The Pain Of Tomorrow

By Nadja Lee 04/12/00

English is not my native language. Please forgive me my mistakes.

Disclaimer: “X-men” and all the characters here belong to Marvel , 20 Century Fox and I intend no infringement, this is a piece of amateur fan fiction, and I make no money of it.

Only the original idea contained within this work is the property of the author. Please do not copy this story to any website or archive without permission of the author.

Timeline: Set after the movie

Universe: Set in the movie universe. Only the movie NOT the book that goes with it!

Pairing: Scott/Ororo, Logan/Rogue and Jean/Warren

Summary: Scott has fallen ill and asks Ororo the one thing she can’t do. Or can she?

Archiving: Want, ASK, take, have.

Feedback: Yes, please. My e-mail address is neh@post10.tele.dk.

Rating: PG-13

Series: Part 3 of Pain Series but can be read as a stand- alone.

Warning: Character death! (kind of).

Thanks to Nancy for great and wonderful beta. Thanks so much!

* * *

“Scott, how are you feeling tonight?” Ororo asked her husband, concerned as she entered sickbay after having left him for a few hours to do some paperwork in regard to the school that couldn’t wait.

Scott had been bound to a hospital bed in the mansion’s sickbay for a year now and his absence was obvious, leaving her with a lot more to do. Before he had been forced to let her help with the running of the school she hadn’t realised just how much work he usually did.

It was now evening, around nine, and stars had appeared on a clear late autumn night. She had been teaching classes all day but always ate all her meals with Scott and she had had a bed set up beside his so she could sleep with him as well, never leaving him as she had promised all those years ago. She hated leaving him for the slightest second but knew she had to. She just didn’t like Scott to be alone and if she couldn’t be with him someone else often was. If no one else, Hank or Jean would be there in their capacity as his doctors.

“ I’m …fine,” Scott rasped weakly and with a small gesture indicated she should sit by his bedside. Gracefully as ever she walked through the room, sat by his side, and took his hand in hers. Once, when they had married, Scott had had strong hands, which could completely cover hers. Now, they were small and weak and she could easily fold her hands around his. Her long white hair had grey streaks in it but with years she had lost none of her grace and beauty. Scott’s brown hair had also held grey streaks but now it was all gone due to the intense chemotherapy he had been undergoing.

“The children want to see you. Won’t you please let them come? It has been two weeks since last time,” Ororo asked softly, her voice holding no hint of condemnation over Scott’s decision.

“ I …don’t want… them to see… me… like… this,” Scott said weakly and indicated the machine which was monitoring his heartbeat and all the other equipment around him. Soon after their wedding almost twenty years ago, Ororo and Scott had adopted Sarah. Even though he of course loved his two other children that he had with Ororo, Charles and Marissa, very much, Sarah had always held a special place in his heart due to their shared childhood pains.

“Everything will be alright. I know it will,” Ororo said softly, needing to reassure herself more than him. They both knew she was lying even though she didn’t want to admit it.

“You…know…that…it... isn’t…true. I’m…dying. I have…accepted…that…Why can’t you?” Scott whispered weakly, no fear in his voice. He had always been a man of action and these past months had been hell for him. He had felt his body weakening and his strength leaving him. If it hadn’t been for Ororo he doubted he would have kept on fighting this losing battle.

“I…can’t. I love you.” Ororo’s courage finally deserted her and she broke down crying and laid her head on Scott’s shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you,” she sobbed into his shoulder. He closed his arms around her and held her close. As her tears died away he whispered softly.

“Do…something…for…me?”

“Anything,” she vowed and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand as she sat up and looked into his shaded eyes.

“Take…me…outside…..Don’t….let….this…,” with a weak hand he indicated the white and sterile medical-lab in the mansion that had once belonged to Xavier but was now owned by Scott and would soon go to Ororo. “…be…the…last…I…see”

“But if I move you, you’ll die!” Ororo protested and shook her head. She couldn’t possible do what he asked. She of all people understood his desire to be at one with nature in the end but she couldn’t do as he asked. She couldn’t. She still clung to the foolish hope that there was still a hope to cling to. As long as he lived there was hope.

“I…am…already…dead,” she wanted to deny it and began to sake her head but Scott spoke again. Do…this…for…me,” he asked her weakly and she heard something in his voice she had never heard before; pleading. If she could have seen his eyes through the shades she would have seen a single tear forming in the corner of his eye and a pleading look. She remembered all too well that both Hank and Jean had told her that Scott’s body was weakening. He was dying. Hank was the mansion’s new doctor and teacher. Jean had been working part time at the mansion as a doctor but no longer as a teacher or anything else. She had instead been working in town, trying to find cures for deadly illnesses and trying to find out if there were ways to control or stop a painful and or deadly mutation. Despite their best effects and combined knowledge they hadn’t been able to come up with any leads. Even after Jean had pulled on all her very rich mutant husband, Warren’s, money and power to try and save her one time lover, and now friend, the result had still been the same. There was no cure.

