ravishing reflections | x-men

I, I- devastating love

Trigger Warning: This chapter includes topics like death of a loved one and suicidal thoughts. Please skip if these may trigger you in any way.
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They say that love makes people love themselves more.
That love could show them the beauty and hope in this world, that they matter.
They say that love opens up your heart to the positive sides of live, to the reason to live.
But everything love showed Willow was how truly devastating and destructive it can be.

Now, that she held the love of her life in her arms, one thing seemed clear to her: love was unnecessary pain in a world which seemed to take every hope the moment it shined.
  How could this happen? It wasn't supposed to be that difficult.
  It wasn't supposed to end like this.
They were supposed to live a full live. Where was their happy ending?

Yet, here she was, lying on the ground, surrounded by corpses and bullet holes.
  It was as if she could still hear their screams, begging her to stop and be merciful, when just moments before they took the one thing which mattered in her life.

  It was quiet, too damn quiet. The only sound in the empty room was her labored breathing and loud sobs.
  Willow was surprised she could still cry. One would think that, after hours of doing so, her tears would dry and she would be able to get up.
  That she would be able to continue with her life, get over it.
  How could she ever continue to live, if the one thing worth living for was gone?

In the distance, she could hear footsteps, at least two pairs. They walked slowly through the halls, as they approached her room.
  She didn't really care anymore if she got caught, if they would kill her.
If she was totally honest, with some time, she would've done it herself.
She wouldn't have been able to live with the knowledge that she was responsible for her wife's death. That she was the one who killed her.
  The steps stopped in front of the room, as the door gradually opened.

Two men stepped into the room. One was dressed elegant, with a grey suit and combed back dark hair. The other one was brunette and wore a black turtleneck.
  They looked stunned at the men laying distributed across the room, before exchanging a look.
  Willow only took one glance at them, before returning her eyes at the body in her hands.

  "Willow, is it? I'm Professor Charles Xavier and this is Erik Lehnsherr. We're-" The dark haired man, she guessed, spoke considerably.
  "What do you want?" Willow interrupted him. She already had enough of these two, thinking that they're better than her just because she was the one laying on the ground, over her wife's body.
  The abrupt talking seemed to startle the men for a second, before they took another step towards them.
  "We are like you, mutants. We can help you." If a sob didn't lay in her throat, Willow would've scoffed. That's what they all said, that they wanted to help. At the end, everyone only had themselves and their advantages in their mind.
  She sensed from the beginning that those two dispose over powers too, yet she didn't really care.
  Being a mutant has already brought enough pain in her life, therefore she wasn't willing to surround herself with even more people her kind.

  "Please, just leave." Willow's voice seemed so small in the large room, so quiet. As if the grey walls ingested every last bit of hope in her sentences. Her shoulders dropped powerless, as she sighed.
  She just wanted to be left alone, was that too hard to understand?
  "We're so sorry for your loss. I can understand if you-"
  "You don't understand anything! Just leave!"

  Silence. Willow still didn't face them. She knew that they would see how desperate she was, how lost she seemed. She knew they pitied her, and she hated that. She didn't want to feel sorry for, she wanted to be left alone to grieve.
  "I understand what you're going through." For the first time, the other man spoke. Erik kneeled besides her and looked mournful into the distance.
  "I lost my family, too. And it was painful, almost unbearable."
  Finally, Willow turned to look at him, listening to his story. Erik took a deep breath before continuing.
  "And I thought it would break me. It was my fault, all of it. It was because of my mutation that they had to die."

"Then you understand why I want to be left alone. It was my fault, she shouldn't have had to die this way."
  Erik nodded. He understood more than anyone what she felt right now. That is why it was so important for her to keep on fighting.
  "But I got up. I got up and lived through another day. And the day after that and eventually, it wasn't so hard to stand up every morning anymore."
  A tear ran across his cheek. From the other side of the room, Willow could hear the Professor kneeling down too, holding a hand in front of his mouth.
  Willow was surprised, she didn't thought that this man, so powerful and confident, could lose all his strength. It reminded her of a majestic deer, kneeling down, full of pain.
  "And we are here to help you through it. To live through another day."
"I took my powers and used it to help other people. It was more useful than mourning every day the deaths of them."
  He reached out his hand to Willow. She hesitated. Was this really what she wanted to do? What she was meant to do?
  She looked back at her wife, laying so peaceful as if she was sleeping. Gosh, she wished so badly that she would only be sleeping. Then she would get up again, tell her another fact about the star constellations and make her laugh.
But that would never happen again.

  "We can take her with us, give her a proper burial. We promise to take good care of her, and you."
  Willow swallowed. She wasn't sure what to do, but what were her choices? Either stay here and wallow over her soulmate's body or spend her time useful, helping other people like her. Like Juno.
  So she decided. She decided for her, for her wife and every other mutant who thought that life was not worth living.
  She lived so that other people could do so, too.

  So she took Erik's hand and stood into her new life.