She approached the trailer cautiously. Snow had started to fall again, in thick fat flakes that blurred her vision. The snow around the trailer seemed undisturbed, a pristine carpet of white leading up to the door. Her apprehension increased. Had he not even made it home that night?
The snow wasn’t deep — only a few inches, but the base of sleet and snow, now frozen solid, made for slippery going. She braced her feet, tugging, cracking the crust of ice from around the door.
“Logan?” She swung the door open and looked into the dim space, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She slowly began to make out her surroundings — a stripped-out camper shell, discolored spots on the walls where the appliances and cabinets used to be. A makeshift bookshelf stood against one narrow wall, packed tightly with dogeared paperbacks and ragged hardcovers. A tangled mass of blankets lay in the far corner.
The electric lantern was on the floor beside the door, and she picked it up and switched it on. The cold white light flooded the trailer, and her heart stopped for a moment.
“Logan!” She stumbled forward, to where one thick arm protruded from the tangle of blankets.
She pulled the top layers of blankets aside.
He was completely still, his lips and fingers blue. She could see her own breath, frosty in the air, but not the slightest sign of his.
She heard a broken sob escape her own lips as she slipped a gloved hand under his head, lifting it. His hair crackled, as if it were covered with a thin sheen of ice.
“Logan...” She stared down at him helplessly, her mind numb with jumbled regrets. She shouldn’t have let him go, she should have realized something was wrong sooner, if she had come the next day, maybe...
He twitched and she screamed, instinctively dropping his head.
He stirred, opening bleary eyes to look at her. “M’ree?”
“Logan!” She tugged on his shoulders, trying to pull him upright. “Sit up, sit up, you’re frozen, I thought you were dead, oh my god, I thought you were dead, get up...” He rumbled something indistinct, turning over on his side away from her.
She halted her babbling, stunned.
“Jesus Christ, Logan. Get UP!”
He rubbed a flannel-covered forearm over his face. “M’ree?” he said again, a little more clearly.
“Yes, it’s me, Logan...get up, please, get up...”
He seemed to get the picture finally, rolling to his side and then struggling up to his elbows. She tugged anywhere she could catch a handhold until finally he was sitting up, his legs splayed out awkwardly in front of him. She realized he was still wearing the clothes he had worn that night and they were soaking wet, stiff with ice where they weren’t directly touching his body. His boots were caked with mud.
His usually keen gaze was cloudy and disoriented. He blinked owlishly at her.
“M’ree...somethin’ wrong?”
She felt torn between laughter and tears. “Yeah...Logan, get up. Stand up. We gotta go. You gotta come with me. Right now.”
She rubbed his arms in brisk strokes, trying to warm him. She looked around and found some clean clothes, gathering up a few shirts and jeans and socks. She thought about trying to change him out of the sodden clothes then and there, but finally just shoved the changes of clothing into her pack. She had to get him warm, and for that she had to get him to the cabin.
“C’mon Logan...time to go. C’mon, sugar.” She finally got him to his feet, trying to keep a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His legs didn’t seem to be working quite right, his movements uncoordinated and wobbly. She shoved her shoulder under his arm, trying to steady his considerable weight as best as she could.
“This way...c’mon sugar...”
Together they stumbled almost blindly through the snow. She thought once he was up and moving he might wake up a bit, seem a little more aware, but he staggered along as if in a daze, stopping from time to time to look at her with an expression of mild bewilderment until she was able to push and prod him into motion again.
The trip out to his trailer had taken her under an hour, and yet two hours later they were still slogging through the snow, covering less ground every minute. Logan had taken to stumbling more and more, his heavy weight yawing wildly, making them both fall often times.
Finally he fell and stayed down, his hands and knees buried in thick snow, his head hanging.
“Logan...get up, get up...” The words were second nature now, hardly distinguishable from her frozen lips.
He shook his head, letting his knees slip from under him, nestling into the snow as if it were the warmest of blankets. “M’okay,” he mumbled. “Don’ worry.”
She was crying in earnest now. “Logan...get up!” She pulled at him, succeeding only in getting him onto his back. His face seemed relaxed in unconsciousness, his dogtags glimmering in the hollow of his throat.
“Logan...” She shook him, and he mumbled. She took a deep breath. “Soldier!” she barked. “On your feet, man! We’re moving out!”
He opened his eyes, and she watched in relief as he started scrabbling, pushing to his knees.
“Move it soldier...hup to...moving out...”
She alternately yelled, cursed, and barked orders to him, calling on Magneto’s powers as much as she dared to bolster his uncertain balance, and in that manner got him within sight of the cabin. Within a few yards of the porch he fell again and she used Bobby’s power to form a slick of ice, trudging along beside it, dragging him the last few yards until they reached the porch steps.
The distance from the bottom of the porch steps to the front door seemed insurmountable, but with a combination of ordering and begging she was able to get him up one more time. She used a last burst of Magneto’s powers to open the door ahead of them and practically fling them both the final few feet, crashing them through the doorway and into the foyer, giving him an extra shove so that he crumpled onto the rug in front of the fireplace while she crashed to her knees in the entryway.
