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.

Author’s notes: This fiction is the aftermath of my Jean/Logan romance and can be seen as a companion piece to What took you so long. It is the final part of the Study in Romance.

What started out with one couple, I will end with one. Only a glimpse into a man, who had everything to loose and lost and into a woman who had not only been able to win with her decision but also to loose everything she had thought her life before.

The change in font marks the change in the speaker this time as well.

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A study in Romance

An epilogue in 2 Parts

by Belladonna

Part 1

Silent Screams 

In the main hall of the School for the Gifted in Westchester, hidden in the shadows stood a man. He stood there unnoticed and he didn’t want to be noticed. He couldn’t stand facing them now.

He watched as Jean and Logan fell into each others arms, as he touched her so gently and as they ended up in a deep and tender kiss. They didn’t seem to notice him for he was hidden very well in the dark shadows of a corner, but not only this hiding place for him was surrounded by shadows but his heart as well as he realized what this meant, for him and especially for them.

He simply stood there, unable to say or to do anything, he was paralysed in his shock, the pain he’d felt in the moment as Logan’s hands gently stroked over her cheeks and their lips met was more than he could bear or would ever be able to stand. Stunned by the pain and agony in his mind he couldn’t move nor turn his gaze away, his eyes were frozen onto the lovers, frozen onto the woman he’d once loved more than anything before in his life and still did and onto the man who had simply stepped into their lives and deprived him of his love. In his mind he cried out but he knew that he wouldn’t be heard and that it would or could never ease the pain he felt right now. All he could do was to watch how his life slipped out of his hands with this very moment.

Scott Summers was a man who had had everything to loose and had painfully to realize that he had lost all that now; his life he’d had, his happiness with the only woman who meant something to him and her love, all was lost to him.

Deep within everything was empty and a dazing coldness crawled slowly into his heart, and would never release it again.

In his hands he held the broken pieces of his life, the fragments of his heart and his soul which shattered in this very moment.

~/~

Oh, Jean, why are you doing this to me? Why can you no longer love me? I have given you everything, my heart, my soul and I’d give you my life only to be it again, to be the one you want to hold in your  arms, you want to love.

What have I done to deserve this, this pain that is moving into my heart now?

Deep within me everything is empty, all my life has gone away as I see you now kissing him. Deep within everything is dead, killed the moment your lips have touched. The emptiness within is filled with pain and that is more than I can bear. I don’t understand why you prefer him, what is it that no longer makes you feel anything for me, that makes you no longer able to feel love for me? I cannot understand it, my thoughts are clouded with unspeakable pain, stunned by the recognition to have lost you, for ever. All that had ever meant something to me, you Jean and our love, all that I have lost, ripped out of my body and my soul, all that’s left is my heart and soul, lying open, raw and full of pain.

You have been my only true and first love, Jean and you will it be for ever and even if you don’t want to be happy with me or cannot longer be, I wish for you to be happy. I am so terribly sorry that you couldn’t be it with me, I’d given you everything to be the one you would want to be together with, to be happy with. I don’t know whether I will be able to bear the deep pain within me but as long as I see you happy I hope to ever manage to stand it and to live with it for I know that it will be from now on my constant companion and that it will never vanish nor become more less painful.

Can you understand my feelings, Jean? Can’t you see how much you have hurt me with this? Why have you done this? What reason had it been, that caused your love for me to die and cool off so it can only burn for him now? Can’t you see what pain it causes me to see you here with him, to know, really know now to have lost everything that had been ours?

To loose you has always been the worst thing I could have imagined to happen and now I have to see it with my own true eyes. I had so much hoped that you could still love me,  love me again but this hope has died with my heart and the worst thing at this, what causes me all this pain is not your rejection but I myself for I still love you; I cannot stop loving you, Jean.

In the silence of my soul I am screaming out my pain, the agony of my heart I now feel when I think of you and our love, when I see what I have lost.

I have lost everything, even the chance I had so much wished for, the chance to win you again for me, to be with you again. I am trying to ease the pain and I hope I will be able to manage this one day, it tears me apart from within, my heart broken into pieces already. With every silent scream, each silent plea I hope for me to defeat the pain, to kill it but it is everything my shattered heart is able to feel now, beside that there is nothing, only the emptiness of despair and the loneliness of my loss. My mind wails in agony and nobody can ease this pain, this pain of the loss of a love I’d thought to be my life.

Every time my tortured heart screams I desperately try to understand why, but I cannot. I will never understand this for every time I will think of it and try to understand I will see the broken pieces of our love in front of me, that I am holding in my hands now, the shattered pieces of my life and our future.

With each of my silent screams I desperately try to put these pieces back together again, but I am not capable of doing so again; with each of the silent screams of my broken heart and dying soul I am made aware that I still love you, Jean and that causes me an even greater pain and hurt deep within my heart, in my mind and my soul.

I know that this pain will never go away, that I can never banish it from my heart or kill, no matter how loud my silent screams might be.

