This Present Time…Romans 8.18
It’s hours later, and I’m still standing in the same place. I haven’t moved, even to change, in case something happens. It’s so tiring, and my mind has circled around a thousand things and still comes back to the same two thoughts. Logan came back, and Why?
I never expected to see him again, and I have no idea how I feel about either the statement or the question. The rush of emotions I felt earlier has drained away, and I just feel exhausted. But I can’t leave, not after what he did.
Jean has come in from time to time, checking the monitors, taking Logan’s pulse. The last time, she lifted the bandage that covered his left temple and I could see that even though there was blood on the gauze, the skin underneath it was now smooth and unmarked. It was eerie. Jean smiled at me.
“It was even stranger when it was you,” she told me. “So much blood, and not a mark on you.”
I stared down at the place where the wound used to be. “Why isn’t he waking up, then? Did it take this long before?”
Jean laid her hand on my shoulder. “No. But it’s going to be fine, I promise. All his vitals are steady. Maybe he held on longer this time. Or maybe—he looked tired even when he got here. Maybe it just took more out of him this time.” She seemed to realize that she wasn’t being very reassuring. “Just stay with him, Rogue.”
And I shook my head. “It’s—you don’t have to call me that.” I felt her hand rubbing my shoulder, soothingly, as if she were my mother, my big sister.
“Marie. Just wait. He’ll wake up soon.”
He’ll wake up soon. And then what? “Dr. Grey? Can I ask you something?”
“Just Jean, okay? And of course you can.” She kept her hand on my shoulder, and her voice didn’t change, but I could feel her fingers tense a little.
“Okay. I was wondering…is it true people never try it again?”
There was a pause before she answered. “No. It’s not,” she said evenly. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t mean I want to. I just don’t know what to do. Now.”
She waited a minute to see if I was going to say anything else. “About what?” she asked finally.
“Everyone.” I could barely manage a whisper. All my carefully-crafted control was gone, and I didn’t know which was scarier—the idea of having to go upstairs and face the others, or staying here. I rubbed a hand under my nose. The latex of the gloves smelled funny and made my hands clammy; I peeled them off for the twentieth time and rubbed my palms dry on my shirt before reaching for the box again for a fresh pair.
Jean took my shoulders and turned me around then, and even though I didn’t want to look at her I did. Her gaze on me was like a spotlight, and I felt like she could see right through to my soul. “I know this is going to sound blunt. You’re going to have to deal with what you did.” she said at last, and I winced. “But I think you already know that. I’m not trying to make you feel any worse than you already do. I just hope, if you ever find yourself feeling the same way, you won’t keep it to yourself again.” Her voice changed then, and I think she had been going to say something else. She glanced down at Logan again before she continued. “I think that’s the main thing they’ll want to know. That you’d let them help.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t have said anything. I wanted to hate her for saying that, for being the grown-up doctor and making me feel like a stupid little girl again. But I couldn’t. She was only telling me the truth. I think she always had. She’d always known I didn’t like her, but she’d never tried to avoid me. If anything, she’d always gone out of her way to give me the opportunity to say anything I wanted to, even when that had been the hardest for her.
And the thing is, I’d always admired her, however unwillingly. I used to tell myself it was just Logan’s reaction to her that I was feeling, but it wasn’t. Not all of it.
Jean waited a minute before she let go of me and made a bit of a pretense of adjusting the blanket she’d put over Logan, giving me a chance to pull myself together. And when she did speak again, she’d changed the subject.
“You should go ahead and change. I put that clean set of scrubs out on the other table,” she said briskly. “And I had one of your friends get you some of your own gloves. I know those examination ones aren’t that comfortable.” She slid out of her white coat and made a wry face. “I think I’ll change too. There’s a sink over there, if you want to wash up a little.” She started out of the room, and she didn’t turn when she spoke. “Logan didn’t know until he got here, what had happened, you know.” I held my breath, waiting for what she’d say next. “Just listen to what he has to say when he wakes up, okay?”
And then she left again.
So now I’m standing here. I’ve washed my hands and face, changed out of the stained, soiled pajamas I’d so carefully chosen, and still nothing has happened.
