Hey, Readers! Just wanted to thank those who stuck with this story, even though it took me forever to finish... if you enjoyed, please leave a comment/review... I always appreciate those! (Okay, so I loooooove comments =P) This is my final chapter (although I might end up with an epilogue/last-last chapter, we'll see. I've got one in the drafts...)
Although please don't comment or message me with commission offers, I'll just tell you all up front that I'm not interested, sorry!
Mary Jane stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the rather shabby old apartment building. She was leaning on her crutches, still grimacing from the pain and exertion of the two blocks she had limped from the bus stop. In her hands, she clutched the diary. Her heart was pounding as she slowly moved forward, struggling up the few steps to slip through the door and into the dusty, dimly-lit hall.
A tall, reedy girl poked her head out of a hallway door eagerly, her eyes so wide that she looked as if she had been terribly frightened by something as a child and had never gotten over it.
"Ursula?" MJ said hopefully, remembering her brief description of the girl in her diary.
"Yes," Ursula grinned shyly. "How do you know my name?"
"It's… a long story," MJ shrugged as Ursula bounded out into the hall. "Does… does Peter Parker live here?"
"Yes," Ursula seemed to almost be bouncing up and down, as if she was full of nervous energy. "He's not here now, but you can wait for him, if you want."
Mary Jane sagged against the wall, feeling as if the wind had been let out of her sails. It had taken a powerful amount of courage to make it over there in the first place. She had counted on seeing Peter immediately. But it should be expected that he was gone. He was, of course, most likely the busiest person in Manhattan.
"Could I just leave a letter for him instead? And this diary." She knew she could never stand the wait. At least, not here. And her leg was killing her.
"I'll get you some paper," Ursula offered helpfully and, in a minute, she was back, with a small notepad and a pen with red ink. Mary Jane collapsed into a nearby chair and balanced the notepad on her knee. Biting her lip, she poised the pen above the paper, hesitating, before she began to write.
Dear Peter,
I'm afraid you won't remember me. My name is Mary Jane Watson. We went to school together. Actually, we did more than that. A lot more. But neither of us remember.
This is going to sound crazy. Absolutely crazy. But I'm hoping, praying that you will believe me. I didn't make up a word of this. I'm not even going to explain in the letter. I'm just asking you to please read this diary. I hope it makes sense. I didn't even understand it until I read the last couple of entries. They're dated just a few months ago… but I don't remember writing them.
Knowledge, I suppose, isn't the same as memories. And I don't know how to get those memories back. But I pray that they will come back… somehow… and that if they do, it will be for the best. And I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do.
But regardless of what you decide, I miss you, Peter. I miss you terribly. I don't even know how, since all those memories are gone. But something, deep inside of me, hurts terribly. Like a part of me is gone. So, even if I never see you again, even if I never remember, just don't forget that I miss you and I'll be thinking of you always… from wherever I am.
Mary Jane Watson
oOo
Wearily, Peter trudged up the stairs to his apartment, his head hanging and his feet dragging. He had never felt more dejected in his entire life. The emptiness that he felt pounding inside his heart threatened to tear him apart. Dear God, if only he could just remember! If he had just one clue… one tiny little thing to help him understand why his life seemed to be crumbling into ruins about him. Those dreams were the only thing he had to go by. The dreams… and the unspeakable pain in the depths of his soul.
He focused in on Aunt May's words from the day before, trying desperately to draw back that one moment of comfort and hope she had given him. Darkest before dawn, she had said. If that was true, it should be dawning soon. He was sinking lower and lower. He had tried to pray but to this point, he hadn't received an answer.
He paused at his door, hand resting on the knob, as if afraid to go in. A light step in the hall behind him startled him and he whirled to see Ursula staring at him, her grey eyes wide.
"Hi, Pete," she grinned, holding something behind her back.
"Hi."
"Got something for you," Good grief, did the girl never stand still? She was shifting from one foot to the other with her customary shy energy. Peter forced a smile. Ursula was probably the best friend he had. He might as well try and hide his sour mood.
"More cookies?"
"Nope."
"Chocolate cake." Peter hoped it was. Chocolate cake was a surefire way of forgetting your troubles. For about one and a half minutes, that is.
"Nope! Someone stopped by to see you today."
"Who?" Peter felt his pulse quicken.
"She didn't tell me her name."
"She?" Peter stepped forward eagerly, clenching his hands at his sides. "What did she look like?"
"She had red hair," Ursula smiled. "Really bright red hair. And blue eyes. She had a broken leg, too."
"Red hair and blue eyes," Peter repeated in a whisper.
"She left you this," Ursula added, slipping the letter and the little diary into his hands. "She wants you to read them."
Though he didn't know how, Peter felt instinctively that this little book must hold the answer. Why else would he feel this way? His fingers closed around it and he felt his heart skip a beat. The faint scent of strawberries seemed to be lingering in the air. Impulsively, he leaned forward and planted a kiss on Ursula's forehead. Her grey eyes flew open, wider than they had ever been before. But he never gave her a chance to react. With a nod of grateful thanks, he pressed the book to his heart and disappeared into his apartment.
