It was late morning by the time they both stumbled their way down to the kitchen. Logan began mixing the pancake batter while Marie started the coffee going.
He came up behind her as she was spooning sugar into her cup, wrapping his big arms around her and rubbing his bristly chin into her neck. She laughed, nuzzling him in return for a moment before remorse spiked through her. She remembered standing here a few days ago, wishing he would do just that, as he sat cold and silent in his chair. How could she not have realized sooner that it wasn’t him?
She shook the dark thoughts aside, turning in his arms to give him a big squeeze. They would both have to come to terms with what had happened, in their own time. In the meantime, they had a lot of loose ends to tie up. Not the least of which was telling the Professor what had happened to his son...
“Oh, shit!” she breathed, her eyes jumping to Logan’s suddenly-alert gaze. “What day is it?”
She counted on her fingers up from Christmas Day while he made his own calculations. “Wednesday, right?”
She nodded her agreement, sighing in relief. Samuel wouldn’t be doing the grocery drop until Friday. Still, she shouldn’t take any chances.
“When things were goin’ to hell I left a note for Professor Xavier at the grocery drop,” she told Logan. “We better go get it back before it gets delivered. The news I got for him is bad enough without freakin’ him out more.”
He looked at her curiously but she blushed a little, avoiding his eyes. He must have decided not to press her. He simply grunted his assent, going back to flip the pancake in the nick of time.
After they had eaten, Marie sat down to write a new letter to the Professor. After agonizing over what to say, she decided in the end to just ask Samuel for a new satellite phone to replace the one Proteus had destroyed. Finding out that his son was both a mass murderer and effectively imprisoned in her mind would be enough of a blow; if she couldn’t tell the Professor in person she could at least break it to him gently over the phone.
She went on the snowmobile, with Logan following doggedly along on foot, refusing to leave her side for even a second. It made the going slower, but she knew better than to argue. To be honest, she didn’t want to let him out of her sight either.
She opened the grocery lockbox, relieved to see the letter she had written that horrible afternoon still inside. She pulled it out, replacing it with the new note.
She saw Logan’s eyes sharpen on the back of the piece of paper she held, and she realized he was looking at the sketch she had hurriedly drawn of him. She blushed, but hesitated only a moment before holding the piece of paper out to him. He deserved to know, and if he were angry with her for what she had written, she deserved that too.
He seemed to sense her hesitation. “You sure, darlin’?” he asked, and she nodded. Nonetheless, she found herself staring at the snow between her feet, afraid to see his reaction as he read.
_____________________
Dear Professor;
I wish I could break this to you gently, but time is short. I have been happier here than I had ever imagined possible. I not only learned to control my mutation, but I met someone. His name is Logan.
I am so sorry, Professor, but two days ago your son David — or at least his consciousness — came here, looking for a way to you. He has killed so many people, and now he has taken Logan, using his body.
I have a plan to free us both, but if you are reading this then I have failed. David may come for you in my body, and you should be warned of that. But that is not my greatest fear.
He wants Logan, and I believe he will keep him if he can. And here is my final request of you, Professor.
Logan has feral senses, and a healing factor beyond any I have heard of. His skeleton is indestructibly lined with metal, as are his claws. I am telling you all this so that you understand how difficult of a thing I am asking you.
If you see the man I’ve drawn on the back of this page, beware of him. Know that David has control of his body, and he means to kill you. Do whatever you must to protect yourself and those you love. But, if at all possible, please spare his life. Know that I loved Logan too, more than I can ever express. If you can control or contain him, find some hope of freeing him from David’s influence — if you can succeed in this way where I have failed, I would consider it the greatest gift you could ever give me.
I am sorry I did not get the chance to tell you in person how much you have meant to me. You saved my life, and then gave me a purpose for it. I shouldn’t ask you for more, but I am. I must.
Tell the others at the mansion that I love them, and miss them. And that I went down fighting.
