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He was sitting by her side…

He was sitting by her side…awake…

He was awake because he hadn’t slept…

He hadn’t slept because he did not…could not, take his eyes off her….

He could not take his eyes off her because he was afraid that she would vanish….

He was afraid because of what she had said to him…what she had revealed…

She had revealed that her time on this world had grown short…

…that the fates had chosen to cut her lifeline short.

----

//Flashback//

Asleep in the infirmary, Ororo was spending her second night in her new ‘room’, one that was being specially modified for her, for how she was going to become in the upcoming days, weeks…at the most, months.

She had tossed and turned for hours, just like her first time three nights ago. As yet ‘in trial’ she was only sleeping to allow Henry to monitor and record her body’s reactions to the colorless, odorless, tasteless…cell. At fourteen feet by eighteen feet by twelve feet, it was large enough to accommodate her claustrophobia, but that wasn’t what had struck her. It was white all over. Bland ‘hospital’ white. Even the bedding, bedsheets and pillows, were all white. Except for the door on the far side, the only opening into the room was for the air. Even that was specially modified with a new ‘stilling’ design that the resident Blue-genius had come up with. The special vents were designed, not only to triple filter the already filtered air, but also to slow down the inflow speed to near zero. Even the temperature was kept at a constant 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was all being done for when she would no longer be able to exist in the open outdoors, or even the closed confines of her real room.

--

In an uneasy slumber and closed off in her soundproof cage, she missed the uproar just a few feet away. She did not even wake up when someone stepped into the ‘sanitizing’ half, both to get a swift cleaning and to change their clothes, donning the special, one use only gowns that had been hung there. It was only when that person stepped up to the door, a third someone entering the code to unlock it, did her ears twitch at the almost silent hiss of the metal partition sliding away into the wall.

As her visitor approached her, almost furtive in his steps, her own body started to react to him, not because of any illness or any powers of hers or his, but because of something more intimate, something more pure. And even before she opened her eyes to face him, she already knew who it was that had come at such a late hour…and that too her being informed of it first.

‘He’s come back.’ Her heart cried, and one look at him, and so did her eyes.

“Logan…”

He looked so tired, ragged with his unshaven, week old stubble, his gaunt form telling her about his recent eating and resting rituals...or lack there of. But it wasn’t that was struck her most, that honor went to the his deep hazel eyes, eyes with an ocean of emotions welling up in them, eyes with tears glimmering in them.

“Wh-What are..y-you…doing here?” She broke the silence first. How had he come to know about it? The Professor couldn’t locate him with Cerebro and neither his Lawyer, Matt nor Jubilee had any idea about his whereabouts. So, how…

“What happened to you?” He answered her question with one of his own.

Tearing out of Vancouver, bidding Yukio and Mariko a hasty farewell, his mind and heart already half a continent away, Logan had driven day and night. As with the previous time, this time around too he stopped for nothing but gas. However, unlike the first time, his whole return trip passed without him sleeping even for one minute. Thanks to Yukio’s forcing him to sleep and the way she had literally shoved the food into his mouth, his healing factor had not only recovered but also developed a sizeable reserve, one that lasted him the entire trip…keeping him on the road and not off it, either in some ditch or in front of someone else’s vehicle.

Arriving at the mansion, he did not stop and thankfully (for them) the gates responding to the transmitter installed in his truck, opened up as he nearly drove into them.

Not bothering to ring the door bell and waste time waiting for someone to open it and greet him, snikt-ing the claws out, Logan scaled up the side of the mansion, right up to the balcony adjoining Ororo’s room. That it was locked had set off his alarms even more, and not finding her or even a fresh scent of hers inside was enough to set him off the ticker…sending him right for the infirmary where he had near about gutted Hank at his efforts to assuage him and try to get him to let Ororo get some sleep.

He wanted to see her and he wanted to see her NOW!


“Logan, I…” Her hands clasped behind her back, Ororo suddenly found herself tongue-tied. Didn’t she have so much that she wanted to say to him, tell him all about what she had done and why she had done it. It had all been for him. She knew that he wasn’t happy and that had pained her. She knew that her dying would hurt him even more, cause him even more pain…until the time he loved her. And that was the last thing she wanted for him. She had so much… And what now.

