I had a son who lived.

"Marie. Marie." It's a caress. "Baby. Marie?"

He hopes she'll forgive this intrusion on her new life. He just -- he just wants to listen to her. Just -- just for a moment. That's good. That's good enough.

"Marie?" Nothing on the other end. Only static -- that of wires and a long distance call, not of her breathing into the speaker. "Please," he begs. "Please. Please. Baby, please."

Nothing.

Nothing.

Silence.

Logan whimpers. Slowly and tiredly raises the phone away from his ear. Maybe he'll curl up somewhere. Maybe he'll just sit in here for awhile.

The handset slips into its hooks, just barely kisses the switchook that would kill the connection.

And he hears it -- her -- a warbly, hoarse voice. Strained and broken. "Hey, Logan." A whisper.

That oh-so-familiar greeting, and so much more. The attempt to be casual, failing miserably. And then the deeper, urgent, words behind it. "Come home. Come home to me."

____

She hears the thump. Did he hang up? Is that the last time she will ever hear him speak? But then comes the muffled, choked, noises, and she knows. Logan, her Logan, is on his knees on the floor of a grimy phone booth in the middle of god knows where. And he's crying.
____

He drives for three days. He hasn't really slept in weeks -- in months -- what is a few more days? He leaves the pickup only for moments -- caffeine, truck stop -- and then back on the road to her. In the back of his mind he knows he should stop. Rest. Clean up. Not show up looking like something that crawled off the floor of a bar. But every time he starts to pull off to a motel, he swerves back onto the highway. Delays are unbearable, unthinkable. He has to get there.

He doesn't know what to expect when he gets there. Would she greet him with more curses? The empty, accusing gaze he became so familiar with? Even worse, would he see her happy, cuddling with her new boyfriend? A cast list runs through his mind of men who might be holding her, loving her, when he gets there. He growls and the claws come out before he can fully stop them. He focuses on the painful retraction, and forces himself to replay her words. "Come home. Come home to me." No, whatever else has happened, she does not belong to somebody else.

He pulls through the gate and up the drive, barely throwing the truck into park before leaping out. Then he has to stop, momentarily dazzled by the fresh air and sunshine after three days locked in the grimy truck. Something glimmers in the window above, and with a dizzying sense of deja vu he sees her -- a different window, but still wide-eyed, hand pressed against the glass, and then gone.

If he had taken a moment to think of it, he never would have done it, never would have presumed. But he was still dazed from having seen her, and he bounds up the front steps, and when he hears her clattering down the staircase he opens his arms as naturally as breathing, and she falls into them. Their arms wrapped around each other, her face pressed into his sweaty shirt, and all the things he had planned to say, all the explanations and excuses, fly from his mind. All he can say is "Marie." But for some reason, she seems to think that's enough. "Marie," he says, as he scoops up her legs so he's cradling her fully in his arms. "Marie," he says again, as he is pressing her against the door to their room, pressing his body against hers as if to convince himself that she is really there. "Marie," he says, a final time, as he lays her on the bed and crouches beside it to hold her face between his hands.

He had expected a slow wooing. He would start again, holding her hand. Taking her to dinner, and for walks. He would place gentle kisses on her brow, until she trusted him again. Then he would place gentle kisses on her lips. Not this, as she pushes herself up from the bed to press her mouth against his, tongues tangling, teeth clashing. Not his crazed response, as he growls and grunts and practically tears her clothing to get to her skin, to put sucking bites where the gentle kisses were supposed to be. She is equally frantic, pulling his shirt up so it tangles on his arms, pushing mindlessly at his jeans. Then they are both naked, and he is pressing deeply into her, sucking in his breath at the force of the feeling of homecoming. He should be thinking that he loves her. That he missed her. That he's sorry. But that's not who he is. Instead, he is thinking one thought, and that is "Mine." "Mine," he thinks, as he laps at her breast, forcing excited noises from her mouth. "Mine," he thinks, as he holds her hands in his, pinned to the bed on either side of them, as he presses even more deeply into her. "Mine, mine, mine," he thinks, as he grinds against her, as if to imprint his soul so deep inside her that she will never be able to send him away again. When she comes, she scratches and shudders and screams. When he comes, he howls -- anguish and joy, regret and redemption, interlaced in the keening sound.

They lie entwined, exhausted. This is the time to talk. Now they should re-hash it all. Somehow, though, neither of them have the energy. They don't even have the energy to care that they don't have the energy. Instead, they sleep. He, who hasn't slept for days, and she, who has spent weeks in bed but never resting. Together, they finally fall into a true, dreamless, sleep.

