With Many Tears
It was a still August night in Westchester. The air held the landscape tight in its humid embrace, like a lover unwilling let go. Most of the inhabitants of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters had long ago turned in for the evening, having succumbed to the lull of silence brought on by the oppressive heat. But on the outskirts of the grounds, where the gardens and walkways gave way to more untamed foliage, the more nocturnally inclined were just beginning to awaken. A tension was being born out of the heavy stillness, and the creatures of the woods were becoming restless, involuntarily sensing the quiet approach of a distinct change in the winds.
One creature, in particular, was brooding.
Unable to relax, let alone sleep, Logan had come to the woods to seek comfort from the mansion's humid inner-chambers. He sat on the crest of a small hillock, staring out across the horizon, looking as though he was waiting for something to appear. He exhaled at length, flaring his nostrils, and reached down to the earth to scoop up a smooth stone. Turning it over in his calloused palm, Logan let his often-clouded mind drift lazily towards the cause of his current melancholy.
"Logan...I'm dying."
A swell of tears threatened to converge on his eyes as he found himself reluctantly whisked back to the scene on Asteroid M, where he had been forced to kill the woman he so desperately loved.
"...don't leave me..."
The Phoenix had come then, literally, in a blaze of glory. And after, when Logan's eyes had grown back from being burned away, when they had finally returned to Earth, then they'd almost had him, the old bastard. Mind deranged and powers amplified from KICK, Magneto had spent his last on destroying her. Her. After that everything went red, and the next thing Logan knew Jean had turned to ashes in Scott's (he snorted at the irony) arms before Magneto's head had rolled to a stop in the settling dust. There, amongst the rubble, the death and destruction, with blood pouring from her nose mouth and eyes, he had watched Jean Grey die, again.
Chuck left for Genosha and the school was soon rebuilt and revamped by a seemingly guiltless Scott Summers and Emma Frost. Most people played nice with the pair, except Kitty, who made sure she got her share of digs in, so did Hank. It wasn't so much that Logan minded them together, what he minded was how Scott didn't seem to have felt the need to grieve for his lost wife. Obviously this was the result of being too preoccupied with his "new" lover. Wolverine had approached this point of contention with Scott about a month ago and was met with an optic blast that launched him back out of Scott and Emma's bedroom window. Logan never had been one for tact.
His attention turned back to the little gray stone, now warm in his grip. Overcome by a sudden rush of angst, he hurled it into the air with a grunt.
"Shit..." he muttered as tears flowed freely down his cheeks, "shit."
He sat back on his haunches and took a deep, calming breath, wiping away the tears with a ragged, flannel sleeve. Something flickered in his peripheral vision and Logan immediately turned his head to be greeted by the tiny spark of a meandering firefly. But something was wrong. It didn't smell like a firefly. It smelled....bigger? The spark zipped away before Logan was able to pinpoint the scent. He grunted again, dismissing the encounter.
There was no way of saying how long he sat on the ridge; gazing, wondering, remembering.
And there was no way he could have expected what was about to happen.
The quiet landscape was rocked by a burst of light, which sent the birds squawking and flapping out of the trees. Something had landed on the grounds.
"That ain't no shootin' star."
Branches whipped against his face as he bolted, claws drawn, towards the site of the explosion. His heart jumped when he noticed it had come from the direction of the cemetery, while his mind reeled in a number of hopeful directions.
'Don't be a fool' he scolded himself, determinedly keeping up his pace.
When he at last broke through the trees into the field, he could scarcely believe the sight that greeted him.
Trademark auburn hair fell down across naked creamy shoulders.
He took a tentative step forward, wondering if he was really asleep on the ridge and this was all another very elusive dream. He prayed it wasn't.
"Jean...?"
Her green eyes glinted playfully, reflecting the moonlight.
"It's ok, you can say it," she said in her silken voice, as familiar and warm as a mother's touch.
Even if his eyes and ears were both lying to him, Logan's sense of smell was never wrong. It was her all right: his fiery Red, his darlin', his Jeannie. He wanted to hold on to this moment forever, before either of them thought another word, but he could also smell the familiar ashy musk of the Phoenix and knew that it couldn't possibly last.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
— Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol