Spring unfurled itself late this year; the winter winds had kept the lingering frosts well into March. The landscape outside matched the feelings that she was struggling with, fragile hope that could be destroyed in a moment. The school had funding from a mixture of government and private contributors; their position would be secure as long as they continued to help those who came to the doors. They had to do a little in return for the favours shown to them but it wasn’t onerous, a little passage of information to those that needed to know was all.
Marie snorted as she remembered Logan’s reaction to the meeting where all this had come out, he’d just pierced Ororo through with his trademark stare and asked her when we were going to put up the barb wire and gun placements. She’d had her own doubts at first. But the way it seemed to work could be a hope filled vessel, one she dearly needed to prove itself on the sea of troubles and doubt that surrounded mutantkind right now.

Tiredness suffused her every cell, she was struggling to keep herself on an even keel, even with Logan’s help she’d just managed to sleep well for a few nights. She couldn’t ask more of him than he was willing to give her; she needed someone to comfort her, someone to hold her while she slept, giving her the safety she craved; the contact she desired.
She’d read about touch deprivation, what it did to the mind, to people’s psychology, how babies died from neglect, how toddlers withdrew and became nothing more than living dolls you could do anything to. How people became so frightened of the world because they no longer had any reference to it, that everything around them became a threat because nothing or no one would touch them. Many of them turning it inward on themselves, trying anything to prove their worth to those around them, even going so far as self-harming to gain some sort of touch. Even if it was clinical and devoid of emotion.

It hadn’t struck her how far down that line she’d been until Logan had held her, just a simple touch of his body against hers, a friend holding a friend. She’d been existing, using her chores and responsibilities to hide her true state of mind. Logan had gotten her through the Valentines Ball; she knew that as much as she knew the sun would set in the west tonight. His presence had been to her left all night, dressed in a dark jacket he’d looked wonderful, even charmed a few of the donors but his eye had been on her. Checking on her state of mind, on her soul. He’d even danced with her, the music something slow and beautiful his hands on her covered skin. The dress she wore old fashioned and full, the crinoline underneath rustling as they went round the ballroom. Like a picture from another world, another time, her gloved hands held loosely in his own, his head bowed so he could watch her eyes as they went around the dancefloor. Letting him lead them, surrendering herself to his guidance, letting him know she trusted his wisdom, his treatment of her.
She’d actually enjoyed it, the sense of freedom it had given her, to let someone else be in charge for a while, to relax, let her guard down. He’d smiled at her then, when she’d shown him she was okay with him leading her around. It had been four minutes at the most but it had repaired months of damage, damage she hadn’t realised was there.

Her eyes roved over the budding trees and her heart lifted a little, life was returning and she had to prepare for her own to restart. Thing was she didn’t know how to start or where to begin, she’d let her work define her, her purpose and drive being all consuming. But now she knew she had gaps, had things to solve before she let herself go insane, she needed but how to get the need met? She couldn’t ask someone to dance with her every day could she?
She muffled a laugh that crept out over her lips into the coffee mug she had at her lips as the image went through her head, her stood there with a line of people all waiting to dance with her. The looks of utter terror and fear on the faces made her stomach churn as she realised that they still thought of her as a threat and danger.

Pulling the mug away from her lips she let her gaze drop into the dark liquid she was holding. Once upon a time she’d have put cream and sugar into it, but now she needed it black and tar thick, she knew where that came from – Logan. Sighing she let the mug rest in her hand knowing she wasn’t going to drink any more of the stuff, she had to re-define herself without the influences of others in her mind. She couldn’t get rid of them and they were barely under control most of the time but if she could concentrate on her own self maybe that’d make them retreat into her subconscious more. Pleased with herself she turned her back on the trees and budding flowers, the spring breeze sending the promise of blossom her way. Retreating into the mansion to start her work on herself, not knowing that someone else had been thinking the same.


He knew she wasn’t okay, the way she’d been avoiding people, hiding herself away in meaningless task after task, withdrawing from life. The ball had been a near disaster for her, until he’d come down the stairs and walked over to her. His hand reaching out to her elbow and just his fingers touching her made a smile run across her eyes if not her lips.