I’ve been holding one of his hands in both of mine, and now I lift it, turning it over in my hands. It’s softer than I would have thought, smooth and unmarked like the healed wound on his forehead, and I think how odd it must be to go through life that way. Unscarred.
He looks so familiar—and so strange. And I have no idea what I’m going to say to him. I’m not the girl he knew before he left, and in many ways I never really knew him well at all. Three weeks, five long years ago. That’s all.
I try for the thousandth time to find any part of him in my head. Not even anything new, maybe just something I already know, just to tell me he’s still there. I know I heard him earlier, but all that is gone like a dream you remember clearly in the morning but vanishes by afternoon. But even the memories I painted from are faded, as though they’re only things someone has described to me. I feel vaguely uneasy as I sort through them. Something tells me that he is still there and that he wants to be heard, and god, if anyone should know how strong he is—
There’s a sound, and then his head moves slightly and his eyelids twitch. He mutters something I can’t quite make out and it takes me two tries before I can force even a single word through my closed-up throat. “What?”
“Did it work?” Now the words are clear enough to understand, but for the life of me I can’t answer. Then his eyes open, focus, and I catch my breath as his hand moves, jerks free of mine and then closes around my wrist.
“Logan—please—” I try to free my wrist, to no avail. He keeps his eyes locked on me and tries to sit up; I shake my head. “Wait—don’t try to move yet.”
“Don’t go.” His hand tightens even more, if that’s possible, and I wince.
“Ow—Logan, that hurts.” Instantly he lets go of my arm, but at the same time he manages to roll himself to his side and swing his legs over the side of the exam table. Instinctively I reach to steady him. “Be careful—you hit your head before.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He lifts one hand to his head, but there’s nothing there, of course. He’s obviously still dizzy, still fighting for control. “Are you all right?” His eyes, blazing, are inches from mine, and I can’t answer; it feels like all the wind is knocked out of me. “Marie!” One hand comes up, reaches towards me—then falls back to his side.
Something in me breaks when I see that, and a welcome fury starts to fill that empty hole in my stomach. “I’m fine,” I snap. “You’re the one whose heart stopped.”
His head comes up then, and even though he still clearly isn’t fully recovered, he shoves himself off the table and onto his feet—then has to put a hand back down on the exam table for balance. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What do you care all of a sudden?” I know how unreasonable I’m being, but it doesn’t matter. “What the hell are you even doing here? Why would you do that?”
“I—christ. Will you calm the fuck down? I had to.” His hand comes up again, but he just reaches for the sensor that’s still attached to his chest and rips it off. “What was I supposed to do, stand there and watch you die?”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything. It was none of your goddamn business what I decided to do.” I take a step back. “If you were so worried about me, where the hell have you been? You only show up for the hero opportunities?”
Logan doesn’t say anything for a minute, just stands there. His chest rises and falls as he breathes, the burns that marked him now completely gone. I can’t meet his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he says abruptly. “I fucked up. I know that. But you can’t do this again. I won’t let you.”
And that makes me even more unreasonably angry. “You won’t let me? You don’t get to tell me what to do. It’s still none of your business.”
“I mean it, Marie.” Logan does reach toward me now, and I knock his hand away angrily before it can reach my face.
“What the hell is the matter with you? Don’t you get it? I almost killed you earlier. Is that what you want? You prove you’re the big hero, and I have to live with knowing you died because of me?” I back up again, to get out of his reach.
“Just stop it.” Logan seems to have recovered nicely, because he takes a step towards me and lets go of the table. “Okay? You can be as pissed as you want at me, but not for that. I didn’t die.”
“Neither did I. So good, we’re even. Now get the hell out.” I turn and get about two steps before he grabs my arm and yanks me back. I don’t wait to hear what he’s going to say; I don’t even think. The arm he’s not holding moves before I can stop it and I slap him across the face. Hard.
He lets me go so quickly I stumble back, and only the fact that I’ve backed into the other exam table keeps me from falling. Logan turned his head away from me at the blow, and when he turns back he twists his neck and I see a look in his eyes I don’t have to search to remember. I’ve seen that look before—during cagefights. I open my mouth, I think because I want to scream for help, but nothing comes out.
Then Logan takes a breath and his hand drops back to his side, and I didn’t even notice his clenched fist until he opens his hand and flexes his fingers. He looks away from me.
