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It’s been three weeks since that night at the mansion, since the world as I know it ended.

I take in the room at a glance, low lights, exotic dancers on a tight cat walk, several scantily clad women sliding down poles, shimmy and shaking their asses for all they’re worth. It’s a shady nightspot, not known for its prestigious clientele. My keen eyesight and killer instincts lock on my target before my conscious mind has time to catch up.
He’s sitting at a table in the shadowed corner behind the bar. I see a brief flare of orange and know that he is taking a long drag from his cigarette. Seated beside him, one arm draped across his chest, is a pretty girl with mocha skin and pale blonde hair. This makes me insane, I barely prevent my six best friends from exploding from my hands and going for the guy’s throat, instead I approach the table in my usual predatory manner, low and fast.
“Gumbo.”
He jerks his head up but I know he ain’t surprised to see me, he’s more annoyed than anything. “Wolverine.”
“Leave.” I say to the bad doppelganger, my eyes never leaving the Cajun’s. For a moment she hesitates and I know she’s weighing it out: the money Gumbo here’s been laying on her, versus her fear of me. Doesn’t take long. She scoots herself away from him flashes me a nervous smile and darts across the room, pulling her wig off as she goes.
Gambit takes another long drag of his cigarette before crushing it out in the palm of his leather covered hand. “Ya ain’t my keeper, mon frere. I don’ need a babysitter.”
I grab a chair from the table beside us, swing it around on one leg so that I’m straddling it, arms resting over the narrow back. I fix him with a stare before saying, “We both know why I’m here.” He looks at me and I know he hears it too, those softly spoken words echoing in our minds, her velvet voice reaching us over the roar of the wind and the collapsing walls. “Watch after, Gambit.” she’d said. “He will need someone to keep him out of trouble, it follows him.”
I see it cross his face, a flicker of pain and anguish so acute for a moment I look away, knowing his face is a reflection of my own.
For a time neither of us says anything. He reaches across the table grabbing his whiskey, drinking straight from the bottle.
“That helping’?” I snarl. He gives me a humorless laugh.
“Can’t tell. Can’t feel. Don’ wanna feel.” A long pause, his voice taking on a rough cadence. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Fuck.”
I yank the bottle from his hands. “She wouldn’t want this for ya, Gumbo.”
He leans over the table, tries to yank the bottle back, I growl at him. He flings himself back into his seat. “What da hell, Wolverine. Just cause you can’t escape into an alcoholic haze don’ mean ya have at spoil my trip. She ain’t here t’ see. She‘s gone. Fuckin’ Gone! ” He emphasized as if I’d somehow forgotten that small detail. Rage and anger squeeze me like a vise and I have the nearly uncontrollable urge to slam my fist into his overly handsome features. I don’t, because from the look on his face part of him wants me to hit him, and I ain’t in the mood to do him any favors.
Instead I take a long drink from the bottle in my hands, slamming it back on the table, empty. Gambit looks at me, after a second, he says, “Healin’ factor’s a bitch, henh?”
I don’t say anything. He leans back against his chair, rocking it on its hind legs. “Ya gonna stay in da loft?” he asks after awhile. Twice now, since that fateful night, Gumbo has nearly been eviscerated sneaking into her attic loft, dropping in from the skylight. Both times he simply looked at me, at my extended claws and left through the balcony doors, not a word said. Both times he had been shit-faced drunk.
Up until this point I hadn’t given much thought to whether or not I would be staying in the loft. I had been sleeping in her room for months, and even with her gone I couldn’t bring myself to leave, instead torturing myself nightly staying in her hideaway, the place where she had confessed her love for me; laying in the same bed that she and I once shared, where we had made love countless times, the walls echoing with memories of teasing laughter, warm caresses. “Yeah,” I say. “I’ll be stayin’.” What’s a little salt in the wounds?
He nods, as if he approves of my decision. Not that I need his fuckin’ approval. Part of me still blames him for her being gone. If he’d never taken her away, maybe none of this would’ve happened. It’s a real pain in the ass trying to look after someone you want to gut like a fish, but I promised her, and I won’t let her down.
I stand up, ready to leave. He follows, pulling his brown duster on and tapping another cigarette from his pack. I pull out a cigar. He flicks a match and in the amber glow our eyes meet, his glowing devil red, mine I know reflecting the flame. She’d hated us smoking. Without a word he blows out the match, our bad habits left unlit.

