Disclaimer: Characters are Marvel's, not mine.

Note: This story is a sequel/companion piece thingy, to "Welcome To The Sky".

Feedback is loved, adored, well fed and cared for.

She scatters the bird feed across the ground, as she does every day now, every morning at this time. She stands amongst it, absolutely still. She's a ninja, she knows how to stand still, so suddenly there's a statue there, barely breathing, nothing but grace.

The birds gather at her feet one by one, swooping down to peck at the seed and the breadcrumbs, fighting amongst themselves over desirable titbits. It seems likes every type of bird under the sun is there, so many colours and sounds and songs. The sun gleams off shiny healthy feathers, because they're all well fed, these birds. They're all kept safe from predators and looked after, the whole, huge flock of them. And gathered all together like this - they are something special to see. They are truly beautiful.

And she hates them.

She despises them. She wants to lash out with quick ninja hands and feet and break their necks, snap their wings, scatter their feathers and throw their limp bodies away like rags. She wants to catch them, hold them in her long, elegant fingers, and squeeze life from them. And she could, easily enough.

But she stands still, and lets them perch on her head and shoulders, and eat from her outstretched hands, and chirp their merry joy at the food that comes so easily. And tears run silently from violet eyes, hating every second of it.

Because it's been exactly one year since he left her for them.

They really didn't worry about it in the beginning; Warren's new gift for hearing birds seemed to leave him a little strange and distant, but he assured them it was something beautiful, something special. He tried to share it with her, but she could never sense anything but the joy he felt when he listened to them. And that was fine with her, that was enough. She liked to sense his joy, it made her smile just to be around him. And she put aside her misgivings, because he was so _happy_, and seemed so free and unburdened. She'd never seen him that way before, though Bobby told her he used to be a bit more like that, before Apocalypse. And somehow it lightened the whole house, despite all their troubles, to see Warren suddenly so full of light. As there was too much of it for him to contain, and so it spilled over and washed through them all. And if she felt a little jealous, that they could heal him and make him happy, in a way she had never been able to, she managed to hide it fairly well. Warren never noticed, in any case. But then Warren stopped noticing a lot of things, almost straight away.

Maybe that should've warned them.

Maybe a lot of things should've.

But nothing did, until it was too late.

Until Warren was spending more time in the sky than on the ground, and more time as a bird than as a man. Then, they tried to find some way to block those other voices, and make Warren hear theirs again. But he didn't. He wouldn't. In his increasingly few lucid moments, he didn't even seem to want them to try, or be afraid at what was happening to him. They tried locking him up while they searched for a `cure', and he became a wild thing, pining for the sky. Refused to eat, refused to speak - only looked at them with strange eyes that had no human left in them. In the end it seemed such cruelty that they let him go.

Watched him fly from the house as if it was a cage, with nothing but joy in him to be getting away from it. Away from them.

Away from her.

A year ago today.They've encouraged birds to flock around the mansion since then, because Warren will go wherever they do. Once, not long after he'd left them in all but body, Bobby mused aloud on whether he'd fly south for the winter with them. She attacked him for those words, ripped him apart with her own, hating him for mocking her pain. And was careful not to use her telepathic abilities to read his mind, knowing the loss and grief she'd find under the flippancy would mirror her own. She didn't want to have to know that he hurt too, that they all hurt at losing Warren that way.

She doesn't care. It doesn't matter.

He doesn't take her flying anymore.

She looks up, sensing the ghost of a once familiar presence coming to rest in front of her. His thoughts, if they can even be called that now, are quicksilver she can't catch, can't touch. They move on a different wavelength now, one she can't tune into. No matter how hard she tries, all she can get is - static.

She looks him over anxiously before she speaks, her eyes flickering over his body, noting, as always, how changed it is. His wings seem broader than ever, in comparison to the rest of his thin form. His legs, barely used now, are no longer muscular, and his arms are little better. He still takes food from them, she knows he eats - but he looks so thin...

