Everything. Everything. Everything hurts.
She’s scraping herself raw; peeling at the layers that bind her, wrap her, hide her until she’s pink and bare and cut wide open. Until all that is left is just a bundle of over-sensitized nerves, and the phantom sensation of touch.
Until all of her most vulnerable parts are exposed to the air, and she thinks – she thinks – that the slightest breeze brushing against her flesh might cause her to break.
To falter, crash, crumble to the floor in a useless pile of limbs and hair that was once a girl.
Once a girl on the verge of being a woman.
And through the pain, through the pain she mourns it. Mourns the loss of the child she was, of the adult she thought she’d be. Back when things were simple, easy, linear. When life followed a logical course, and she could tell you where she’d be in one year. Five. Ten. Back before… before…
But it is after now. After. And she can’t forget that, won’t ever be able to forget it. Never be able to push it, kill it, bury it so deep that it could never climb back out, and bite her on the ass.
The leftover possibilities have all been consumed. Slurped up, drained dry, usurped. And this – this hazy, gritty, cracked reflection is all that remains.
And it hurts.
Everything. Everything. Everything hurts.
She stares at her hands, at the simple thin-boned digits protruding from the meaty part of the palm. Stares and stares and stares. At the swirling lines that make up the prints, spiraling out from the center, and twirling down the edges. Stares at the skin, unmarred, undamaged. In need of a callous.
Something, anything, to cover her, and protect her, and keep her safe. Something to absorb the damage as it comes, deflect it away from her center where it can’t do any harm. Something, anything, more substantial than the thin layer of tissue masquerading as normal flesh, pulling around her too-bony limbs.
But there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing to be found, nothing to be had. What is left of her, is all there is. And what is left of her, is just a shell. A shell. Turned upside down, and scraped clean.
She’ll heal, they say. She’ll heal, they’ve told her. It’ll just take time. Time. Time, patience, quiet. She’ll heal. She’ll heal.
But right now, right now it hurts.
Everything. Everything. Everything hurts.
And she doesn’t know how it’ll ever dim. How the pain could possibly recede to leave something fresh and new and lifelike in its wake. She doesn’t know how, because she doesn’t think there is anything left inside of her to salvage.
Logan’s not good at waiting. Not good at keeping his emotions - his anger, his rage - in check. He’s not good at it, but he is trying.
Trying to avoid busting down the paper-thin door separating him from Marie. The door she scuttled behind hours before. A timid little bird in place of the spitfire young woman he calls his friend.
He’s trying, but he’s really not very good at it.
So he bides his time, wearing a track into the tile beneath his feet. Twelve steps across, that is the size of the room. This alcove between the med-lab that they brought her to (against his wishes) and the bathroom she sequestered herself in the moment they gave her leave to use it. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Waiting, counting out the seconds, the minutes, until she’ll emerge again.
Emerge just as cracked and torn as when she entered. He knows that. Knows that nothing will be different, nothing will have changed between those two points of time.
She will be the same. The same Marie that isn’t Marie. No amount of time behind any door will change her back. Make her the girl swaddled in green and sass that climbed into the bed of his truck. Won’t make her the soft-spoken teenager that wrapped satin covered fingers around his tags, along with his heart.
No. He knows that nothing will bring that girl back. She is gone. Murdered by the bastards that stole her - stole, tortured and broke her - and in her place is this other. This other - girl, woman, child - that reeks of fear, even through the wood and metal paneling that separates them. Reeks of fear and pain and desolation.
Nothing will bring her back. Not to what she was. Before. But right now, right now as his boot-clad feet beat out a staccato across the floor, he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care, because they can help her. Chuck and Jeannie. They can help her.
They can help her repair the damage caused to her mind. Help rebuild whatever walls, whatever barriers she needs, so that she can deal with what has happened. Deal with what was done to her. They can help heal her mind. They will heal her mind. He won't even consider the alternative. After all, what the hell else are the X-Men good for, if they can’t save one of their own?
Physically, there isn’t a mark on her. Not a mark on her to attest to what she has gone through. Not a mark on her to tell the tale that Scooter uncovered in the files tagged with her name. With her number. Not a single mark.
And that scares him just as much as everything else.
But the X-Men will do their job, and fix the parts of her that they can. And whatever is left...well, he’ll deal with the rest. Him and her. Just like they always have.
Even if he doesn’t have the first bastard clue where to start this time.
But if she will just open the door... If she will just open the door, then at least he can... At least then he’ll be able to see her. To set weary eyes on her. Eyes that have longed to settle on the softness of her features for far too long. At least then he’ll be able to let go of the air that he’s been choking on for the past three months. Trying with an ever increasing sense of desperation to find her. Locate her. Bring her back. At least then...
“Logan...” It is the tiniest of whimpers. Nearly non-existent. But it is there, it is real. And in barely the space of time that it takes her to breathe it out, he is at the door, one claw unsheathed, and cutting through the lock.
The sound of Jeannie’s surprised gasp echoes behind him. A tell-tale sign that though they have left him alone while he has paced, they haven’t taken him out of their sights. He can hear shuffling behind him as he pushes the door open, can hear Scooter calling out his name. But he doesn’t give a damn. Doesn’t give a damn, because Marie needs him. She needs him.
And nothing as idiotic as a lock is going to keep him from her.
Releasing the breath that he has been holding for three agonizing months, he steps across the threshold, and closes the door behind him.
~TBC