He felt her body go limp as her head dropped back.
“Marie!” The ice melted away, her skin coming back quickly, up her neck, her cheeks, nose, and eyes. He thought for a terrified moment her mind had collapsed under the strain. It took him a couple of frantic breaths to notice the needle sticking out from her arm. He looked away from her face to see Hank, breathing hard, his medical bag sitting next to him, pulling out the needle.
“What did you give her?” he growled.
“A powerful sedative. I didn't have any other option, Logan. She nearly killed Bobby. I'm sorry.” He looked upset at having dosed her with so much. He checked her pulse through her gloves and grimaced. “Her pulse is thready. We should get her downstairs. I don't want to be ill-prepared if it has negative side-effects on her.”
Logan growled. “How much did you fuckin' give her, Hank?”
Hank stood and grabbed his bag. Logan noticed Storm in the room, holding Bobby steady as he struggled against unconsciousness.
“She was out of control, Logan. He used what he needed to get through her mutation,” she said.
He balked. They'd probably dosed her with enough to put even him down, they'd need to since she'd grabbed a huge chunk of his mutation before Bobby. He looked at her face and his stomach clenched. Her body wasn't accustomed to his healing ability. She would struggle with processing that amount of sedative. He stood and easily heaved up her body. Shit, she was light.
“Let's go,” he growled. “Quick.”
XX
Hank had her hooked up to heart monitors, worried her heart might fail under the weight of the sedative. Logan rubbed his hands in anger. Fuckin' could have put down an elephant with that much, he thought irately.
He stood against the wall, looking down at her. She was curled up on her side, covers pulled up over her shoulders. Dark circles had formed under closed eyelids. IV tubes ran down and connected to her left hand. He crossed his arms in front of him and leaned back, placing one foot against the wall. Shit. He clenched his eyes. For lack of a better way to put it, he'd just fuckin' watched Marie's mutation go rogue. It had been completely out of her control.
The thought made bile rise up in his throat. He’d already been forced to witness the Phoenix in control of Jean’s body. Now he was having to watch this take over Marie, in slow increments. It hadn't passed his notice on Alcatraz how much Rogue had enjoyed collecting powers. Ever since then, he'd sat by, albeit in roaring protest, as she worked to let it go even more. He had known this was a bad idea.
He couldn't quite wrap his head around the ridiculous amount of deja vu taking over his life. It hadn't been a pleasant surprise that day when she'd told him about her classification. Most mutants would have been ecstatic to have so much power. He should have been happy for her. But he couldn't help the feeling of dread that had crept up his back.
They would come after her. They would take her away from him and do...God, do things he couldn't think about. The thought of her as a lab rat made him physically sick. He'd survived losing Jean, barely. Losing Marie...
“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” he muttered, raking his hands through his hair. He stood straight and walked in a small circle as he felt panic rise in his chest. He wasn't used to feeling like this.
How was he supposed to stop this? Stop her mutation from taking over the way Jean's had? In the process, how was he supposed to keep her under the radar?
Those assholes would come looking for her and her whole life would be upended. She'd been working so hard. Before the whole fiasco at Alcatraz had gone down, she'd just started college after working her ass off to finish high school. Even after, she'd taken on more than the other younger members and pushed to learn to fight while still attending college classes.
He'd personally taken responsibility for her physical training long ago, just after Alkali Lake. She'd had the moxie to put that Pyromaniac in his place and the outright mettle to pilot the blackbird. She'd pretty much rescued all of them in the process of being told to stay put. She'd earned that uniform as far as Xavier had been concerned. But not as far as he was.
He'd been caught off guard the day she'd hidden in his camper. Who the fuck did she think she was? She was scraggy, on the street long enough to know not to climb into cars with men like him. Men that would look at her and think sinful thoughts. Turns out to have been an omen. He'd developed a connection with her, a need to know she was OK.
Then he'd met Jean, a woman that made him feel like he could be the good guy. He'd met the professor, a man who held so much confidence and faith in him, he started to believe it himself. Storm, a friend who called him out on his shit. Even Scott, and their territorial pissing contest -- even with him he'd developed a comradeship for a short time. Until everything hit the fan. The fallout of which had forced him to face his loner tendencies and take on the responsibility of instructor.
All of it, every ounce of self-worth he now held had started with Marie. Had she not climbed into his truck that day, he'd be still driving aimlessly around drinking beer, screwing random barflies and fighting scum. He wasn't about to let her go off with the X-geeks unprepared to survive. So he'd beat the shit out of her in training hoping she'd learn to keep someone else from doing the same thing.
She'd gotten pretty good, too. She'd been able to down him more than any of the other X-geeks, even Storm or Hank. He figured she'd permanently picked up on some of his fighting habits and instincts through her absorption of him at Liberty Island. Still, he always felt his chest fill up pridefully when he watched her just about castrate the men in a fight.
