Disclaimer: Death belongs to Vertigo, which is a faction of DC Comics, and, of course, to Neil, who created her. Illyana and the rest of the New Mutants belong to Marvel Comics. All characters are being used for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The story is mine.

Looking out her window, leaning her small body against the wooden frame where splinters from the unfinished sill rose up like a forest, Illyana thought that maybe it was Sunday. Or Monday. Or perhaps it was Wednesday and she had been gone longer than expected. Whatever day it was, the weather outside was still dark and cold and silent, with dark clouds overshadowing the sky.

Her thoughts turned, as usual, to her realm, the desolate and evil filled plane where her power was supreme. She had just returned from there after nearly a week of trying to patch everything back together. Ever since S’ym and his latest rebellion had been put down, the demons had gotten anxious and distrustful. While public relations weren’t her specialty, she had succumbed to the pressure from her advisors and stayed there, making sure things quieted down sufficiently before going back to Earth.

Now that she was back at Xavier’s, she almost wished she could return to Limbo. It was a double-edged sword, the business of being a demon sorceress ruling her own realm, because while she was there she hated it but when she went away, she missed it terribly. It was as if she could never win the war going on in her heart between home and…Well, to be honest they were both home. They were just different sides of home for the different sides of her.

Below her window, walking the grounds of the school, were her teammates in the New Mutants. They strolled with each other, laughing and talking, their voices loud and amused, filled with the joy of life that Illyana would never again posses. Roberto glanced up as he passed below her window, as though he had maybe felt her eyes on him, and, having seen her, waved slightly. His action sent the rest of them into a tizzy of motion that involved many hurried glances and hand movements.

"Hey Illyana, ya finally came back, huh?" The deep, Southern accented voice of Sam Guthrie floated up to her. He shot her one of his down-on-the-farm, good-ole-boy smiles and waved, the wind pushing his straw colored hair off to one side slightly.

Illyana didn’t wave back to him or smile and nod, those little gestures that seemed to have infiltrated themselves into her world. It was funny when you thought about it, when you looked back and began to examine things. As the weeks, months, years, passed, those simple movements had snuck up on her, turning her world at Xavier’s from one of silence and tight lipped frowns into something closer to normal, with real smiles and, sometimes, laughter. And it wasn’t all a ruse, either. That was what shocked her the most, the fact that, occasionally, the emotions that she showed on her face were the ones she really felt.

Today, though, she just couldn’t find the strength to paste a smile on her face, to make her eyes shine out in welcome and friendliness. Instead, she stayed quiet, somber, reverted to the stoic little zombie they had all meet when they first arrived.

The New Mutants had stopped walking and stood in a huddle below her window, their faces turned upward toward her. From this height, with her eyes, they looked so normal, so human and bored, as if they had never seen a day of fighting, a day of heartbreak in their lives but had flown through a world of rainbows and roses.

Perhaps it’s just the sun, she thought as she regarded them. Perhaps it’s just the way the shadows fall across their faces that makes them look so unreal to me now. Something in her knew the truth, though. Something way down deep inside her heart knew that they looked unreal because she had changed, her view of the world had changed. It had grown darker and fouler, filled with nightmares and demons, things you didn’t speak of unless you wanted to wake up in a white, padded room

Dani tilted her head to the side, studying her friend. "You okay, Illyana?" she questioned after a minute of contemplation. She had never seen such a look on the blonde girl’s face. It was a type of hopelessness, a deep disturbance ebbing away at the fragile, frail shell of sanity and happiness that had been recently regained.

The girl nodded, her blue eyes pale and listless, filled with none of the icy power and spark that had once slept there. "I’m fine," she assured them but it wasn’t her voice anymore. It was a shadow of her, a fleeting, paltry imitation. With a slight smile, one that was lifeless and devoid of anything close to feeling, Illyana stepped back from the window, shutting it and drawing the curtains across it as she did so.

For a moment, she was alone and the loneliness crept in on her, filling the empty spaces of the room she shared with Kitty, until it seemed that she was choking from the heaviness of it. And then, suddenly, she wasn’t alone anymore.

"Are you okay?" someone asked and Illyana turned to see a girl looking at her. The owner of the voice was perched on Kitty’s bed. She was a thin girl, no older than Illyana when you first looked at her. It was upon further inspection that you caught the immortality, the years, and endlessness that was captured in her eyes.

Illyana brushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear and sunk onto her own bed, legs feeling like sacks of flour. "I’m fine."

Black eyes trapped in a moon pale face, rimmed with dark mascara, gazed at her. "No, you’re not."

Resting her cheek in her hand, Illyana realized that this girl was right. She was not fine. She had not been fine for a very long time and, chances were, she would never be fine again. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, blocking out the too bright streams of light that managed to penetrate the heavy fabric of her curtains.

"So, what’s wrong?" the girl inquired, her voice breaking the quiet.

"I don’t know," Illyana murmured, looking up at her guest.