It’s raining now, and in the distance I can hear the thunder rolling in. It’s been this way for awhile, freak thunderstorms, sudden shifts in temperature. It’s like mother nature itself is mourning her. I stare at the ceiling with dogged intensity, trying to block out the pain that the sound of thunder carries with it. It’s no use.
Unsolicited, images of her materialize in my mind. She’s sitting by the lake, toes wiggling in the water, her crystal blue eyes bright in the sun, strands of colorless hair floating around her perfect features. She’s leaning against my bike, impish smile playing with her mouth. Long tresses blowing behind us as we speed down the highway, her arms wrapped around my waist, her chin on my shoulder, sweet breath in my ear. She’s standing before me, naked and uncertain clad only in black high heels, her heart in her eyes. She’s beneath me, covered in sweat, skin glowing, mouth parted, eyes closed, head thrown back. She’s leaning over me, she thinks I’m asleep, her hand touches my face, her whispered words of love tickle my ear.
Then the images I’ve tried desperately to keep from my mind come relentlessly. She’s high above us all, black lightening flowing from her body, slamming into the earth with enough force to shake the ground, sending debris flying. Her hair is whipping about wildly as she bends nature to her will, hurricane force winds send demonic creatures sailing through the air, swirling into the funnels she is forming with only her thoughts. I don’t think anyone ever appreciated how unbelievably powerful she was until that night.
Hail the size of golf balls rained down with unerring precision, striking only our enemies, never her fellow X-Men. It’s a control that she’d fought hard for, but it wasn’t doing much good against the swarm of enemies we were engaged with. She knows this, we all do, but we fight ’cause we’re X-Men and that’s what we do. We fight. Until the last.
I roll over, trying to shake the memories from my mind, but they continue and I hear her voice, chanting in the same strange language she used to heal herself those many months ago, a voice that is both beautiful and terrifying as it reaches past space and through time. But this time it ain’t for healing. This time she’s casting a different spell. The demonic creatures hear it and they are afraid, their screeches turning even my blood cold. They take to the air, trying to flee. I think good, to myself, we got ‘em on the run. I think this ‘cause at first I don’t understand what’s really happening. Jeannie does and I hear her screaming for it all to “Stop! Please stop! No! There has to be another way! STOP!” She panicking and I don’t get it, but quickly enough I will.
A portal is opening in the sky, conjured into being by our leader. Our friend. Our beautiful Windrider. She is conjuring up a gate to hell with her melodic voice, summoning the winds back to her, carrying with them the terrible creatures we’d been waging war with.
She looks down at us through the chaos, looks at her family, her eyes swirling and I see their warm blue once more. “I love you, all,“ she says. “My life is blessed for having you in it.” She smiles with aching tenderness, looking directly at me and I see all the love we share in her eyes and my heart stops. I mean it literally fuckin’ stops. Goddamn healing factor kicks it back into gear though. (Gumbo’s right, it is a bitch.) I stand stupid as she swoops down, kisses me hard with every ounce of passion and love she possesses and is gone again before my arms can close around her. “Watch after, Gambit,“ she’s saying…
I roll onto my back, hands over my eyes, trying not to see what I know comes next.
She’s not looking at me anymore, she’s looking at Jean, and Jeannie is shaking her head no,no,no. I‘m beginning to see now, and I am terrified.
“Phoenix!” her voice is hard and demanding, and in that moment I think I hated her a little bit for figuring out that Jean wasn’t strong enough to do what she needed her to do, so she called forth the dormant power of the Phoenix that Jean held within.
The portal was growing larger and I swear I can still hear the voices of thousands coming through it, screams of agony and pain. She’s directly in front of it, and from the look on her face she heard them too. It doesn’t stop her though, instead she spreads her arms wide, eyes filling oil black, mouth moving, but I no longer hear the words ‘cause Jeannie’s flamed out, the Phoenix covering the mansion and us in a protective psi-shield and that’s when my world ends.
It’s over in a blink, like a star collapsing the portal sucks everything in it, the demons, the scattered debris and my heart. There’s a flash of bright light and she’s gone, vacuumed into the blackness behind her. I howled with loss. I was told later that I went crazy, attacking Jeannie. I don’t really remember. I don’t really care.
I sit up, running a hand down my face. The pain in my chest is relentless, unending. I take a ragged breath and close my eyes. Like this, eyes closed, with the smells of her room all around me I can almost feel her here. Almost.
I hear a soft thud and open one eye. Gambit is standing in the center of the room, dripping wet, his red on black eyes surveying the room, as if he’s memorizing it, or maybe he’s reliving memories of his own. Eventually his gaze rests on me, his jaw is clenched. He loved her. Almost as much as I did.
I reach behind me, pulling one of the pillows from beneath the counterpane and tossing it at him. He catches it with reflexes a cat would envy, and brings it to his face, breathing deep. Her scent is still there, I know. He leaves without a backward glance, back up through the skylight with acrobatic agility.
I am once again alone in the dark and silence, the night breeze passing along my bare shoulders like lover’s fingers. On that same wind I hear the muffled sound of broken sobs, and I know the Cajun is on the roof, in the rain, his face buried in her pillow. I envy him that, because I can’t cry. Hell, it’s been three weeks and I can’t even say her name, the pain is so intense.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, looking down at the floor. Slowly I rise, and with deliberate steps I walk to the double doors leading to her balcony. I throw them open, facing the storm, the rain and wind pelting my bare flesh. She’s all around me. In the wind- on the rain- in the loft- in my head. Everywhere and nowhere. I am empty inside, hollow and broken and I hurt, I hurt so much I can’t stand it! I drop to my knees and finally-- finally her name is torn from my throat in a scream of rage and anguish and endless love.
“’RO!!!!”





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