Part 4- ‘A Sinner’s Redemption…’
Marie stood watching the water flow effortlessly, it’s rhythmic notions swaying gently from side to side, lapping back and forth at her feet. It was quiet and still, not a single breath moving between the trees, the air so still and cold, a peace swayed and held by the gentle murmurs of the water.
A blanket of snow covered the scene in a serene show of white, so pure, so simple, so unlike the thudding heart and blackness etched into her very soul. She derived everything from the soft swaying of the water, peace and comfort, because in this, here in this place she had a sense of resolution, of coming home.
She looked around her, back across the lake towards the steep embankment and the wide forest of trees, settling at last on the sight of a small ramshackle building, its small outhouse, and partially caved in roof. The crumbling stones for its walls, she stared at the place knowing within its boundaries held the one thing that allowed her to still have a connection with him.
She wondered if that was the reason she had brought them back here, to this place; beyond that ridge lay the path she had taken, as a child, the frightened steps that had seen her run practically into his arms. Into the sight of his gun, towards the light, a place where life and death had come together, sinner and redemption, a faith embraced and a love lost in the same instant.
Here was where his blood stained the floor, mingling with the dirt, lost in the bleak darkness, and despite it all, he had smiled. Marie took a step back from the edge of the lake, a shuddering breath caressing her aching bones, she was tired, there had been too many years, too many lives in between, and she wondered if it was even possible for her to seek some sort of redemption.
And she wondered if it was redemption she sought, had her conscious been kicked enough for her to claw back, back to seek what…forgiveness? Or if it was simply her desire to see something of him survive, and to be allowed to be within inches of a heart she had given up.
Logan’s son, she was protecting his son, his blood flowed through that boy, through some insane twist of fate she had been thrown headfirst into a situation where a sense of duty, of responsibility had been thrust upon her.
And she would live up to it, even if Logan could never know what it was she had done, she would protect that boy as Logan had protected her, she would sacrifice as he had done for her, she would bleed, stain this ground with her blood as he had done.
And she would die; give the last of her breath for a child, as Logan had done for her.
Marie stalked her way carefully against the thick trees, the heavy snow underfoot making her have to dig her feet in to get a good grip. The cold air made her leg ache all the more, the thick swathes of bandages she had wrapped around the wound doing nothing to ease the pain.
She could feel the cut open up again, there had been no time to deal with it properly, aside from a few painkillers and some iodine Jack had hurriedly picked up from a drug store, she had done little else to address the wound and now for the past few days she had begun to realise the deep cut had become septic.
A few more days as her blood slowly became poisonous; she would have to face losing the leg or her life. But it didn’t matter a few days was all she needed; they had nearly gathered all the papers they needed for Evelyn and the boy. Passports and a fake drivers licence, everything they needed to get them across the border and out of the country.
Away from The Firm that still had a contract to fill, away from Senator Woodhouse-Browne and his concept of revenge and away from a society that would never accept the child once they realised who he was, the son of a mutant.
She stopped at the door of the cabin; something in the air caught her ear, a sound, a sharp rustle of leaves away down the embankment, turning around quickly she stared into the trees, seeking out…something. She stood for ages that way, staring, her keen eyes rooted to a singular spot beside a heavy pine, the wind whipped up driving the leaves and a fine mist of snow into the air.
Marie turned away at last, she saw Jack standing just beyond doorway, staring past her shoulder and down towards the lake. She walked towards him; placing a hand on his shoulder she leant on him for support and heard him sigh loudly.
She knew he had his own demons to fight, that moment so many years ago when she had been forced to absorb him; she had taken in his fears, the tragic past of his life. She followed Jack’s gaze down towards the water, knowing in the same instant what he was thinking of.
She saw it all then, as she had seen it the moment he had touched her, a young Jack stood on the side of a lake his face contorted in a silent scream as he watched his sister floating away, face down in the water carried away in the current.
‘It wasn’t your fault, she drowned, you couldn’t have helped her…’ she whispered gently to him.
He looked at her with a small smile, ‘I was supposed to have been looking after her…Mum and Dad trusted me to take care of her.’
