Lenneth Essex sat, hunched over, in a chair next to her husband's bed, his hand gripped tightly between her own. She could feel the slow rhythm of his heartbeat, which was getting slower as the hours passed by. She couldn't bring herself to look across the room at the clock, an old wood and metal thing, that ticked away the seconds her beloved had left to live.
She had tried everything.
Nothing worked.
Bringing his pale and feverish hand to her lips, she kissed it lightly, pushing more drugs into his system to fight the pain. The truth was staring her in the face. Nur had been right. Nathaniel was going to die without his help. He had no powers left to sustain him and his incorruptible flesh was dying so quickly that even she couldn't stop it. That left her with the obvious answer to her question, but why was she not willing to take that step? Turning her left hand slightly, she watched the wink of her borrowed ring and looked at its companion on the hand of her husband. She had taken a vow, but she had broken it before. She had broken it for more frivolous things than this, far more frivolous things than saving his life.
Yet as she watched the ring she realized what was holding her back were not the vows, they hadn't meant anything to her in years. It was the principle of it. She had given Nathan her heart and her life, and those things had never been in jeopardy. She had never loved another as she loved him; she had never given her devotion to another as she was devoted to him. What Apocalypse was asking for was her complete and utter devotion, for her to look upon him as she looked upon Nathan, to be willing to live or die at his whim.
Lenneth pressed Nathan's hand to her forehead. The question was no longer simple. Was she truly willing to betray Nathan to see him live? Or would she stand by him only to see him die? Could she turn her back on him just to give him a few more years, perhaps a decade or two to continue his work? Did she love him enough to walk away?
Those thoughts continued to weigh heavily on her mind as the expected knock at the door came. The door was only opened a crack for someone to say,
"Your guests have arrived, Madame Essex."
"Wonderful. I will meet them downstairs, Charlotte," her voice was tired and slow, though the word 'wonderful' did still carry a bit of mirth with it. They had made it, perhaps everything would be all right.
Gambit, Shadowcat, and Mystique sat in comfortable chairs, each uncomfortably watching the humans wandering about around them that didn't even seem to mark their presence. An odd thing indeed given the blue woman sitting amongst them would have normally been cause for alarm and the handing out of weapons. They were still in this state of dis-ease when Lenneth came down the stairs and into the waiting room.
The first thing anyone noticed was that she was hardly as well put together as usual, her clothes being rumpled and slept in, her hair was matted on one side and flying on the other, and for the first time since they had known her, she had dark circles around her eyes. Yet, there she was with her characteristic knowing half-smile apparently completely at peace with the world.
"Welcome all," she greeted them. "I apologize for the wait, things are not going well."
"What do you mean and what did you do to these people," asked Mystique rising from her seat to confront her former friend.
"My husband is dying and as for what I did to these people, I made them docile and obedient. That's all." Perhaps it was the off-hand manner, but the declaration of Nathaniel Essex being near death stopped all three in their collective tracks.
"'ou serious?" The Cajun was the first to speak. "Sinister's dyin'?"
"Not, Sinister, Remy darling. Nathaniel Essex, Mr. Sinister is already quite dead. Nathan has had no powers for years and that's what's killing him now. His powers are gone, he cannot heal, and something that even I can't stop is ravaging his body." Lenneth slumped down in a chair, letting her head hang and her shoulders droop. "I've tried everything," she was quiet, then with a roar she continued,
"Absolutely everything!"
Several of the humans stopped to look at her for a moment. She waved them off and they continued about their tasks as if nothing at all had just occurred.
"I lost him once, and now I'm going to lose him again." Every beat of her heart reiterated that simple truth. Nathaniel Essex was going to die, if she didn't do the one thing she had kept from doing for over a hundred years. It was her choice, she could put him back on his feet or she could put him in his grave. It all came down to her final decision.
"So are you prepared to leave," asked Mystique folding her arms across her chest. The loss of Magneto had been devastating for her, Lenneth had stood by her, helped her let him go. That was before they had split over her return to the husband who was now dying but had done nothing but left Lenneth holding the bag over and over again.
"I'm not leaving him, Raven. It will take me an hour to get him ready."
"Len, it's better if you just leave him. If he's going to die, let him do so in comfort."
"Raven, I. AM. NOT. LEAVING. HIM." For a split second, Lenneth's eyes went from placid brown to deep scarlet as her anger/frustration/sadness emerged. "After all of this, I am going to finish things as they should be finished. I will stay beside him, watch over his final moments, as a wife should."
