The Girl: Chapter Thirteen
She opened her eyes before she was really awake, before her mind had fully shifted between the gears of unconsciousness, Asleep and Not. The girl didn't know what time it was, not where she was, or even who in those measurement-defying minutes before awareness caught up with her body. And even then she could not have provided the answer to the first two questions.
It was cold. She was facing the window, with it's generic blinds open, slicing the black world behind it into vertical stripes of visibility. The glass was so shimmery with moisture that it appeared as merely water that had merely decided to stand up. Had it rained?
How strange this place was, with it's odd absence of smell (there were scents, but the girl was too unaccustomed to the idea to call them good). No tangible feeling of danger, which in itself was enough to frighten her. She'd be unprepared when (only idiots relied on the word 'if' with pain) something happened. The bed around her, under her, was soft, whole, clean--like the rest of the room. Undamaged, a stark contrast to anything the girl had ever known. If she'd been less tired, less marred herself in places that would not mend, she might have enjoyed the concept of items that matched.
The girl blinked, and as the sticky blur of sleep cleared from her vision she experienced for the first time that peculiar stillness of motels when nobody else is awake. That sense that time had stuck, like a CD that had been scratched too deeply, leaving her baffled as to where the music had gone. No infants crying through the paper walls, no illicit deals being stricken loudly and drunkenly. No arguing; none of the screaming that had stuffed her ears since the beginning of the girl's memory. She wondered if she'd gone deaf, wondered if she had died. Then, if she was the last living person on earth--why had everyone left her behind?
She strained her ears (perhaps more poor than most, due to fourteen years of unceasing clamor), listening for anything, anything familiar.
Distant traffic, crickets--not as close as usual. Of course, that endless babble in her head--a vulgar choir whose singers lacked both tune and rhythm. Nothing else--no, wait. There. Little grunts, distressed mumbling whose pitch rose and fell as if someone were playing with the volume.
That, at least, was nothing new. The sound, if not the source.
She checked her own lips, in case it came from her. Accidental whimpering--it had happened before. But no, her mouth was shut; there was no tickling hum of suppressed pain.
The girl shifted, propped herself up enough to view her intimidating roommate--and froze. Stared.
His chest glistened--covered only in a once-white sleeveless shirt, so worn that the curly hair beneath was visible--shook with the effort of breathing. Heaved like a particularly frantic bird's. The shadows of the room played on Logan's skin like black waves eroding the shore. He was growling, then moaning, lips pinched in an agonized smile. At first, the girl thought--no. His body was wound with nothing but distress.
She watched his head toss--left, right--and considered, briefly, crazily, going to him. The girl sat up a little further. Her eyes fell to where the blanked draped across the man's waist.
She stiffened.
What could she do, the girl asked herself, defensive even in the privacy of her own thoughts. What did she think she would have done for him? Shake Logan's arm? Stroke his cheek, that chest? Touch him, and just cross her fingers that that horrible pull wouldn't start up?
Tell him it was all a bad dream?
It was was stupid, crazy, absurd enough to be funny. Almost. What book, what lie, had ever given her the idea that people do that?
So the girl remained where she was, watching him, watching over him. Arms wrapping around her knees, pulling what she could of the blanket for warmth. Her eyes carressed Logan's brow, his jaw, the overstrung wires in his throat. Mentally comforting where her hands were too afraid--and poisonous--to go, as if the force of her attention would would quiet him, cancel her need to actually respond.
It didn't work.
Did she really imagine it would?
Logan gave a particularly loud rumble. His arm lifted, struck the bed violently, furiously. As if shoving somebody away, and not simply elbowing an inanimate object. She almost felt pity, for whoever he imagined he was fighting. Would he wake up as angry? The girl's teeth found her lower lip and dug in, as if that would still the anxious shiver that went through her.
She saw his knuckles bounce slightly on the heavy fabric, heard the bizarre swish, scrape of metal and had enough time to think, what's that?
And then the girl watched, as three strips of something brighter, deadlier than silver appear where before there had been only blankets and stale air.
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The girl had been gawking at him all morning. Nothing especially new--same timidity in the stares, ashen faced--as if the potency of her fright alone might help her understand. Most of the time she turned away, when Logan answered with a look of his own. But every now and then, her gaze would fall--not to the floor, but to his hands, and focus there with something in her expression that baffled him.
