The air was thick with feeling on this day, he could feel it all. The whether seemed to match his mood, and once again he was reminded of the weather witch, one of the original X-men. If she were still here, then the weather would be worse.
As it was, the sky was covered in heavy, black clouds. There was tension in the air, and the breeze was warm, urgent, but soft. It took almost all the strength Remy had to stand where he was right now. This place brought back too many memories.
The first time he came to this place was when they lost Jean Grey. It hadn't been her fault that she became the phoenix. She was like his Anna in that concern, sometimes her powers had too much control over her mind and not the other way around. She had killed herself in a moment when she regained temporary sanity, and she knew with absolute certainty that if she wasn't stopped, more lives would be lost because of her.
Scott was absolutely heart broken. She had been his wife, his friend since child hood, his true love. He was the reason that he had to come here a second time. Scott had died from a broken heart.
It was in those days that his own love was in such a state. Those two people he might not have ever been close to, but he understood what she was going through. They were family. They had always been there for her, through thick and thin. And now they were gone. He hated to see her like that, just as everyone else was, but he knew she blamed herself. He knew she thought that if she had just gotten closer, had just absorbed Jean a little, both of them might still be alive.
He stood under a tree, an old oak that stretched high into the skies, its branches spread out and green. It smelled like a storm, and a flash of light lit the sky for a moment. It was hard for him to be where he was, the journey painful on his old bones. Arthritis was a bitch, and it didn't help that now a days he could feel the burning sensation of his kinetic charge every time he move, everywhere in his body. It didn't use to happen to him.
The third time he had come here was for his brother, Henri. The assassins had followed him when he had come to New York to visit. They got him when he had his back turned. Remy had been devastated, but she was there with him. She had given him some small comfort, like he had for her when she lost her family. Remy didn't like it that Henri hadn't been buried at home. Henri had been buried in some foreign place hundreds of miles from anywhere familiar, and much of his family hadn't been able to make the trip to the funeral. Remy didn't like that one bit.
Being a hero was dangerous, especially with everything being a hero gives. It had been many years after Apocalypse, and the world still had a lot of trouble accepting mutants. There were rallies, and anti-mutant hate groups. One of them funded by Senator Kelly-the teacher that became a government official. That was the one group that had become dangerous. It specialized in taking down mutants. Among technology specifically designed to stun, capture, injure, and kill-this group created the sentinels.
The fourth time Remy had come to this place; he was well into his thirties. All grown up… He was lucky to be alive. In one night, the institute was again destroyed, and too many good people, people that Remy had come to know as family, had died. That night was a nightmare, one that haunted his dreams, and hers, and the other few survivors. On that day, Remy had watched as they buried some of the closest people to Remy. The professor, little Jaime who wasn't so little anymore, Kitty… Remy had closed his eyes at her death-he couldn't stand to see the look of despair in her eyes. Remy had pulled her close, held her since they had each other still, and the other few.
After that night, a stop was put to Senator Kelley's and his group's plans-they were discovered, uncovered, and arrested one by one. Logan and Ororo were two of the survivors, the last two of the original X-men, since neither Remy nor she were technically the first. They salvaged what they could of the institute, and using the funds left to them from Xavier, plus their insurance, they cleaned up the grounds, and built a new mansion. It was her amour's idea to build a memorial.
They had all lost their friends.
Remy's old bones could barely hold him as he walked stiffly across the newly cut grass, cane in hand as he took unsteady steps. He hated that he needed it took walk; he used to have the strength to. Where had his youth gone? With each headstone he passed, each name brought back memories, bitter sweet and sad.
Storm had been the next to go, a few years later. She had gotten struck by lightning, which was ironic really. Her being a weather witch and all. Before that, she and Logan had tried to carry on the legacy of the mansion. They found new teachers, trained the students-new and old-and tried to help the mortal world as best they could. When she left, so did Logan's last reserve. She had been the only thing tying him to the institute still, even then. With her death, something in him seemed to snap, and wander lust once again claimed him. Remy hadn't ever seen him again, hadn't ever heard from him, and neither had Anna, which broke her heart. Her father had made promises he didn't keep.
They had held up the mantle then, of the X-men, for a while. It was sort of unbelievable really, he an ex-thief, both of them ex-criminals. Younger generations took over once too many years had gone by. Even mutants had their limit.
Remy stopped in front of her grave, the last of his strength disappearing. He stared at the name written on the marble rock for a moment before falling down. Old age was catching up to him, just like it had with her. He sat beside the cold marble stone, resting a hand on its smooth, rounded side, leaning against the front of it at an angle so he could stare at her name still. Tears pricked at his eyes as his throat constricted.
His heart had nearly broken when he realized his Anna was losing her mind. It nearly broke his heart when she told him she could still hear the voices of her lost comrades in her mind. They were still there, even after fifty years, their teenage psyches, whispering and acting as if nothing had changed since high school. Anna began to forget who she was, she didn't answer as often to his voice, his words. She couldn't recognize him anymore, he was a stranger. It broke his heart to continue to take care of her as her condition worsened, as she slowly but surely began to lose the functioning's of her body. She, at one point, began to act like a child, and begged him to tell him the stories of their adventures, of their memories. The ones she couldn't remember. Then, one day, it was like she couldn't do anything at all.
Her eyes, her beautiful emerald eyes, were dull and had lost all the emotion that that she had once held. They didn't sparkle with life anymore, and though she drew breaths and continued to live physically, Remy knew she was gone, but he couldn't let go. She was still his chère. They were in the hospital, and she was looking out the window at a clear blue sky.