‘You were thirteen years old Jack and it was an accident…’ she kissed him gently, a slight brush of lips against his cheek. He nodded slightly before enfolding her in his arms and helping her back into the house.
‘Do you think the worst is over Marie…think they’re gonna let us go now?’
Marie stopped and stared back at the trees contemplating Jack’s question, she shook her head slowly, ‘they can’t, not yet, there’s still too much at stake…’
Logan shut his eyes against the thudding sound of his heart beating at a hundred miles an hour, the aching brightness of all the snow beat against the closed lids of his eyes, sending him screaming back to that moment in the labs, waking up and staring at the cold clinical tiled ceiling, the shining metals and there reflections perversely clean and crisp, belying the sickness of the experiments carried out on the lab tables.
He was crouched low in the thickets, holding his breath, moving slowly across the dense snow covered ground, every second stretching into in an eternity, every minute a thudding heartbeat, hounding in on him, every blade of grass, every cold rush of air a reminder.
A cold aching reminder, of what this place was, here I died and was reborn, I came as a soul lost, but your face, your innocence tripped that soul back into me, at your feet a faith was renewed and a hope reborn. And in that same heartbeat a love was found and lost.
I died for you, an aching thousand times I died for you, in their cold laboratories, where they broke me and made me a thousand times over, every time, every single damn time, it was you, your face, that brought me, that forced me to breathe again, pushed air into my lungs when they drowned me, healed the bones when they broke them, stemmed the tide of my blood when they drained it.
You…you…it was all you.
And now, now to have come back to this place, where a sinner died and an angel was born, here he was a mere hundred feet away from her, staring at her, her beauty still nothing else he could have compared to, ageless in its composure, angelic in its appearance.
Or at least it had been, why….why, he cursed, as his gaze shifted down the length of her beautiful hair, along the pale skin of her arms and the black silk of her gloves, down to her taut stomach and her long legs, the pronounced limp in her right leg as she turned back to walk inside the cabin.
Why…why couldn’t you have justified my faith in you, why couldn’t you have left me believing, in an angel, in redemption, in hope through suffering?
Why couldn’t you have let the boy live, shown the same mercy, something of compassion, something of a light…why…why?
Logan gritted his teeth, an aging old bitterness seeping through his bones, there was nothing, nothing of faith, no use believing in angels, he had died and he had sacrificed for nothing. What she had become, so far from the faith he had placed within her, so far from the hope and dreams and all the light he had imagined around her.
She had stolen that from him, torn it apart, that sense of redemption and left him facing the blinding aches and fury that burned away inside, his adamantium claws shot out in his frustration and shredded the bark of the pine tree in front of him.
‘I’ve had enough of this shit…I’ll go in and get her myself,’ Scott hissed behind him, moving forwards and past Logan.
He was stopped in his tracks when Logan’s claws shot up and stopped inches in front of his crotch, ‘You stay the hell where you are One Eye, or I swear you’re gonna end up being less than useless to Red…’
Scott backed down when he saw the cold hard glint in Logan’s eyes, ‘I’ll do this my way, and I’ll deal with her…’
It had happened like this, five years after the birth of his first son Senator Woodhouse-Browne wanting to cement the image of a good family man, decided it was about time a second addition was made to the family.
And finally after years of unsuccessful attempts, the Senator swallowed his pride and went to see a fertility specialist, only to discover he was infertile, not only then, but he always had been, five years ago he had been infertile. The child he thought was his had been fathered by some other man.
Through his anger and hate he sought to discover the boy’s true paternity and the identity of his wife’s lover, he had hired a private detective and after that it had been a matter of following the breadcrumb trail.
That trail had ended in the bitterest of betrayals, his wife had lain with, had allowed herself to be defiled by the hands of a mutant, not only that but had borne his seed, and for that sin against nature itself Senator Browne had seen no other way but to see both his unfaithful wife and the bastard child destroyed.
Now, as Marie stared at them both, mother and child sleeping in the corner of the darkened basement, she was acutely aware of the danger they were still in. There had been something in the woods she was sure of it, as she pulled herself to her feet, moving slowly past the sleeping form of Jack she hauled herself silently up the wooden steps, her gun held tightly in her hand, she pushed open the door and stepped out into the dark night.