My throat tightens up when I see that. “I—Logan, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to stay alive.” He sounds as exhausted as I feel, but after a moment he looks at me again. “You understand me? People care about you. You can’t do this again.”
Irrationally, I remember sitting in his camper that first night, watching him as he drove away from Meridian. He had that same intent look then he has now. And he’s telling me the same thing he kept telling me then: Don’t apologize. Back then, I believed everything he ever told me. “I won’t. I promise.”
“Christ…” He shakes his head. “What were you thinking?”
Again I open my mouth and nothing comes out. But suddenly he raises his eyes and I see his nose twitch. “What do you want, Red?”
“Sorry,” Jean says guiltily, and behind him, I see her standing in the doorway. “You know. Doctor. Patients. All that.” I turn towards her, too exhausted even to think about what to say, what’s going to happen. And then she smiles, a genuinely delighted smile, and her eyes light up. She’s incredibly beautiful when she looks like that. “I’m glad you’re back, Logan. You had us a little worried.” And then she glances at me, including me in that statement.
“I ain’t the one you should be worried about,” he grumbles. But Jean’s smile doesn’t waver, and she comes briskly across the room to us. Logan steps away from me as she approaches, and I tug at my gloves a little self-consciously.
“I’ll make you a deal. Let me check you over really quickly and give me a blood sample, and you don’t have to spend the night down here.” She casually waves a hand and a tray floats up beside the table.
He gives her a suspicious look. “What for?”
Jean arches an eyebrow at him. “Because I’m a doctor, trying to do research on mutations? Because I’m anal about complete records?” He still isn’t looking receptive. “Because I’m asking nicely?”
Even I smile at that, and Logan relaxes a little. “Fine. Make it fast.” Jean reaches for a test tube and a syringe from the little tray and I can feel myself turning a little paler than I probably already am. Jean notices.
“Rogue—I mean, Marie. This will only take me a few minutes. Why don’t you sit down over there and wait for us?” She nods towards the far side of the lab, where there’s a chair.
Jean knows I can’t stand needles. She should; the couple of times she took blood from me I nearly fainted. I nod and turn quickly before I can start feeling dizzy at the idea of that metal spike going into Logan’s arm, but when I get there and sink down onto the chair I see that Jean has gotten a screen and she’s opening it up, pulling it across the floor to block my view of the two of them.
She doesn’t want me to see. A spark of that intense jealousy I thought I’d lost a long time ago comes up, but I squash it firmly. She is a doctor, after all, and even I can’t quite make myself believe she’s doing anything by sending me to sit down except trying to make sure she doesn’t have another unconscious patient on her hands. I do wonder what she’s going to say while I’m out of earshot, but if she does want to say something to Logan without my hearing it, she doesn’t really even need me to step away, now that I think about it.
Logan gives me a little nod just before Jean pulls the curtain into place and I can’t see him any more.
It really doesn’t take more than a few minutes, and then the two of them come out from behind the curtain to join me. Logan’s pulling a grey sweatshirt on; Jean must have given it to him to replace his torn shirt, and for some reason I’m a little amused when I see it’s got an X-Men logo on the chest. He’s got his leather jacket, too, slinging it over his shoulder as he comes towards me, and he looks oddly thoughtful. Jean puts an arm around my shoulders, and I’m still suspcious enough to wonder what it is she’s trying to distract me from. “Come on. I had your friends clean up your room from…well, they cleaned up.” Ugh. One more thing I’ll have to apologize for.
As she leads us towards the elevator, all I’m wondering is what in hell we’re supposed to do from here. It’s late, which I didn’t really realize downstairs in the lab, but when we get out of the elevator the hallways are deserted and silent. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife and I’m damned if I know what Logan is thinking. Until Jean gets to the door of my room and opens it.
“So everything should be—” She flips on the light and stops short. “Oh, my goodness.”
Logan shoves her out of the way. “What’s wrong?”
For a second no one moves. Then I start laughing and Logan grabs my arm. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s—” I gesture helplessly. I can’t talk.
“It’s a disaster.” Jean’s dismay is just adding to the comedy. “What on earth…”
Even before I see the note pinned to my easel, which is now standing in the middle of the room, I know. I manage to choke back my laughter long enough to produce one word. “Jubilee,” I say, and go off into another fit of giggles. Logan glares at me suspiciously, undoubtedly thinking I’ve gone completely insane.
