Disclaimer: not mine

A/n: Someone asked last chapter how the cure worked in this story. Since at the end of X3 we see Magneato moving that metal chess peice, I assumed the cure wasn't forever. The three month expiration date was just something I made up in my head.

He's pretty sure she was joking. Pretty sure. But pretty sure is a far cry from positive, or even mostly sure. Half sure. What kind of percentage does 'pretty' even fall under, he wonders. More or less than 50? Maybe she was mostly joking, but then, that still left some seriousness, and it was that possible seriousness that led to him walking by himself down to the quiet, neighborhood pub that had reunited them some 6 months earlier. And things had been going so good.

The wedding had been one of those good things, surprisingly enough. In the 16 odd weeks since, Marie had dragged him to a different restaurant a total of 4 times, where she and Kitty, who was there with her new husband, would proceed to be completely shocked to see one another. The host would usually look on in confusion, since either Marie or Kitty would have earlier phoned in a reservation for four. John and Bobby never called them on it, to be honest he was relieved to be seeing the Iceman regularly enough to melt some of the tension that clung to them and not have to be the one to instigate the meetings. He could tell it was good for her too, just having another woman to talk to, even if it was Kitty and all the baggage that brought with it. And, after every dinner, Marie would always reward him handsomely for 'bein' a good boy.'

His stop at the bar is a short one. The bartender looks at him oddly at his request but recognizes him well enough to know he isn't a lunatic drifter. He simply nods at John, takes his twenty, and comes back a few minutes later with a crate full of empty bottles. The younger man thanks him, before leaving.

In the half a year he had been living with her, (because it had really been that long, there was no transition period, no dating and courtship. Just him waking up that first morning, walking into the kitchen, and seeing her instantly point towards the door and say, "We're out of milk." We're.) she had taken the cure a total of three times. Compared to the emotional turmoil they had both been in the first time he had witnessed the act, the second time was painless.

He was in the shower and when he got out, there was an empty needle in the garbage can next to his old razor and she had a band aid on the inside of her left arm. They didn't talk about it. He could tell she didn't want to, he could tell that the decision tore her up every time she had to make it. Sacrificing a large part of her identity for the comfort of intimate, physicalcompanionship. He likes to think that when she was alone, that choice ripped her apart with dull, jagged fingernails. But now that she has him, it's more like a clean, sharp incision with a thin blade. It hurts, just differently. Just less.

That night, he woke her up from where she had been dozing on the couch in the fetal position by taking the band aid off of her arm. She watched with hooded eyes as he brushed his fingers over the tiny red dot that allowed him to do so, and kissed her hand.

"I should hate you for this," he told her. She just bit her lip and nodded and he could see her eyes fill with tears that never actually fell. Because he should hate her for it, but doesn't. Because he should hate her for it and doesn't and that means she shouldn't be allowed to hate herself for it either.

But today had been the third and he did not have the luxury of being in the shower. He had walked in from a trip to the convenience store down the street (milk again) and there she was, standing over the kitchen sink, pushing the hated liquid into her veins while her eyes pushed out bitter tears. He was rooted there, watching her, knowing she knew he was, while she finished with the injection and cleaned herself up. She turned around and walked to the couch with surgical precision. And then she broke.

He sat with her for the better part of an hour while she cried. He thanked God that she wasn't hysterical or crazed, only very, very sad. He let her curl into his lap and he stroked her back and fingered the white streak of hair that refused all dyes and forced himself to not say it: He should hate her for this. For making him sit on their couch, in their apartment, feeling love and sympathy for her and regret and guilt and pain for all the things he can't change or fix.

He can't fix her. Because they're both broken. And he wants them to stay that way.

When she managed to pull all the loose threads of herself together and rubbed her face like she had just woken up from an unsettling dream, she turned to him and smiled carefully, and said, "I hate needles now. You should've seen me gettin' my birth control shot last week, I nearly fainted."

He smiled back at her because it seemed like the only proper response and replied, "Well, I'm sure you'd rather beuntouchable than knocked up."

She extricated her body from his and shrugged in a noncommittal way and said as she moved to the bathroom, "I dunno, I'm not gettin' any younger."

He ends up in a park a dozen blocks away. He sets up half the empty bottles on a fence a couple hundred yardsoff to the sideand knocks each of them off with carefully aimed fireballs. The rest he chucks into the air as hard as he can before blowing them up with bursts of heat. It's a good way to blow off steam, pun somewhat intended.

I'm not gettin' any younger. What the hell is that supposed to mean? What the hell is that supposed to imply? Marriage? Things had been going so good. What was wrong with the commitment they had now? She knew he wasn't going anywhere.

But did she really? He never said it, instead he let his actions speak. And what had his actions said tonight? Sneaking out to blow up bottles while she was in the shower? How does that look? It looks a lot like leaving her in a jet near Alkali Lake whileyou're safe in a helicopter, flying away with the enemy, he realizes. That's what it looks like.

She's pissed as hell when he gets home. Standing with her arms crossed in the living room, glaring daggers. She opens her mouth to shout any number of curses and lectures but he doesn't let her get that far. He simply strides up to her and grips her face gently but firmly and looks her in dead in the eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"What?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to run again. Ever."

"Promise?" shewhispers.

"Promise." And he means it. Oh my God, what am I going to do, he means it.

Like he thought, there was nothing wrong with the commitment they had now.