He was walking, trying to block out her voice. He had already silenced all the accusing ones in his mind, asking where he had been when they needed him and when SHE needed him. All the ones that blamed him for the ruin that they suffered. The pain and dark that settled around them he had been able to silence those harsh voices after he had figured it out. All he had to do was kill them. Then their voices would stop in his head. Just the silent screams were there in his mind.

But her soft honey voice haunted him. There was nothing to make it stop.

All he wanted was to get away from it, her lack of hate and anger for his failure. How could he have let them depend on him? How? How could he have let her sweet kind warmth depend on him when all he could be was an animal? There was nothing in him that anyone should depend on. Let alone hid family and the woman he loved. For all he knew was how to betray. That was his mistake- thinking that he could be there for them, keep them safe, keep HER happy.

Earlier, he hadn't been able to find her to silence her soft voice in his memories. Not to mention he couldn't bring himself to search for her to do that silencing; well not at first. But now it was getting to be too much. Her damn soft voice had to stop. It would drive him insane if he allowed it to continue.

So he turned himself around and started the long walk down the highway. Desperately trying not to remember, that cruel thing known as happiness that he had so briefly.

Time didn't really pass for him so he was truly unaware of how long it had taken him to arrive at the place he had so foolishly called home. Looking up at it, he saw two images superimposed on each other. One was the mansion great and majestic, dappled sunlight touching the roof and gardens. The other was a desolate husk of a building. He neither knew nor cared which one was the truth, it was all one and the same and the same to him.

Walking up the steps he searched out her scent. Lately, it seemed that it had been hanging around him in a pall that would never cease to haunt him just like her honeyed voice ringing out in his mind with soft terms of endearment, beckoning him to her. Striding up the staircase, he came upon where her room was.

A part of him wanted to look at her. Into those sweet eyes and fall forever into her. Joining his body with hers till there was no telling where she started and where he ended. That silky honeyed drawl in his mind said that she loved him, that yes that was what she wanted too. To feel his long boned hands on her body touching her as no one else ever could because he lov- he cut the voice in his head off yelling for it to STOP! JUST FUCKING STOP!

"Bitch where the hell are you? I'll find you! Come out." Eventually falling to his knees, he held his head after his breif yet desperate search. "Please, Marie. Please, come out I need you. I need you so I can make this stop. I can smell you." Looking down at his hands he knew he was crazy, he just had to be.

He'd always hated his hands, but these were small and slim fingered with alabaster skin. They weren't his long fingered, tan and roughened hands that were full of metal coated death. And there was hair in his hands. Soft silk that he knew the feel and scent of better than he knew anything else. He stumbled into the bathroom looking around. Cracked tile. The tub that he had bathed Marie in so many times. Barely touching her alabaster skin. Memories flooded his mind.

---

The mansion. The long awaited birth of his son that Marie and he had both nearly died to create. Realizing something was wrong looking around and all he saw was blood. A nearly lifeless Marie and a blue lipped silent baby in Jean's arms. He had been away on a mission when she had gone into labor. But he had raced home to be welcomed by those sights and smells. He just barely heard her heartbeat. Nearly falling over himself as he hurried to her side grabbing her almost totally lifeless body in his arms. Kissing her willing, nay, DEMANDING that the connection open. Falling, falling and falling into darkness as a heartbeat stopped. Waking up, to faces that were silent and stony. Voices in his mind accusing him of not being there. He was supposed to have been there.. Enraged, he had killed everyone at that hell known as home, as far as he was concerned it had also been their fault. They had wanted him on that mission. Scott was the one in charge since Chuck had been at some conference and Scott had ordered him on the mission. It was Jean's fault for letting his baby die, for letting Marie die.. So he had no one left and he would take all of them away from each other. He had stopped the voices then. Just not hers.

---

Looking into the mirror he saw the face to the voice in his mind. The one that haunted his dreams and he KNEW. He had saved her body. Not her. She was gone from this flesh and it was merely his memories of her voice echoing through his mind. Well then he thought to himself, I can end this, this body can die, and then I won't be here to listen to her voice.

Looking around, he realized he was at the top of the roof. Over there they had made love under the stars when he had come back from Canada the first time. And over there she had thrown a snowball at him that he hadn't bothered to duck as he tackled her, proceeding to kiss her till past her skin had kicked in letting all his love flood her. Thinking over those memories, he felt himself falling and then blackness enveloped him.

Sunlight was harsh upon his eyes, wakening him. He got up and looked at his hands. Soft white skin met his gaze. He attempted to find release again and again that day until he was too tired to anymore. What was now his body healed every time, over and over again. Shuffeling down the stairs to where it had all happened. Now all he could do was lay there, staring at the ceiling to a room he had died in, where the child he created out of love never breathed a breath and his wife's soul had fled. Unmoving eyes, gazed for what seemed eternity at a roof and darkness enveloped him yet again for what he prayed was the last time yet knowing he was in a living hell that couldn't possibly ever end.