Logan had moved to within a few hundred yards of the house when he had seen her step out of the door, her limp prominent, and the gun held tightly by the side of her leg, she moved quietly and sure despite the obvious pain her leg was in. He watched her disappear around the back of the house, crouched low beside the tree; he felt the cold of the snow seeping into his skin.
He was aching and cold, but his breath still caught in his throat at the sight of her, his mind racing back to the night they had spent in his cell, and through the blizzard snow that blinded his sight, he could see her clearly as if she was in his arms now, the warmth of her skin, the heady scent of her, the fire that had burned between them and now sent his senses spinning.
Pressing his forehead against the tree, he drew in a shuddering breath, as the sweetness of her lies, the gentle whisper of her false promises brushed against his ear. He groaned in misery and the ecstasy of her memory, painfully aware of the only option that was open to him now.
He had heard her coming, she had been careful, her silent steps would have caught anyone else off guard, but not him, his mutancy had given him enhanced hearing, he knew she had doubled back, around the back of the house, taking a wide arc to eventually arrive right behind him.
He felt the cold hard muzzle of her gun press into the back of his neck, he heard her gentle breath, and he smiled grimly as he spoke, ‘Hello Marie…’
Make that fifty-one ways to say goodbye to your lover.
He had been too quick for her; he’d tripped her up, thrown the gun out her hand and pushed her to the ground in a few seconds. She barely had time to draw a breath before she found his crushing weight on top of her, and then they were rolling through the snow, down the ridge and stopping in front of the cabin.
Logan hauled her to her feet, and a thousand confusing images passed through his mind, he saw her, in his arms, lying to him, lying with him, all that useless faith he had placed within her, all those years he had wasted. Those times he had consented to die, knowing in his resurrection he’d see her; that he’d be allowed feel her again.
And he saw her now, Marie, killer, angel, and assassin, all he had known and now nothing he understood, the images of the lives she had taken flashed before him, mutants, humans, men and women, young and old.
A child…his child.
Why…why, why couldn’t you have justified my faith in you?
His haunting question came as a roar in the night, all his anger, hate and uselessness, the rage at himself and her manifested in his claws, they sprang through his knuckles, six deadly, razor sharp adamantium claws, three on one hand and three on the other, he felt them plunge through her chest, just above her stomach, three on one side and three for the other.
The sickening crunch of bones being sliced, of flesh parting, of muscle being torn, of vitals organs being punctured, the agony of realisation sprang forth in the tears that gilded her brown eyes as she stared up at him.
He held her skewered on the end of his hands, her arms hung limply about his shoulders, blood dripping form the corner of her mouth as she whispered his name, ‘James…’
And his heart, broken and bruised, with a lost hope ached as he watched her struggle, her hair hanging as her head fell backwards.
‘Marie…?’ It was a small voice that called out to her, a tiny voice, barely carrying over the snow and darkness; it was a child’s voice.
She turned her head slightly; the burning from the metal still embedded deep within her chest, reminding her that she was broken threatened to overwhelm her as she met the gaze of Evelyn’s son, of Logan’s son.
She saw Logan’s eyes turned toward the boy, recognition, shock and horror carving the lines in his face, he was alive, the child was alive, and was watching him as Logan realised his God awful mistake.
But he shouldn’t see his father like this; no child should regard their father as a monster.Struggling she pulled herself upwards, willing herself to be crucified on his adamantium claws once more as she concealed them from the five year old boy’s gaze, making it appear as if she was hugging him.
Pressing her face close to Logan’s she whispered, every word an aching mess of pain and agony, ‘don’t move, h-he…shouldn’t have t-to see th-this…he’s seen too much already…’ she begged him.
Turning back to the child she smiled, the faintest trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth, ‘Y-ya go on back to your mama n-now, it’s cold and ya s-shouldn’t be out here…’
She watched as the boy’s gaze shifted towards Logan, she spoke firmly then, ‘This is an old friend of mine…it-it’s okay, don’t be s-scared…’ Her eyes drifted shut, she forced them open once more, her eyes flashing, ‘g-go on now, ah’ll b-be in soon…ah p-promise.’
