Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for non-profit entertainment only.

Note: This is the first Excalibur story I've ever written so please be kind. Personally, I like it.

"I'm tired of you."

Her words hang in the air for long, painful seconds before I react to them. Slowly enough, giving her an ample chance to take the words back, to say something, anything else, I look up at her and see that my worst nightmare is coming true.

"Wh...what?" I manage to stutter out, rising from the safeness of the couch.

"I'm sorry to tell you this. I mean, God, I never thought I'd be saying it but...I'm tired of you. You bore me. I'm sorry," she tells me and shrugs her shoulders. There is a packed suitcase at her leather high-heel clad feet and her hair, once flowing in long sunlight colored waves, is up.

"What do you mean when you say that I bore you?" I have to ask, I have to. She's leaving me. God, what did I do to deserve this? She's leaving me. My heart, my love is leaving.

Why don't I feel worse?

Her hand covers her full red lips for a moment before her intent gaze locks with my eyes and she mutters very carefully, "I think you know what I mean, Brian."

The best thing in my life is walking out on me and I don't even care that much.

"Meggan, I...I," my eyes fall to the floor. What can I say that I haven't already said? How can I apologize about something for the hundredth time and still mean it?

"I...I know what you mean," I finally manage to get out.

And she just stands there, not saying a word, not even looking at me. Her eyes are focused on something else; they're gazing into the future. She's dreaming, dreaming of some other life, of another way to live.

I never taught her how to do that.

All I ever taught her was how to live in the now, how to fight for the world, how to live one day but not the next.

I never taught her anything.

Someone taught her how to dream and how to read and how to...how to not need me anymore.

Meggan, my Meggan, the Meggan I loved so much, the one that fell into a catatonic state when I left her, left a long time ago. She's grown. Become someone, something, I don't know.

I miss my Meggan.

"Meggan," I begin as I move towards her.

There's understanding in her eyes as she comes back to the room, as her mind takes leave from it's flight of fancy to stay here, in this room and listen to me.

She never used to understand. Her eyes never looked like that before. They were never so clear, so bright green. They never had the power to look at me and just freeze me in place.

I don't know her anymore. And that scares me.

When she speaks to me again, tone hollow and uncaring, no hint of that love we once shared, or the life we dreamed of, she says, "Yes, Brain?"

I stop moving. It is her presence, her demeanor, everything about her, it just stops me. I can't move with those eyes on me. So, I draw in a shaking breath and inquire, "What happened to us?"

The shrug of her shoulders as she looks around our house is such a fluid movement that it astounds me. Not the way it used to take my breath away, not the "God, _she_ loves me" breathlessness but the "who is _she_" breathlessness. In a way it is nice, nice to know that I am okay with this change, that my heart will not suffer too much for lose of her, but on the other hand I can feel something in my soul simply giving up.

I am so afraid to lose her because it means losing a piece of myself.

I have never been a whole man. A part of me has always been somewhere else, belonged to someone else. The fates have always pulled me this way and that, twisting my life until I couldn't recognize it, changing my mind until I reached for the only thing I could control...the bottle.

I lost myself in alcohol so much back then. Whenever something happened that I couldn't stop, I took to it.

Whenever I felt out of control or that my life was spinning way too fast, I drank.

I drank a lot back then. However, I gave it up for Meggan. I stopped because she loved me, because she asked me to.

I wonder if I'll start drinking again.

Again, she shrugs. This time her voice has an edge to it, a "get me out of here and on my own" tone as she says, "I'm not sure."

I don't want to keep her.

I can't let her go.

"It's over, Brian. It's been over for such a long time. We...we've been fooling ourselves for years," now her voice reeks of pity as if she thought I didn't know of my short comings, of my inability to be everything for her.

I nod. I know this. I've known this. Something in my head wants to release her, it wants my say the words, "Goodbye Meggan. I loved you but that is over now", it wants to move on. But I am not ready. I am not ready.

The dreaded words find their way to my lips and I speak like the imbecile I am. "I'm not ready."Those sharp green eyes focus in on me, they stare at me unbelievingly. There's something in her face now, in her features, something hard as stone. She no longer cares. She stopped caring when she started learning, when she started living without me.

Yet, she kept me. She kept me even after I pushed her away, clung to some madness acquired in the time stream because I wanted a new identity. I clung to that and she clung to me.

And we might have clung together, forever, if I hadn't left her again to find myself.

It was then that she grew. It was then that she became the woman standing before me now.

Meggan is no longer a child in a woman's body. She is no longer simplistic and naive. With the help of the world, she grew. With the help of our friends, she became a person, not just some tag-along, but a real person.

The only response she gives is a sad shake of her head and the mumble of, "Brian, I can't wait for you to be ready. I'm ready now."

Then I'm nodding, trying to smile, wanting to show her that I am strong and that I will get through this.

After a moment of nodding and fake smiling, I speak to her. "I know, Meggan. I know," I tell her.

And if her eyes see anything left of the man she once loved in me, then they do not show it. The green orbs just flick over me and a thoughtful look crosses her face. "Then this is goodbye," she comments simply.

"I guess it is," I murmur.

An awkward moment has rushed in upon us and I'm not sure how to say goodbye to her, how to let her go. In the end, I turn away. She stands there looking around her for a long minute more before picking up her suitcase and walking out the door.

As I sink to the floor, spirit crushed and heavy with the acknowledgment of dead love and uncontrollable fate. I start to sob, tears running out of my blue eyes and down my face. God, I want a drink but I will not take one. That is the one thing she taught me.

So, even through my tears and my pain I find the voice to speak, I find the courage to whisper into the empty air, "I loved you Meggan. Goodbye."