I so do not own this as Marvel has all the trade rights and I am but a poor player.

O.K., I don't own that either, but the point is made.

Cheaters Never…

There, behind the coughing and hacking, behind the constant bright red gobbets of mucus tactfully expectorated into tissue, lays a man.

There underneath the sad sagging skin from the missing pounds from an already sparse frame, obscured by the wafting fragrant smell and the gray smoke of his addiction, there was Gambit.

Encompassing it all, there was his cancer.

While such a small thing, relatively speaking of course, his cancer ruled what was left of his life. While he knew it was not healthy to do so, he kept smoking, there was no point in quitting now, death was not going to own him, while it would soon indeed claim him.

The pain was incredible, as though glass had been imbedded in so many parts of his body. That wasn't pleasant, and being so tired that the thought of crawling to his bed, twenty feet away from his chair was simply too much effort.

The worse part was that he knew what he was leaving behind; Rogue, his sweet Marie. The sharp twinge that made it's way down his left arm was nothing compared to the ache he felt in his heart every time he had to tell her good by. Every time he had to be cut open to remove this that or the other to give him another day, wasn't anything close to being as terrible as having to watch her sorrowful little face fade into the blur of people as he was wheeled down the hall to be drugged into more missing time.

Time, his ultimate luxury and enemy, time he could have used to give her the life she wanted. Time to find a way to give her children, to touch her, to spend weekends under the covers together telling secrets.

That was all gone now. Over with. Kaput. Now, he'd just love to have the time to hold her hand once again.

As a man who once cared very much for his own appearance, he hated to look at his own once well-manicured hands. His fingernails found themselves to be a bluish hue, and his skin became yellow and waxy. His hair that he was once so proud of started falling away months before he knew he was going to die.

Death is the only thing every man has to fear looking forward to. Being a mutant with cancer presented it's own problems. His powers went haywire, igniting anything in contact with him, evolving to do things he never thought they could. Things he hadn't touched in days suddenly finding their own life, wiggling every which way, shaking and finally exploding in a fire ball of orange and yellow, pieces glittering like snow on it's downfall to earth.

Now, he has to be in a complete living room, no inanimate object to catch his power and explode. A room made of a living tree, courtesy of the Shaman's daughter, even the nurses and doctors have to come in nude. This was discovered after Beast's lab coat caught and Beast ended up in a bed too, covered in burns and melted hair.

But Marie, she'd been great through it all. Doing everything she can to make Gambit more comfortable as he started to slip way. Not to mention that she had to follow the same dress code as the staff when she visited. Everybody did, and that wasn't always pleasant.

Now, he's headed to get yet another polyp removed, and she stands there as she had so many different times before, her face fading to the background and altogether and all Gambit wishes was that he had the time to…