He carefully examined the pale blue fabric of the soft blanket in his hand. It was thin and worn, the edges carelessly picked away at over the years by each person who had found comfort in it's warmth. As the storm steadily raged on outside, he snuggled even deeper into the aged blanket's continuous security. The pitter patter of the rain that echoed against the frail windowpanes seemed to cause the distant memories buried deep within those that he wished to be forgotten to be re-released...
She had loved the rain. I remember how she would sit for hours, wrapped in her favorite flaxen blue quilt just gazing at the perfection of the rain. "Isn't it beautiful?" she whispered to me one night as I stood behind her, my hands drapped comfortabley on her shoulders. The only reply I could muster was a gentle, `Sure, Kid' over the top of her white-streaked head. After caressing her shocks softly, I left her there; left her because I was never a part of her world and never could be. I took one last look back at her tranquil state. The candles that she always burned smelled like apple cinnimon and radiated a luminous glow that reminded me of the natural red highlights that seemed to shine out from her hair. And all I could think of was how utterly perfect she looked as she sat in her own personal utopia.
I didn't even realize that I was crying until I tasted a faint trace of salt on my lips. I'd never cried before. And so it was at that moment, my voice was broken, shattered, but I still managed to croak in a whisper, "I love you" before I turned the brass doorknob and walked out of her room. I don't know if she ever heard me, for later on during that pejorative night, amongst her candles and with her cosumate rain, the inevitable happened. The cancer that she had so strongly fought for so many years finally took over her body. Jean and the proffessor arrived home later to discover her passed out and not breathing in her favorite chair wrapped in her ratty old blue blanket that she had cherished so much. By that time, most of the candles had lived their luminant lives, and just like her, had burnt out. Outside the rain continued to pour down, still as steady as it had always been.
I can remember next to nothing of the days following her death except for Scott shoving an old cardboard box into my shakey hands that contained the things that he thought "she would want you to have". I spent hours pouring through that box pulling out photo after photo of us and our friends all smiling and content in a plethora of places and settings. At the very bottom of the box, after removing various, letters, newspaper clippings, concert ticket stubs and other things that she had kept, I found that old blue blanket of hers that we had spent many nights wrapped up in watching movies in the rec-room.
I pressed it slowly against my nose, inhaling her and breathing in her soul. I didn't cry then; I wouldn't allow myself to cry just yet. So I carried her blanket to my living quarters and curled up in my favorite chair, engulfing myself in that pale blue blanket and watched the storm that had been raging outside for hours now. The single candle that sat lit beside me gave off no smell.
As the raindrops weaved patterns down my window panes and the Christmas lights that were hung outside glowed brightly, I couldn't help but to smile through the tears that had begun to roll down my red cheeks and off my chin. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen", I whispered back to her. And it was. It really was.
From that moment on, I adored the rain - happy to just sit and gaze out at the tranquil rain in an old and ratty blue blanket that never stopped smelling of her no matter how many times I washed it.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
None really. Other than the reason why I used the same conversation-piece at the end, as I did my other story, was kind of an inside thing. So no, I'm not short on cheesy sentences. Jeeshe. One other thing: I wrote this, like way back when. Sorry if you've already read this, but I wanted to post it again anyways. You know, spread around the initial trauma of a sourspunk story and all of that good stuff.