A part of Ororo was glad that Xavier had passed away two years earlier because she knew how much he had loved Scott. It would have hurt Charles to see him like this and it would have hurt Scott to know he saw him this helpless. Magneto had sought Xavier out when he had felt his won body weakening and he had spent the last year of his life with his old friend, living at the mansion. Strangely enough Xavier had peacefully died in his sleep only three weeks after Magneto died.

She had tried to deny the truth before but she couldn’t deny it any longer. She was losing Scott, her husband and the only man she had ever loved that strongly. Just the realisation of it almost broke her.

“As you wish, my love,” she agreed in a tearful voice, trying hard to stay strong for him. She began releasing him from the machines. With the help of a gentle wind she took him in her arms and began flying him outside towards the lake. He wore only a long white hospital grown and she made sure to call a wind to her, which she laid over him like a warm blanket. He lay comfortably in her embrace, held up and warmed by the winds she controlled. When they reached the lakeside she lay him gently down on the ground on his side so he could look out over the lake, keeping the warm winds around him like blankets, preventing him from feeling the slightest chill. She lay down on the ground beside him, hugging him close from behind, their hands intertwined. She wasn’t sure what he wanted and she had trouble keeping the weather from displaying the turmoil she felt within but she did her best to stay strong for him and even managed a small smile as she pressed her cheek to his back. Had he been able to stand she would have put him down closer to the lakeside, standing up so he could look out over the lake properly but by now his body was so weakened that he could no longer stand on his own power.

“ This...is…where…we…first…kissed,” Scott rasped, joy but also sadness in his voice as he knew he would never fly free with Ororo like that again. A part of him was glad that he couldn’t see Ororo’s face for he didn’t want her to see his sorrow. He didn’t want her to grieve. She must have guessed his trail of thought for she rose and walked around him, kneeling before him and smiling sadly at him.

She held out a hand and took hold of his as she said, “Come, fly with me.” He was about to say something but she added very quietly and with a heartbreaking note that made him fell silent, “One last time.”

She called a wind to her and let it spiral around Scott, lifting him up and soon he stood beside her, floating a few millimetres above the ground. Scott smiled, enjoying the feel of air beneath his feet for the first time in a year. With a wave of her hand the wind moved him to her and soon he stood before her, both of his hands safely inside hers. Fighting her tears with a smile, Ororo let the wind slowly begin to move them out towards the lake as she showed him the freedom of flight, the wonder of nature, and the power of her love. But, more than anything else, she showed him life. She flew them over the lake and the wind made them spin very slowly around, the air still as warm as a comfortable blanket to Scott. Colourful leaves were lifted from the ground and flew to them, making a ring around the couple as they danced for them in all the colours of the rainbow and the stars made their reflections in the lake glitter like diamonds.

Scott gave her hands a light tug, letting her draw him close, her arms closing around his chest as her head fell to rest upon his shoulder.

“Thank…you.” The words were soft and grew steadily weaker as he spoke into her long white hair, his breath warm against her skin, making her shiver, something no amount of cold weather had ever been able to do. “I …love...you...always.”

Scott’s whispered words grew fainter and fainter as he grew weaker. For a moment in time he had regained that feeling of freedom and wonder that flying with Ororo brought him. He felt his body failing him and knew that if Ororo hadn’t called a warm and soft wind around him, he would have died long before now in the cold winter air. He knew that the only reason he was alive to see this day was because of the sophisticated machines his body had been hooked up to.

“And I love you,” Ororo replied with tears in her eyes as she knew this was to be their last journey together.

Her embrace around Scott tightened in desperation and fear of what was to come until her grip became almost painful but he didn’t voice a sound of complaint. Fighting back her grief she held him close, letting the winds keep him warm and airborne with her. Knowing how much Scott loved the feeling of air beneath him, she slowly began to spin them around and flew them a little higher in the air. The small leaves seemed to follow her as a halo as she flew with him over the lake that seemed covered with glittering stars made of water. Getting worried by his long silence, she landed on the lakeside and drew a little back from him so she could see his face.

“Scott?” She asked, worried as he fell forward into her embrace. She slowly eased him to the ground, trying to fight her tears; not wanting him to see her sadness.

“Ororo,” he whispered so softly she could barely hear it, sounding as if he wanted to say more. He reached out a hand as if to gently stoke her cheek. His hand fell limp in midair and only her quick reflexes as she caught his hand in hers and took it to her cheek prevented it from falling to the ground. Knowing this was coming the world still seemed to freeze in shock when he became limp in her arms and the last breath left his weak and tried body.

