When Darkness Falls

AN: THE LAST CHAPTER. IT'S THE END! Everything you think you know, it's all about to be changed.
:evil smirk:
Oh, and even though it has nothing to do with anything. How do you get the name Dick from Richard? It always bothers me. Grrr.

Chapter ten: (Shattered)

I open my eyes, then shut them again. So bright after so much darkness.

"Wanda." He said my name. Every cell in body responded to it. "Your up." He stops short, his voice holds relief, but also hesitation. Like he wanted to say something, but couldn't. What couldn't he say to me.

Slowly I let my eyes open. I want to see him, his face, his hair, his body. I need to see him. They are my favorites now, the colours, the exact shade of his hair, his eyes, his skin.

"Can you sit up, or does it hurt?" His voice was pure concern now. Why would it hurt to sit up? I attempt it, pain is everywhere, but it's quickly gone, before I can even gasp at it. All that's left is a dizziness. I ignore it.

His mouth twitches, almost a smile. My heart beats with disappointment. I want to see his crazy, beautiful smile. "John." I say his name. Let it roll off my tongue. He's sitting in a hard plastic chair that can't be comfortable. Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound of my heart. I'm in a hospital, but I knew that, even before I noticed. Something about this room is so familiar.

"Sh . . ." He stops short again. He was about to call me Sheila, I'm sure. Why'd he stop? Stop when I wanted to hear it so bad.

"Why am I . . ." I trail off.

"What do you remember?" John asks. I think back. Blackness, emptiness, engulfing. No! I shake my head. Something else. A school, fights, knocking before . . . Why can't I remember, why is everything so fuzzy? "Wanda." John, his hair, holding me. A kiss placed on my head. Still so fuzzy. "Your plane crashed." John's voice holds a quiver he doesn't want me to hear.

A new set of memories, so much clearer than the last ones, come to me. I had fallen asleep, I was so tired, so much fighting. I didn't notice it at first when the engine started to malfunction. We were going down. The woman next to me. It was her scream that woke me up.

I had to stop it, numbers flew across my vision. arranging themselves into possible outcomes. It was too late, I couldn't stop it, not with my depleted strength. The best I could do was slow our fall, allow the pilot to get us down with less of a crash. Let more people live.

In this future I had picked, only twelve would die, I couldn't be sure who. Two would be injured beyond help, I couldn't pinpoint which ones. But everyone else, the rest would live. Live to see another day.

My other memories, they were fake. My brain, my power. It took hold of me. Brought my mind somewhere else to escape the overwhelming pain. Another world, another life it had made for me.

Tears filled my eyes. For this life that never was. Rogue, Remy, Kurt, they weren't real. At least, not that way. And John, he wasn't either. More tears. He didn't love me, but I still loved him.

"Are they dead? The other two." I force myself to ask, anything to distract me. My heart is breaking into a million pieces. A million pieces that hurt me more than any broken bone.

He doesn't seem surprised that I know, he knows how my powers work. He nods. I feel a wave of guilt for these people, I singled them out for death. But I know my limits, the power to stop that plane would have killed me before I'd generated enough power. All these thoughts are quickly washed away as another wave of heartbroken pain envelopes me.

"Wanda." John says. I'm crying. He's never seen me cry, no one has, but I can't stop. It hurts, it hurts. He can't seem to think of anything else to say.

"I have to tell them your up." John says, looking for an escape. I know who they are. My true memories tell me. Rogue and Remy, Pietro and Lexa, all the X-Men.

John's not an X-Man, but he's not evil either. He's neutral, a Switzerland in our mutant wars. He's a writer, my mind world got that right. He won't fight.

He gets up to leave. His hand. For the first time I notice. I'm holding it. His big warm hand is in mine. I don't want to let it go. I can almost feel the fire in it, smell the smoke. I refuse. It may hurt me so much to see him and know he doesn't love me. But I know it would hurt worse for him to be away. "No." I say.

"Sheila." He protests. I can almost smile for the name, but I know it doesn't hold the same feeling it did in my mind world.

"Don't leave me alone." I say. "I've had enough alone."

"I won't." He sits back down. Our hands go back to their place in my lap. A weight on my stomach. It was this room I'd seen. The weight, it must have been his hand. The emptiness, I understand now. I was healing, getting better. My delusion, it was harder to hold onto when I was so near health. Those clear days I had coveted so much, that was me closer to death. I shiver at the thought.

"Did my heart ever stop?" I ask. I'd heard something about something being stopped.

"How'd you know that?" John asks, he doesn't wait for an answer though. "It was stopped for five minutes. They almost couldn't get it to start again."

It scares me how I would fight the emptiness, fight my healing. I was killing myself without realizing it.

"How long have I been out?"

"Three weeks."

