the lump of grief in his heart.
Ororo, who always seemed to know what lay in his heart, spoke the words for him. "Find your own peace, Piotr. Kitty bears you no malice. She forgives you where few would, because of who she is."
Kurt nodded, his own grief now showing plainly on his face. "We will all be less without her..."
The four friends huddled together in silence, each trying to find some way in which to come to terms with what was inevitable now.
Pete Wisdom smoothed back the matted hair of the woman he loved. Her face was pale and gleaming with a faint sheen of sweat. The pain that was killing her showed brightly in her eyes.
There was nothing he could do at this point but hold her hand and convey his love. Words were meaningless. Optimism was nearly insulting. And wishing... Well, wishing obviously had no power, given her situation.
If he could take away her pain, though, he would.
But he could not even do that. He was helpless, as he had been through this whole ordeal. He had come back to Muir Idle, to Kitty, only to watch over her as Legacy killed her.
"Has...the rain stopped?" she croaked.
Pete looked over at the curtained window and back, shrugging. "I don't know. I don't hear it."
She squeezed his hand limply. "Check for me..."
Pete nodded, kissing her gaunt hand and laying it in her lap. Lockheed, laying by her side, looked up as he padded over to the window. The little dragon and he had made their peace, at least for now.
Pete pulled the curtains aside and peered out. The rains that had hammered Muir Isle relentlessly for more days than he could count had passed. The dark thunderheads had broken up into smaller, less threatening puffs of grayish white clouds.
And struggling past the fractured remains of the storm were a few tattered beams of sunlight. They reached down to the island like the hands of angels, blessing them all with forgotten warmth and light.
"You're right, Kit. It has stopped, look," Pete told her with some excitement.
There was no response. Pete held himself perfectly still, refusing to turn at first out of sheer stubbornness.
An optimist would have believed that the exhausted woman had simply fallen asleep. However, the optimist in Pete Wisdom had been beaten half to death by the crow-bar of reality and was currently cowering under a table in the back of his mind.
And the realist in Pete seized onto the awful trick he had just fallen prey to. Kitty had sensed her death, seconds before it had come to her, and she had sent him away so that he would not see.
Brave, noble, prideful...
Pete Wisdom turned slowly, not sure what he would find remaining of his love.
And found nothing at all.
Katherine Pryde had phased away completely, leaving nothing behind by a tangle of blood-soaked blankets - and one heart-broken dragon.
Lockheed was staring fixedly at the spot where his Kitty had lain only a moment before, his expression the very portrait of grief. "Skaw..."
Pete walked over on shaky legs, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Yeah... Goodbye, Kitty..."
The memorial services for Katherine Pryde were held three days later, during a blustery, bright, sunny afternoon. The rains had, for now, expended their fury and had retreated before the advance of the wind.
The X-Men, old and new, past and present, gathered together along with those who had struggled in vain to save her life to honor the passing of one of their own. Their grief mingled together in a weighty pall that hung over them far more ominously than any storm cloud.
Pete Wisdom did not speak, though he was invited to. He did not weep or even shake. He simply stood in wide-eyed shock through the entire ceremony. The cataclysmic loss he had suffered had left him an empty, broken shell.
Later - much later - Logan would corner him and speak with him. He would tell him all the stories he had of Kitty until Pete finally responded. He would drag the man back from the brink of utter despair and set him upon firm ground once again.
He would do this, because Kitty had asked him to.
But that would be later. For now, for the moment, a group of friends stood in a circle around a headstone that had been crafted from one of the indigenous rocks by Scott Summers. They spoke in low tones and shared their pain...and their memories.
And, in the end, they remembered the laughter, the joys...all the good times...and took the first step along the long, rocky path to healing.
Finis
Last night I had a dream
You came into my room
You took me
Into your arms
Whispering and kissing me
And telling me to still believe
The very emptiness
Of the burning seas
Against which we see our darkest decides
Until I felt
Safe
And warm
I fell asleep in your arms
When I awoke
I cried again
For you were gone
Can you hear me?
It won't rain all the time
The sky won't fall forever
And though the night seems long
Your tears won't fall forever
It won't rain all the time
The sky won't fall forever
And though the night seems long
Your tears won't fall
Your tears won't fall
Your tears won't fall
Forever
~~It can't rain all the time...
~~by Siberry Jane