by 1Grrl4Vic
Disclaimer: I own Emma and that's all. Everyone else belongs to Marvel and I don't make any money from this.
Summary: Just because you have a healing factor doesn't mean you can't hurt.
Author's notes: Thanks go to Vicchic and SLWatson for the beta jobs. Much props to you gals. This is kinda AU to my Emma Series, which will probably never be finished, btw. When I started writing this, I was hankerin' for some Vic angst and this is what I came up with. Feedback is welcomed but flames are passed along to St. John.
*****
I'm glad it's raining. If it were sunny, I'd probably be pissed. It always rains in Seattle and I want it to be raining today, just like it does every other day. It's a bit unusual for it to be sunny in Seattle and if it were sunny I'd remember today even more. Just because of the sun. And I don't want to remember today.
I let Drake take Emma from me a little while ago. He might not be my first choice for savin' the world or anything, but he keeps a smile on her face and she needs that right now. She barely tips the scales at forty pounds but she was so heavy in my arms today, I had to put her down. Now my arms are just hanging by my sides and they still feel weighted down. Or maybe.. it's more like they're being pulled down. Or, I dunno, there's something pushing down on my shoulders with a constant, steady pressure.. just trying to see how long I'll last under it -- how long before I'm crushed under it.
I stare at the flowers on her coffin. Birdy's coffin. Jesus. The flowers.. they're white and yellow. She'd think they're pretty. She always liked flowers. I can't remember but I think yellow was her favorite color. It's nice that they got her yellow flowers. They stand out so sharply to the rest of the world around them. The sky is gray and cloudy, the ground is thick with mud and everyone's wearing the same color. Black. And those flowers are mocking me with their brightness and their color. Even if I look away from them, my eyes seem to trace back to where they sit on her coffin. They're alive and she's not. I hate those flowers.
There's a steady dripping sound of water hitting the tarp-pavillion I'm standing under. There's a big oak tree next to it and it's blocking some of the rain which is really just drizzling now. But still there's that drip, drip, drip. Big, fat drops of water hitting the plastic covering. It's louder than the voices I hear. But maybe that's because I'm not listening to them. I don't want to hear what they're saying. Some of them are probably just voices full of pity anyway. Not for me, though. Nope. Never for me. They're for Emma. A little girl's mother is dead and the only family she's got now is her murdering psycho father. Yeah. That's probably what they're saying.
There's something else I hear. Rather, what I don't hear. The past few days my ears have been playing games with me.. making me think I hear it. Making me think I hear Birdy's heartbeat. It probably sounded like everyone else's. I wouldn't know because I never bothered trying to listen for anyone else's. 'Cept maybe Emma's.
So now I've got the rain and the whispers combined with this hollow, empty sound in my ears. I turn my hearing up a little, strain to filter out all the extra noises, listening for that sound that only Birdy's heart made. But I can't hear it. All I can hear is this giant, white nothing. And then I have to turn my hearing back down because my ears are starting to hurt.
I close my eyes so I don't have to look at those happy, taunting flowers. The rain still drips and the voices still murmur quietly.
I was kind of surprised Logan showed up. He's somewhere to my right, propped up against a tree and, no doubt, not wanting to take his eyes off me for a second. The wind carries his scent and the stink of that cheap cigar he's smoking. If I had the energy I'd walk over there and shove that cigar right down his throat. I think I can feel the smoke filling my lungs when I breathe. It travels up my nostrils, then down into my lungs where it just sits like a big lump of black. And those ugly flowers laugh at me because I'm black on the inside and I'll never be bright and yellow and happy and yellow was Birdy's favorite color and she loved yellow. But I'm all black on the inside now and that black is seeping into my lungs and it fills my veins and it coats my bones until everything inside is black and heavy. And I don't think I can breathe anymore so I loosen my tie and breathe in that gray air that surrounds those fucking flowers and my throat feels tight so I undo the top buttons of my shirt and loosen my tie just a little bit more. But that gray air is just adding to the black that's already in my lungs, making me darker on the inside and it starts to hurt and it's getting hard to breathe so I pull in large gulps of air but that gray air is what's making me hurt and I choke and gasp and I realize the only way I'll breathe is by getting all that black out so I'm scratching at my throat and my chest, raking my claws across skin and muscle and bone and my hands are red. If I can just get to that black, I can tear it out and then I can breathe and I'll be okay. But my skin is knitting itself back together too fast. So I've gotta tear harder and faster. But I still can't see any black. It's all just red. And there's blood all over my hands and my shirt's not white anymore. It's soaked with blood and it's dripping down onto the ground like big, fat raindrops... drip, drip, drip. And those voices are getting louder and I think someone's crying but I can't really tell because the sound that Birdy's heart isn't making is so loud and I cant stand up anymore so I'm getting down on my knees and I dig my claws into my chest until my fingers can find a bone to wrap around and I start to pull because I'm almost to my black lungs and suddenly things are swirling and I'm moving and my head hits the ground hard and there's a knee in my back and I can see someone's blue hand trying to pull my hand out from under me. And Logan's boots are next to my head and I can hear him cussing at me as he tries to get me pinned down and that crying is louder and people are yelling and I hear that crying voice yell "Daddy!" and that sound that isn't sound comes back and I just stop.