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He was on time, like always.  The leaves were just about to turn and the heat of Chicago's summers had been replaced by the soft breeze and mild temperatures of pre-fall.  He was like he always was, jeans and a blue t-shirt.  When they moved in together she tried buying him another color.  It didn't take her long to realize why it was all he owned.  If all your shirts look the same no one notices if you have to change it half way through the day because you flew into a burning building to save some kids.  Or stopped bullets during a bank robbery.  She smiled and placed her hands on his chest.  Warm, that was the first thing she thought of in the mornings when she would wake up next to him.  "All done then?"  she asks, with a smile.

"Yep.  I'm officially a doctor."  John said, returning her smile.  "Now I just need to decide where I want to work."

She nodded.  "There is something else you need to decide first."  She said, taking a step towards him and wrapping her arms around his waist.  "You've been distracted, busy, and missed."

John took a deep breath, "I'm sorry.  I know it's been hard.  Me not being around as much, I get too focused."

"I've decided that you're never going to do it, so I will."

"Do what?" he asks, looking down into her upturned eyes.

"Something has to change between us John.  We're not really good for each other.  You're a Boy Scout and I'm a walking disaster area."

"You've changed though.  You're not the same frail girl I knew in high school."  He lifts her chin.  "You've grown so much, don't sell yourself short."

She smiles, and his other hand brushes a stubborn curl out of her face, only to watch it slip back.  "I've decided that things need to change.  So I'm going to change them."

John nods.  For all his amazing powers, he's never been good with letting people in.  He's distant and moody.  And She'd been bearing the brunt of it, and his heroic compulsions as well as long nights of residency and internship.  "Okay."  he says softly.

"Will you marry me?"  she says, displaying a confidence that has taken years to build up after the tragedies of her youth.

John's eyes widen, and she smiles.  He would have said yes.  He would have kissed her and held her and shouted with joy.  He would have. 

That was the moment the projectile struck his back, just to the right of his spinal column.  any normal, bullet would have flattened against his dense flesh, but this was no ordinary bullet.  It bore into him, tearing a hole through his flesh and muscle.  It nicked the muscle of his heart.  It's downward angle would have taken it out of his chest under his sternum, but the slug itself was stopped.  It's power had been slowly depleting, not made to pass through something as hard as John Elliott.  The pressure in the forward cavity however finally detonated the explosive there, pushing the tiny sliver of spent Uranium onward, slipping like a knife through the rest of his chest, and then out the front.  She was not made of super dense flesh and bone.  She was physically as human as everyone else in the park.  The spent Uranium core of the round passed into her, and through her lung.

The pair fell apart, collapsing to the ground amid the screams of the other park patrons.  Pools of blood forming underneath them, joining into a last living embrace for the couple. 

John snapped upright and took a deep gasping breath.  He immediately recognized his mother on his right, and the sound of her voice trying to calm him.  He looked down at his chest, and saw the bandages there.  The faint traces of pain, and the mild faintness that comes from blood loss.

"Mr. Elliott, I'm detective Granger of the Chicago PD."  The voice on his left wasn't one he knew, and John nodded.

"What happened?"  He asked, his voice dry and unused.

"The Valentine Sniper."  the detective said.  "He's killed five couples in the last three years.  Always in parks.  Seattle, San Fransisco, New York, Denver, Atlanta, and now Chicago.  The doctors say it's a miracle you survived.  You're the lucky one."

John's gaze narrows, "Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking joke?"

John's mother's hand is on his arm, "He didn't know John."  She says softly,

Granger doesn't take the tone of John's comment well, and glares back at the other man.  "He shoots through the couples with a single bullet.  Custom armor piercing round.  Somehow you stopped most of it.  Bad thing too, it tore you up pretty good inside."

"Where is she?"  John asks.

"The basement."  Granger says, "Her mother is there."

"Her mother is dead.  It's her aunt Jean.  I need to go see her.  Apologize."

"You're not going anywhere kid."

John and Granger were on the other side of the room, and Granger's feet were no longer touching the ground.  "I'm going to see her.  And if you get in my way I'll smash you like a bug.  Is that clear?"  When John is angry there is no way he can hide it.  His voice is loud, loud enough to rattle window glass.

