Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction. The here fore used characters belong rightfully to Marvel and I just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this is the pure pleasure of the reader, so no copyright infringement intended. Please do not sue me, I don’t have money and won’t be getting some from this story. I also somehow worked some parts of the lyrics to a song into the story, so these parts were burrowed from the song they belong to, and are also not mine but from Judas Priest’s ‘Close to you’

 Author’s notes: The story is told from two different ways, the thoughts of a person and the story itself. The change in the font marks the change in the storyteller.It is not only a blessing to have the ability to heal yourself, a healing power that also has regenerative effects on body cells. It can also become a curse. 

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For Pari,

a true and very close friend

 Close to you

by Belladonna

What would it be like if you possessed the power to heal yourself and that way to be able to age much more slowly than other people around you. Would you consider this a gift, a true blessing for you or a curse?

I know how I would answer to this question, how I would feel because I am living this life.

It was silent and only a slight and lightly breeze was to be felt at this day when a single person entered the small cemetery behind the mansion, the small cemetery where all the fallen X-Men were buried. The person was alone, he walked slightly hunched forward, so as if his shoulders would no longer manage to hold the weight of his life and had bent forward because of his high age. But that only seemed to be so, for it was not true. Even though the man was indeed fairly old by now, his age did not show up that obviously upon him but the years that had past did. All the years that had passed were clearly showing themselves on his face since he had lost her.

He was wearing a black tux today and it was the same black one he had worn long time ago for his wedding day. He had gotten this one out of the closet for this very day, because for him it was a special occasion. On this day it was his wedding anniversary but he did not think about the years. They reminded him too much of the time that had passed without her. His hair still was black like they had been in his youth although now there were some grey streaks showing, that grew more and more each day.

He held his glance cast down, the look in his sad blue eyes so filled with a pain that clearly showed his loss, one that he had not gotten over yet. He had not gotten over the loss of his beloved wife, even after so many years.

With slow steps he made his way up to her grave, his legs felt leaden and he almost wasn’t able to put one foot before the other, his shoulders hunched over with grief. He still cast his glance down, but he did not have to see where he was going for he knew where his legs would lead him. He had gone this way too often in his past and it never became less painful. All his friends were buried here but the most painful loss was the one of his wife for him. As he had reached his destination he could again feel the deep emptiness his heart surrounded since that fateful day and the pain and grief that had filled this void, the mourning of the woman, he had once loved more than anything else in his life and still did.

~/~

It is so long ago and so many time has passed since then but I still can feel the pain. I still feel it like it had been yesterday but I know that this is not true. The pain is still as strong as on the day that you were taken from me and I could nothing do against it.

It is so long ago, that we were together on this place and that we had been happy. So many time has passed since we last were sitting on the hills behind the mansion grounds and watched the sun setting, together. It had been such a wonderful day and I never have forgotten it, never could. You always knew too well what I thought and felt and I never found out how you could do that to me, but then I have never made a secret about my feelings for you. You knew very well, what you meant for me. But on this special day even you had been surprised, on the day I asked you for your hand.

It was the most joyous day in out lives and our hearts had been one from that day on. Our souls were united and I can well remember all the wonderful things we did from that day on, we did them together. We were meant to be for each other and we both had known it.

All these things, all these memories are still so alive in my heart and mind, you are still so alive through them but I know that all this is nothing more than a wonderful dream I won’t wake up from. I know this very clearly for all the pain still grows with every day and shows me that you are no longer with me., that you are dead.

The memory of you might be alive but you are no longer and most of me has died with you, on the day that you were taken from me. It was the worst thing I could possibly imagine happening to me or I could imagine to happen at all, but I should have known better: I should have known, for it was all so clear to me from the beginning that something like this would happen someday.

Some people would be grateful for the gift of healing, the ability to heal themselves that I call the healing factor that comes with me mutation, my mutant power. Most of them would be truly grateful for the ability to heal even the worst injuries in a matter of seconds on their own and for the regenerative part of it, that is connected to this gift; the ability to regenerate their own body cells. I know people who consider it a blessing, a huge one for this cellular regeneration means also a much slower process of aging. I know these people all to well, for I was once one of them.

But I no longer consider it a gift or a blessing to have this long life, to be able to live that long. For me it has turned into a curse.

All these people, who think only of the good part of it, the ability to live longer than a normal human being, to outlive all others, they don’t know the shadow side of this gift. They don’t know what it is like to loose all your friends, people that are close to your hearts and mean a lot to you. They have no idea what it is like when you have to watch the woman you love more than anything else, die slowly, fade away while you yourself are still young looking on the outside; when all can do is to stand at the side and you have to watch helplessly how she dies, right in front of your eyes. They know nothing of this pain and I hope they never will for it is something I would wish nobody.

All my life I had been a fighter, a warrior and I have seldom lost, but I too have had to face defeat in my long life. But nothing, no fight I had to take in my past could have prepared me for this, nothing could have prepared me for the pain, for how painful this would be and was. Nothing had been able to prepare me for just how painful your loss for me would be, nothing and no defeat has ever hit me so deep inside.

