The next morning Logan woke up with his arms full of Marie, somehow, they had shifted in the night and were now spooned together in the giant sleeping bag. Moments later Marie woke too, giggling softly she whispered teasingly, "You were right, you're nice and toasty." They stayed put for a while, neither wanting to get up and lose that connection, eventually though, nature called.
Logan managed to find enough firewood to light a fire to cook them some fish for breakfast, the new snares had also managed to catch a couple of new rabbits, which he set aside for Marie to skin and gut when she got back from 'the bathroom'.
"Are you okay?" Logan called into the woods, when she had been gone close to twenty minutes.
"Yeah, they filled in our latrine hole too," Marie called back. "I had to dig a new hole, not easy to do when you only have a flat stick," she added, when she finally got back to the camp, "Also, I dislike taking a dump in a hole, literally the only thing I don't like about this exercise."
Logan chuckled in response. "Next time bring a bucket, a bag, and a pool noodle and you can make a camp toilet," he suggested.
After breakfast they set about rebuilding their shelter, clearing the debris of the old shelter, most of it could be repurposed as fire wood. They ran into a problem when it came to cutting wood for the new shelter, the hatchet had not been found during the clean-up, and Logan's small knife wasn't enough to cut larger timbers with, he tried his claws but the bone wasn't enough to cut through the trees with.
"Stop! Stop Logan, you're going to hurt yourself," Marie begged, looking decidedly uncomfortable, as Logan glared at the tree, while rubbing his hands where he had wrenched the claws.
That moment Hank walked into their clearing, looking around impressed, the clearing was a lot tidier than it had been the night before. With an amused glance at the attempt to mutilate the tree, he held up his offering of tools. Logan gratefully accepted the hatchet and set about cutting down the timbers he needed, reminding Marie again to stay out of the way. Hank sat by and watched - he wasn't allowed to help - as Marie busied herself skinning and gutting several rabbits, before hanging them from the tree to join the rest of the fish.
"I'm very impressed with both of you," Hank advised, once he was satisfied they were back on track again. "Good luck for the rest of the week."
"So long as those assholes stay away from our camp, we'll be fine, think dad will be pissed if I booby trap our entire camp?" Logan asked with a grin.
"No need," Hank replied with a chuckle, "Professor Xavier decided Bobby and Remy are to be sent home, they left an hour ago, your camp should be safe."
"Nice, can we go fishing again?" Marie asked Logan.
"Not today," he advised, "It's going to take all morning at least to build a new shelter, and it's going to rain this afternoon," Logan gestured toward clouds off in the distance.
"How do you know all this!?" Marie asked, clearly impressed. Logan just shrugged, looking uncomfortable as he continued what he was doing. Hank left them chatting comfortably and teasing each other as they began lashing together a frame for their new shelter.
--
Marie wandered through the woods, Logan was fishing again at the creek but after six days of trapping, fishing, and eating, Marie was bored. Logan had agreed to her going for a walk but only on the conditions that she stay within earshot of the creek, so she didn't get lost, and scream if she needed anything.
She was hoping to find some more wild strawberries but a sudden noise to her left had her freezing in momentary fear, as images of man eating bears ran through her head. When she heard nothing more she gingerly tiptoed through the trees toward where the sound had come from. Stepping around a tree she was surprised to see a deer lying on the ground, by its side was a tiny little fawn.
The fawn flattened itself into the ground in an attempt to hide, though the mother was clearly afraid it didn't try and run away, not more than a few brief twitches at least. Marie wracked her brain to try and figure out what to do, eventually deciding she really didn't have a clue. So she silently slipped back into the trees the way she had come - Logan would know what to do.
She burst back onto the creek bank with an excited, "Logan, Logan, come quick!" Squeaking in surprise when Logan grabbed hold of her, before she could fall headlong into the water.
He shook his head in amusement as he steadied her before asking teasingly, "What have you done now Marie?"
"Ha ha, very funny, come see what I found!" she replied, grabbing hold of his hand and attempting to drag him back into the woods.
"Hold up a minute, I've got to get the line out of the water first," he said, tugging her back. Marie hopped from foot to foot impatiently as she waited for him to do that, hauling him back into the trees again as soon as he was done. She ran quietly through the woods, slowing as she got close to where she was sure she had seen the deer, looking for the distinctive landmark that she had memorized. Signalling for Logan to keep quiet - even though she was making much more noise than he was - she led him through the trees to the deer.
Spotting the down deer Logan immediately grabbed hold of her arm, tugging her back he warned, "Careful, they can kill you with a kick even when down."
"It can't move," Marie replied, "It's tried but it didn't do more than twitch, I think it's paralyzed."
Regarding their surroundings Logan hypothesized that it may have fallen down the bank behind it, and perhaps indeed paralyzed itself. The fawn was still lying silently by the doe's side, trying to look invisible. Slowly Logan moved toward the deer, immediately agreeing with Marie's assessment that it was definitely incapable of even the slightest movement.
"What do we do? We can't leave it to starve," Marie asked.
"No, we can't, there's only one thing to do," Logan replied, he pulled out his knife, before tucking it back away after deciding it was too small. Sliding out a claw he moved closer, petting the deer gently, watching as it relaxed minutely before, with only the slightest movement, he sunk the claw through its neck, severing both main blood vessels. Blood bubbled from the through and through wound and pooled under the animal as she slowly relaxed into death. With a glance at the fawn, and a resigned sigh, he stepped forward to do the same to it.
"No!" Marie cried, grabbing onto his arm.
"Marie, it's still milk fed, without its mother it will starve, it's kinder this way," he said gently.
