I’m here without you, baby
But you’re still on my lonely mind
I think about you, baby
And I dream about you all the time
~3 Doors Down
Logan’s fingers traced the fading paper and nearly invisible ink of his beloved wife’s diary, his heart aching in his chest. The dark red sky swirled angrily above him, a herald of all that was to come in the near future.
He was happy his wife was not here to witness this. For the last several decades, the world had torn itself apart with nuclear threat, disease, and now…meteors. Ororo had once told him that she believed all beings on the planet were allotted a certain window of time in which to dominate before the Great Mother wiped the slate clean. To start again. She often told him that when mankind pushed too far, too fast, the Earth would take steps to protect herself.
Over the last long, lonely years, he had witnessed this theory proven. When man became too arrogant, too caught up in petty wars and religious frenzy, the world moved to wipe them away. Something else would replace the bad. He knew it.
Holding the diary in his hands, he shifted his aged and weary body, glancing at the field of headstones surrounding him. They had all been moved a hundred times over the eternity he’d spent alone. When something threatened their bones, he immediately had them exhumed and relocated. They were all he would have when the end reached him.
Logan looked back at the diary in his hands, running a loving thumb over the script that was his wife’s name on the first page. She had started the diary toward the end, wanting him to have some record of how much she loved him. Her last entry was dated just before her death, and told of the coming surprise that would change their lives.
Ororo had learned just after the trip to the Bayou that first time “ when they’d become engaged “ that she was pregnant. They were overjoyed and perhaps a touch terrified when they learned of the upcoming birth. Prita, of course, had no idea what was happening, but she loved to lay her head on her mother’s swelling belly.
Closing tired eyes against the sulfur-filled air, Logan continued the internal monologue he’d kept up with ‘Ro’s diary and his own memories.
~**~
Logan speaks:
Time’s comin’. Been waitin’ for it. Since the day she left me, I’ve been waitin’ fer this day. I just wish I had time to go back through the rest of those years together.
Where’d we leave off? Oh, right. The baby. Right after Kitty and Pete got hitched, ‘Ro went to have her yearly X-Men physical to declare her fit for active duty. Trust me, I think Hank near had a heart attack when he came outta the office, tellin’ Storm an’ me that we were gonna have a baby.
I think I almost died in that moment. Her eyes filled with tears an’ she hugged me. I felt like my life was jus’ startin’. I had ‘Ro, Prita, and a new baby on the way. I don’t think anythin’ coulda topped that moment.
Coupla weeks later, Papa Jean flew out an’ ‘Ro had her simple wedding on the lakeshore. I can still see her dress, if I close my eyes. It was white, just like her hair. One of those tube-like tops, showin’ off her shoulders. Fell to the ground. She wasn’t wearin’ shoes. She was carryin’ a buncha lilacs in her hands. Her hair was up in a pretty bun thing.
She was smilin’. My heart might as well’ve dropped right outta my ass. There wasn’t nothin’ so beautiful in the world. I’ve seen the whole damn world, an’ I know it’s true.
We had a boy a few months later. Happy an’ healthy. Named him Charles, cause Xavier brought us together. Two years later, we had another one. He was a tiny thing, always was, but we named him Hank.
Hank McCoy…man, I miss old Blue. He passed on right before Little Hank was born. Took a bullet from an anti-mutant bastard. ‘Ro took it hard, but we kept on goin’. Its what she always did best. Survivin’.
Prita, Hank, and Charlie were the light of our life. We kept on with the mutant-equality fight, but our major concern was the kids. They were fuckin’ beautiful an’ drove me nuts, let me just say. The shit those three could get into was insanity. Kept ‘Ro an’ me on our toes.
One-Eye got sick just after Prita’s tenth birthday. Cancer. How’s that fer ironic? Spent his days in danger an’ cancer kicks his ass. Didn’t take long, but the poor guy was in some serious pain at the end. He held my hand when he died. Jeannie musta been waitin’ for him, cause he smiled like the sun just came up. I miss that fucker. I miss him more than any of the others, except maybe my wife.
After One-Eye left us, ‘Ro had another baby. What a surprise, we named him Scott. ‘Ro never got over losin’ Jean an’ losin’ Scott was almost worse. I still say Scott lived on in my son. There were times he’d look at me…an’ I’d swear it was One-Eye.