Sometime in the night they find themselves joined again. Did he wake and press against her, begging? Did she pull him onto her, fiercely taking what she wanted? However it happened, neither of them can remember. All they know is this, the gentle rocking, the hushed murmurs. If their first reunion was a tidal wave, a tsunami, this is the gentle lapping of a warm tidal pool, until the pleasure takes them again, and draws them back into sleep.

______

She wakes, knowing somehow that he is already awake, and watching her. His fingers ghost through her hair, untangling, soothing. In the light of -- morning? afternoon? -- she can see the grime of hard living and travel that one night of good sleep can't erase. She'd like to pretend that they can just stay in bed forever -- lock themselves in for days and think of nothing, as they did when they first discovered each other. Instead she stands, and holds out a hand to him. He indulges her by pretending she is pulling him up to stand next to her, when they both know that the smallest tug would send her tumbling on top of him instead. She guides him into the bathroom, and they are both thinking about the first morning they awoke together, and the shower that followed. But there is no going back, and she plugs the drain and runs the water into the bathtub, pushing him into it. It doesn't take much pulling for her to join him, kneeling between his legs, pushing a washcloth over his face, shoulders, arms. She takes the scrub that she prepared the day he said he loved her, and scrubs the smoke and grime from his body. Finally, she washes his hair, lathering and rinsing as he did for her. Back then. He just watches her, apparently hungry for the sight of her, but with a bit of caution in his eyes. Like she is an unexploded mine or something. It has to be dealt with, but neither of them know how to start, fearful of damaging this strange truce that sprang up the moment they embraced.

______

"I almost killed Jean," she said flatly. Well, that was one way to start. His brave girl. Her courage was like a scalpel, homing in on the point of greatest pain. "I punched her. And I guess I wasn't concentrating. I didn't know it, but my skin..." She knows no way to end that sentence, so she just stops talking. But she has to get through this, so she starts again, willing her voice to stay even and calm, unsuccessfully. "She left not long after, but when I touched her, I got some of her memories. I got her memory of you, touching her. Kissing her."

Logan thought he had hit his lowest point long ago, but her words dropped the bottom out of his stomach, and he realized exactly how much further he had to fall. The thought that she had to experience that moment...it was unbearable. He had tried to tell himself that nothing had happened -- just a kiss, just a touch before he came to his senses. There was no more lying to himself now, though. She had seen it all through Jean's eyes, had seen it all months ago in fact, and his betrayal was laid bare before her.

He wanted to howl. He wanted to put a gun to his head. He wanted to hide from her. But he forced himself to look in her eyes, teary now, as she simply said, "You hurt me, Logan." Not bitterly, not accusingly. Just...truthfully. "I know," he said, and suddenly he couldn't look at her any longer, even knowing that she deserved better. He rested his head back against the tub and said again, "I know. And it's killing me."

"That's not what I want," Marie said. "I don't want you to suffer -- or at least not anymore. And I don't want to suffer either. You hurt me, Logan. But I hurt you too. Maybe worse, because I was trying to hurt you. The things I said to make you leave -- I made up lies for the sole purpose of hurting you. And even before then, after..." she trails off again. He's sitting up now, hands at her waist, hope flickering inside him at her words. Could she possibly mean that she would give him a chance to make things right? She must, if she asked him to come home to her. But it seems like so much more than he deserves, and he has trouble believing it.

"I killed him," she says. And he's startled by the apparent change of topic. Who did she kill while he was gone? "Who?" he says, and she looks at him like he is crazy. "I killed our baby. I killed our son," she grinds out, burying her face in his chest. And the sobs take over.

"Are you kidding me?!" He knows this is the wrong response, the exact opposite of whatever it is he should be saying. But he can't think of anything else. He can't wrap his mind around her self-accusation. "What could possibly make you think that!?!" He is too agitated now to sit any longer, he practically leaps out of the tub, sloshing water on the floor, and starts pacing.

"We lost him because of my mutation, Logan. I must have not had as much control as I thought. I took the life out of him, and I'm the reason he's gone. I know it's what you were thinking, every time you looked at me afterwards. You tried to be nice, and pretend things were the same, but how could you live with me after that? I couldn't even live with myself!"

He forces himself to stop. Take a breath. Then another. He grabs a towel and makes a completely half-hearted swipe at drying himself off before grabbing another towel to wrap her up in. She is unresisting, waiting for him to admit the truth. He is flabbergasted that she can even think it.

He pulls her over to the bed and sits her down. Holds her face in his hands, forcing her to look him in the eye. "I never thought that, Kid. Never." She had always suspected he would say something like that if confronted, but she had been unprepared for the sincerity in his voice. He said it like he believed it. He said it like it was true.

