"They stayed in the bedroom for half an hour or so, talking, looking at the things, talking: and Clara remembered thinking at the time that it was just such a honeysuckle-filtered, sunny, conversational afternoon that would in years to come, whatever those years might bring, cause her the most sad and exquisite nostalgia. She was sad in advance, and yet at the same time all the happier, doubly happy, for knowing that she recognised her happiness, that it was not slipping by her unheeded, for knowing that she was creating for herself a past."

- Jerusalem the Golden, Margaret Drabble

"Death is a bad way to fix something that's broken," Jean said, her own heart pounding.

"I know." He took a deep breath, still staring at the stars. "I've seen the way you look at that girl. Mindy is her name? You love her?"

"We're married," Jean said. "We... grew up together."

James smiled, slow and bitter. "Milly and I were the same. She never did look quite like the others, but it wasn't until her teens that she made the full change. It was real hard on her. Hard on me too, I guess."

"But you made it," Jean whispered.

"Sure did. She wouldn't want this. Me, thinking about dying. I can't help it, though. I'm alone out here, and those people in town... even if one of them did find me, they wouldn't bury me here at her side. They would take me away to the cemetery. Heck, I don't even know what to do about Dog."

He looked at Jean so very solemn she wanted to cry. "Be careful, son, when you get older. Take care of the people you love. Find some good friends. The kind who will watch over you after you've gone. You don't want to end up like me."

"Was it such a bad life?" she whispered, trying to imagine James and Milly, both alive and full of love in that little four-room house.

"No," he breathed.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything."

- X-Men: Dark Mirror, Marjorie M. Liu