"Perhaps we should stay then, wait 'til he's dead," offered Kitty. "We don't want to try and haul him back only to have him die there."
Raven looked back at Lenneth, waiting for her response.
"He won't make it through the night. We can leave in the morning, I suppose," the soon to be grieving widow agreed. "Charlotte," called Lenneth.
The young woman in question appeared again, her lab coat smeared with a stain of purple powder.
"Madame Essex?"
"See my guests to their quarters and then start protocol 22 for me, won't you?"
"You will be leaving us?"
"Yes, Charlotte, in the morning. I want everyone to have their protocol before they go to bed, alright?"
"Yes, Madame, I'll see to it myself."
"Protocol 22," asked Mystique as Charlotte started to lead the three away.
"You'll see in the morning, Raven, I don't want to talk about it tonight." Charlotte led them away, leaving Lenneth alone in the waiting room looking at the silent gray walls. Getting up, she turned toward the stairs once again.
"If you must go down into death, my love, I shall not send you alone," murmured Lenneth to herself as she walked back up the stairs to her husband's bedroom.
Nathan's breath was become ever more shallow as Lenneth sat vigil at his bedside. At dawn, she could count almost a minute between them. During the night, she had drawn a small vial of her own blood, stopping it up with a mixture of sand and wax. The plug could easily be pulled if someone saw the need. She placed that small vial between his hands as she folded them over his chest.
"I will never truly leave you, my love. And I hope, one day, you will forgive me."
Kitty was the first to wake as a man stumbled into the room where she was staying, obviously having trouble breathing. Bolting out of bed, she sprinted past him only to nearly run into another person staggering down in the hallway. She phased through the older man and then turned to look back. Both men were dying. Kitty was joined seconds later by Mystique and Gambit; together they started for the stairs to Lenneth's room.
They found two bodies lying there together; both of them looking far older than any of them remembered ever seeing either of the Essexs being. The male had his hand clasped over his chest in a posture of repose. The female lay curled up beside him, one hand lying on his chest just above his hands.
"Mon dieu, she wa' serious."
"Yeah, I guess she was," agreed Kitty. Mystique looked at the corpses and shook her head with no words.
"All right, pack them up. I'm not leaving them here and no doubt the real military is going to be here as soon as they stop getting their ongoing status reports," were Mystique's brisk orders.
The three of them had been sent on a rescue mission, but how successful was it when one only liberated bodies?
The funeral held for Master and Madame Essex was quiet, well attended, but quiet. No one seemed willing to break the silence until it came time for someone to say a few words. There had been some debate on who should do the speaking. After all, the two of them had touched so many during both the good and evil days of their long lives. Finally, it was decided that Kurt, as the acting leader of the Mutant Nation, should say the formal good-bye to two people who had done so much to further the mutant cause.
"We gather here, on this day," began Kurt. "To bid farewell to Master and Madame Essex, two great leaders who have, during the dark times of our struggle, stood as beacons of light offering a path to those of us who faltered."
It was questionable if anyone shed genuine tears for Master Essex at the funeral, but there were several who shed true tears for the Madame. Raven Darkholme shed a tear or two as she held her granddaughter during the eulogy. Madame Summers shed tears as well, her two young sons sitting at her side.
"There are those of us who owe our lives to their science, and our freedom to their leadership. They will be sorely missed."
War paced back and forth outside the door of the Master's room, waiting impatiently for him to emerge. He had returned and simply swept into his rooms without speaking to her or the Chancellor, something that had never before happened. The Chancellor, of course, sat a few feet away, his feathers unruffled as usual by the strangeness of this occurrence.
"What's taken so long," demanded War, stopping to stare at the doors contemptuously.
"He will be out in his own time," replied Chancellor, folding his hands neatly in front of him. "You will simply have to be patient."
"Ah wanna know if he's brought her back or not."
"And he will tell us if he has achieved his ends when he is ready, no sooner. So be patient. Or go find someone to terrorize so all that nervous energy you have will go away. You're starting to give me a headache."
"Ah can make that go away anytime ya want," War's eyes betrayed the slight malevolence in her statement that was only tempered by the pout of her lips.
"I prefer meditation over your caresses right now, my darling, but perhaps later." The Chancellor looked at the doors himself, as if willing them to open and issue forth their wandering lord, but nothing happened. Then with a sigh, he settled back into the lotus position and closed his eyes. He was certainly one capable of waiting without wishing for something to break.