“What happened Ororo?” Starting to take a step towards the dumbstruck Ororo, Logan stopped short as she skittered away from him, his earlier doubts raising their head again. In his mad rush to get to her, he had forgotten that he no longer had a say in her life….nor was he supposed to have any interest. She had made her thoughts and choices pretty clear the last time he was here, and neither of them were about him.

“’Ro…” Logan’s frustrated sigh was what jarred Ororo out of her stupor, her own thoughts going wild at the way he just seemed to give up, his hand falling to his side, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

‘Goddess. No!’ She near about cried out. She had seen this stance of his before, not once but a few times, recently because of quite a few reasons involving her…their separation, the subsequent divorce, his failed efforts at trying to get her to talk to him…just see him and then finally, her making her think that she no longer loved him and that she not only loved another but had also already chosen to marry that person.

She knew that if he did not say anything now, not only would he leave, he would do so forever. He would never return here…to the mansion, to her…to their children, all three of them and even to what remained of her life.

--

Warring at herself whether to just let him go, to set him free once and for all or whether to stop him, hold onto him…even if she had to beg to make him do so, Ororo almost got lost within herself, only coming to her senses when Logan started to turn away from her, his slouched form heading towards the exit.

“Logan!” She did cry out this time, her throat choked in a weird mixture of love, hope and fear. “Wait. Please…”

“What?” His growl sounding hoarse, even though his steps halted, Logan did not turn to face her.

“Please…” Temporarily surmounting her fear, Ororo took a hesitant steps towards him. “Don’t go. Don’t leave…me,” the last word, spoken mostly to herself would have gone unheard, had it been anyone other than the Wolverine’s hearing.


She waited, and getting no reaction for a few seconds it looked as if he might truly leave. Both of them knew that this might be the one last chance they would have to be together…though not for the same reason. While Ororo thought so because of her affliction, Logan knew that she had made her move and even though she had turned away from him just a few weeks ago, now she was in need of help…of his help, of him.

In the end, there was no question, no problem, no nothing. All the past year’s pain and doubts could not remove or even hide what both of them knew and held in her hearts….their love for each other.

--

Turning around, he stood straight to face her, still not taking a step further. That move would have to be hers…all hers.

“Tell me what happened to you.”

Watching with deep staring eyes, his senses trying to detect a change, a problem in her…but not able to find any, Logan waited calmly. At the first touch of her slim fingers at his bearded jaw he nearly lost it, his legs ready to give up under him, his arms aching to ride up and go around, embrace her.

Rising up on her toes, Ororo leaned in. “I’m sorry...” she whispered, her lips gently caressing his. “I’m so sorry.”

“’Ro?!” His rough hands gripping at her upper arms, his voice betraying his losing the battle against the fear welling up within him, Logan stared at Ororo, not quite ready to ‘read’ the signals that she was sending out. He did not dare do it.

“I’m sorry Logan…” letting her head fall onto the hard chest of the man she loved, Ororo bit back her sobs…just long enough to get those bitter words out. “I’m sorry I’m going to leave…that I am dying.”

//End Flashback//

---

Sitting on the floor by her bedside, his hands protectively grasping hers, Logan was still trying to come to terms with what was happening to her…to this Goddess….to his wife.

She was dying, not by any disease or any injuries obtained in battle or even by any poison or anything. She was slowly but surely withering away, her body breaking from the inside, from the one thing that defined her…her mutation.

The same powers that gave her the control over the elements, that allowed her to rise up and reach for the clouds…to dance there, they were the ones that were destroying her, eating away at her central nervous system.

And there was no way to stop it.

In spite of all his efforts, all his tests, all the people that he contacted, Henry still could not come with a way to stop it from spreading…or cure it.

Within six months she would no longer be able to control her body, let alone her powers and if things continued the same way, within a year she would either be dead or deteriorated to a fate even worse (from her P.O.V.), a comatose shell, one kept alive only by the use of machines.

A year…just a year.

And then Logan would be all alone…again.

Note: I had initially thought on using either an inoperable brain tumor or maybe pancreatic cancer (also incurable), but then decided against it. As for this problem, Ororo was shown to have this in the first Book/Volume of ‘X-Men: The End’. That time they managed to keep her alive…but here…

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