Touch, something so important, so crucial to life that it was overlooked so often. Even here, there were people to talk to sure but to hug you? Hold you when you had a nightmare if your skin was covered in scales? Sure everyone did what they could but Marie was losing ground, kids backed off from her attempts to help them, they knew she was dangerous. He didn’t blame them, kids will be kids, shit he heard tales about himself as he’d walked the halls. About how he ate the slow kids when they didn’t keep up with stuff, or how Ororo gave him ‘time off’ in the woods. Even though the last one was correct he wasn’t going to go shout it from the roof, he had his privacy. Thing was Marie had too much of hers and he’d made his mind up to change that one way or another.


She’d been taking out the rubbish to the compost heaps when she’d heard the voice calling her, trying to find the body that went with it but failing she dropped her burden first and went to find it. She entered the back of the walled garden; a private place where she’d only ever passed quickly by before. The heavy wooden door taking time to shove back, it’s peeling paint lodging under her fingernails as she shoved her entire weight against it. Her gloves resting in her pocket for now, every day she took them off for an hour, just to feel the rest of the world around her. The touch something she needed, something she craved after a day of being gloved up. She wouldn’t do much harm to dead vegetables or paper so she’d volunteered for the compost duty, just so she could go without her ever-present gloves for a moment.

When Marie finally got the door open what met her gaze was something out of a fairy tale, a tree, gnarled old, beautiful in it’s sweeping curves and trained branches. No leaves yet to be seen but the blossom that covered it moved in the slight breeze she’d brought in with her. Moving away from the door, she wiped her bare hands self consciously on her jeans as she straightened up, her feet crunching on small pale coloured gravel. Her gaze still transfixed on the tree and it’s fluttering cloud of colours, every shade of pink was there, from the deep hue of a carribean shell to the skin of a baby’s feet.

Moving without thought she walked through the gravel to the tree, coming under it’s shelter from the spring sun, mottling her with the colour and scent filling her senses until she was blind to anything else but the tree in front of her. The way the bark changed from smooth to rough halfway down, from fissures that echoed parched desert land to smooth darkness reminding her of the mahogany hall tables in the school. Her bare fingers rose to feel the petals under her pads, the softness of them, the translucence that didn’t blemish as she touched their surfaces. She didn’t kill them with her skin and a smile wound itself around her heart, here she could touch without worry or price.

The enormity of this place hit her, her mind reminding her that this place should have been empty, should have been a wasteland of old equipment and plants gone to seed long ago. The voice that had called her now had a body to go with it and she was surprised to see who it was.
He was seated on something low and dark coloured, his knees resting spread over the flat dark surface. His gaze on her feet and she looked down to where he was staring, a few feet to her left was a large moss covered stone, adrift in a sea of gravel, all of it raked into swirling patterns. Her footprints marred the surface but not the deep grooves, they could still be seen, the pattern still visible. Finally it dawned on her where she was, she was in a Zen garden and it looked like it was Logan’s own. Her mind went fleetingly to the book of poetry she’d found for him and it shouldn’t have surprised her to find somewhere like this but it did.

He closed his eyes to her feet and raised his head so when he opened his eyes again he was looking at the tree as his mouth began to speak to her over the quiet almost sacred air of the place. “There’s a legend about the first emperor of Japan, he lost an army in battle, young men, all filled with vigour and fire.” Logan’s eyes met her own then and she felt her heartbeat stutter with the force of his stare. He shifted his form, clothed in a simple black tunic and trousers, the grace of his movements being picked up by her stimulated senses. As he stood up she saw his feet were bare and noticed that the dark hair she knew grew on his chest and hands was also on top of his bare foot. His voice made her look back up at his eyes as he walked toward her under the blossoming cherry.
“He won the war but lost many young men, too many to count in a day. The bodies were left out in the open and the birds were gathering to feast on the slain but the Emperor couldn’t face the thought of them being disgraced like that after they’d done so much for him.” The words seemed to hold her still, echoing through her ears and stripping the layers from her skin until she felt naked under the tree. Logan stood next to her and raised his gaze to the blossom; his hand reaching out to touch the blooms her own hand had touched earlier. His voice rich and deep as she breathed in the same space as him, the same air.