"John!"  Mom yells, "Put him down.  Go see her.  I'll get you checked out."  John set Granger down, and then in a blur was gone.  John's mom walked over and helped steady Granger.  "My son has super powers.  And he just learned the woman he loves died, and he didn't.  I hope you can forgive him."  Granger swallows, and nods.

Jean knew it was John that came in the room.  She had gotten used to the little breezes that announced his arrival.  It had ruffled the sheet that covered her adopted daughter.

"I'm sorry."  he said, walking to stand next to her.  "If I had."

"Stop."  she said.  "You didn't do this to her.  If anything you made it possible for her to get this far."  Jean turned to John, and couldn't help but lean into him and hug the young man.  "She loved you very much.  You made her whole I think."

John was paralyzed.  He didn't know what to say.  He put his arms around her to comfort her, but couldn't form any words.  He wanted to tell her something, tell her anything that might make the hurt more bearable.  "I loved her too.  She was my whimsy."

Jean let out a soft half laugh.  "She used to say you were her handler.  Making sure she ate, and had clean cloths, and got to class.  You two were good together."  She might have been able to keep it together if she hadn't said that.  But the floodgates were open now, and her sobbing threatened to tear her apart.  "At least she's back with her family now."  She said, something she had feared she would say all during the time the girl went to high school.  Those strange and dangerous years.

"Home."  was all John could say, and his emotions began to pour out of him now too.

***

John stood in the park.  His eyes were closed and his breathing relaxed.  He had been working for years to be able to use his enhanced hearing effectively in crowds, and had finally perfected the technique a couple of years ago.  Detective Granger had said that the Valentine Sniper hadn't taken his second couple in Chicago yet.  They were staking out the parks, and the nearby rooftops.  John hadn't heard a shot, which meant the sniper had to have been a very long way away.  It wouldn't be a pistol shot, which were so common in the city John almost didn't notice them anymore. 

It was faint, and the bullet moved at super sonic speeds.  She had sent him a text to change the park where they were meeting at the last minute.  They were supposed to have met here.  Coincidence and strange luck were her stock and trade.  This would be where the sniper struck next.  And she had probably seen it on some pattern, and set the dominoes up so they would fall the way they did.  Maybe expecting John's bullet proof body to protect them.  Maybe knowing it wouldn't.  There was no telling with her.

POP.  John heard it, and spun to see the direction.  Then he was off.  The couple never knew they would have been dead a half second later.  Suddenly they were behind a tree, and the ground near where they had been standing had exploded in a puff of grass.

He looked up from the scope, blinked, and then looked back.  "What the?"

"My name is John Elliott."  The voice from behind him said.  He looked slowly back over his shoulder at the tall young man in the red t-shirt by the door to the roof.  The one he'd seen meditating in the park, two and a half miles away.  Less than thirty seconds ago.

"You're fast."  He might have said more, but his windpipe was being held a little tightly for air to get through it.  The man had crossed the roof, and was dangling him over the edge of the roof.  holding his precious custom made rifle in his other hand.

"Her name would have been Delaney Elliott."  The sniper watched as the dark hair young man crushed the rifle in his hands, snapping it into two parts.  A tear formed in his eye, and his face began to get red.  He loved that rifle.  The young man took the sniper's hand in his.  "I want very badly to kill you."  The number of small bones in the sniper's hand tripled in a split second.  "But I don't think she'd want me to do that."  He reached over and took the sniper's other hand, which flailed some in an attempt to not meet the same fate as his other hand.  The only thing which kept him from screaming was a lack of air.  "She never got to hear me say yes.  I think she knew I would though."  John knew how much damage he could do to a person.  Being a doctor he also knew what sorts of damage could be fixed.  and what couldn't.

"Elliott!"  Granger called.  He and his men had arrived, and John set the sniper down so that he could cradle his shattered hands and weep over the loss of his precious rifle.  "I'm gonna have to take you into custody kid."

"You and what army?"  John said flatly.  "I'm done."  John squatted down, and the air around him rippled with power and heat.  Like a rocket John Elliott flew into the afternoon sky and was gone.

***

John sat at the bar, finishing his fifth bottle of rum.  He almost felt numb.  He almost didn't hurt inside.  He was almost didn't miss her every second.  He was almost a hero.