"How long have you been here?" I try not to make it sound bitchy, but, also, I do. Maybe it'll mask my pain, my eyes are dry now, but it still hurts so much.

"Not long." He doesn't look at me. Is he lying? Why would he lie?

Something of my mind world comes to me and I have to tell him, I'm not sure why, just that I need him to know. "While I was healing, my mind created a haven for me. A place to distract me from the pain. You were there. You told me a story."

"I was, I did?" He asks, he looks back at me. The beat of my broken heart quickens. I wonder if he notices.

"You did. They were named Sofia and Elijah. They were in love. You said you modeled Sofia after me. She was stubborn. To stubborn to realize she was in love. To stubborn to admit it once she knew." I'm not sure where I'm going with this. "The thing is, I am that way. I am to stubborn to admit my feelings." I still don't know why I'm saying these things. "But, we differ, Sofia and I. She never could tell him. I can."

"Wanda, what're you talking about?" John's voice is hesitant.

"In my mind world, I fell in love with you." I won't look at him.

"You said it was something your brain used to distract you. Maybe that's it." I can't tell what his tone is. What he means. I'd have to look at his face. But I can't, I can't see him, I stare at our joined hands. His is so big, and so still.

I know now why I began speaking to begin with. I'm going to tell him. It'll hurt so much when he says he doesn't feel the same. Maybe I'll really die from the pain this time. Or go back to my mind world. Or maybe I'll just have emptiness. Emptiness, that sounds good. Numbness to everything.

At least I'll never wonder what would have happened if I told him. I'll know. I'll have the memory.

"It's not. The feelings that existed there, they were the same as what I feel in reality." I'm still staring at his hand. His hand in mine, so warm. I thought of him as my fire then, how close I was. "I still love you, John, now that I'm conscienous."

I don't hear him breath. His hand goes cold in mine. I tighten my grip on it. What if it goes away? What if he goes away? Fades to nothing. I want to take it back, tell him I'm joking, but I can't. It's out there. I'm not prepared for the pain. I just know it'll come.

"Sheila." Suddenly I'm looking at him. How? I feel his hands on my face. "Is that true?"

"Yes." It's all I can do to whisper the word. Already I'm starting to feel pain.

I close my eyes so I can't see the words that'll turn my broken heart to dust form on his lips.

A pressure, so soft I don't understand it at first, touches my mouth. Then it's harder fiercer. A kiss. A final kiss, a first kiss. He's nice enough to do this for me, or maybe cruel enough.

My broken heart is beating sporadically. How can something so broken be so loud?

I kiss him with all the force I can manage. I don't want it too end. When it ends, so will everything I care about.

He pulls his mouth away. "I love you, Sheila."

What? Did I imagine that? I must have. Nothing that wonderful could ever happen to me. I want to shake my head, he's holding it. "No." I say.

"I do. I love you Wanda. I love you more than anything in the universe. I've wanted to tell you for so long." I can't believe him.

"No." I say again.

"Wanda Maximoff, I, St. John Allerdyce, am in love with you. I have been for so long. I was to much of a coward to tell you. I love you." John's voice. It sounds so good to hear him say these words I know aren't true. "I love you more than fire."

"Now I know I'm dreaming again." I say.

"How can I prove it to you?" He sounds desperate. Even through my own heartache, I want to help him. "I love you." He kisses me again. So much better than anything my mind world was able to come up with. How could I dream this?

"I don't know." I feel wetness at my eyes again. I'm such a mess, I can't keep myself together.

"She's up." Another voice breaks the moment. John drops his hands, I turn my head. It's Rogue, Remy just behind her. His hand is at her waist. She's completely covered, only her face and neck show.

"Hi." I say, my voice sounds broken.

"Wanda." She's at my side in a second. Remy shadowing her as always. "Rem, leave us be for now." She tells him.

"Alright Chere." He says, he touches her back as he leaves.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Alrahght." She somehow senses that it's useless to ask more.

"Remy's following you again." I say, to get the attention off myself.

"He's always following, ya know that." Rogue sighs. "He's just lucky ah love him, otherwise ah'd a touched him by now." That sounds like her. So much like her. That mix of pain, longing, annoyance, and laughter that was speciafically her. No matter how good my imagination, I would never be able to capture that.

Could I believe this wasn't a dream?

"Sheila." John says. He's still where he was, he didn't move at all. That Rogue ignored him in the order to leave us alone, how long was he at my bedside, really? I turn back to him. "I don't know how to convince you. Please just believe me."

"I think, I do." I said finally. I could never imagine these things, I'm not that creative. Rogue is looking at us, she already knows. It's obvious.

"Finally. Took ya long enough." She says with an exasperated sigh. Trying to hide her enjoyment at the news. I smile, even if it is a dream. I never want to wake up.

Maybe I can have both.

The End