They had kissed in between for Love or Money 2.
Tabitha loved the show, and didn't want to miss even the tiniest blink. Amara couldn't care less. She just wanted to be wrapped in Tabitha's arms, feeling her girlfriend's warmth, listening to her laugh, and being in love.
Amara thinks of this as she pushes Tabitha away from the stray gunshot. She wonders about things, as the bullet impacts her chest and sinks deep within her heart. She wonders why she never told Tabitha she loved her. Amara opens her mouth to try, to grab this one last moment and express the most important emotion she had ever felt in her quickly ending life, but it is too late.
Amara Aquilla is dead.
---
Amara Aquilla was dead, and Tabitha Smith didn't know what to do. Should she charge towards the enemy, screaming "NO!" and sending her little mutant bombs every which way? Should she retire to this spot, hunched over her dead lover, crying softly and not caring who wins or what happens or how or why or anything other than Amara is dead, Amara is dead, Amara is dead.
Flashes of their brief months together race through Tabitha's mind. The first time they met, the first time they touched, the first time they kissed underneath a large apple tree in the spring. Though the one moment that stood out among the rest was when Amara had visited the Brotherhood house, before they had confessed their feelings for each other. She had brought Tabitha little chocolates and a video tape full of Tabitha's most missed cable TV shows.
Amara had always thought of the little things like that.
---
Kurt Wagner was always thinking of the little things, like that time Amanda Szardoes had worn her pink strappy sandals for three days straight after Kurt said he liked them. She was always so devoted. Always there for him.
He could see the debris from a recent blast of some immeasurable power or something, and he knows he won't be there for her any longer.
Such a shame. She always did have the prettiest face.
---
She always did have the prettiest face. Especially in the mornings, while she was not yet awake and not still asleep, and one could gaze at her unashamed and she would never notice or know.
Scott Summers loved Jean Grey in the mornings almost as much as he did at night.
He recalls (as he's floating above and expending all his power and energy into one amazing optic blast while Jean, who had refused to stay behind and let him die alone, keeps him suspended while standing behind him) the first time they made love.
He had spent so long constructing the perfect scene, with the perfect candle scents and the perfect resonating romantic music. He had been imagining this scene for years and years. Secretly, he wanted it to be just like the movies.
And the look of pure joy on Jean's face when she saw this would be burned inside his mental mind for eternity.
Behind him, Jean whispers "I can't hold us up any longer."
Scott nods and closes his eyes, his own energy spent. His hand searchers for hers as they fall.
---
As they fall, her hand is searching for his. When she finds it, she twines her fingers around his and squeezes it with the very last of her strength. Jean Grey knows she will not let go of Scott Summers' hand for the rest of her life.
She sighs, she's tired, and she's ready for this.
She thinks of the man falling beside her, and almost wants to smile. If only she wasn't so damn tired.
Scott had always been so good to her, in his own little awkward way. The night they set aside for "their first" was spent in a horribly cliche setting, a hotel room with all the dressings of a harlequin romance, a novel bought at 3 AM for a long and boring airplane ride. The whole ordeal had Jean suppressing giggles, even during the act itself. Scott's hands kept flying up to his shades, to ensure they didn't' fall, and he would hit Jean every time he did this. Among other things.
And all of it made Scott more endearing.
And they hit the ground with the softest of thuds.
---
Lance Alvers didn't even notice Scott and Jean until they hit the ground with the softest of thuds. All he knows is that a stray beam of amazing and dangerous concussive force had hit him and Kitty Pryde, sending the always solid Lance flying and leaving Kitty standing, in the midst of the battle, all alone.
It's not long before a lash from that powerful, dying adversary hits the now solid and never-expecting Kitty away. She is not sent flying. There is a sickening crack, and she falls to the ground, dead.
Lance cannot believe it.
It had only been nine days ago that she had appeared at the door to the Brotherhood House, shyly holding flowers and saying "You know, your not as much of a total thug as I thought."
They had spent the rest of the of that day cuddling in front of the television while laughing, talking, and playing catch-up.
They shared their first kiss the day after, right in front of Lance's locker. And it was everything it was supposed to be- a quick, sweet tangle of lips and tongue, all done and over with before the next administer came down the hall.
---
She wanted it to be done and over with before the next administrator came down the hall- what if she got it trouble and what if they told the Professor? At the same time, she never wanted it to end. Katherine Pryde wanted to melt within Lance Alvers' kiss and freeze this one perfect moment in a tiny glass ball made from only the best and so that it would never, ever break. She wanted to have it for forever.
Their entire short lived relationship seemed to always be their first kiss to Kitty. She wanted nothing more than to run down the streets, yelling "I love Lance Alvers! I love Lance Alvers!" But there was always that fear, always that knowledge of how Scott would look at her. How Jean would talk to her. What Rogue would think of her. Even Kurt, her best friend, wouldn't look at her in the same way if he know. "How could she date him!" he would think, she was sure. "Crushing is one thing, but dating? How could she!"
Kitty couldn't have Kurt thinking that.
And a thought occurs to her, faintly (as her body begins to feel numb and she knows she's gone) that maybe it didn't matter what people thought about her, and maybe the last few days of her life could have been spent in bliss and not fear.
But there's no time to consider this.
If only I didn't care so much . . .
---
If only he didn't care so much. Then he would watch Kitty's falling body with the same apathetic detachment in which he saw everything, instead of feeling Lance's loss. He wouldn't' be thinking about what Lance felt, what Lance thought. Because Lance Alvers was the bridge between reality and comfortable lack of care for Pietro Maximoff. So much that, as he hears the gasps and know that she is dead and nothing can fix that, the smallest of tears form at the corner of his eye.
He loves Lance that much.
And he notices Lance noticing, and Lance is shocked, and Pietro understands why. He never cried when he thought his father was dead. Why should he cry for Kitty?
He shouldn't. Kitty took Lance away from Pietro. Kitty was everything Pietro hated.
But now she was dead, and Lance was in pain, and Pietro knew it.
And in the pack of his mind, Pietro wonders- how long now, how long until his turn, how long it would be until he could kiss Lance in between for Love or Money 2.