Title: A Little Spot of Heaven
Author: AaronR (Rachel)
Email: raaaron@mindspring.com

Rating: G (don't let it fool ya! angst ahead.)
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Dedication: To the Moms on the list.
Feedback: Please
Comments: This was written in an hour, all in a rush. Hope you like it.

She is so beautiful, my little girl, our little girl. Her hair is a dark brown, like mine, but she has her mother's bright green eyes. They are sparkling this morning as she runs around the lawn. I named her Andrea, it was Marie's middle name.

She is six years old today, She would have been 29.

Xavier has given the running of the school over to Scott more and more in the past years. He's earned his rest. He says the children are a great comfort to him, Andrea, and Scooter's two brats. I love Andrea, Marie did too, she gave everything she had for her.

Marie and I were married eight years ago, on her twenty-first birthday, a year after Scott and Jean finally tied the knot and two years after I came back to discover that Marie had learned to control her powers. Andrea had been an accident, "unexpected, but not unwanted," as Marie used to say. Scott and Jean had already had their first kid, so the Mansion was a buzz at the possibility of a new baby to spoil. Jean took special care of Marie and I was there, everything should have been fine. But it wasn't.

A month before she was due, Andrea came. Everything was normal though, right up to the end.

Jean looks a little sad today. I think she still blames herself, but with one stillborn child of her own she knows better than any of us that modern medicine can't fix everything. There was nothing she could have done, no way she could have expected it. After all, people weren't supposed to die in childbirth anymore.

I wasn't always this calm, I nearly killed Jean that first night when she told me. Eventually, though, I understood. Maybe it was four years of living with Marie's soothing influence that calmed me, maybe it was the way Andrea looked at me, so open and trusting, that made me be a man when I wanted to be an animal.

First I stayed because I could still smell her, then I stayed because Andrea needed me. She was this perfect little person that Marie and I had made, who Marie had given her life to bring into the world. The first time I held her, I was so scared. I wanted to hate her for taking Marie away from me, but as I held her, and she looked at me with Marie's wide eyes, I knew I could never leave her. For her I became a responsible father. I changed diapers and stayed up all night when she wouldn't go to sleep. I potty trained and I read bed time stories and I talked about Marie. Jean and Ororo helped out a lot, but I still felt so unsuited to fatherhood. I was the Wolverine, dammit, how was I suppose to be her father, I had no idea what to do and there was no mother Marie to help me, but when we sat on the floor, playing blocks, it was like Marie was right there, telling me what to do. I can still hear her everyday in Andrea's voice, I see her every day in Andrea's eyes and it is a bittersweet torture I wouldn't trade for the world.

Our little girl is six today. She runs across the yard to me and begs to be held. So much like her mother, always craving touch. I smile at her and she wriggles in pleasure. She knows, even this early, that I never smile for anyone else. She asks me if mommy is watching us, her wide eyes demanding the truth. I can never lie to Andrea. I tell her that she is, and oddly enough I believe it. I have never believed in Heaven and I know that this world holds too much of Hell to need an Ethereal one, but I know that Marie is here, with us, everyday, laughing just out range of my hearing.

Andrea asks to be put down and runs to where Jean has set up her birthday cake. I can feel Marie behind me, smiling. I smile too. Andrea beams, a little version of her mother as she blows out the candles. Six years ago today, Marie died, and six years ago today she gave me the greatest gift I could ever get. The ever present anger begins to fade from my metal bones as I bask in those loving smiles, one seen and one remembered, and I laugh in spite of myself as I run to get Andrea's presents from the closet. The world may have its hells and demons, but it has its angles and its little spots of heaven too.