Been so long…I’ve been alone for two millennia. Two thousand years. Never thought I’d live that long. Never thought I’d see everythin’ I’ve seen. I watched my beautiful wife grow old. She died like she shoulda, an old woman warm in her bed. She used ta say she envied my youth, but I know she only hated leavin’ me alone.
I wasn’t alone. Even when Magneto and Chuck passed on “ died of old age, on the same damn day, go figure “ I still had my kids. Kitten and Peter’s kids. Gambit an’ Rogue’s adopted little ones…whole new generations of mutants. We kept the school runnin’ for about three hundred years. We won the right to live, us mutants, but we tended to prefer livin’ apart a bit.
After the school closed an’ my kids were gone, I kept an eye on my grandbabies and great-grandbabies. Ain’t another soul in the world can say they’d watched their line begin an’ then die out. I can. Just me. I followed the line of my kids to the end, bout five years ago when the last was killed in a small meteor shower.
I don’t know what year it is, exactly. But age finally caught up with me. I figured it out, though. I age…just real slow. If I were translatin’ my age into normal human, I’d be about the same as ‘Ro was when she left me.
God, I miss her. I’ve missed her every second of every day. She made me promise I wouldn’t do nothin’ drastic. ‘Have to play it out, my Logan’, she said. I did. Been alone way too fuckin’ long and if Prita hadn’t kept a close eye on her old man, I mighta done somethin’ stupid those first awful years.
Hell, more meteors. Damn, they’re gettin’ close. It’s almost time. I’m comin’, baby.
I didn’t off myself, obviously. It was fascinatin’ to watch my kids and all grow up. We had doctors an’ scientists in our line. We had authors an’ musicians, teachers, lovers, wives, husbands…parents. My family was fuckin’ awesome. More than I expected. I’m damn proud of what ‘Ro an’ I started.
Here I am, alone at the end of the world. Jean, Scott, Marie, Remy, Hank, Chuck, Kitten, Peter…they’re all here with me. My other family. That’s why I had to move ‘em. I wanted them here, when it was time to go. None of it’ll be here long, but this is where I belong.
I think this place is where the school used to be. Nothin’s been here a long time, the earth already took it back. But it’s pretty, it’s home.
Oh, finally. Here it comes. I’m goin’ home.
I’m comin’ home, ‘Ro. I’m comin’ home.
~**~
There was no pain.
One moment Logan was looking into the torn sky, watching the rain of fire coming toward his old body. There was a sharp pinch, and then nothingness. He feared, for a moment, that his ancient past had caught up with him. He was going to hell.
Then, there was light. Soft glowing that shone down on him. He looked to his hands, which had grown wrinkled and spotted as time took its toll on him. Now, however, they were youthful and strong. No more aches and pains that came at the end of life. Not anymore.
Logan glanced around him, noting the semi-corporeal forms of people he knew. Tears welled in his eyes as Jeannie and Scott waved to him, the others standing with happy smiles on their faces all around him.
A lump formed in his throat when he saw his children, gone so long, standing before him. Prita, his beautiful daughter. Charles, the first son who had been so like his father. Hank, a soft, darling boy with his mother’s eyes. And Scottie, proud, accomplished, and the perfect blend of mother and father.
He touched each of their cherished faces, remembering in an instant the lifetimes he had shared with them. Prita and her husband were surrounded by their children. His sons stood with their respective families. Logan and Ororo’s legacy was gathered here, waiting for him.
And then, out of that same, welcoming light, he saw her. No longer was she an old woman, smiling weakly from a warm bed. His lost wife was as he, young and forever beautiful. Logan moved as the crowd parted to allow him passage. He hoped this was not another dream. It was too real, too wonderful.
For the first time in two thousand years, he heard a voice that had been his salvation for a mere fifty-seven.
“Welcome home, my Logan. I have been waiting for you.”
She took him into his arms. Logan fell into her embrace and he could distantly hear the sound of Johnny Cash on an ancient record player as they began to dance. Her eyes met his, shining with the love and promise of eternity he had wished for every lonesome day.
Warmth suffused his cold soul in her arms, the feeling of being home again a salve on the pain he had endured to survive.