"If it was anyone's fault, it was my goddamned fault," he said. "I promised to protect you. I was so happy when you told me -- a baby! A little bit of you and me! But then I thought it through." She looks up, knowing he is trying to tell her something important, but she is not understanding. At all. He sees the confusion in her eyes, and loses the tight rein he was keeping on his temper. He stands up, starts to pace again. "Look at me, Marie! Look at what I am!" he barks, and the claws snick out, snagging the curtains on one side. "Do you know what it did to me to think of a baby with my mutation inside you? My strength? Even my claws? Your mutation came on at puberty, but what about mine? For all I know I ripped my mother open. I looked at that ultrasound picture a million times, and every time I looked at it I loved that baby -- I loved our son -- but I feared for you. For what he might do to you. I stared a hole in that ultrasound looking for the shadow of his claws, and when I thought about what that might do to you, I wished it undone. I wished that we had never gotten you pregnant. And then I got what I wished for, and it broke you anyway."

For a long moment, they just looked at each other, stunned by what each of them had said. Dark, snakelike thoughts that they hadn't even articulated to themselves had been thrust into the light of day, and suddenly seemed...weak. Stupid. "You didn't fail me, Logan, and you didn't fail our son," she said. He can smell the truth on her words, and the unexpected relief makes him almost giddy. How can just a few words from her make it right? "Marie -- it wasn't your fault either." He looks into her eyes, but sees the doubt there. She had misinterpeted his actions for weeks, how can a few short words convince her when she can't unequivocally sense the truth of them like he can? He doesn't know how to convince her, and then suddenly he does. He sits next to her, and puts her hand on his chest. "Touch me, Marie. I mean, really touch me. Share my memories -- those can't lie, can they?" She flinches back at the very thought. Twice she has taken from him, and both times it was horrifying. She could never do that again, never do it willingly. His voice is more urgent now, though, and he draws the hand she pulled away back to his chest again, pressing it tighter. "Please, Baby. This is what we need to get through this. Do this for us, because I can't." She never consciously makes the decision, because she would never have consciously chosen to do it. But somewhere, a part of her mind that hasn't rested in weeks, that has been clamoring to know for months, has its say. The same questions, running through her mind, as she lay in bed, or walked the halls of the school like a spectre. "Did he ever love me? Was any of it real? If it was, how could he turn away from me -- how could he turn to her?" The need to know, to gain some sort of certainty, wells up in her, and she feels the tug, the electric pull of his life into hers. And she opens her mind, and sees...

/A skull crunching beneath a boot, vicious kicks to the head of a man who challenged him in the cage/

/Herself, infinitely younger, freezing in the cab of his truck, flinching away as he tries to pull her hand to the heater/

/Needles, surgeons, and pain, blinding pain, over and over, as his body convulses with the liquid metal burning in his bones/

/Jean, legs wrapped around his waist, and his sudden shock, his realization that she is not Marie, not what he wants/

/Herself again, but this time just a shadow, a wraith. Dark circles under her eyes, cheekbones prominent, as she manages to look right through Logan, ignoring his pleas, his touch, his desperate need to bring her back to him/

It's this last image that shocks her away, wrenching her hand from his grasp as he falls over onto the bed, gasping and shaking. Knowing that she was seeing what he saw after the miscarriage, and he wasn't looking at her with hatred, or blame, or even duty. He was looking at her with love, and she looked right through him, her unresponsiveness the ultimate cruelty.

She helps him lift his legs onto the bed. She collapses next to him and into him, pulling the cover up over them both. She saves cursing for special occasions, but this sure seems to be one. "What a fucked-up pair we are, Logan." He manages a smirk, before sinking into sleep, and she is close behind.

When they wake again, they actually manage to get dressed, and to get something to eat. It's the equivalent of running a marathon, by their standards. She has to help Logan up, and into his clothes. He walks like an old man. With his healing power temporarily suppressed, bruises from his last matches that never had the chance to form in the first place are now fully bloomed all over his skin, livid in black and yellow and blue. Neither of them can regret it, now that they have managed to understand, and forgive each other. The rest will take time, but they have a good start.

Together they make it downstairs, and he takes great satisfaction in forcing helping after helping of eggs and bacon onto her plate. He wants to fill out her cheeks, take the smudges from under her eyes. She pours him extra coffee, and stops in passing to brush her hand over the back of his neck, just because she can.

I had a son who lived.

They are idiots. They are morons. They behaved like addled teenagers. In the rush of homecoming, in the emotional reunion and reconciliation, in the painful rehashing of the miscarriage, how did it never occur for even a moment to either of them that they were risking pregnancy again?

