Tears.

Such a simple thing.

Nothing more than drops of salty liquid.

Some would claim that blood and tears are just that; just a simple reaction. Nothing more. I know better. I know that blood and tears are so much more, so much more important.

Blood is universal; be you human or beast, man or animal, blood is blood. Everyone and everything bleeds when they are hurt, within and without. Wounds of flesh give way to the crimson tide. Wounds of the heart and soul are more or less the same thing, if more painful. A broken heart bleeds, and a torn soul does too. No matter what else separates you from someone else, blood is universal.

Tears, though. Tears are something special.

Did you know that only humans cry? It's true. Humans are the only things on the planet that can weep. Humans can cry. Animals cannot. It's one of the things that separates the two.

I stand in the rain with everyone else, feeling the freezing drops sting and numb my skin, and I don't care. The cold of my flesh is nothing compared to the crippling ice within me. Only half-listening to the eulogy, I let my eyes focus on the headstone for the one thousandth time.

Here lies Jean Grey-Summers

Beloved wife, friend, X-Man

May she rest in eternal peace

Not very poetic, but heartwrenching in its significance. A part of me can't accept that she's dead. A Phoenix is supposed to rise from it's own ashes, but that isn't true. The Phoenix dies, consumed in its own life-giving fire.

The Phoenix fire is cold ashes. As cold as the rain on her funeral. I'm sure that the others are glad for the rain. It cools burning tears, or so I'm told. Scooter seems to lift his head to the sky often, and I can see his cheeks are nearly as red as his visor. Funny, how blood is universal but tears are individual. Even in the way they are shed. Scott's tears are large, heavy drops that slide down his face and flush his skin. Ro's tears are more of a slow leak. Hank's are like Scott's, but they slick down fur instead.

None of us really want to watch our fellow X-Man be lowered to the earth. Everyone finds something else to focus on. Kurt, who came all the way from Europe for the funeral, idly worries his tail. Hank smoothes down the blue fur on his hands. Ro, I'm sure, is focusing on the weather. Scott fingers his wedding band.

I look at the tears.

It's times like this when I really start to realize how different I am from them. Not funerals; but tears. When I see people crying and wonder what it's like.

Humans can cry. Animals can only keen.

I know that later, when they have put away their tears for the moment, will remember that no tears fell from my eyes. I wonder what they will think. Will they believe that I was too stunned to cry? Or will they think that I don't care enough to cry?

I care. I feel my heart cracking open and bleeding, just like theirs. Because blood is universal. Tears are not. Later, when the funeral is over and the stars are out, I will quietly make my way out of the mansion and to the woods, out of earshot. So my screams won't alarm them.

I wish I could cry. It seems so painless...keening hurts. It hurts to scream your throat raw and still have all that pain locked up inside. So much easier to let it fall in teardrops. But no. Humans cry; it is their right alone.

I am a person, but not human. Humans cry, while I can only keen.