“He ordered his men to take the dead to an orchard nearby, the trees were young and not yet fully established. Under each one they buried a warrior, laid in the pose that each man had earned according to his rank. When it was done the Emperor left with the rest of his army, the land behind him forgotten for now. It was ten years later when he received a visit from the farmer who’d been given the land. He carried a branch of deep pink blossom with him; the scent of it filling the Imperial Court until it finally reached the nose of the Emperor himself. Asking where the beautiful scent was coming from, the farmer was ushered into his presence and he told the Emperor that his white cherries had all bloomed pink. And where there was supposed to be no smell from the flowers there was this wonderful scent, he’d come to the Imperial Court to see a learned man to find out why his trees had changed and what it foretold of the future.”

Logan’s fingers broke off a small blossom and brought the scented flower under her nose, the heady scent filling her world as he ran the petals down her skin. The cool touch making her blush deeper than the flowers own colour, his smile working into his words as he watched her reaction to his touching play.
“The Emperor asked where the farmer lived and when he heard of the place he remembered what had happened at the end of the battle there. From that day onward he ordered every new cherry planted to have a warrior’s body placed under it. So that the blood of the fallen youth would colour the flowers and remind those who served under his rule would know that the sacrifice of young life to keep peace and continuity would be remembered.”

She closed her eyes to the sun and the touch on her face; tension rolled off her and sank into the ground around her, eaten by the roots of the Japanese cherry. Marie didn’t care that she was ungloved, that she was a risk to Logan, all that mattered was that she was relaxed, she could trust him and she would trust him. He’d called her to this place, to this hideaway of his. She felt his hands on her clothed arms, letting him guide her across the gravel back to the low wooden platform. Finally when she felt herself being manoeuvred down into a sitting position she opened her eyes to the beautiful view of the whole garden.

Nearly perfect in size, an offset square, longer than it was wide, the walls still had their training fans for fruit stuck to them, but when they were counter-pointed by the graceful sweep of a moss covered stone they didn’t look out of place or ridiculous. It showed the continuity of the garden, that the purpose had changed but the soul was the same. No longer toiled for bodily fruit to feed the hunger of the plain body, it was now a place to feed the soul, the fruit that grew now on the training fans and wall wires was something that she’d been missing herself. The calm and peace of a centre, a place of utter calm, locked away from the world, hidden, removed. A place of contemplation, where the pattern always revealed itself eventually to the mind willing to receive it.

Her gaze swept over the ground, the rise and fall of the swept and raked gravel, the perfect waves and troughs, even as she sat and watched the garden Logan had a rake in his hand. He moved slowly, in time with the surroundings and she felt her breath move into the rhythm of his movements, the upper sweep of the rake her in-breath, the drag and movement of the pebbles her exhalation. The susurrations of the gravel like the waves of the sea, unknowing that she was being lulled into a peace, a meditation for just for her. The warm sun being captured here in this walled garden, reflected from the russet bricks all around and the grey sparkling chips that were moving in a dance that emptied her mind of everything but the sound.

Logan looked up from his rake, seeing her boneless, resting for the first time in an age, her skin still pale but colour returning to her face, her body scenting relaxed and unstressed. Her scent mingling with the blossom reminding him of another time and place where he’d been at peace with someone he’d cared for. This time he was determined that he’d be aware of her, he’d focus on what was in front of him, not being distracted by revenge or hatred. As he removed her footprints from the tree’s base he made a new circle in the pattern, a centre for something; he didn’t know what yet but something would be put there later. Her eyes were resting on the garden, not looking hard but absorbing it ‘into’ herself, into her heart. Smiling he continued his dance around the gravel garden, letting his own mind become vacant in the ageless movements.


