There was a time, not so very long ago, when he couldn’t even think of coming here. He would return unwillingly every time he dared dream, to cold and dead and tears, waking in a breathless panic with those unspoken words still on his lips. His dreams were enough – too much, even. He wanted as far away from the memories as he could. He didn’t want to go back to standing there, looking at where she should have always been. He didn’t want to remember that she was gone.
Kitty had known, even when Logan hadn’t; he needed to stand there, within the threshold where he could feel shadows of his 'Ro, looking out at the sweeping forest much as she probably had that day before she left. He had needed to remember, even when he had run so hard and far from it.
And now he cherished the memories, taking in the bad as wonderful and glorious as the good. He always came back, at least weekly, to that place – the threshold. He came and he stood and he remembered, allowing himself to slip back into those years they had before the Universe turned cruel. He would close his eyes and return to a pickpocket who picked his locks, a space station filled with aculates, a mistletoe-coated library in christmas at the manor, a blindingly white ball of lightning thrown down striking an enemy, a young woman who misjudged him early, a punk rock woman whose lps tasted so good. He would close his eyes and remember, and for just a moment he would again live – really, truly live. It had taken death and loss and sealed walls to make him stop the lies, because that’s all he had done for those years. He had grabbed her hand, and he had told himself that shock of electricity was just her mutant power on over drive. He had kissed her, and he had told himself it was just to save her life. He had crushed her with hugs, and he had told himself the fluttering in his stomach was just bad beer. He had sent her away into the arms of another by never saying what was there in his heart, and he had told himself he didn’t really kill himself in the process.
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