He's clean though - fastidious even now, he washes in the shallows of the lake and he still wears the tattered remains of the clothes he'd been wearing when he left for the last time. He even seems to look after them. Do they hold significance for him, she wonders? Does he still remember, somewhere, that she gave him that shirt for his birthday?

"Hello love." She says softly, careful not to frighten him with too loud a voice, or too fast movements. "How are you?"

"Hello." He says calmly, and for a moment her heart races, lifts with joy, he's back, he's _here_, he's _Warren_ again --

"Hellohellohello." He tastes the word thoughtfully, happily, starts making a song with it, and she closes her eyes, swallowing screams.But she tries again, anyway. Speaks to him for a long time, telling him all that has changed since he left, talking about the life they had together, and how much she misses it. Misses him. He even seems to be listening.

Perhaps he is.

Though he seems at time like almost childlike, stupid or mad, she knows he is neither - and that somehow makes it worse. It's the occasional light of intelligence in his eyes, the words he sometimes speaks, that makes hope for his return impossible to discard. That makes her continue to believe that somewhere inside him, just, unbearably, out of her reach, is the man she loved, and who loved her.

He repeats some of her words back at her, twisting them around, playing sophisticated word games with them.

Yes, she thinks bitterly, there's still intelligence there. Just of an entirely different nature. An entirely different _species_...

Because you can't think like a man and think like a bird too.

And he made his choice a year ago today.

"Damn you..." she hisses at him, fury warring with grief, as always, at what he chose.

"Damn you Warren, how could you do this? How could you give up like this, let yourself turn into -- this. You selfish, cowardly bastard - !" her voice rises passionately, and she moves toward him, scattering startled birds in her wake.

But he simply turns and takes off, and her anger turns to dismay.

"No - Warren, please, don't go -! Don't go... please..." But he's gone already, circling the area a few times, before spiralling higher and choosing a path that means something only to him. And that to Betsy means only _away from her_. Left alone on the ground, she sinks to her knees and shakes with sobs.

"God _damn_ you, you son of a bitch. Oh god, come back..."

She feels another familiar presence approach, this one more solid, with human thoughts and emotions she can cling to. Still, she jerks away when he puts his arms around her, but he refuses to be pushed away, holds her tightly and lets her cry on him.

Funny, she thinks. She can remember a time she'd have died before she let someone like Drake see her cry, let alone be the one she turned to for comfort. But in different ways, he's changed almost as much as Warren this past year. He still spends hours sitting on the roof, whenever Warren comes to rest there; talking to him, when almost everyone else has given up. She never thought he'd be so stubborn about it, but his refusal to let go is almost as violent as hers. He spent most of winter up there too, making sure Warren didn't freeze to death, before they built him a shelter.

Before they stopped hoping that the cold might force him indoors again.

Missing Warren has brought them closer, and she finds that almost amuses her. It always upset Warren that she had so little time for his best friend. Perhaps he'd be pleased to see them come together now, for him. Perhaps he'd even be jealous.

~There's no need to be, love. It's always going to be you, love. Oh, come back to me. Come back, you bastard, come back, come back, please.~

"He isn't coming back Bets." Bobby says gently, and she realises she's been begging him to aloud, over and over again.

"He isn't coming back." He says again, and she knows he doesn't mean now, today, but that he isn't coming back at all, ever. She tugs away again slightly, but he ignores it, hugs her close, and with his voice aching with grief, he tells her he thinks its time to let go. She doesn't move as he speaks, and doesn't say anything, but in her heart she's thinking `traitor', even as she wishes she could do as he says, find the peace with this that he searches for.

But she knows she can't. She knows she won't.

She knows that tomorrow morning she'll feed the birds again, because Warren will only stay if they do. And she'll stand among them again, and let them eat a little more of her soul as they feed. And she'll think about killing them again - and she'll stop herself from actually doing it.

And she'll long, as she always does, to join them in the sky.

End.

Feedback to Poilass@aol.com