One Last Chance |6| The Ascension

Chapter Forty-One: Cursed

One night months later, McKenzie sat in front of her mirror, combing through her hair. It was turning more and more silver every day, but she liked it. It was metallic, like steel, and she liked that. That and the fact that fewer and fewer people automatically recognised her as the killer of Thanos because of it.

"Here," the Doctor said, his reflection moving closer. "Let me do that." He took the comb from her hand and ran it through her hair, his touch as light as a feather. There was so much love in it, in such a simple action. She always had loved the feel of his hands in her hair.

And yet, as she closed her eyes, leaning into him, a tear slipped through her eyelashes, spilling onto her cheeks, and more and more followed. Her shoulders shuddered with hurt as she wept, the Doctor's hands stilling in surprise.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice softer than a thousand clouds for her.

"I don't know," she sobbed, her eyes wide as they met his in the mirror. "I don't know..."

But the truth was taller and more terrible than that, because she did know. And he could never. She could never tell him how it was breaking her heart to know that he would die one day, permanently, and she would have to suffer his loss for the rest of eternity. Even if she could risk his horror, his repulsion, how could she find the words? How could she tell the man she loved that his death would destroy her? That the very thought that one day, those hands that caressed her skin, the lips that pressed against her temple, the love that shone from his every pore, would be gone forever. She couldn't bear it. And yet she had to. She'd rather he died still loving her than find out and leave in disgust.

***

In a bed far away in London, Wanda started awake with a gasp. The images were still there behind her eyelids, flashes of one of the worst days of her life, when she had been forced to kill Vision, all for nothing. The pain and fear on his face, the love in his eyes when he had said softly, I just feel you. Her heart was thumping in her chest, pounding against her ribcage, desperately trying to burst free.

Wanda swallowed, taking a deep breath. It wasn't her fault—logically, she knew that. She had tried to destroy the mind stone before Thanos could get it, she really had. And if she had hesitated, delayed, fought against it with everything she had, was that such a bad thing? She had loved Vision. Could she be blamed for not wanting to end his life?

But something deep inside her, that insidious little voice that blamed her for everything, disagreed. It was simple mathematics, surely. Ending one life to save trillions? There was no question of what she should have done. And how many lives had been ruined because of her hesitancy, her weakness? How many people had died and come back to find their lives weren't waiting for them? That their lovers had remarried, their children grown up, their jobs been replaced. How many had suffered in the name of her love?

Wanda wept quietly that night, knowing all the while that she was being selfish. She was nothing more than a shadow, an echo of someone once loved. How could she ever become that again?

~~~