Part 2

She cried

Jean was happy, in this moment she had gotten total clarity about her feelings for Logan and his for her and she was sure of herself, she’d never been more sure about anything before. Logan loved her and his feelings for her were so strong she wasn’t able to do anything to block them. Jean didn’t want to block them out of her thoughts or mind, for they revealed his honest and deep love for her. When he stood in front of her, his eyes so warm and loving, as he touched her skin, the tips of his fingers so gentle and electrifying, she dived into her love for him and drowned in emotions, she’d only dared to dream before. She wished so much, that he would love her and now this wish, that had come out of the bottom of her heart had become reality. Logan bent forward to her and took her in his arms before he gently kissed her for the first time. Jean felt as if she could fly and that was what her heart was doing now, floating within her love for him.

But in this moment, the moment her lips touched his, she felt the scream of a tortured soul, the wail of a dying heart so full of agony before it would shatter and be lost forever. She felt that a cold hand was clutching at her own heart as she recognized the origin of this wail and how this hand was slowly squeezing around her heart.

Scott was standing in the shadows and been watching as she had kissed Logan, he had seen how much she felt for him and what Scott had lost.

That was the moment she’d feared most. She was so sure of her feelings for Logan, more than ever before but now the moment had come when she had to hurt Scott, something she didn’t want to do but for this it was already too late. It was too late for everything and that was it that she had realized now as well as he had. She felt him cry out in anguish, a pain she had seldom felt before in any other heart or soul. But she was unable to do anything to ease this pain for it had been her, who had caused it.

Logan didn’t seem to notice anything of this, he didn’t seem to notice that Scott had returned and was now standing in the corner of the hall, hidden deep within the shadows where none of them could see him. He didn’t see him, couldn’t feel his pain that Jean was now able to feel. And she felt with him, felt his loss with him for she had to realize painfully that she had not only won this evening but lost highly too. She realized that she had lost him completely.

Jean felt how hot tears began rolling uncontrolled over her cheeks as she realized her loss now as well, a loss that was higher than she could have imagined before.

~/~

I can feel him, I know exactly that he’s been watching us, seen us and I have felt his pain. I have felt how his heart broke and that puts a cold hand around mine. I never wanted him to feel this much pain, never wanted to hurt him but I have done it nonetheless. I have hurt him so much, so deeply like no one had ever done before in his life an I’d do anything to make this pain undone, but I cannot. I cannot make it undone, cannot make undone how I feel even if it means to loose him completely. I never wanted to loose you, Scott and I hope you will understand this.

Oh, Scott, I can understand you better than you might imagine and I’d do truly anything to ease this pain, to take it away from you but I cannot do it for I know I have no right to do so. I have caused you this much pain and I am so terribly sorry for this. I am so terribly sorry that I had to do this but I have realized that my heart beats for Logan, more than it does for you now.

I will always love you but I have to follow my heart, I cannot act differently and I hope you will understand it one day. I have made my decision even if you cannot understand it. Maybe I cannot understand it myself but I have to do what my heart tells me to. I cannot explain it to you but I hope you will understand me, understand that I only have to do what I think the right thing to be. I cannot make it undone, make undone what you have seen or feel right now and I have hoped for you not find out this way, what I feel for Logan. But I do love him now, I really do.

You have been the best thing that could have happened to me in my life and I don’t want to loose this. I will always love you, too, you will have a special place in my heart for ever but it will never be the way it was, I know that now. And I know that I have lost too now the best thing in my life, you.

I hope you will be able to forgive me one day for I still love you, Scott. I have lost as much this day like I have won, I know that also now. I have lost something that had been the most important thing in my life, our friendship and I hope for that one day we will be able to find back to this again even if I now love Logan.

I cannot hold back my tears any longer, your pain is too much to bear for me and I am responsible for it. I feel my heart breaking under the screams of your heart and soul, they touch me so deeply. I cannot prevent my tears from running down my cheeks and I feel the warmth of them, a warmth that can never meld the cold of my loss, of having lost you.

I shed them for you, Scott, I cry for you and for what we had had that is now no longer. I cry for the pain you feel inside you and hope for you that it will be easier for you within time. I want you to be happy and wish you to find the happiness we’ve had again.

I am happy that I have found the strength to tell Logan what I feel for him and that he feels the same for me but in the same moment I am so sad, so sad to have lost you, which I never wanted to happen. I don’t regret my decision but I regret that it hurts you so deeply, so much. I’ve never been able to imagine a life without you and still cannot. To see how you suffer now, to realize this unspeakable pain and agony of your soul makes my heart break too. It tears mine as it tore yours apart for it is the least thing I’ve ever wanted. I never meant you to feel this way, never meant to hurt you.

I hope you will one day understand why I had to do this, that I had to follow my heart and feelings and I hope you will be able to forgive me then. You still mean so much to me and I hope that you know that, that you know you will always have a special place in my heart, for ever as long as I live.

~fin~