- Rogue
_____________________
She heard the rustle of the paper and reluctantly raised her eyes. He was staring at the sketch, his jaw tense. She felt a lump growing in her throat.
She looked down at the snow again. “I’m sorry, sugar,” she mumbled. “I just...”
Suddenly she was in his arms, his lips pressed to hers. She kissed him back in stunned confusion, gasping for breath when he finally let her down.
“You’re...you’re not mad at me?”
He furrowed his brow. “Why would I be mad, darlin’? This here...” He cleared his throat, his voice nonetheless raspy with emotion when he spoke again. “No one ever did anythin’ like that for me. Risked their life for me, called in favors for me, said good stuff like that about me. Marie...no one but you would ever do somethin’ like that for someone like me.”
“But...” She couldn’t help feeling that he just wasn’t understanding what she had done. “I told him all about you, laid out all your strengths so he could get around them.” Shame roiled in her belly. “I told him to kill you if he had to. I sold you out, Logan.”
He growled impatiently. “You know that’s not true, darlin’. You didn’t turn on me, ever. You were tellin’ Xavier how to stop him, Proteus. And I’m damned glad you did.”
He grasped her face between his gloved hands, his eyes blazing into hers. “You risked everythin’ to save me, Marie. And if you hadn’t managed it, if you died and he still had me...” A shudder went through him.
He dropped his hands, balling them into fists at his sides as his voice turned harsh and low. “The best thing you coulda done for me was make sure that someone else killed me. I’d rather die a million times than live in this body, trapped like I was — helpless — with the guy who killed you.” His eyes met hers, open and sincere. “You made the right call, darlin’, and I’m damned proud of you for doin’ it.”
She launched herself into his arms, squeezing him tight as relief flooded through her. She realized that she hadn’t fully comprehended until now what he had experienced. Held prisoner in his own body, forced to watch everything that Proteus had done. Knowing Proteus might kill her with his body and he would be helpless to stop it, knowing he might even spend eternity trapped that way.
She shivered, thinking how close to disaster they both had come. She knew he was feeling the same way as he rubbed his hands over her, reassuring himself with her presence.
She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Let’s go home, sugar.”
_____________________
Logan paced anxiously downstairs while Marie spoke to Xavier in the loft upstairs. He was trying not to eavesdrop, but he hated having her out of his sight and the stress and sadness in her tone of voice was making his heart race.
He felt foolish doing it, but he couldn’t help coming to wait at the bottom of the stairs as he finally heard her murmur her goodbyes.
She looked a little shaky, her eyes rimmed with red, and he pulled her to sit on the couch with him, rubbing her cold hands between his. “It go okay, darlin’?”
She nodded, leaning into him, pressing her face to his flannel shirt. “It was rough all right. But at least...he knew part of it, knew that David had escaped from that island in Scotland where they were keepin’ him. Even knew that he was killin’ people as he went. The X-Men had been tryin’ to track him down, but had lost him somewhere before he crossed over to the States.”
Her accent was thicker than usual, an indication of her emotional turmoil. He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her as she took in a deep shuddering breath. “Still, it was no fun, tellin’ him that David tried to kill us both...an’ that he was tryin’ to kill him. I don’t know exactly what happened back when David was a kid, but I could tell that the Professor thought that he had let him down. That he was still lettin’ him down.”
She finally pulled away, leaning back against the couch, rubbing her forehead. “The Professor asked my permission to call Hank in, an’ we all talked through what had happened. Between the two of them, they know more about my mutation an’ my mental shields than anyone. An’ Logan...”
She opened her eyes, the amber-brown gaze startling in its intensity. He was still getting used to it, the way her eyes had changed. Still the deep brown guileless gaze of Marie and yet a little bit of wildness, a little bit of himself flickering underneath...
“Hank thought...a healin’ mutation like the one I described. He thinks you’re right, that just about nothin’ could kill you. Could kill us. That you could be older than you look — even centuries older.”
He looked away from her at that. He should have told her sooner, been more clear, but how could he ever have expected that she would share his curse?
