Notes: Italics = Presently happening. Normal = Memory/Thoughts

And I've written stories about John (Pyro) in the past, but THIS JOHN IS NOT PYRO. When this story talks about John, it is refering to John Proudstar.

Disclaimer: I do not own WatXM, Talia Josephine, John Proudstar, or any of the other characters.

My parents, contrary to popular belief, were in love. Any outsider looking in can say that it was most definitely a marriage of convenience. False. But unfortunately, love overcomes most things, not all.

When I was born I'm not sure my parents were married. They'd swear to this day that they had tied the knot long before I was even conceived. Whatever, Mom and Dad. It couldn't have been that long prior to my birth, because about two years before that I wasn't even a thought in the back of anyone's head and a baby takes nine months to grow..you do the math. It doesn't work as well as Dad claims it does.

They met on Genosha when my Dad tried to go there as a refugee. It wasn't easy being a mutant back then with humans only in positions of political power. And he looked a lot like me, which meant he would stick out like a sore mutant thumb among the humans.

And I've heard stories that there was this underground prison in Genosha and criminal abuse but I was never told much about that. Whenever I asked my mother would get all defensive and rationalize it or my dad would get all misty eyes and glaze over it. It wasn't exactly relevant to their story, except that my dad was taken prisoner to keep him from revealing the secret and he and my mom had time to bond.

I put my hands, palm down, on my stomach. I always wanted a love story like that. Full of adventure and love that shouldn't be. With passion and drama but still sweet and never-ending.

I was born on Genosha, like I said, probably before anyone was married. It was the perfect place for a kid to grow up if they looked like I did.

Dad was a member of the X-men; which I didn't understand at the time; but he took off on leave for as long as he possibly could to raise me. It wasn't like my mom was in a position to leave Genosha since she was the queen. Not exactly the queen, but to any female toddler if you lived in a mansion of that size and your mom had that kind of power over the population, you were the queen.

Every once and a while my dad would be called away by someone named 'Wolverine'. I'd never met this mystery man but I always associated him as the bad guy. He would take my dad away from the family for days or weeks and sometimes even months where Wolverine would make him come back and go on an X-man mission. I hated this Wolverine character for his persistence to keep breaking my family up. But my dad would always return and as exuberant as I was to see him again I couldn't compare to my mom's emotions.

She would look at him like she hadn't expected him to come back and was shocked to see him, like she'd never seen him before and was meeting him for the first time. I thought it was because she didn't have faith in him but that wasn't really the case at all. That was what love looked like, honest to God true blue (excuse the pun) love.

John is sitting next to me and he's talking. He's telling me of what he's discovered about Apocalypse's base and all the bugs in the security system. He thinks that he might actually have a chance of sneaking inside undetected.

I tell him there's no way in hell unless he can teleport.

But he's adamant and he knows that I how I am; he doesn't pay my negativity any mind anymore. It's sink or swim in this world and if you're too optimistic then the world will sink you. The only way to be hopeful is to doubt everything.

He says that Wolverine is going to scrounge up some other X-men to send on the mission with him. Unlike when I was little, I know who Wolverine is now. He's exactly the villain that I always expected him to be; and then some. He still is famous, in my mind anyway, for his 'old ways' of breaking up lovers. John and I are always sent on different directions to complete missions.

What exactly is love supposed to be? Is it supposed to be perfect, like it always is in the story books where the prince and princess survive anything and wind up in each other's arms at the end? Or is love deeper than that; is it really failure rather than victory that brings it?

I don't think the love of my parents was ever meant to be. It was there, though, like Cupid had had a little too much to drink and accidentally shot a few arrows that were never meant to be shot.

It wasn't long after that that my dad went on one of those 'Wolverine' house calls and didn't come back. Mom said he was being stationed at some place called the Institute for an undisclosed amount of time. And he couldn't say no because Wolverine was very adamant that the future was at stake.

Dad did come back a while later to pack up most of his things. That really made the fact that he was leaving a reality. My goodbye with him was one of the most emotional moments I'd ever had in my young life. I remember crying and begging my dad to stay and him just telling me that he wished, with all his heart, that he could.

For my mom it was practically the end of her world that he was leaving. Their farewell was even more painfully sad than mine had been. He was supposed to be coming back by next year; but that was a long time for a child to not see her dad.

The plan doesn't go over the way that John expects it to, and I try to console him. He's very on edge, though, frustrated with the world. I don't think he can understand that that's the way it goes sometimes. He just wants everything to work in his favor. But if that were true, then Apocalypse would be some misguided cult leader instead of an evil dictator.