She was thin, dressed in black jeans, a black tank top, and black boots. An odd silver symbol, that Illyana wanted to call an ankh but wasn’t quite sure, hung around a black silk rope, contrasting greatly with the paleness of her skin. The girl raked a hand through her thick, full, frizzy black hair and looked around the room. "Is this your room?"

In response, Illyana shrugged. "I suppose you could call it that."

"There’s nothing of you in here." There seemed to be a note of surprise and quiet, unnoticed horror in the girl’s voice, as though she couldn’t believe that someone could live somewhere and not bog it down with some aspect of their personality.

"There’s not enough of me to go around," Illyana explained, her fingers tracing patterns on her bedspread.

The dark haired girl smiled at that and her smile was a beam of sunshine cutting through an eternal night. "You aren’t as empty as you think. You people never are. It just feels that way sometimes."

It occurred to Illyana that she should have been mad at the girl for such a remark but, at the moment, she just couldn’t find any energy for anger. "What do you know about me?"

"I know everything about you, Illyana Nikolovna Rasputin. I know everyone."

Shocked by the mention of her full name, a thing she hadn’t heard in years, Illyana stared at the girl in awe. It was then that her eyes cleared and she recognized the girl before her, the girl sitting, with her legs primly crossed, on Kitty’s bed. For anyone who had seen as much pain and war as Illyana had seen in Limbo would be able to recognize this entity for what she really was.

One hand catching in her blond hair, she whispered, "Death."

A nod from the girl whose skin shone like the full moon.

"So this is what it’s come to, is it?" Illyana whispered and it wasn’t a question except a little around the edges where doubt always seemed to lurk.

Death nodded again, one hand brushing hair away from her eyes. "This is what it always comes to, Illyana. This is how it always ends."

The blond shrugged and sat up on her bed, laying her hands in her lap. "I guess I never thought that it would end, though. I always thought it would go on forever and ever, the pain, the emptiness. I thought I would never feel, never die. Just walk around this world alone and with this battle plaguing my soul for all eternity. I never considered death."

"You used to."

Illyana nodded at that. "Things are different now. I’m in control of my life, my actions, more or less. This life is mine. I never imagined it ending."

On Kitty’s bed, Death shifted, tucking her legs under her body. "Your kind never think about the end of it, not really. You might look like it on the outside, like the kind who lingers on their death, on the termination of the pain, but you’re not really. You can’t ever seem to let go when you have to because somewhere you still believe that it will all get better eventually, if you just give it a little more time."

"There have been others like me?" she asked.

"Not the way you mean. I speak of the ones who are emotionally like you, shut up, repressed, so afraid to feel that you don’t let anything out and end up dying inside long before I come to relieve them of it all." And Death paused to let her words hang in the air, true and real, crystalline shards of truth that Illyana found herself shrinking away from.

The girl shook slightly, even though there wasn't the slightest hint of chill in the air. It was, she decided, a tremor of fear and she welcomed it, seeing as how fear was preferable to feeling nothing at all. "Oh."

The two paused, letting the room grow silent so that the distant tweeting of birds and the laughter of her teammates were audible. Rays of sunlight continued to slice through the curtain, reminding Illyana that things are not always what they seem and, sometimes, something horrible can become beautiful and pure again. It was a nice thought because it made her think that maybe it was better to end things now then go on suffering the way she had been for so long.

"What happens?" she asked, blue eyes focusing on Death’s black ones.

"After you die." The entity tilted her head to the right and pondered what she should say to this girl. "It depends. What do you think will happen?"

Running a hand through her blond hair, feeling every tangle and knot, Illyana answered, "I used to think that my soul was damned to hell. I guess that, somewhere in my heart, I still believe that. Hold onto the idea that once I die my spirit will be trapped in Limbo forever, held captive by the same devils who took my innocence from me in the first place. But, then, I always pictured Death as a horned demon so maybe I’m wrong about hell as well."

"You make your own hell, Illyana."

"I figured as much." She sighed, biting her lip and looking around the room. Kitty’s computer sat on the desk, blank and dead to the world because Illyana never had any use for the infernal machine. As she tried to imprint the image in her mind’s eye, she discovered that there really was nothing here for her, nothing here of her. This room was Kitty’s and she had just become a permanent visitor. "The story of my life," she muttered bitterly.

Death looked up from the book of poetry she had been flipping through. "What’s that?"

"I’m just a permanent visitor every where I go." The words transfixed themselves into the air, becoming tangible and heavy. "So, what happens next?"

"You’ll find out." The book was laid aside, forgotten on Kitty’s bedspread as Death got up, her long legs unfolding. She held out her hand. "Do you want to say goodbye first."

Illyana shook her head. "Nah."

"Why?"

"Because," Illyana said, taking Death’s pale hand in hers, "it’s always worse when they say goodbye."

Outside the group of teenagers known as the New Mutants paused in their revelry and gazed back at the mansion, at the window of Illyana Rasputin’s room. If you asked them later that night what had made them look, they would have told you that it was the sound of mighty wings.

End.