Nevermind, Logan told himself the seventh or eighth time he caught the girl doing it. It had been a bad night--visions of surgical drills and green latex gloves danced in his head like a sick parody of that Christmas poem. He didn't think he had the energy to deal with whatever new fear she'd gotten in her head, whatever possibility she was using to torment herself. All Logan wanted was to get her to the mansion with minimal drama.
After his shower (not a drop of shampoo nor speck of soap left of the complementary stock--the girl had certainly been thorough) Logan opened the travel-sized toothbrushes, called her into the bathroom with a voice whose gentleness did not mask the firmness of the command. He squeezed white paste over the bristles, handed her one of the sticks--the pink one. Gave her instructions, a demonstration of proper cleaning that poverty, rather than ignorance had kept from her. Casual, wasn't her fault, no reason to clue her in on something that might embarrass her. Nodded curtly, smiled when her eyes widened at him to say, Like this? Left her in the bathroom to keep his thumb from stroking over her mouth, wipe away that overflow of toothpaste foam.
He told her to wait in the room, that he would be back as soon as he fetched clothes for the two of them. Out the door, along the concrete walkway that circled the building. Down the stairs, the sidewalk to the space where the pickup stood--close as he'd been able to get.
Funny. All the anxiety he had felt about leaving her before, in the city, hadn't diminished. Not at all.
Strange.
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Sitting in the dusty cab of the pickup--only slightly cleaner than the tenement. A Styrofoam box in her lap, strips of bacon and a pancake that smiled through it's whip-cream mouth. Her tears were still drying.
Though she'd been relatively calm all morning, nodded her head when he asked if she wanted breakfast, the girl threw a half-tantrum when Logan tried to make her eat inside the restaurant. Fierce little shakes of her head, round eyes and a jutting lower lip, sudden and complete panic at the suggestion of the tan booths and people all around her and no place to escape to except the pickup--so why get out at all?
She'd ignored everything he said, coaxes and threats ("C'mon, Kid. Nothings gonna bite ya....I promise you're safe. Nobody's going to lay a hand on you...Get out of the truck, honey. You're hungry--I know you are. Everyone around can hear your stomach growling. Dontcha want some pancakes? Eggs? Some orange juice?...Kid, I'll carry your ass over my shoulder if I have to. Not in the mood for this shit. You've got about five seconds to get outa there yourself. Five, four--")
Logan watched her shrink into the corner where the passenger door met the seat, pulled her knees up for a few more inches of retreat. She dug her fingernails into the cracked leather. The girl trembled, as she did so easily--like she'd just emerged from an Alaskan lake--until Logan gave in. Sighed, and spoken with rough appeasement. "Fine, Kid. I'll get us something to go. Just wait here."
He'd wanted the girl to understand, at least begin to learn, that meals were not always consumed in secret, huddling where others were most absent. She needed to know that there were places in the world, times she could rely on a real plate, a real meal. Kind--or at least, safe--company, his protection. It was hard to find words for this type of lesson, hard to explain a concept so foreign when he had trouble believing it himself. His attempts confused her at best, terrified her at their most extreme.
And nothing seemed to help her appetite. She spent five minutes prodding her pancake's strawberry nose.
"Eat, sweetheart," Logan told her, lost in worries of how she would react to the mansion.
"Do you have knives in your hands?"
Just like that.
If there had been anything in his mouth, he would have choked. Logan's throat released a surprised growl--just a reflex, he wasn't angry. His brain stuttered at the unexpected question, at the way the girl was curled in upon herself. As if that would make him forget that she'd asked, that she was here at all.
"They're not knives," he clarified, eventually--his voice a little thicker than normal.
"Oh," she said, weakly. Not looking at him or anything in particular.
Logan swallowed. "When did--when did you see them?"
She was quiet, then shrugged.
"'Salright, darlin." What did she see? What did she see? Whatdidsheseewhatdidsheseewhatdidsheseeohgodwhatdidshesee? "Yesterday?" he queried lightly, terrified at the meer idea.
Silence.
"Last night?"