“NOOOO!” She yelled in agony and cradled his body tightly against hers, desperately trying to will warmth and life into him. But he lay still, never to move again. The weather reflected her sorrow as snow flakes began to fall over the ground. Her tears fell on his shades like rain and she took them off with shaking fingers. He had hated the shades that made him see everything in shades of red and she’d be damned if he would die wearing them. Calling a wind to her, she angrily threw the shades into the lake. She cupped his face with her hands and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead as tears kept running down her cheeks. This was the first time she had ever seen his naked face for more than a few seconds when he changed glasses. He had always been so afraid he might hurt her without glasses…She studied his face intensely, saw the signs of aging…Saw his eyes frozen in death, a strangely calm look in their depths. Despite the effects of age and illness she found herself smile bittersweetly through tears at him; he was handsome. She looked at his frozen eyes. They were a soft blue, reminding her of the colour of a bright summer day. And that was what he had been to her, an eternal summer. She let her fingers travel gently over his eyes. They were so beautiful yet she had only seen them frozen in death. She gently let his eyelids cover the blue of his eyes.

“I promised I would never leave you,” she cried miserably as she laid her head on his shoulder. A determined look came to her sorrowful eyes “And I won’t!”

She let her emotions run wild, allowed the weather to truly reflect how she felt. Snow fell heavily; the wind began to blow hard and cold. The coldness of the weather began to tear in her but she refused to fight it and instead let it possess her. She felt her blood freeze in her veins as the temperature dropped even more, letting her sorrow turn everything around her into a cold and freezing ice world. Every instinct in her wanted to use her power to warm herself yet she refused. Without Scott she could see no warmth or light anywhere. Everything turned to cold and hard ice.

“ I… will… never… leave …you,” she whispered through cold blue lips and lay herself protectively over Scott’s body as she felt herself weaken. Soon the cold granted her a sleep from which she could not return and her last movement was to try and embrace Scott even tighter. Then her strength failed her and her grip became limp. Snow fell from the sky as if it too cried for her sorrow and continued to do so until the last trace of life had left her body. As her heart finally stilled the sky stopped its frozen tears. By then the snow had fallen to lie as a white blanket over the two lovers, keeping them safe…safe and hidden.

Epilogue:

When Logan returned the next day from having visited one of his grown-up children who lived in Washington, fighting through politics to insure mutant rights, that was how he found them, covered by a blanket of snow by the lakeside. Ororo’s frostbitten hand still held on to Scott’s and her long white hair lay as a curtain over a part of his face. He was struck by how peaceful they looked. After a year of tears and pain, they had finally found peace in each other’s arms.

Logan was the last to say his farewells to the two X-men as he stood by the grave he and Rogue had made for them. He knew Ororo had had the power to stop her own weather creation of ice and snow as well as the coldness that had claimed her life but she had chosen not to. A part of him found comfort in the fact that they were together yet still he missed them. Scott and Ororo had been one of the few X-men who he had met from the beginning who were still around after so many years of fighting. Thanks to Rogue having absorbed some of his healing powers she would gain a few extra years of life than anyone else but he knew that one day he too would have to face the choice that Ororo had faced; die with his beloved or live on without her.

As Logan stood by the small gravestone he had made for them down by the lakeside where he had found them he remembered something Ororo had asked him a few months earlier, which he had been unable to answer.

“Why is the man with the strongest heart in a body that’s falling apart?”

There had been no answer to that then and he found there still wasn’t and never would be. With a last silent farewell to the two lovers, Logan went into his wife’s waiting embrace, knowing that he would appreciate the last years he had with Rogue with a much more desperate intensity, now that he had seen up close and personal how painful the loss of love could be. Of all the losses Logan had suffered through the years he knew the loss of his wife would become the worst and as he left Scott and Ororo’s gravesite he wasn’t sure if he would choose any differently than Ororo had. Only time would tell.

Rain fell like teardrops from the sky as if it too mourned the passing of lovers. Love had been found and love had been lost on the shore side of a small lake outside an old mansion in New York. Time passed and no mark was left on this earth of their love. Still it existed. Above the place where Logan many years before had placed their headstone a simple twin star shone and bathed the lake in its light. It is said that at night, if you look closely, you will see the Weather Goddess with snow in her hair dancing on the winds with the man with fire shining behind covered eyes. She’ll spin them around and colourful leaves will dance around them and make a halo above them as they dance by the power of love. But when light breaks they disappear as if they were never here. Truth or rumour, no one knows, but look closely and you might find the Weather Goddess with the snow coloured hair dance on the winds with the man with fire in his eyes.

The End