Because the room is a wreck. Paints and clothes are scattered everywhere, the top of my dresser is dusted with talcum powder, a bra dangles from my easel—I pull away from Logan and go retrieve it, and that’s when I see the note. I pull it free and bite my lip as I read it. Then Logan is beside me again, and he takes the note from my hand, reads it, and hands it to Jean.
If I ever see your room looking like that again, I’m going to come sit on you till you snap out of it. Don’t make me do it.
“She’s nuts,” Logan mutters, and that sets me off again. He’s looking at me like I’m some sort of unsecured explosive. “Jesus. You’re as crazy as she is.”
Jean still looks vaguely upset. “Are you sure you can stay here? I can put you in another room—”
“It’s all right. Jubes just put it back the way it usually is. Honest.” Somehow, the tension has dissipated, and I’m grateful to Jubilee for that, for making this all a little less earth-shattering. But oh, god, she’s going to kill me for this. And that thought is blackly amusing too. I can’t stop laughing, but I try.
Jean looks a little uncertainly at Logan. “I was going to…I mean, I asked the girls make up a guest room for you, but maybe I should check to make sure they didn’t do anything silly in there. Though I don’t know if…” She clears her throat. “I’ll just…let me know what you want to do, Logan.” And with that, I suddenly realize what the problem is.
Me, again. As usual. Because I’m a baby who can’t be left alone without a sitter. Except there isn’t one. God, I hate this.
Logan puts a hand on the door. “It’s okay, Jeannie. Give us a minute, all right?” Jean steps back into the hallway and Logan shuts the door. And now it’s just the two of us. And now that I’m not laughing I feel shaky, fragile, empty inside. I don’t know what to say to him.
“What do you want me to do?” Logan’s voice is gentle, and that surprises me somehow. “I mean, tonight.” Again, it’s awkward between us; the relief I felt over Jubes’s mess has melted away. It’s not going to be that simple.
I wish it could be. I wish I could ask him to stay and just pretend everything could go back to the way it was, to be sixteen again and have everything taken care of for me. But I can’t. I don’t even want that. I stare at Logan, and suddenly I know I’m going to come apart if he stays here one more minute. I have to calm down, get myself together. “I’m tired,” I say finally, and I force my voice to remain level. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” If my answer disappoints him at all, he doesn’t show it. He just gives me a searching look, and now I’m writhing inside. Just go. “You gonna be all right here?” I nod. He still looks a little hesitant. “Okay. I’ll…I should get some sleep too. I’ll be…” He shakes his head. “Somewhere around. We’ll talk tomorrow. That sound good?” I nod again. Doesn’t he get it? I’m exhausted and filthy and I am about to burst into tears and throw things and I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be polite. Logan waits for a second, the longest second I’ve ever lived through, and then at last he reaches for the doorknob.
“Logan?” It comes out before I can stop myself, but I don’t say what I was about to. “It’s good to see you.”
He finally smiles at me, just a little. “You too.” And then he opens the door and he’s gone.
Except that this time I know it’s not for good. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, what I’m going to have to do to explain myself, but at least he’s gone for now. I’m too dazed to care. I stumble towards my bed, and then I realize I’ll have to clear half my wardrobe off it unless I want to sleep on top of my jeans and shirts. Mechanically, I start pushing things out of the way, trying to clear a space.
The room and all the things scattered around it are making me dizzy. I don’t even try to put things away, but I can’t seem to stop moving them around, making piles, setting things in different places. Part of it is my mind still churning with everything that’s happened. Part of is that my senses, still absurdly sharpened, still won’t ignore the acrid stench that still clings to me. At last I force myself to just stop picking things up and head for the bathroom, shucking off the blue scrubs Jeannie gave me, and I leave them lying on the floor as I turn on the shower as hot as I can stand.
I wish I could wash today away completely, let it run down the drain and vanish like a bad dream. I can’t. What I did—I have to deal with that now, myself.
At least I can feel clean first.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Three words: Logan wakes up.
The beginning of the reactions to various actions.
The beginning of the reactions to various actions.