And as time passed, and she improved, spent time with him, he'd gotten to see her real side. The smart-mouthed southern belle with a wickedly sharp sense of humor. Her southern indignation at being treated as though she were ignorant was tempered by an understanding of human nature he envied. She struggled with her past, wanting no one to have the power over her that her parents had, yet gave herself fully to relationships with her friends, her teachers, her teammates, with him.
Since she'd told them about her classification and those doctors at Worthington Labs wanting a piece of her, he'd been pulling a lot of long nights researching Marie. He'd been shocked at how little he could find on her. He knew only that she came from Mississippi. But when he'd looked at every state site, there were no reports of a missing girl. Nothing. No one had claimed her. He'd been forced to resort to going through her files here at the school. Teacher files were of no use, so he stooped to the level of going through her personal files.
Xavier had been having meetings twice a week with her. That had surprised him. When he read her file in more depth he had found himself embedding his claws into Xavier's beautifully crafted mahogany desk.
Everything had been perfect in her life. Everything. She'd been the poster daughter for a well-to-do Catholic family in Meridian, Mississippi. She'd gotten good grades, played sports, attended mass regularly, everything. She'd stayed out of trouble her whole life until one fateful first kiss. And after the ambulances and police officers finished their interviews and had driven away, when her father had finished the cover story of some sort of seizure with the boy, he'd walked over to her and promptly beaten her to within an inch of her life, screaming about a demon or some shit like that.
It had been difficult for him to read about, much less listen to the voices on the tapes the professor kept of their conversation on the issue. He'd listened to her voice shakily describe how her mother had stood by, crying into her apron, while her father threw her around the living room, telling her she was a monster. She'd cried and begged, promised she'd do anything for him not to be angry with her. Trying through her tears and his kicks to convince him she wasn't the devil.
The only mercy he held for her was to throw her onto the front porch, beaten and broken. Her mother had sniffed and cried and said, “You're not Marie anymore,” and then turned away back into the house. And Marie, the perfect daughter who'd worked so hard to be what her parents had wanted was left out on the street that night, in the long skirt and tank top she had been wearing and no shoes.
That had been about all he could take. He read a few side notes from the professor about a St. Jude and her attachment even after months on the road and it wasn't until days later that he looked it up and realized the significance.
There were other tapes, but he couldn't do it. Couldn't listen to her soft voice, devoid of emotional attachment, explain the next seven months of her life. He'd left that weekend and tried to drink himself into a stupor, an act that was never very successful. Marie's soft voice haunted him for weeks after that. If he'd known what that weak-ass excuse for a mother had said to her, when Marie had needed her the most, he would have insisted on calling her by her birth name from the beginning.
XX
It was late the next evening when she finally cracked her eyes. He didn't notice at first. He'd taken up a position at the corner of her room straddling a chair, head resting in his arms. After twelve hours on heart monitors, Hank had determined she wouldn't have any ill effects and had unhooked her from the machines. It was then and only then that he'd let himself close his eyes, secure in the knowledge that she only needed time and he wouldn't need to touch her.
He heard shuffling and raised his head to meet up with her foggy eyes. He cleared his throat before speaking.
“Hey.”
She blinked and shifted, uncurling her legs slightly under the blanket. Her eyes shifted around, looking to determine where she could be.
“Med-lab,” he supplied. She focused again on his and he saw the comprehension finally dawn. She scrunched her eyes and lifted her hands to grind the palms again them. He stood and walked over to her, squatting down to be face to face.
“Hey, no. It's OK. Everyone's fine.”
She stopped to breathe, looking like she was concentrating on something. He had a sick feeling she was shutting up the voices in her head. She finally relaxed and tried to sit up.
“Let me...wait.”
He pushed his hand behind her shoulders and took her hand in the other. Slowly, he lifted her into a sitting position. He held on while the vertigo passed through her eyes.
“Ya got it?” he asked. She nodded and he straightened out.
He grabbed her some water and held it to her mouth. He steadied her hand with his gloved one as she finished off two glasses and half of a third.
“Why am I so thirsty?” Her lips were cracked and bleeding.
He pressed his lips together before answering. “Using Icepop's powers sucked you dry, darlin'.”
She took a deep breath and shivered. “I can't believe...” she brought her bare hands up to look at them. “I didn't mean to. I didn't want to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“He's OK, though? Bobby, I mean.”
He nodded.
“And you?”
“Fine, Marie.” She nodded and placed her head into her hands, bringing up her knees to rest it there.
“You OK?”
She groaned. “Mah head feels like it's inside a jet engine.” He smiled. It never stopped amusing him when that accent pushed through, thick as molasses.
“Yeah,” he snorted. “Between the dehydration and the sedative, you've got a lot going on up there.”