A flutter of her heartbeat provided the affirmation before her soft 'Yeah'. He was relieved, but only for a moment--half a moment, really, because alarm that she may have seen his claws cut into someone was quickly trumped by the terror that he might have hurt her. Logan's scanned the girl for injuries frantically, but there was nothing--nothing, of course. Hadn't he been looking at her all morning? (Odd, how automatic the assurance of her well-being had become.)
"They're--," Logan began, thinking of the shocking memory of the once-gaping laceration on her scalp, now little more than a pinkened scratch.
"They're claws. Part of my mutation." Not quite the truth, but good enough for now, for her. "Nothing you gotta be scared of."
She sat up, just a bit. Examined her own arms with a look he didn't understand. There was a stain on her t-shirt, a little smear of whip cream on her breast from bending over. Like this morning, Logan had to restrain himself from rubbing it off.
"Is that what's wrong with me?", she asked her lap.
It took him a minute to comprehend, his mind unusually slow and focused elsewhere.
He had wondered, before, if the girl had understood the concept of mutation--or if it had been just another flavor of hate in the city.
"There's nothing wrong with you, Kid."
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Someone had taken his parking space. Nearest to the exit, lest likely to be blocked in a quick getaway, his. A new resident, most likely, because Logan had not been away long enough for his claim--and the consequences trespassers faced--to have faded in the resident's memory.
He flashed a disgusted look at the offending vehicle, a sky-blue Prius where a real man's automobile was used to sitting. Grudgingly, Logan settled into a slot a few yards away. If the girl hadn't been with him, he wouldn't have waited to track down the foolish driver. But she was. She was, and he still had important business to address.
"Let's go, darlin'."
The girl resisted, but not very much once he pulled her out of the passenger seat (holding her as gently as an upset kitten, with less the effort). It took only the occasional hand at her shoulder, the threat of touch to keep her moving. Even her eyes--slightly wider than quarters--appeared to tremble as they took in the splendor of the room. One would expect a garage to be the most basic part of any facility, but the mansion's resembled a high-class showroom. Space for the shop class, for repairs, for the cars of both guests and employees. Polished stone floor that shined, glinted with specks of glitter. Quiet, air conditioned. It was certainly beyond whatever her mind had conjured up as their destination--she'd probably envisioned a smokey brownstone, cramped with makeshift beds and unwilling prostitutes. Logan could see her attempting to reconcile this image with her surroundings, watched her fail. Her brow scrunched up in the opposite of reassurance.
"Keep going, honey. This way. There ya go."
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Though he chose the smaller, more austere corridors whenever available (and this was often--there were usually at least four paths to reach any room in the mansion; Logan was convinced that when the school was constructed, the builders threw in a few extra hallways just for fun.) the girl seemed on the verge of hyperventilating. They didn't see many student; the few that appeared were sticky with junk food and exhausted in a way that could only mean a recent field trip.
Residents did not speak when they saw Logan, offered no greeting, except perhaps a suppressed groan.
Surprise became dread in the eyes of those who had been on his bad side, or attended one of his training classes. Looks of welcome from those--no, no. It was mostly dread.
More than the rich wood of the walls, glistening with it's ever-present polish, the inch-thick rugs, the tables with their assortment of vases and mirrors (all of which her old neighbors would have been sold or traded for the most convenient drug, depending on how much of a hurry the thief was in) seeing the students shook the girl. Healthy, clean teenagers repaired by the comfort of Xavier's and acne cream. Confident that nobody's problems could be worse than theirs.
The students had always irritated Logan. But he could only guess at the reasons behind the bewildered hurt they caused to flit across the girl's face. He wondered what she was thinking, wondered why rather than comfort, the children's presence inspired more terror.
When a blond boy smiled a little too brightly at her, wordlessly threatening to offer assistance, Logan glowered until he heard the rustle of shriveling testicles.
"Turn here. Good girl. Remember the--" Logan's tongue faltered over the word "man", and he searched for a term that would alarm her less, "--Professor I was telling you about? Gonna introduce you to him real quick. He's real nice. You're gonna like him."
She didn't respond--not in ways that would be noticed or counted by anyone but Logan. But then, he hadn't expected her to.