She kneeled on the wooden floor of the foyer, frozen and dripping for a moment, half in disbelief that they had made it.
For a moment her mind was paralyzed with indecision — she had focused so much on getting them there, she didn’t know exactly what to do next. Then she snapped into action, shoving the front door closed, ripping the thick winter gloves off her numb fingers and replacing them with a set of cotton ones. She felt like she was wasting precious seconds, but she didn’t want to risk sapping any of his depleted strength with an accidental touch.
She snagged the cognac bottle from two nights before and fell to her knees before the fireplace where Logan lay. She took another precious few minutes to light the fire, pouring a healthy dose of cognac on it to speed things along. Then she pushed and pulled, rolling his shoulders up and wedging her body under his upper back to keep him semi-upright.
“Logan!” She slapped him as hard as she could. “Logan!” He opened bleary eyes at her again.
“M’ree?” he said, his voice befuddled.
“Drink,” she ordered succintly, shoving the bottle in his mouth, not giving him time to refuse. She let a trickle drip in, and then more as he started swallowing, stopping after he had taken a few good gulps.
He pushed himself a little more upright. He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes seeming a little clearer. “Marie?”
She almost sobbed in relief. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, sugar, we gotta get you out of these wet clothes. Help me out here, okay?”
He watched, a puzzled furrow between his brows, as she undid the buttons on his shirt. “Arms up,” she ordered, and he complied obediently. She pulled off the flannel and the undershirt, giving him another few gulps of the cognac.
She pulled off his boots and socks, thick crusts of ice falling free of them. He started to shake, deep, bone-rattling shudders passing through his body. It pained her to see, but she thought it was a good sign, his body finally fighting back against the cold.
She was sweating furiously, the heat of the fire blazing on her face, her body suffocating in the snowmobile suit. She ran upstairs, grabbing the fluffy duvet off the bed along with any extra blankets she could find in the closet, hauling the awkward armful down the stairs with a trail of blankets dragging behind her.
He had rolled onto his side, his arms wrapped around himself, his breath rasping in his chest. She blushed furiously but she undid his belt buckle and fly, tugging the jeans off his hips and peeling them down his long legs, pulling furiously at the sodden fabric as it clung stubbornly to his muscular thighs.
She finally got them free and cast them aside, covering him with one blanket, and then the duvet, and then the other blankets, forming a cocoon around his body. He was still shuddering helplessly and she rubbed the blankets over his body, trying to increase the circulation of his blood.
She was trying desperately to remember anything else she had learned in her field medic training about hypothermia. There was something about not warming someone too quickly or the frostbite would get worse, but was that even an issue for him? If his toes fell off, wouldn’t they just...grow back or something? She shuddered.
She realized the fire might be warming him from the outside but she was relying on his body heat to create warmth under the blanket, and right now she wasn’t even sure if he had any. She plonked herself down on the floor, pulling at her boots, cursing at the tangled laces until she got them free. She peeled off her snowmobile suit and outer layers of clothing down to her silk thermals and socks, and then slid under the duvet, carefully keeping a layer of blanket between her face and his naked back.
She pressed her body up against him, tucking her socked feet around his. Even through the layer of blanket she could feel the chill immediately — he felt like a solid block of ice. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the shudders rattling through him, shaking them both.
She ran a gloved hand through his hair. “Easy, sugar. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay soon.”
She pressed her cheek to his back, willing the shudders to stop, willing his body to warm. Even though she felt more confident now that he would survive this, the pain must be unimaginable. And she knew all too well from his memories that a healing factor doesn’t prevent the pain — he would be feeling every moment of it.
It felt to her like hours, but it had probably only been twenty minutes or so by the time the shudders subsided, changing to the occasional shiver. She continued to hold him, hushing and soothing him, until his breathing grew deep and even. His back under her cheek wasn’t warm yet, but it was only slightly chilled.
She felt some of the tension in her body finally relax now that he was peacefully sleeping. She felt sore all over, just now beginning to feel her aching knees, the strained muscles in her back, even the pain in her jaw from clenching her teeth to stop them from chattering.
She started to slip out from under the duvet. He made a low grumbling noise, turning toward her, one long arm snaking under the blanket to tug her closely into his body. She froze, stunned for a moment, and he settled back down with a satisfied sigh, pulling her with him until she was sprawled on top of his body.
She waited until his breathing evened out again and then started to slide back once again, carefully pushing back against his blanket-covered chest.
“Don’ go,” he slurred, his arm tightening around her, and she landed back on his chest with a huff of surprise. “Stay w’me.”
She thought about arguing — she could tell he wasn’t even fully awake — but...damn, it felt good right where she was. His body under the blanket was starting to become warm, and she seemed to fit naturally here, every curve of her body nestling perfectly against his long frame. She rested her head down on his chest for a moment and he made another satisfied sound, his hand brushing warmly up and down her back, soothing her strained muscles.
The blanket still covered his chest, protecting him from her exposed skin. Maybe she could just rest here a minute. She had been so scared, and now things were going to be okay. She let herself relax into his body, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat, feeling his chest rise and fall with every deep breath.
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