Hours passed by. After three alarms went out from his police radio, Peter threw a pillow at it to silence it, never glancing up from the handwritten words on the pages before him. A thousand scenes flitted through his mind… things that he couldn't remember and yet were somehow buried deep inside of him. His head ached with the enormity of it all and he pressed his hand to the side of his face. It was wet with tears. Tears that wouldn't stop coming.
At last… at last… he had the answer.
oOo
Back in her apartment, Mary Jane paced. On crutches. Dragging her broken ankle like a dead weight. Back and forth and in circles. Casting nervous glances toward the door. At one point, she heard police sirens beneath her window and moved faster than she thought she could. Throwing the window open, she stuck her head out eagerly, straining to see. But he wasn't out there. At least, not that she could see.
Outside, the sun slowly sank in the western sky. The window had not been closed and the curtains rustled in the gentle summer breeze. Far below came the familiar sounds of the never-ending Manhattan traffic. MJ leaned back against the couch, her eyes closing in weariness. Time was crawling by so slowly. And she wasn't even exactly sure what she was waiting for. What if he never came back? Even though he had promised to.
She was tired. So tired. Exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally. And the pain in her leg was more than she could bear. Too weary to wait any longer, she stretched out to her full length, propping her leg up on the arm of the couch.
She didn't know how long she slept, but she awoke with a start at a soft thump just outside the window, her heart racing as it never had before. She had heard that same sound at her window so many times before. She could just barely make out the dim outline of the red and blue figure perched on the windowsill. He didn't speak and neither did she, just stared at each other in the darkness. For a long time he crouched there, not moving. Slowly she pushed herself up so that she was sitting, holding her breath as she waited.
"You… you're here…" she whispered, her voice barely heard. In answer, he stepped through the window and moved forward, kneeling down beside the couch. He tilted his head sideways, looking at her through the strange silver-white eyepieces of his mask.
Reaching out, she gently laid her hand across the raised symbol of the spider on his chest. His heart was beating to match the rhythm of her own. She searched her mind frantically for something to say, but words failed her. She was terrified, trying so hard to remember… but the barrier was still there. The mask… she realized it suddenly… she hadn't been able to take it off before. That something that had held her back… would it stop her again? Keep her from ever remembering again?
Please God, please… please…
Slipping her hand under the hem of his mask, she slowly pulled the fabric away from his skin. She could feel him trembling and her own fingers shook almost uncontrollably. He seemed almost to be holding his breath, staying as motionless as a marble statue. She stared at his chin… his mouth… and then hesitated. It was still holding her back. And yet…
Please… please… I can't do this on my own… we can't do this… please…
…And yet she could feel something starting to return. Some kind of distant memory… creeping up on her like an echo, a shadow, a dream. Her heart was pounding as she reached up and brushed her fingers against his lips. He parted them slightly, and she could hear his sharp intake of air. Slowly, he bent his head towards her and she pulled the mask off all at once, meeting his eyes tentatively as she clutched the bit of scarlet fabric to her heart. Blue eyes. Familiar, beautiful, beloved blue eyes. And her own eyes filled with tears.
"Peter?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Mary Jane," he whispered back, his own voice filled with a kind of reverent awe. He reached forward, touching her face, brushing her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes held his, silently pleading. And suddenly, his arms were around her and she was burying her face in his shoulder, weeping.
It had all come back in a rush the moment their eyes met… a flood of memories. Almost terrifying in their sudden intensity, rolling over her like a tidal wave. As the memories grew stronger, they clung to each other desperately, afraid to let go. Everything was back. Everything. It was as if it had happened only moments ago, although at the same time it seemed a lifetime ago… that terrible night when they had lost each other. They remembered how they had huddled on the floor for hours… all the hours they had left… clinging to each other as if determined to stay together, no matter how hard the monster tried to tear them apart. The striking of midnight… those terrible thunderous tolls of the bell... the hideous cackles of glee… the angry red light swirling blindingly around them…
"I remember, Peter," MJ sobbed into his shoulder, her voice muffled.
"So do I."
"Oh… Tiger… It's been so long… so long." She felt him press his lips to her hair again and again. Lifting her hand to caress the side of his face, she felt his tears falling.
"Don't ever leave me, Peter," she whispered again, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I won't."
Mary Jane tightened her arms around his neck, longing to be even closer to him. He responded to her unspoken desire, sliding her toward him until he cradled her in his arms. She nestled against his chest, feeling the raised pattern of the webbing beneath her cheek, the comforting beating of his heart… and it was so wonderfully familiar. Flinging his gloves aside, he cupped her chin in his hand, raising her face to his. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she felt the soft warmth of his lips brushing against hers.