The boy looked at Logan once more, a child’s innocent eyes staring up at the man’s aged and feral gaze, turning quickly he ran back towards the cabin, his mother stood inside the doorway her hand pressed to her mouth as she met and held Logan’s gaze, horror, recognition and shame pressing in on her. She enveloped her child in her arms and pulled him into the safety and darkness of the cabin.
Marie pressed her head against Logan’s chest as she felt him retract his claws, a sharp swish cutting through the night air as he pulled the metal out of her. She sighed softly as her final breaths came in shortened gasps, the blood gushed from her wounds, rivers of red staining the snow as it dripped down to meet the white purity of the ground.
She heard him moan in grief and disbelief as her legs gave out and she collapsed to her knees, he caught her just before she fell to the floor, her head lolling to one side she saw Jack hurrying over to her, he was screaming her name.
A silent tear rolled down her cheek, mingling with the blood that stained her lips, crimson hue marking her final minutes. Logan held her close to his chest, contemplation still beyond him, he felt his chest crushing with every shuddering breath she took, his throat constricted as he struggled to contain the screams tearing at his mind and his heart.
‘Marie…! Oh God…what have you done…?’ Logan looked up at Jack as he fell to his knees beside her, his eyes wide with horror he stared at the holes perforating her chest, pressing his hands desperately to her flesh, sliced open and torn apart, desperately trying to stem the blood flowing out of her, the life oozing, fading away.
What have you done…?
He pulled her from Logan’s arms, pulled her into his clutches, the tears streaming down his face as he brushed the hair out of her face; she reached up, her fingers brushing against his cheek, smiling slightly she whispered, ‘Ah’m sorry…ah’m so sorry…’
Jack shook his head, as her fingers slipped down his face smearing his skin with the sticky red of her blood; a final gasp racked her body before she grew limp in his arms. He felt the strength, the warmth and life leave her, and there lying in the snow, stained within a dark pool of red she died. A hoarse scream ripped from his throat as he just shook his head again and again in denial, clutching her to his chest, his body racked with sobs as he refused to let her go.
Logan could only stare, at Jack and the body of Marie, at Scott who had come to stand over them, his silent red gaze boring into his very soul.
What have you done…?
He struggled to his feet, his claws still extracted, still dripping with her blood, tiny droplets forming in rivulets, running down the shiny, gleaming metal, pooling at the tips, they dropped onto the cold snow as he dragged his aching soul away from his crime and his shame.
A trail of red following him, marking him for what he was, for the tragic mistake he had made…, with you I died and with you I was reborn….with you I died.
His shoulders sagging and his head falling to his chest, he dragged his feet away into the darkness, the red mark of Cain following him as he went, forever embedding him, and forever marking him for what he now was.
Logan…the demon that slew an angel…his angel.
‘Somewhere Only We Know’- Keane
I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go
So why don't we go
This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
‘Sympathetic’- Seether
And my words will be here when I’m gone
As I’m fading away against the wind
And the words you left me linger on
As I’m failing again now, never to change this
And I’m sympathetic,
never letting on I feel the way I do
As I’m falling apart again at the seam
And it seems I’m alone here, hollow again
As I’m flailing again against the wind
And the scars I am left with swallow again
As I’m failing again now, never to change this
And I’m sympathetic,
never letting on I feel the way I do
As I’m falling apart again at the seam
And I’m sympathetic,
never letting on I feel the way I do
As I’m falling apart again at the seam
The same old feelings are taking over
and I can’t seem to make them go away
And I can’t take all the pressure sober,
but I can’t seem to make it go away
The same old feelings are taking over
and I can’t seem to make them go away
And I can’t take all the pressure sober
(I can’t make it go away. I can’t make it go away)
And I’m sympathetic,
never letting on I feel the way I do
As I’m falling apart again at the seam
And I’m sympathetic,
never letting on I feel the way I do
As I’m falling apart again at the seam
And I’m falling, falling, falling,
falling, falling, falling, falling
Apart again at the seam.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Why…why couldn’t you have justified my faith in you, why couldn’t you have left me believing, in an angel, in redemption, in hope through suffering?
A/N: Logan and Marie meet again at last...
A/N: Logan and Marie meet again at last...