He nodded curtly. “Far as I can tell I haven’t gotten any older in the time I can remember. And every once in awhile I get a memory...feels like a dream almost, but goin’ way back. Maybe even sixty, seventy years, and I wasn’t a kid back then neither.”
She grasped his hand in his, her voice low and meditative. “Livin’ so long, watchin’ everyone else die...it would be hard to let yourself get close to people. I mean, they’re mayflies compared to you.”
He looked down at her hand, so slender and pale in his big rough paw, as remorse gnawed at his gut. “I’m sorry I did this to you, Marie. I don’t know if it’s why I am like I am, but I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“I thought we covered this, Logan...you may be sorry, but I’m not. I told you I was stayin’ with you, an’ now I can.” Her words drew his gaze back to hers, and he read nothing but sincerity and affection in the golden-brown depths as she continued. “The rest of it we’ll deal with...together.”
He pulled her into his side again, some of the tension in his shoulders easing with the certainty in her voice.
“I have to admit, though,” she continued. “Much as I wish that bastard Proteus in the fires of hell for what he did to you...somehow this seems worse.”
“What do you mean?” In his opinion nothing was torment enough for Proteus, but he thought she had just...put him on ice, or something. Bottled him up in her head.
“I don’t know exactly what happened...what I did to control him. You an’ everyone else in my head helped, buildin’ the walls, an’ there’s no way I’m gonna try to look. But...” Her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to put it into words.
“It’s not like the others. Even if they’re contained, they kinda know what’s goin’ on. If he’s awake up there in my head, like they are, but trapped...alone in a room with nothin’ and no one, for god knows how long? Centuries maybe, if Hank is right about how long we might live. Not even able to die.” She shuddered. “That doesn’t seem right. For anyone, no matter what they did, but ‘specially for the Professor to think about happenin’ to his only son.”
He reluctantly grunted his acknowledgement. Much as he would gladly put the claws to Proteus if there were somethin’ there to stick ‘em in, the idea of keeping a man in solitary confinement for centuries, long past the edge of madness...it did make something twist in his gut a little. He knew how isolation got to a man, slowly and relentlessly stealing every part of him that was human. Death would be a mercy compared to that.
“An’ the Professor is a little worried about what it might mean for me, havin’ him there.” Her words jerked him out of his reverie, making his pulse pound in his ears.
“What do you mean? He thinks it’s dangerous for you?”
He saw her nostrils flare as she took in the spike of fear in his scent, her face tender as she petted and soothed him with her hands.
“Shhh, sugar, don’t fret about it. He’s jus’ not sure what it means, that’s all. I had to head him off from comin’ to get us with the jet, but I promised him that we’d make it back to the mansion as soon as the roads are passable. That okay with you?”
“Whatever you need, darlin’.”
He forced himself to calm. There was no sign that Proteus was hurting Marie so far, but it wouldn’t hurt to get her back to where this Professor guy could maybe take a look, help her keep him in check. Maybe there was even some way to get him out. And if there was, if she didn’t need the healing anymore, would she be able to separate herself again from the part of Logan she had integrated? He knew she said she didn’t regret being this way, but maybe once she had the choice back...
He sighed, nuzzling into her hair. He had had years to come to terms with what his mutation meant for him. He didn’t want her to suffer from this curse of longevity, but goddamn it he didn’t want to lose her either. He was too damned selfish to face the thought of decades, or even centuries, spent mourning her loss. If it came to that...maybe she could use her mutation on him, take him with her. The thought was strangely comforting.
“Well, no sense borrowin’ trouble,” she said finally. “We can deal with all of that when we get back to the mansion. In the meantime, I’m gonna enjoy every last second of havin’ you all to myself.”
She shot him a saucy smile. “Howzabout steak for dinner?”
He gave himself a mental shake. He would take her advice, and enjoy every second he had with her, whether it was years or decades or centuries. He smiled back at her.
“You know me, darlin’. I’m always in the mood for steak.”
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