December
Rogue and Gambit announced their engagement. We had a party for them and it was really cool. Moira and Banshee flew in to be at the engagement party, and Forge was there too which maybe was weird since he never struck me as much of a partier but whatever. It was nice to have another celebration. Bobby and I decorated the place. There was music and I danced until way late, and was like drenched by the end of the party. The other ones who like to dance are Rogue, Gambit, Bobby, Psylocke and Angel. We need more parties like this.
Though I kinda wondered why Rogue and Gambit needed to wait until they had their hands on a Genoshan collar before they'd get engaged.
We got closer and closer to Christmas. One thing we started doing many years ago around this time of year is going through the pictures on the fireplace's mantel and kinda rotating them. Taking some out of storage and back on the mantel, putting last year's pictures in storage, taking some new pictures and putting them up.
So one evening I was in the fireplace room with Cyclops and Nightcrawler – the fire was burning and sometimes some of us like to just sit there and watch it at night, hearing the crackling and feeling the warmth. We got to talking about the pictures.
Cyclops got up and picked up a picture of just him and Jean. No one had been about to remove it last year.
"I still love her," he said. "I will always love her." His voice was so quiet that it was hard to hear, but I'm sure that's what he said.
And wow, there was so much pain in this voice that I felt it for him.
"Love never dies," Nightcrawler said in his soft, soothing voice. "Love is eternal."
I got up and hugged Cyclops, and the three of us didn't say much else. We sat back down and watched the fire.
But then not too long after that, I was talking with Rogue; she was so excited about her engagement that she didn't talk about much else. She said that rumor had it that now that we're almost at the one-year anniversary of Jean's death, Cyclops and Dark Star will announce their own engagement soon. And after all the empathy I felt for Scott when he looked at Jean's picture that night, I also felt cold when I heard that. Maybe it's not true.
Hank's been healing pretty well but he's still not well enough to go back into battle or the Danger Room – good thing it's been a quiet month. We had another movie night in Hank's room. Although when Bobby and I were planning the movie night, I'd made sure to say, "your and Hank's room" since it's obvious that's what it was.
So we had our movie night, I stayed awake the whole time, and then we talked while chewing the last of the popcorn, the small pieces and the kernels. I wanted to say something funny so I said, "If you guys want to make out, I'm totally good with that."
They looked at each other and maybe blushed a bit. Hank finally said, "I – uh – apologize for our lack of manners that evening you succumbed to slumber."
"Hey, no need to apologize. I'm glad you two have each other."
They looked at each other. Bobby then said, "We didn't expect this to happen. This is, you know, new for us. But we're really happy together."
"I can tell," I said. "It's totally cool. And um, it must be nice, Bobby, to have someone furry during these winter nights."
"Yeah, it is now but in July it wasn't so great. Had to sleep with a fan right over me." He paused and then asked, "What about you? When are we gonna hear about you having a boyfriend? I still think Cannonball likes you."
"Don't go there. I'm fine being single."
I was half telling the truth and half not. I wanted something like Rogue and Gambit had. I felt bad like there was something wrong with me for being single all these years, even though I knew in my head there really was nothing wrong with me. And I also was okay with my love life being nonexistent too, even though that's totally a contradiction from what I just wrote.
Pretty soon it was Christmas Eve. We did some traditional things. We visited the Morlocks like we now do every year. They are the same as always. They are getting by, Callisto's an okay leader. She spends a few days a year with Storm and the rest of the team, learning leadership stuff. I still can't imagine living like they do. We help them throughout the year but still. They don't want to come out though.
I used to go ice skating with Storm and Wolverine every Christmas Eve too. Storm and I went. We skated around holding hands and I got a bit teary. I liked when we went back inside the mall and had hot chocolate, mine with extra whipped cream.
Later in the afternoon, we all went to a Broadway show. Then it was home to the mansion for dinner and then opening presents around the tree. The tree's lights sparkled and I felt real nice.
Epilogue to be posted soon