He was surprised that the doctors had let him see her today, since they rarely did anymore. That was, until he realized something when he saw her that day, it was then he knew. Today was the day that last part of his Rogue would leave him. The last thing he had that he had always had, had always needed, had always loved. His wife of fifty years would be leaving him on this day. And she couldn't even remember who she was, who he was.
He didn't know how he knew, he just did. The heart monitor next to her bed beeped consistently, and her blank eyes stared out the window. She had lost her fire long ago, and it killed Remy that he couldn't do anything about it. She looked at him as he sat down, and introduced himself, his voice crackling and rough. He took her hand in his, and she just stared at it, like it was a strange and foreign idea.
He talked to her, just like all the other times, and watched her dull eyes light up occasionally at the mention of a fiery southern belle with two toned hair and a no nonsense attitude, it was almost as if she recognized herself. He told her of everyone they knew, of how he proposed, how she learned to touch just so that she could hold his hand. He told her of how she was a super hero, how she fought the bad guys, how she defeated Apocalypse and saved the world. He told her of her brother, and of her adopted mother, of Logan and her husband, and of her dead best friend Kitty Pryde.
At one point as Remy talked, Anna had begun to chill, her skin becoming a bluish color, her body shaking, her breaths heavy. Remy stopped talking when she coughed, violently, and the heart monitor became erratic. Doctors rushed into the room, playing with machines and other things. Through it all Remy held her hand, and their eyes were glued on one another. He gently kissed her knuckles, the pain of knowing tearing apart everything inside him, but he could only watch his Rogue fade before him. For a second recognition flashed in her eyes, and a single tear fell. With her last breath, she breathed out his name in a partial sob, "Remy…"
He couldn't imagine dying like that. Knowing her, her final moments were probably lived in guilt of knowing about what she forgot that for the last part of her life she spent in forgetting everything. She probably hated that she forgot him.
As the light died in her eyes once again, in the physical way this time, and her eye lids slowly slid shut, Remy gave her one last kiss good bye. He felt her lean into it, his wife of fifty years, and then her body slackened and fell back. There was only one long, loud beep coming from the heart monitor as doctors rushed around the room and Remy held his dead wife in his arms.
He knew for once she'd get her uninterrupted sleep.
She had been the fifth time he came here-to see her off. He couldn't believe she was gone. Her funeral was small, since there were few left that actually knew who she was, but Remy didn't mind. All that mattered to him was his sleeping beauty lying in that box.
And now Remy was here again. He couldn't tell you how many times he had come here since then. He had always wanted to go like Scott did; he wanted to die as soon as possible to be with her again. It had always seemed though that something wouldn't let him, although Remy didn't know what it was. And now, here Remy was, and just like he knew then he knew now, it was going to be his time soon.
His breathing was ragged, as he caressed his lover's tombstone. Soon, he promised her, soon I will see you again.
Remy heard footsteps, but didn't turn his head. He was losing his energy quickly now, and he wanted his last sight to be of her name-Anna Marie LeBeau, and underneath that, The Rogue. Remy could, however, still hear. And he could still feel the emotions of others with his powers, they were the only thing he had left besides the thought that he would again see his love soon.
But hearing and feeling the emotions of this stranger was like being hit with a blast from the past. Remy worked hard to make his throat work, "Logan."
The stranger behind him seemed to stiffen for a moment, before coming over and joining him, "I almost didn't recognize ya, Remy."
Logan hadn't changed much, his healing factor making him appear as young as he did fifty years ago. Remy remained silent.
"Where's stripes, Remy?" Logan asked, looking at Remy, and crouching beside him. Remy again, didn't answer, choosing instead to let him figure it out.
"She's gone…" It was a statement, one that made Remy cry more than he was. His red on black eyes had long since become just brown, as he grew older, things changed, and he lost a lot of who he was. His kinetic ability long gone, although he could still feel it's burning in his bone.
"And I wasn't here for her, or you, when she left. I never got the chance to say good bye." Logan's gruff voice sounded harsh, as if he were holding back emotion. Logan hadn't seen his so called daughter in years, not since she was around thirty five.
Remy had lost his own ability to speak; now dying himself, so he promised the man beside him to tell her for him. Just as black began to crowd his vision, and Remy was losing more of himself, he began to see her as she was. As a Goth, as a teacher, as a lover, as a friend. Her bright, emerald green eyes, her auburn and white hair, her pale, soft skin, her beautiful voice, and her touch that made him melt.
As he began to leave this world, Remy remembered something else, something important he had to do. He tried to move his hands, he tried to make them work, but they wouldn't obey him anymore.
He greatly pained him to look away from her grave and to meet the eyes of his fallen lover's father, silently asking him to do one last thing. Logan reached down, and into the inside pocket of Remy's coat, and pulled out two things.
Remy's eyes followed Logan's hands as he place those two things at the foot of her grave, and Remy gave one last living smile to Logan, before looking back at her grave and at the one thing that always reminded him of her, his hand falling from the tombstone to rest on the card.
And as Remy died, Logan left. He knew that Remy would want privacy; after all, in a matter of moments he would be reunited with his hearts love. After all, the King and Queen should never be separated, and now they would be together forever more.
The King and Queen of Hearts.
I'm sorry if this wasn't exactly what you were looking for, but I got caught up in a moment, and I think this is pretty good. I know I'm going to regret writing this in the morning, when I have an exam, but I couldn't help writing this when the idea came to my mind. I hope, when reading this, you were drawn into it and that you could feel something, because that's what every writer wants to do for their reader-draw out emotion. In any case, thank you for reading, and please review if you have the time. Thank you-
-Wordless Thoughts