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Their voices could be heard through the thick panel of the wall, even by those whose hearing was not strengthened by the X gene. Not yelling, not yet, but close. The impatient courtesy that comes right before, a sharpness at the edges of each syllable that these particular gentlemen specialized in. Logan took a deep breath and released it through his nose. Not quite what the girl needed right now. He contemplated putting the meet-and-greet off until later, taking the girl up to his room--but the idea was too tempting for it to be right.
"--think you would have learned, after all these years, that such sentiments will only bring you trouble. A bleeding heart, Charles, must either clot up or stop beating."
"I'm doing everything in my power, but we must give them more time to see reason. Publicly--"
Logan knocked--once, and only for the benefit of the one who stood beside him. He touched the girl's hair, winked at her when she didn't flinch. Opened the door and smoothly guided her forward.
"Please, come in," spoke the dry voice behind the desk. Chuck's hands were folded, his expression detached but polite--the required face of all those who believe themselves In Charge. "Logan, my friend; what a pleasure to have you back with us."
He watched Xavier nod once to himself, as if checking another thing off a mental list.
"We have many things to discuss, of course," Xavier acknowledged, always preferring utmost discretion where business with Logan was concerned. And then his eyes slid to the girl, and he smiled--not like she'd escaped his notice before, but the beam reserved only for new students. New toys. New Xmen. They all meant the same to him. Almost imperceptibly, The Proffesor's gaze flicked back to Logan, and he could see the hefty addition to his pay that this unexpected delivery had earned him.
He knew before the moment passed, that he would refuse.
"Hello, young lady." Scanning her, gathering explanations faster than any spoken words could travel. Pressing more courteously on her companion's mind, requesting entrance. Scooping up information from the two of them like a child collecting Easter eggs.
Logan told Xavier her name, provided a few verbal details that would serve as the official story.
She stared at the floor, unable to differentiate between an introduction and an auction.
He listened, as he had a sickening number of times, as the girl was given the customary welcome speech. Soothing, impressive--happy to meet you, building a world of peace and unity through the power of education, no need for worries or fears, you're at home among the rest of us monsters. The same rosy talk that every new arrival heard, word for word. He looked at the girl and, for the first time, wished he believed it.
"--and this is my associate, Erik Lensherr."
The delicate clearing of an old throat. A man, half forgotten in the office. Good at blending his colors into the paint of the background. Straight back and gray hair.
He stepped toward the girl, his tight lips perhaps the only unwrinkled portion of his body. They curved upward, twice as kind as the rest of his expression.
"How wonderful to meet your acquaintance, my dear. No doubt you will make a magnificent addition to this institution."
He extended a arm clad in the best of his favored suits, a pale hand with nails that came to a point.
The girl cringed away, but Lensherr seemed to take this as a confirmation, rather than an insult. And intrigue, rather than pity, kept his eyes on her.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Greetings! Am running out of time on this computer, but as ever I need to thank the ones who have been kind enough to hit that review button. Sleep deprivation-smation. Who needs rest when they can get feedback like yours?
This chapter is dedicated to candy corn, kittens, new hair cuts, Hugh Jackman's chest and people who quote in their reviews-it always makes me bounce.
This chapter is NOT dedicated to double shifts, essays, sticky keyboards and garage sales.
Always plan on notes that are much longer/coherent than this, but somehow what I want to say disappears, heads for the Mexican border or that inspiration-hog Stephen King. Sorry for that, and I hope you enjoy the following....
.
This chapter is dedicated to candy corn, kittens, new hair cuts, Hugh Jackman's chest and people who quote in their reviews-it always makes me bounce.
This chapter is NOT dedicated to double shifts, essays, sticky keyboards and garage sales.
Always plan on notes that are much longer/coherent than this, but somehow what I want to say disappears, heads for the Mexican border or that inspiration-hog Stephen King. Sorry for that, and I hope you enjoy the following....
.
Chapter End Notes:
Wearing my lucky dog-tags as I type, hoping you have forgiven the tardy post and liked this chapter. The last scenes had be pulling out my hair, going absolutely bonkers until I thought I *might* have it right. Still kind of frustrates me, but I'm hopeful. Please review, and let me know!