It was only when the sun hit the top of the wall that Marie realised how long she’d been sat there, Logan was seated next to her but exactly when he’d come she didn’t know. Her mind had been on autopilot and she felt refreshed and clear for the first time since Christmas, all her residents were quiet and settled. Turning to look at Logan fully she caught his half smile and her mind showed her an image of a different garden but one that meant much more to him. A woman dressed in a beautiful silk kimono, her face turned away from her memory but the image one that held a depth of love that almost took her heart from her body. She hadn’t spoken at all in here; it seemed too sacred a place to defame with a spoken voice, as if it would shatter the peace that was woven into every piece of nature.

Instead she wove her hand into his, using her sleeve to cover her bare skin, the heat from his hand warming her skin instantly. The gentle squeeze of strength he gave her enough to tell her he appreciated her silence here, that this was a place of peace for him. He moved his other hand over to her and dropped a blossom into her lap, still attached to the small branch, the meaning not lost on her. An invitation, a welcome to use this place, her eyes clouded for a second and she blinked the tears away as they fell down her skin. She wanted to ask him when and how he’d built this place, but she didn’t need to. She had his mind in hers, his memories and she should know why already, searching for the answer she found it in the way he was seated with her. Next to her, balanced against her own weight on the small wooden platform, her Ying to his Yang. He hadn’t just done this for himself, he’d done this for ‘them’, so she could help herself, so she could be free from everyone when she needed to be. The words she spoken to him before ringing in her ears and the look of upset on his face had been heartfelt. She’d goaded him into action with her little shed haven she’d given him and he was returning the favour for her.

When the sun finally went below the iron red brick did either of them move and then they did it in silence. Logan leading her through the peaks and troughs he’d created, a winding path to lead them to the door of the garden. Passing each boulder and stone, moss covered and bare, under the tree and around the far edge of the garden before leading to the exit. A separation ritual, an airlock if you like to get the mind working again after such calm and repose. She was still coming round when Logan let go of her hand and pulled the half-rotten door shut, his face creasing as he patted the wooden shell of the door. Marie knew that the next time she came here there’d be a new door with a lock on it, one that worked from the inside only.

Logan put his arm over her shoulders and Marie let herself be moved, the calm still winding out behind her like a strand of silk. The breath of her friend the solidity she’d been needing, her tears shed on the way back weren’t from pain or sorrow, but from gratitude. To be known, understood and given what your heart desires truly, what your soul screams out for in the middle of the night is love, is care, is everything. She didn’t speak when they finally reached the school, all she did was turn out of his arm, hug him tight to her and let herself fall into him. He’d given her exactly what she’d needed and for that there weren’t enough words in the world.
As he held her she felt he rumbling purr go through his body, the contented sound he made when he was at peace, at ease with the world around him. Understanding that it hadn’t just been a place for her, he needed the peace too, the calm, the centre yet he’d opened it for her to rest in, to be at home in; and for that it meant the world to her. More than a book of poetry, more than a memory shared, it meant everything.

Just before he released her, his lips brushed the top of her head, the blessing given he let her stand clear of his arms, skin flushed and raw looking around her eyes but the spark of life was returning to them. She was coming home to him, back to the girl who’d taken his head out of his ass and shown him what had mattered in reality, to those around him that cared for him. To *her* who shared his mind and memories and saw the man not the beast he had hidden inside his heart. A smile wound itself through his eyes and onto his face, the smile so unused by him but feeling natural with her. The warmth is created in her own eyes and the returning smile that met his own enough thanks for his revelation to her, for his sharing of the blossom.

She walked away still holding it in her hand, the small branch that scented her way, knowing he’d be smelling it for weeks in her room. A reminder of the pact they’d made in silence, together, equals, one supporting the other, light in darkness. Her light throwing the shadows back for him and his darkness throwing her light into perspective and definition. His bare feet finally telling him about the cold and damp he went to his own little haven where a book was waiting for him, a small fire and a chair he could rest in until he decided it was time to eat.

The smile lasted all evening just like Marie’s did.