'Do we remember the promises we make?
Do we feel their links as we move across the world?
I do.
It's why I'm coming home,
Home to you.'
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The small communicator buzzed in his pocket, he hadn't opened it for a month or so and even then it had been to check that it was still working. So when it vibrated he was shocked for a moment before he got up out of his seat at the poker table and took the call.
"Logan," there was no need to say anything else whoever had called him knew him. The voice on the other end was familiar, but the tone wasn't.
"Logan, we need you to come home." The stress was onthe word 'home' and he narrowed his eyes as he watched the rest of the players up the ante on the centre of the table. He nodded his assent as someone laid his own chips into the pile.
"Why? What's happened, someone else come callin?" The voice on the other end sighed and he knew whatever it was it was worse than a visit from the military.
"No, it's Rogue."
The look on his face must have spoken for him, he quickly clipped a reply into the tiny phone.
"I'll call ya back in a minute." He hung up, went to the table and threw all his chips in, looking around the table as the rest acted as they thought they should. Thing was Logan had an advantage, he could smell a bluff from a mile away and the guy across from him on the table *was* bluffing. The dealer turned the river card and Logan won the pot, his words clipped and short, his movements hurried for the first time in the three days he'd been playing here.
"Cash me in."
The dealer did as she was asked and soon Logan was outside in the autumn air of Reno, the sounds of city drowning out his concern as he called home.
"What's happened Ro?" The womans' voice on the other end of the phone sounded tired and worn as Logan lifted his leg over his bike.
"Her skin, it's reverted, she was with Jubilee when it happened. They were fighting when her skin just 'switched on' she said, she didn't have the strength to push her off her. " The silence that followed was enough to tell him what had happened.
"Fuck. How is she?" Again there was silence on the other end and Logan wondered how bad it could be.
"That's just it Logan, she won't talk to anyone, she's had to be restrained in the Medbay, doped up. Every time someone gets close she tries to hurt them, tries to touch them. She even tried to kill Remy."
"Who's Remy?" There was an undertone to her voice when she spoke that name.
"Oh, he's my fiancee, he joined us about five months ago from New Orleans. He went to help Rogue and she just attacked him, if Bobby hadn't been there she could have killed him."
Logan listened to the description of her anger, of her rage and he wondered how it had all started. What had made the sweet girl he'd left behind turn into the creature Ro' was describing. And as he fired the bike up after the conversation he couldn't help but wonder if part of him was to blame. Putting the bike into gear he'd be heading for the airport, he was chartering home, he had enough money to buy one outright and he wanted to see her for himself. Hopefully before another day went past, he'd been absent from her life too long as it was.
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The routine was the same, although the drugs they gave her kept the voice of Jubes quiet. She knew that it had been an accident, she didn't hate her, didn't blame her, not when she told her what had happened to her. Jubes just saw it as living somewhere else, she could live with her, be a friend forever, never age, never die (again). Buddhism had taught Jubes that life continued on even when the shell had gone and she was now proof of this. Pity it had to be such a way to do it, but Jubes wasn't that bad a head case to have. But there were other things beginning to stir down here in her mind, darker things, nastier things. As if a wall had been breached inside and everything was beginning to pour out of her.
She swore and spat at the orderly who came to refill her line, she took food when it was offered but always tried to bite the hand that held the spoon. Suspended nearly naked with her lower regions bare so she could be cleaned when she soiled herself. They couldn't even trust her to shit properly without trying to hurt someone. She knew she wasn't mad but exactly why she was like this she didn't understand. Whole hours were blank to her but when she did come out of them her throat was raw as if she'd been screaming or shouting.
Hanging there she watched the door open to her prison cell, and what walked in nearly made her cry out in shame. The way his eyes took her in, the way she was suspended in a frame and jacket, her body revealed to the eye of whoever came in. She watched the emotion cover his face as he took her in, the slide of his hand as he let go of the door. He'd been rushed, she could see that in the way he shifted from foot to foot, the dust of his journey still on him. She had no clue what time it was, but the watch on his wrist read 11.50, whether that was morning or evening she had no clue.
Tears flooded her eyes as she watched him move closer, she didn't want him to see her like this, didn't want him to remember her as a broken thing. She could see his eyes as he roved over her form, taking in the straps and buckles. He came close enough for her to smell him, the scent that was all him, all Logan. He reached out toward her head and she tried to move away but she couldn't, what she did do instead was try to bite him. Her teeth meeting on air as he pulled his hand away, a new wariness coming into his face as he dropped his gaze to her eyes. Seeing the confusion and hatred burning out of her into his own and understanding the source of it all.
"I'm here Marie, I'll be here until you don't need me anymore. I promise you."
The laugh that answered his words chilled him, it was brittle, harsh and hollow, her face conflicted as part of her laughed at his heartfelt words while her eyes begged for help. She was broken and it was upto him to try and put her back together again, because as Ro had told him on the phone. She blamed him in the first place, it was his anger, his rage she was manifesting, she'd been turned into Wolverine by his touch and there was no one else who knew how to deal with him.
As he left the room he didn't say sorry to her, there was no point, she'd never hear him, not with the struggle going on in her head. He was only sorry he hadn't known how much of him she'd taken in and the burden it had put on her mind. Logan left Marie behind as he went to get his list of things he'd need to do this. And one of them was that he wasn't to be disturbed or questioned, if they wanted her back they'd have to do things *his* way. He only hoped there was enough of Marie to bring back.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan gets the call to come home.