He pressed his lips together again. “Marie?”
She glanced through the curtain of her hair. “You'd tell me if you were havin' trouble with people in your head, right?”
She sighed. “It's not. It's not too bad. Bobby's pretty quiet. And you, you only say good things.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Good.” Then, he added, “You tell me if you have a problem, OK? We'll get you help.”
She snorted. “You gonna check me in to a psychiatric hospital?”
He growled, “That's not fuckin' funny, Marie.”
She patted his hand as an apology.
“I mean it.” She nodded and smiled softly. He felt his chest constrict.
“I'm sorry. About the files. I didn't...shit!” He growled and clenched his hands. “I didn't know the stuff you'd told the professor. I thought...I thought you were like every other runaway here at the school. I didn't...realize.” She looked up and she was staring at him, holding her breath. “I'm sorry, Marie. I'm sorry.”
She swallowed hard and looked down at her shaking hands. “I'm sorry, too.”
He shook his head. “You didn't...”
“Yeah, I did,” she sighed. “I shouldn't have brought Jean up. I know...I know it's painful for you and I used it to get back at you for snoopin'.”
He didn't take his eyes off her. He'd noticed her pointed commentaries a while back when he was hitting up the bar scene. He'd also noticed she'd never really verbally acknowledged that he'd stopped going. He still needed to get out now and then, fight out some of his...tension...but the one-night-stands left him more frustrated than when he'd left the mansion and he'd given up on finding a release for 'that' particular kind of itch. He'd condemned himself to long nights and cold showers.
The other thing he had noticed, and never corrected, was the all-inclusive assumption that it had been about Jean.
“What do you wanna know?” Her eyes came up and brows came down. She looked confused. “Ask me about Jean. Only fair.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I...” he could see her scrambling for a question. She took a deep breath and blew it out, building up her courage. “Why didn't you let me do it?”
He hadn't expected a question like that. He blinked. “I needed to make sure.” She raised one perfect brow. He growled. “I needed to make sure she knew.”
“That you loved her,” she said it softly. He nodded, swallowing past a dry throat. She pressed her lips together and looked down.
“Did she? Know?”
He nodded. My last words to her.
She smiled softly. “Good.” She paused for a few breaths. “Love like that,” she grimaced. “I'm glad she knew.”
He suddenly had the urge to reach for her. He settled for laying a hand against her sheet covered leg.
“It wasn't like that.” She looked at him blankly. “I loved her. But it wasn't some all-consuming love. I hardly knew her.”
He waited and when she didn't reply he continued, “First I met Jeanie was when we got here. Only had half a day of flirting before shit fell apart.” She grimaced.
“Wasn't your fault. By the time everything was said and done, we'd had less than three hours alone where I was conscious.” He watched her pick at the lint on the sheet. He listened to the slow steady reassuring beat of her heart.
It was a whirlwind romance. He'd acknowledge it. By the time he'd come back to check up on Marie, Jean and Storm were headed out. The most time he'd gotten alone with her was in the woods after they'd gone down in the jet. His fantasies about her had consumed him like fire and he wanted her so badly he could barely stand it. And she had wanted him, sort of.
And that was the problem right there. Her loyalty to Scott was unshakable. She loved him, but not like she loved Scott. The next thing he knew, she'd locked them into the jet and had made herself a fuckin' martyr. He'd never gotten the chance to know her.
He watched as Marie pulled up a knee and settled her chin on it the way she did whenever she was thinking quietly, reflectively. He blinked.
“Marie.” she tucked white hair behind her ear and looked up. “I loved her. But not like Scott loved her.”
She smiled. “Love's a bitch and all that, right?”
He huffed a small laugh. “Something like that.”
He breathed in, holding in the air that held her scent before plunging in. He reached into his pocket and drew out the silver chain. He played with it in his hands.
“You dropped it in the room, when things got out of hand.” She reached for it and he let the pendent land on her fingers. She brought it up and stared at it. Hard.
“I thought, from his notes...” he tried to lace in all his desires into this explanation. “It helped you. When you were on the road, alone. There were a lot of references to it. I wanted to remind you that you aren't a lost cause. That your mutation isn't a lost cause.” She looked at him tenderly.
“I'm here,” he reassured. “I'm not leaving you.”
Her eyes glowed when she smiled. Their chocolate warmth always calmed his nerves. “Happy Birthday, Marie.”
She smirked. “My birthday was yesterday, Logan.”
He shrugged. “Better late than never.”
She laughed quietly. “Thank you.” Yeah, her eyes definitely glowed when she smiled.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
It's always nice to get a different point of view, isn't it! Hope you like it. REVIEW please.
Chapter End Notes:
Sweet chappy, yes? I hope you like it...REVIEW or I will cry and get writers block!