Subject: [OTL]: Remembrance
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 19:49:13 +1000
From: "Amanda Sichter" <wolf@ozdocs.net.au>

This story is for my beautiful, beloved Harry. For the love and trust he
extended to me, for teaching me patience and really how to ride, for
perfect cross-country rounds and three kisses before dinner. Vale Harry, I
shall miss you so very much.

Continuity: Once upon a time Jean died and it was the first time and it was
real and no-one expected her to be back the next day without her hair even
being mussed. And Scott loved her even then...

Disclaimer: Marvel's. So there.

Remembrance

Sometimes now there are mornings when I wake up and I'm not in pain any
more.

Those are the worst days.

Sometimes I find that half an hour has gone by and I haven't thought of you
at all.

Then it all crashes in on me, batters me, shatters me as I remember it
again.

Not the fact that you are gone, say it, Summers, that you are dead, but the
fact that I was able to spend half an hour without thinking about you.

I'm healing, now, getting better, getting stronger, learning to let go.

I don't want to heal.

I want the pain to be so bad, so huge, that I can curl up inside of it,
lose myself in its immensity.

I want the pain to be so bad that, when I remember you, it will murder me.

But I go on, get stronger, heal.

I am beginning to forget you.

Not you, not the whole you, I'll never forget you, never forget that I
loved you, never forget that you loved me.

I can't remember what colour your eyes were.

Oh, I know they were green, I know that. I remember the only time I saw
them, really saw them, that night on the butte when you held back my powers
and gave me yourself and the whole world all at the same time. But I can't
remember the exact shade of them, can't remember whether they changed
colour with the changing light, whether they sparkled after we made love.

I can't remember the first time you smiled at me. I can't remember every
time I told you I loved you. I can't remember what I was wearing the night
you died. I can't remember every second I spent with you.

You are slipping away from me, slipping into the dark and it feels like the
harder I clutch at my memories the more of you that slips through my
fingers.

I don't want to lose you. I don't want to let you go. But life and the
world is taking you away from me and I can feel myself losing you.

Don't leave me, Jean. Don't leave me alone.

I wanted to die when you did. Wanted to go into the dark and the cold in
the hope that you would be waiting for me. But the world held me here, life
held me here, there were things that had to be done and only I could do
them.

And now.

And now.

And now I don't want to die.

I want to live, Jean. I want to live - even if it is without you.

I love you, Jean, but now I want to live more than I want to be with you.

I can't forgive myself for that.

I'll never forgive myself.

And you - are slipping away from me.

I'm going back to bed now, going back to court the pain, to bring it to me
and hope that it brings the memories with it.

Please.

Let me remember the colour of her eyes.

The End

So there you have it. Writing as therapy, as catharsis. I can tell you now,
it's a lot better than drinking.

Amanda
wolf@ozdocs.net.au

'We are made of stardust: forged by a star'