God, Logan, I miss you.
There is nothing bright left for me until she comes into the world tonight. My belly is so tight and round and distended that I feel like I'm going to burst with every breath. I can hear carolers downstairs singing for the joy of the holiday season, but I want to scream at them to shut the fuck up. The only thing left for me to
pray for is that your daughter will put some light back in my life.
How could we have known that the cure would wear off, but I would finally know how to turn my skin off because of it? You told me once there was a dark side to everything, and you dwelt in that darkness. Then a minute later you said there was a bright side to every darkness, and that was me. You might not have been the most romantic guy in the world, but that goddamned deep philosophical side of yours was just as endearing.
We could never have predicted that once the cure wore off, it would leave all the women who took it sterile. The labs didn't take the time to study it long enough, test it, allow clinical trials. Or did they plan it that way, to leave the women with mutant genes unable to
reproduce, even after having our mutations neutered out of us? Now, looking back over the last seven years, I can't believe I was ever such a fool as to risk the cure, but I did. I really thought you'd be disappointed that we'd never have kids of our own, but not once did you ever say or do anything to make me feel less than a total woman, less than a perfect wife to you. You'd just tickle and tease and tempt me with promises of wild sex any time we wanted, with no worrying about rubbers or foam or pills that would make my scent go strange to your heightened senses. And lord almighty, did you ever deliver on those promises.
I had you for five years of marriage; perfect, blissful, marriage born of fantasy. I had almost stopped worrying that you'd take too many risks in the field, on missions, any time you were on the job. Almost. I knew the worrying would never completely go away, but I'd gotten more confident that you really were ten feet tall and bullet-
proof, until last March, when they brought you home in a body bag.
I sat beside you, waiting most of two days for you to heal up, wake up, sit up, until Hank made me see the decomposition, the graying skin, the rigor that came and then left again. Your mutation had finally found it's breaking point. Your body was dead. The fierce
Wolverine was dead! But your voice was and still is alive and well inside my head. You talk to me every day, more at night, but I miss your strong arms and your hard warmth in our bed, in me, in our lives. It still isn't my life, baby, it's our life. I cannot, I will not, ever let you go.
Our bed feels soft beneath me. I lit a thick white candle on the window sill tonight. It's the longest night of the year, and I know how the eternal cycle of the solstices and equinoxes were important to you, like a part of your blood. You told me it was the way Mother Nature kept a calendar, marking the march of the seasons. I don't
know where your soul is now, or if you ever believed in heaven or hell or oblivion or reincarnation or anything in particular. But just in case you're out there in the snowy woods tonight, stalking the shadows, that candle on the sill is shining to guide you home through the darkness. Our daughter is trying to be born, and I'm
hoping she makes it before midnight. The water broke early this afternoon, but I haven't told anyone yet. I'm keeping you and her all for myself for as long as possible.
The telltale morning sickness didn't show up until after you were gone. My mind wrangles constantly with curiosity: did you know I was pregnant, finally, before you went out on that last mission? You'd had a gleam in your eyes all day, in that wicked smile, when you talked me into staying behind. Did you know before I did? Could
you smell it on me, that I was pregnant, when I didn't even know it yet? Another contraction rolls through my pelvis, making my back arch and my breath lock up in my chest. How much like an orgasm it is, only it's the darker side of that spastic muscle contraction. As I finally accept the fact that I'm in genuine labor, I suddenly want my mother with me. I want Storm with me. I want Jubes. You'd be proud of Jubilee, Logan - she's been studying midwifery to help me out, even though Hank's perfectly capable. I want them all to get me through
this, and at the same time I swear I would cut every one of their throats if it would put you back here in the flesh to help me, to see our daughter born, to have her come out of my belly into your waiting hands. I want to see a gleaming claw cut her cord loose from my body. I'll birth her, but you should be here to cut her free, make
her an individual entity, separate from me.
God, Logan, I miss you.
Sometimes I think I'll break under the weight of the contradicting emotions that have ripped me apart since the spring equinox. How ironic and totally like you to go and get yourself killed on the day that heralds the rebirth of the earth's fertility. How ironic and totally like me to get pregnant just days, possibly hours, before I got widowed. I try to think back on how many times we fucked each other those last few days and nights, wondering which time it was that did the trick. Was I on top? Were you on top? Was it that night on the roof, under the full moon? My money's on that night as the winner.
When did I become an even bigger pessimist than I already was? I wrestle hourly with the fear that my skin will turn on and kill her in the process of being born; with the fear that she'll have a mutation even worse than mine; that I'll suck as a mother; that the world will go to hell for mutants before she can even get a chance to
grow up, already half-orphaned.
Another contraction brings my back arching up off the bed, and try as I might, I have to yell from the power of it. It's only five minutes from the last. She is gonna try to beat that midnight deadline, baby - she wants to arrive on solstice night. I'm gasping for breath again. I thought I was tough enough to bring her into the world
alone, but I'm not. I need help, Logan - forgive me. I wanted this experience kept pristine for me and you-in-my-head, but it's too much. I don't want to risk her well-being. I'm gonna call down to Hank and Jubes and tell them to keep their mouths shut and get up here fast.
Two hours of pain and blood, and me screaming, and me cussing a blue streak that would surprise even you, you horny, profane bastard who knocked me up. But all I really remember of it is looking down between my thighs to see that little dark head come popping out, and she's got such a mop of unruly black hair! She's bloody and slimy and gorgeous and she's screaming her lungs out with her very first breath. She's definitely your feral daughter.
Thank god the mansion is quiet now. I guess my godawful yelling managed to shut the carolers down completely. Everything's hushed and quiet now. She's asleep on my chest and I'm full of enough painkillers to be woozy and warm and happy. Hank says I'm fine, just sore and tired, and needing sleep and quiet to recover. It's not quite midnight, and he's gone back to his rooms to clean up and get some sleep. Jubes is crashing on the sofa in the next room.
That candle on the window sill can burn through the whole night for you. It's big enough - it'll last until sunrise when this little warm, wet bundle laying on me will demand I start a new life for myself, for her. I know I can't have you back, but I'll ask this one favor: come
in my dreams tonight and whisper to me in the darkness, tell me what to name your daughter. I can't decide, so you're gonna have to help me somehow.
She's a beauty, and I know you're proud of both of us.
God, Logan, I miss you.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Written on the first day of winter. I do not know what came over me, but I seriously need to seek psychiatric counseling after writing this.