He slipped a gentle hand behind her head, pulling her closer as their kiss deepened. She savored the moment as she felt again the strength and yet the tenderness of his kiss. Her breath was running short and he pulled back slightly but she moved closer, not wanting it to end. "Don't…" she whispered. "Don't stop." He pushed his lips harder on hers in one last burst of passion and she felt her heart flooding with love as never before. It almost frightened her, the intensity of it. Never, in all her life, had she loved him as much as she did at that moment. With a shuddering sigh, he released her lips and she dropped her head back on his chest. She felt her trembling body relax in the warmth of his embrace and gave way to her weariness with a half-sob of relief and contentment.
When the sun rose the next morning, its bright rays shone on the sleeping forms, still clinging to each other. He was stretched, half-sitting, on the couch with his head resting on hers, his cheek pressed against the splendor of her red-gold hair, as she huddled in his lap with her arms around his neck. The mask of Spider-Man was still clutched tightly in her hand and the little diary lay close by them on the floor. The light of the sun revealed what she, in her frantic distress, had missed completely… the dim and yet traceable patterns where webbing had once been stretched over the cover… the last desperate effort of a broken-hearted man to somehow preserve the only means they would ever have of finding each other again. In the last hours they had on that awful day, as he wrote his last words of love, he had locked the diary, sealing it tightly in yards of webbing, somehow unexplainably preserving the precious words inside from the terrible destruction of every memory they held together.
Peter woke first that morning, opening his eyes to see his sweetheart still curled in his arms. She was always beautiful but to him, on that morning, she was more radiant than the stars in the sky. His red-headed angel, sleeping peacefully with her head pressed against his heart, her shining hair falling around her face. He brushed it back gently, softly pressing his lips to her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and then she, too, was awake, staring up at him with awestruck wonder.
"Morning, Tiger," she murmured, lifting her head, the raised webbing pattern of his suit imprinted on the side of her face. He raised his hand to caress her cheek, gently smoothing the red lines away.
"Morning, Beautiful," he answered, repeating with an overwhelming happiness the same words they had greeted each other with every morning that they had been together since their wedding day.
"Well… it's a brand new day," she smiled, reaching up to brush back the tangled dark hair from his forehead.
"Yeah." He grinned. "So… now what?"
"Now what, what?"
"Well? Do we… uh… get married again?"
"Think we can explain it?"
"I guess…" Peter said slowly. "All we have to do is come up with some crazy story and explain it all to everyone. How about we tell them we've been secretly dating for years and decided to elope?"
"Whatever you say, Tiger," MJ laughed. "But there's one thing I want to do before anything else."
"What's that?"
"Take me for a ride?" She nodded towards the open window. "Don't worry about the ankle," she added, with a shrug. "It doesn't hurt right now and swinging can't make it any worse."
His only answer was a smile. In another moment they were standing on the tiny balcony, MJ having laid her crutches aside with a toss of her hair and a carefree laugh. As Peter slid his gloves back on, she slipped the mask over his face, tucking the hem into the collar of his suit and wrapping her arms and legs around his torso. For a brief moment he stood on the railing of the balcony, taking the extra precaution of webbing her body to his.
"Ready, MJ?"
"Ready, Tiger. Let's fly."
With a wild whoop, Spider-Man dove from the balcony, free-falling as MJ shrieked in pure delight. Stretching out his right arm, he shot loose a shimmering strand of webbing and they swung up again, far above the city streets. She sighed in contentment as she nestled against his chest, letting the feeling of complete security, trust, and peace wash over her as it hadn't in so long.
He stopped to set her down in an old and now familiar place… the beautiful Rockefeller roof gardens. MJ's eyes filled with tears as she slid her eyes over the flowers and trees. Here he had proposed to her nearly two years ago. And she remembered. Even as the memory filled her mind, she realized he was kneeling before her again, yanking his mask off with one hand while he took her hand in the other.
"Well, Mary Jane, I don't have a ring but…" he paused and reached into his pocket, pulling out the silver locket. "I suppose this will do," he grinned.
"Peter…" her voice came only in a whisper as she gasped, pressing her free hand to her heart, waiting.
"Mary Jane Watson Parker." he drew the name out slowly, as if it was a beautiful thing to him and he wanted it to last forever. "I love you now, more than ever. And I…" his voice broke and he hesitated. "I am so… so sorry. I…
"Don't be sorry," Mary Jane smiled sadly. "Please don't be sorry. Just… just say it."
He nodded, tightening his grip on her hand.
"Marry me again?"
"As many times as you ask me to, Tiger," MJ whispered as he pressed the locket in her hand. She clenched her fingers over it tightly, as if afraid to let go.
"Then marry me, marry me, marry me," he whispered back, laughing softly as he stood, taking her hands in both of his.
"Yes… yes… yes." She lifted her face to his and he bent his head, pressing his lips to hers. He lifted her off her feet as they kissed, spinning her in the air and bringing her closer, folding her in his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder, letting her tears fall as he stood there, just holding her.
"For forever this time," he murmured.
"Longer," she answered, her voice muffled in his shoulder. "Longer than forever."