At first it's almost a joke, that he once again forced too much food on her and now she's nauseous. The next morning, it's less of a joke. This time they take the test together, and both of them are terrified. It's too soon, how could it possibly be this soon? They haven't even gotten adjusted back to each other yet, how could they go through this again?

The first time, they gave the baby nicknames and made jokes. She called him Leon, he called him Kiddo. This time, they try not to talk about it at all. One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. Eight weeks. Every day, expecting the disaster. When her nausea can no longer be hidden, they are forced to accept congratulations and gentle ribbing in the school's kitchen, trying to smile while gripping each others' hands way too tightly. Only Chuck gives them a sharp look, aware of the panic underneath, but thankfully leaves them alone. When they can no longer avoid the topic altogether, they carefully refer to "the baby." As if keeping some distance will protect them from the outcome. As if they can keep themselves from getting attached. Maybe they hope to sneak this pregnancy by god or fate or whatever took the first one away. Don't mention it and it can't get taken from you. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. "Hank says the baby looks okay," she tries to say casually. At night he holds her, feeling the baby squirm in her belly, pressed against his. He cannot believe that there is nothing he can do to protect them.

Still the weeks sneak by. 24 weeks. 26 weeks. 32 weeks. 34 weeks. 38 weeks. The first pregnancy was long lost by then, and yet still they cannot let themselves believe it. And then, unexpected to no one but them, Marie goes into labor. They spent so much time expecting the worst, they find themselves woefully unprepared for this entirely predictable circumstance. Luckily, others are more prepared. Marie is strong, and brave, and Logan tamps down his fear and helps her through it. And amazingly, there he is. A baby, real and whole and perfect. On the outside. Breathing, crying. Squalling even. They place him in Marie's arms, and Logan reaches out a tentative finger to brush his tiny cheek.

I had a son who lived.

Logan loves to watch the baby suckle. At first Marie was shy, always trying to cover up. But in the end it was too exhausting, the baby inherited Logan's appetite and wants to eat all the time. Logan's eyes on her aren't lustful, anyway, or at least not always. Instead he avidly watches his son. The rosebud mouth, puckering and sucking. The soft cheek, pressed against the curve of her breast. The impossibly tiny hand, clenching and stretching, like a tiny exotic starfish beached on a foreign shore.

It's not all beautiful. The first few months are hard, impossibly hard. They never get to sleep, and the baby cries all the time. They snap at each other. Their incompetence weighs heavily on their shoulders. They don't know what they're doing. Everything they do is wrong. How could two clueless people like them be given the care of something so fragile and precious? There's something wrong with the system. But the baby not only survives, but thrives. He grows fatter, and happier. He smiles with his mother's lips when he is happy, and glares with his father's eyes when he is frustrated.

The loss is not forgotten. One child does not fill the hole left by the loss of another. But over time the sharp jangling edges of the pain grow blunt, and fade. All the recriminations they hurled at themselves and each other seem ludicrous. Things they took as meaningless platitudes at the time now have the ring of truth. "It's not your fault," Hank had said. "There's nothing you could have done." Maybe if he hadn't taken such care to phrase it diplomatically, they could have believed it then. Maybe he should have just told them the bald truth underlying the sympathetic words. "Don't flatter yourself. You don't have that kind of power."

There are still bad moments. When her cycle first started again and she saw the blood, she panicked. All she could think is, "I'm bleeding" and it seemed like all her fears were confirmed. Her pulse thrummed, and she felt dizzy and nauseous. She pulled up her underwear and collapsed on the floor of the bathroom, clenching her thighs together and clutching her belly, trying to keep the baby inside and safe. Her pulse was pounding so loudly in her ears that she didn't realize Logan was battering the door until he burst through, maddened by her shocked sob and the smell of blood. He figured it out before she did, though, and pulled her into his lap. "Shhh, Baby, shhh. Don't cry. It's normal. Here's here. He's safe. You can't lose him now." She calmed down enough to grasp that thought, and felt like an idiot for trying to keep inside a baby that is six months old and happily playing in his crib. But somehow Logan understands. He calms her, and then mischievously says, "It means we can have another!" and they both laugh when she snorts and jumps off his lap faster than a jackrabbit.

The bad moments are still there, but they are few, and the good moments are many. When they are all snuggled up in bed, or watching him play. One of them will reach out and rest a gentle hand on his head, or trace the translucent seashell of his ear. And one of them will say, "We have a son." They say it with amazement, like the words have never been said before. Like it is a new realization. And every time, it is. They, of all people, made this. A family. A son. A little bit of you and a little bit of me.

We have a son and he lives.