I walk up behind him and try to hug him from the back. But as soon as I wrap my arms around his shoulders he shakes me off and runs across the room before he turns to face me, as if I were trying to attack him.

"I...need some space," he declares.

"Just because you screwed up doesn't mean that you have to take it out on me," I snap back, putting my hands on my hips. John usually would have let that go but today there's a fire burning in his eyes.

"At least I tried," he tells me, and instantly regrets it. He knows I'm in no condition to try but I take offense to the remark anyway.

"Fine," I hiss and dart out the front door. John calls my name and runs after me but even like this I'm more nimble than he is. I'm gone before he reaches the door.

Love isn't healthy if you agree all the time. My parents fought, too. Mom always would get so upset that she'd just burst into tears and even though she'd try to go on arguing it would eventually fizzle out. Either because she was getting too hysterical to speak anymore or because my dad would forget why he was angry and try to console her.

Throughout my life, their arguments were like the apocalypse to me, though. Almost every kid on Genosha was almost always the product of a divorced couple. Usually the pressure of two humans having a mutated child was enough to drive them apart; and it was even worse if one parent was human while the other was mutant. I didn't want my parents to split up.

I learned later that people tend to argue more in times of stress. My mom was under a lot of stress then, trying not only to balance the role of Queen of Genosha but also the title of part time single parent.

Not to mention most of their arguments were either her trying to keep him from leaving or the two debating what was going to happen to me.

Kind of like magic, or I prefer to call it women's intuition, Aunt Kitty is outside just a few steps away. She was walking up the sidewalk towards the house, looking for the place that I live, but it's been so long and oh, it's so good to see her! I throw my arms around her.

She isn't really my Aunt but she was just like a little sister to my dad when she was growing up. He, indirectly, taught her about the world.

"Is something wrong?" she brushes a strand of bleached blonde hair out of my face and can tell I've been crying. I shake my hair and realize that it's been too long, and she doesn't know.

"I'm pregnant," I tell her and instinctively, Aunt Kitty looks down at my stomach. Even though I haven't yet begun to show, "And I need help."

After Dad left for good, life went on. Mom struggled to take care of me as a single parent along with taking care of her kingdom. And dealing with heartbreak. I ended up spending endless amounts of time with my Aunt Lorna at that point.

Aunt Lorna loved me to pieces and I loved her in return; despite her being an adult she had all this childlike energy. She and my mom struggled with each other since they were both so different and both wanted me to pick up on their own antics.

I didn't really have any idea about my parents relationship when I was that age, which was seven. As far as any seven-year-old knew, their parents had been ordered by god to either get married and magically raise a child. I had no idea that there was actually any sort of caring behind anything that they did.

Every night before I went to bed Aunt Lorna would tell me a bedtime story. She'd never read me one before but she told them to me off the top of her head. Many a story were about love and prince charmings; with inspiration taken directly out of her my own parents lives together.

There was this one story about some thief who'd planted a bomb under a bridge and it exploded with my mom standing on top of it. Just when she got to the point of the story that had me chewing my fingernails she'd say that someone swooped in out of nowhere and saved her. That was my dad.

She had other stories, all a lot like the first. They weren't stories about simple kind acts, either, most of them were filled with action and adventure and, in the most unlikely places, romance.

I have to return home eventually, because Aunt Kitty doesn't have any place to stay and has to go back to where she lived. She gives me her address and a hug and with that, we part.

Her words didn't really give me any advice that I'm going to be able to use, because they usually don't, but having vented just makes me feel better. I'm ready to talk to my boyfriend like we're civil people.

But when I get home, he isn't there. There isn't a note anywhere to be seen and I reach one of two conclusions. Either he ran out looking for me (which I doubt) or he went to blow off steam by enlisting himself in some other harebrained plot to overthrow Apocalypse. He's not the type of person to go stomping off into the darkness without a purpose; he likes to put his rage to use.

My parents loved each other. I know they did. And I want to love someone as much as they did. I love John but there are all different types of love. It's a word that means everything while it also means nothing.

You can love cheeseburgers. Or you can love your spouse. But not in the same way. At least I hope not.

And I want to say that I've found the right kind of love. But you never know. With our baby on the way, though, I've more hope than ever. And we're starting out like my parents did already; we aren't married and we're having a kid.

So I wait, patiently, for John to come back. We'll get through this.

FIN.

Someone asked me to write more to my story: Second Generations. This is a sequel. Or you could think of it as a prequel but it's happening around the same time either before or just after. I forget if I wrote it or not, but it's in Talia Josephine (TJ/Nocturne) Wagner's point of view. You should be able to tell, though, if you're a dedicated X-men fan.