Now all there is left from you to me are these memories of our times we had together, the times we were happy and I was like I had never before been. Now only these memories are left to me, just like I now am standing at your grave and these always will stay alive for me. They will remain alive within me just like you also will forever remain alive in my heart, as long as I live.

I had been with you, when you died. I had held your hand in mine, these strong hands of yours that now had become weak and fragile, but you never were. I had held it in mine and I just had been there with you, even though it had been deeply and endlessly painful for me to have you see like this.

You always have been the only woman for my, the only one that had been that close and the only one who ever was able to look into my soul and to find me in there, how I truly am. I still see your tender and soft face before me, see your lovely eyes, so full of warmth and love. They were the ones I had immediately fallen in love with from the first time I saw them and I still see them right in front of me, the moment that they had closed forever. This moment is forever burnt into my memories and how hard I try to forget this one, I cannot. I still can hear you in my memory, in my mind I still hear your voice. Your voice was so gentle as always, so full of love for me as our hearts had been one for a final time and you told me silently, almost in a whisper that I should not grieve you, that I should not cry for you for you had had a fulfilled live, a joyous life full of happiness and you had had it with me.

When I now remember this day, this very moment, I can feel again my tears rolling down my cheeks, taste them salty on my lips just like in this night and I can do nothing against it.

I have tried, truly tried to only remember all these beautiful memories, to recall just them in my mind and to manage to get over my pain and grief with this, this deep pain and hurt I felt within me, my heart. I really tried but I could not. I could not erase the memory of your fragile body as you were lying there in the bed from my mind. I have not been able to get over all the mourning and grief, all this pain that I felt inside my heart and soul as part of me was torn away by your death, it was all too big, bigger than I had been able to get over it so easily. I still cannot, am not able to get over your death, my love.

My heart has broken on this day, on the day I had to put you into this grave and I have buried a part of me with you here. I still can feel my heart bleeding, feel how it bleeds inside with all this pain of a loss that had been greater to me than I could take. I cannot live without you, I never imagined my life without you but now I had to. I cannot get over all my mourning, no matter how hard I try. I cannot and probably never will.

~/~

He still wore his wedding ring on his finger, a sign of his deep and endless love for her. He had never taken it off and he would be buried with it, once that his time would come for him. But he also knew that he still had to wait many painful years for this moment of final and eternal peace for him. His hand was shaking slightly as he bend down to put the rose down on the grave, the other one touched unconsciously her ring, he wore on a golden chain around his neck. More tears began falling down his cheeks but he did not stop them and he was not ashamed of them either.

Logan felt the emptiness taking over him, felt it spreading from his heart how never before and he fell down on his knees as the pain of her loss again overwhelmed him. He felt emptier than ever before and all that managed to fill this void was his never ending pain and the mourning of the woman, that meant more to him than his own life and for whom he would have given his happily, just to be once again united with her, to be with her for just a moment again.

~/~

I still miss you, Ororo and I will never be able to forget you. You have been a goddess to me, you always were and I have admired you as one for every day of our life together. If I only had could, I would’ve lain you the whole world to your feet. I would’ve done everything for you and given anything I have just to make you happy.

Now I am standing here at your grave, looking down to it but I would give anything for just to be able again once more to walk over these hills here with you, anything for just to be able to watch the sunset here with you together again and to be able to hold your hand in mine. I’d give all away I have if I only could hold you again for just a minute, to hold you tight and to feel you close to me. But I stand here, alone and nothing can bring you back to me.

I think to hear your name being silently spoken in the winds of the evening, but I am alone and I know it, I can feel it since you were gone.

Nothing had been more painful than to loose you and in this moment that the wind whispers your name I know that clearer than before. Now that I can hear your name in the gentle breeze I realize that no time of the world will ever manage to heal the pain in my or to make the loneliness within me disappear. I know exactly that it is said, time would heal all wounds but not this one, for it is much too deep and painful.

The others have tried to help me get through this pain, they told me how to get over it the best way but they have got no clue.

They have told me, I could manage to achieve this best when I just would let loose and begin to concentrate on another thing in my life, to find my life again and maybe even find a new love for me, someday. But they are wrong and I know that, for you had been my life and that will never change, even though now you are gone.

They gave me advice and tried to help me, but how could they ever understand. How could they possible ever understand what I feel and how much this loss hurt me. They have no idea how it is to outlive the woman you love more than anything else in this world, how it is when you have to watch her die and the same time you yourself are only aging slowly, when you are still almost looking like on the day of your wedding even though that had been years ago. When you are aging much more slowly than your loved ones because of your gift and are because of this able to love longer. What a great gift that is. The others couldn’t possibly know that I would have rather died with you then than being condemned to continue living my life without you.

I have loved you from the first time our eyes met and I still do, even after so much time. They have said I’d find another woman, but none of them has the slightest idea of what we had together. No woman will ever come so close to me like you did and I will never be able to love another woman besides you, I never could. Because no other woman in the world is like you, they never could be.

I loved you from the bottom of my heart and I still do. I will always love you, until the moment that we will again be together, being one again like we always had been in out hearts.

I could never love another woman like I loved you, for no other woman ever could be like you have been, ‘Ro.

No other woman could come close to you, never.

~fin~

(inspired by the song  ‘Close to you’, by Judas Priest)