Journeys
By: Parodys

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, Marvel does even though they have horribly abused their charges (if only I had a million or so dollars...they'd be mine..mine!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...heh heh heh....um..) The gravedigger belongs to me.

A/N: Beside the fact that Gen X is being cancelled (sob) it ticked me off that they totally ignored Ev's death any further than the actual occurrence of it. So this is my way of filling in that little gap. As always please read and review...it is always greatly appreciated.


I am a gravedigger. In the dim haze of predawn I prepare the ground for the dead, and I am one of the last of my kind. Where most find my job distasteful, I find solace. I am merely the last well wisher on their next adventure. Whereas Death has no mercy on the living, it preys on whomever it chooses. Today? Its victim is a young teenage boy, only seventeen I heard. See what I mean about no mercy? That's what I like about it, in the end we are all the same. Eventually broken down into the very essence of life that we once had.

The dawn brought with it the mourning party for the service. I stayed behind because I had to cover the grave at the end. It's amazing the difference between a child's funeral and an adult's. There is an intense sadness that permeates a death like this; the very day seems to weep in rebuttal. With an older person, there is the sadness but no one argues the futility of the death. Humans are interesting that way, they treasure the young and discard the old. As for myself, I see the old as mere vessels of knowledge and spirit hindered only by a decaying body. But I digress...the teenager's ceremony was simple. The day was gray and the clouds hung heavy in the sky, like old washing dripping from a line. Perhaps it was that lack of color that made the flowers burst from their position around the coffin. The intensity of the color only seems to make his mother cry harder.

It was after the service and the last person had gone that I finally got to do my last deed. I had only shoveled in a few scoops of soggy earth when a group of people walked over the hill in the late afternoon. They walked, their very grief etched into their steps as they approached me. I tipped my hat at them and the older man, a huge redheaded chap, nods and said simply. "Give us a minute?"

Shrugging, I walk over to a big elm that shades the area during the hot summer months. Lighting a cigarette, I relish the slightly bitter taste as the warm smoke fills my lungs. I blow it out and settle myself in to watch the group, they must have come late to the funeral. Odd though, the well-kept woman with them doesn't seem like the person to do a thing like that. They're all dressed in deepest black and two of the boys walk up to the barely covered coffin lurking in the ground.

"Adios amigo. You watched our backs." The tall one, his skin almost gray in the light, threw in a white rose and turned to the boy beside him. "Jono?"

The other boy was heavily wrapped from head to foot so that only his eyes showed. He said nothing, just knelt at the side for a few moments and then walked back to where the rest of the where standing. No one said anything except a pretty blond who gave him a hug. "Me too Jono."

Releasing him, the girl was next up to the grave and she carried with her a small teddy bear. It wasn't one of those plush toys that all the kids seem to be getting lately, but rather a cheap carnival version. She carefully placed it inside the hole and stood looking down, her hand resting on the headstone. "Amazing isn't it? How we never did get just a regular day at the fair? I hope you're happy wherever you are."

Big, fat drops began to splatter everywhere and she smiled sadly one more time and then returned to her friends. The older woman replaced her, her almost white blond hair framing her face, a beatific smile on her face. She did not kneel or sit at the grave, but merely stood beside it. "I am proud of you. We are all so proud of you, and I want you to know that your family will be taken care of. That, is the least I can do. May your path be smooth, your load light and the wind at your back. Happy journey." As she turns around I can see the tears gleaming in her eyes, and she glares at the rest of them as if challenging them to comment. None do however, none ever would, I think.

The large red head is next and he stands at the foot of the grave, like he's standing at attention. He doesn't have a military bearing about him...but an aura of discipline, not his need for it but what he has been through. I can barely hear him over the rumbling clouds, I don't really need to. His message shines in his face as he looks down at the coffin. The boy was cherished and loved, like a son to the man. And he is proud, immensely proud of this child; the rain can't hide his tears...or his smile as he walks back to the woman who holds him like a small boy.

"I'm all alone now, Ev" A tall dark girl practically crawls to the hole, and sits in the mud, oblivious to the pouring rain. Grief lines her face as she sobs into her hands, unable to stop and not really caring. "I'm alone, and they can't bring you back. I'm alone. I'm alone." Black mud drips off her hair and down her face until finally the woman helps her up and gently carries her back.

I grab my shovel, thinking their finished when this small Chinese girl step out. She says nothing, just traces the engraved name on the tombstone over and over again. The rain began to let up a little, the drops slowing to the point where you could, as a child, picture yourself being able to run between the raindrops. Her radiant blue eyes startled me for a second as she looked at her compatriots and then raises her hands to the sky. "For Ev, my buddy. I love ya and I'll see ya in heaven."

To this day, it is a sight I will never forget. Fireworks literally exploded from her hands, setting the heavens alight. Intense colors swirled across the cosmos as she set the sky ablaze with swirling novas. From horizon to horizon, all I could see was these hues dancing in the sky above sending showers of sparks down on our heads. And when it ended, everyone was smiling with tears glittering in their eyes. As one they all walked off, each immersed in memories of their fallen friend.

After the left it didn't take me long to finish my job. I had patted the last square of grass into place when I took a glance at my wide-eyed friend beside me. Together, we began the one last journey that would last him the rest of eternity. "Ready to go home, Ev?"

He smiles at me and says simply. "Now I am."

-fin-

Hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought.