I lay in the darkness, surrounded by it, covered in it's thickness. And, if I strain my ears, I can hear her breathing in those short gasps that mean she's crying. For a moment, I stop breathing so I can hear her sobs. I imagine the tears rolling down her face and I want to cry too. This ordeal must be ripping her apart.
Believe you me, I know what it's like to be ripped apart. I've been in that hole where you can feel the life being stripped from you. It's so dark in that hole. And when you finally get out, finally manage to claw back into the light of the real world, it hurts. It hurts so bad that you want to curl up in the shadows again. But if you surrender to the dark you'll never be free.
I fought. I managed to tackle the shadows and stand in the light. Yet as I lie here, unable to sleep because when she hurts I hurt, I wonder if she'll be able to fight. She is Betsy, though. Elizabeth Braddock, the epitome of resistance and strength. My Betts is one of the strongest souls I know.
So why am I so goddamned worried that she's going to fade away into the shadows and leave me alone forever?
A hard, bitter laugh forms in my throat and I choke it down. But the bitterness brings realization. I worry because I've seen the strongest souls shatter to dust. I've watched, sadly, as bright eyes turned dim and haunted. I don't want that to happen to Betsy. I won't let it happen.
With renewed hope I turn over, automatically thrown back to days when I'd trust her telepathy to know my intentions, and brush my hand across her back. I'm trying to comfort her, soothe her as she has me when I've awoke, trembling, from a nightmare, but she whimpers and pulls away from my caress.
Nice Betsy, I think, just push the knife in my heart a little deeper.
It's then that I realize, as I stare at her quivering form and long to run my fingers through her fine purple hair, that she's asleep. The tears and the sobs are caused by her dreams.
I've grown so accustomed to her weeping. These days the only thing I seem to hear are her soft sobs. They follow me through our apartment rendering my soul and heart broken. It's like everything she can't or won't tell me is trapped in those sobs. I'm tired of not knowing her pain.
It's dangerous to wake a ninja assassin from their sleep. Did you know that? I didn't used to. Back before I was involved with Betsy, back when I was with Candy, I never imagined that startling a woman awake with a gentle kiss could get me hurt. I still remember the black eye I got the first time I tried that trick with Betsy.
But when you fall in love with someone who can kill you with her bare hands, you learn pretty fast. Now I know better than to surprise her. After all, I want to be alive when she's ready to talk about this.
So I just lay my hand on her head and gently stroke her hair. Within minutes a pair of beautiful yet pained purple eyes are gazing at me. Her face, that beautiful shade of gold mixed with pink, is streaked with the tears that plagued her while she slept.
"You okay?" I ask reaching out to her.
"No," she answers simply and then again, "No."
I want to cradle her in my arms like a child. I want to feel her tears hot on my shoulder as I work my fingers through her hair and murmur soothing words into her ear. But she isn't like that.
My Betsy, my life, soul, and lover, isn't so easily swept into the role of comfort receiver. This woman, my Betsy, is strong-willed and outwardly cold. Not the kind of person to let herself be wrapped in arms of comfort, not the kind of person to admit how deep the hurt goes. So instead she sits on the edge of the bed, her shaking back to me. And I know, as my eyes flutter closed, that if I still my breathing, I'll hear her soft sobbing.
"Betsy?" I question and reach out to lay a hand on her trembling shoulder. "Please, tell me what's wrong. Let me help."
Her reply is quiet, muffled by her hands and her soft sobs, but I still hear her say, "No."
Anger rushes up my spine at her words and the tone she uses. I love this woman. I know I do. But sometimes her cold as ice act really gets on my nerves. I want to share her pain, not be pushed away.
"Betts," I start and wrap my hands around her small shoulders.
For someone who's crying so much she can barely speak, Betsy's quick reaction to my touch surprises me. In moments she pulls away and walks over to gaze out the window.
With a frustrated sigh, I inquire, "What's wrong?"
"Leave me alone, Warren," she demands and I hear the bite in her voice. The quiet sobs have stopped. She's no longer crying.
"I just want to help you."
"No one can help me." There is so much venom and hurt in her voice.
"Could you at least let my try?" I know that it's not so much of a question as it is a plea. A plea to help ease her pain because if she doesn't come to terms with it soon then we're both lost.
"I really don't need or want any help, Warren. Please just let me be," Betsy explains her back muscles going tense.
"I can't just let you suffer." My voice trembles as I stand up and begin to pace around the room.
The moonlight shinning through the window catches in her hair and plays with her gentle silhouette. And as I watch her, worry and fear at the back of my mind, I am glad that I had bars put on the windows. I could always stop her fall if she jumped but if she put up too much of a struggle, we'd both be dead.
It's obvious that she's not going to make this conversation easy. "Betsy, I want to help you through this. I feel your pain, here, in my heart." I take her hand in mine and place it over my heart.
With a growl in the back of her throat, Betsy pulls her hand away, leaving small scratches on my chest. "You don't have any inkling about my pain, Warren. Now leave me alone."
"I know your pain. I know it like it's been seared into my heart and soul. Remember, I lost my wings."
Betsy's scream of frustration startles me. "I am so sick of hearing that! Yeah, Warren Worthington III, the golden boy of mutants, lost his wings. Then he was transformed into a death machine by Apocalypse. But your wings grew back. If I take back my telepathy, the world is doomed!"
My eyes narrow in anger and my lips press tightly together. "Life is shitty, Elizabeth. Get over it," I snap and I didn't mean for my voice to sound so cold and haunted by it seems to get her attention.
As she slowly turns to face me I notice that her smile is half evil and half chilling. "Yeah, life's a bitch," she almost laughs through the tears still stinging her eyes. There's an almost inaudible sigh as she takes a step towards me. I have to strain to hear the words that fall from her lips. "Am I a bitch, Warren? Is that what you think of me?"
I'm not sure whether to laugh and attempt a joke or just be silent and coy. In the end I decide that neither of those actions would be helpful. "I just want to help you, Betsy. I love you. This pain of yours affects me, too." I brush a hand through my blond hair.
She's starring at me now. There is such an intensity within her delicate, exotic features. But her purple eyes stare out at me with too many emotions to properly read.
We stand for a long, unwavering moment as our eyes lock. Pain flickers over her face. Then she lets the pain press it's weight onto her and she slides to the floor.
"Betsy?" I manage to breathe, not sure whether to go to her or allow her to have some space.
"I feel so alone, Warren. So empty. There's this voice in my, right here," and she puts a hand over her heart. "Oh, and the things I used to keep there. All the love, warmth, and security that I got from you, the joy of my friends, and the wild zest of each new day. But that's all gone now. There's just a void, an inescapable black hole that threatens to consume me. I've never been so alone."
Now she's crying. Tears, gossamer and shinning like fireflies in the moonlight, flow down the curves of her face. The tiny droplets roll off her nose and chin to fall and form small puddles on my wood floor. My heart aches with her pain and I want so much to go to her, wrap her in my arms, and wipe her tears away.
But I don't move. I stand by the bed and watch her.
"It goes away," I mutter.
Her eyes are on me now. Fire dances in the back of her violet eyes. A fire as bright red as the mark of the Crimson Dawn that decorates the left side of her face.
Then she licks her lips, still sending her gaze at me, and questions, "What goes away?"
It's a loaded question. One that I'd rather let hang in the air between us but her eyes are still on me. I can't escape her eyes.
"The pain, Betsy. The pain will eventually go away."
Now she does laugh. A haggard, tortured laugh made worse by the lingering tears in her dark eyes. "You know nothing of my pain."
I glower at her with my blue eyes. She isn't making this easy. "What makes your pain so special, Elizabeth?" I ask though clenched teeth.
Wiping stray tears from her face, Betts, my life and love, shifts her weight slightly and sighs. "You know nothing of my pain. This pain, this hurt that threatens to sever through my soul won't just go away. My pain is the kind of black void that eats away at your soul until there is nothing left."
"Sounds a lot like my own pain."
Anger turns her face red as she stands up and waggles a finger at me. "Don't patronize me, Warren Worthington."
"I'm not. I do feel your pain. You may have sacrificed your telepathy but I can still feel your anguish."
When she speaks again her voice is just a tormented, hushed whispered, "Don't tease, Warren. I can't stand it."
Now it's my turn to stand. I walk over and wrap her in my arms, desperate to soothe her inner turmoil. "I can't tease, love. When I see you cry it's like I'm dying inside again. The only thing I hear, day and night, are your quiet sobs whispering of your pain in some language I've forgotten. I just want to help you. I want to be there for you like you've been there for me."
There's a minute, while I'm holding her, that I catch my breath in fear. Fear that if I say the wrong thing or move the wrong way, she'll leave me. And if she leaves me now, after all this, I'll never be able to pick up the pieces and go on living. Betsy isn't like Candy. For I could live without Candy but Betsy is my heart, my soul, and my will to live. Without her, I'd die.
Then Betsy lifts her face to look into my eyes. A tear trickles down her cheek as she says to me, with a small smile, "I wish I knew what you were thinking."
"I just told you."
Once again she tries to explain. "I wish I could `feel' you in my mind."
I wrap my arms tighter around her waist and breathe in the scent of her hair. "Can't you feel me in your heart?"
She leans into me and insists, "Of course I can, Warren."
With a smile I brush a few strands of hair from her face. "Isn't that enough?"
There's silence, then a gentle sigh and the reply of, "Yes. I guess it'll have to be."
We don't talk anymore. We just hold each other as we watch the sun come up. It's been a long night and there will be longer ones coming. She'll still cry in her soft sobs but now at least she knows that I am here to help and comfort her. I love her. And, in the end, she'll realize that that's all she really needs.