"No, we can take it back with us, it can feed out of a bottle, and then it can live in the woods at the mansion, or in the paddock with the horses!" Marie begged, still refusing to release his arm.
He was going to argue until he saw the look on her face, the pouty lip and the big brown puppy dog eyes, threatening to tear up in a split second should he refuse her... there was no way he could say no. "Alright, you can take it, but keep it close so it doesn't try and bolt off," he agreed, noting she didn't let him go until he had slid the claw away.
Gently he picked up the fawn, tucking its gangly legs against its body, wrapping it securely in his jacket, before handing it to Marie for her to carry, it was probably only a couple of days old so hopefully it wouldn't try and run. Moving back to the doe he knelt down beside the still warm carcass and pulled out his knife again.
"What are you doing?" Marie asked curiously, a frown on her face.
"I'm sick of fish, we're having venison for dinner," Logan replied, quickly and efficiently cutting away a couple of sections of meat. "We'll leave the rest for the predators," he explained, as he collected what he was taking before turning back toward the creek. They wouldn't need most of those fish now, given they were leaving the next day.
--
"God that smells good but what the hell did you take down a deer for? You realise we're leaving tomorrow?" Victor said, as he approached the pair sitting in front of the campfire, cooking themselves up a feast.
"Yeah we know, the deer was injured so I put it out if it's misery, took some cuts as gratitude," Logan replied with a grin.
"Want some? There's plenty," Marie offered, "Fish too, we had already caught them before I found the deer."
"Don't mind if I do," Victor replied, taking a seat at their fire. He hadn't had much of an opportunity to catch up with these two during the week, with the other twenty-two pairs of students being utterly hopeless Logan and Marie had pretty much been left to fend for themselves alone. They had done a damn fine job of it too.
They were halfway through dinner when a muted bleat sounded from the shelter behind them. Victor looked up, raising an eyebrow questioningly at the pair. Marie was already on her feet and skipping off toward the shelter, while Logan kept his head down, and tried to smother his grin.
"So, it was a doe?" Victor queried.
"Mmhmm," Logan replied, shoving another mouthful of food into his face.
"Why didn't you put the fawn down too?" Victor asked with a grin; he knew damn well why.
Logan sighed, rolling his eyes. "She wouldn't let me," he replied, as Marie came back out to the fire.
She ignored the males as she set down the reconstituted powdered milk she had prepared earlier, from their emergency stash, near the fire to warm, before she pulled the fawn out of the blanket it had been wrapped in. Gently she hobbled the fawn’s legs, like Logan had showed her, so it couldn't spook and run away. Once the milk was warm, she soaked the small piece of cloth Logan had cut for her, in the milk, poking one end of the rag into the fawns mouth, holding the other end on the mug of warm milk, she gently encouraged the fawn to suck, it seemed to be getting the idea quickly enough.
Victor shook his head with a chuckle. "You can take it home but it's your responsibility Marie, we can set it up in the stable until it's old enough to move outside," he stated. Marie smiled happily, as she continued to feed the tiny baby, she had planned to anyway but not having to try and hide the little thing would be helpful.
--
The next morning Logan and Marie again woke spooned together in the giant double sleeping bag. Since that night in the tent they had been sleeping together, neither admitting that the shelter was plenty warm enough to mean they didn't need the added body heat to stay warm. Marie enjoyed the human contact, even if it was still through cloth. Logan just enjoyed being able to have her closer, he was going to miss waking up wrapped in her scent, her soft warm body pressed up against him in all the right places. He was glad she wasn't a telepath, hell, she would likely never come near him again if she knew what he was thinking about her.
They finally got up, fed the fawn, had breakfast, and eventually packed up their camp, each casting a longing look back as they left it behind. It had been a fun week but now it was time to head back to boring classes and stuffy classrooms. The ride back to school seemed far too short, neither was ready to return to day to day life when they got back, so they busied themselves in the stable, playing with the fawn until they received a telepathic message to attend the Professor's office. Confused they headed indoors.
When they arrived at the office they walked right into a meeting of rather grumpy individuals.
Xavier turned to the two newcomers. "Thank you for joining us so promptly, please take a seat, Master Drake and his father are unhappy with Robert's punishment for destroying your camp, can you please advise exactly what you discovered when returning to your camp," he asked.
"Well, our sleeping bags had been shredded, all our emergency rations had been stolen, all the poles for our backup tent had been snapped, our tools had been stolen, our hatchet was used to hack apart our shelter until it collapsed, water had been poured into our fire pit, and over our pile of dry firewood, which was then frozen, our well was filled with dirt, and our food, two skinned and gutted rabbits had been stolen," Logan listed.
"And our latrine was filled in," Marie added.
"Were you in the camp at the time?" an older man, who they assumed was Bobby's father, asked haughtily.
"No, we were fishing at the creek," Marie stated.
"Then what makes you think it was my son?" he asked, turning back to Xavier, glaring at Victor on the way.
"The ice on the pile of firewood, in summer, was a bit of a give-away, not to mention his scent was everywhere through the clearing, and the stolen tools, and the leftovers of the rabbit carcasses, were recovered from his camp," Victor replied pointedly.
"A 'scent' only you and your son could detect?" Bobby's father replied scornfully, "All circumstantial evidence, no proof, I demand my son is compensated for his punishment and given a passing grade!"
"No way, that's not fair!" Marie objected, while Logan scowled darkly beside her. He was used to these kids getting away with whatever they did to him but he was curious to see what would happen here, after all, Marie was Xavier's niece, maybe he would stick up for her if he wouldn't for Logan.
"Life's not fair sweetheart, your survival camp clearly didn't teach you that," Bobby's father replied with a smug grin.
"No," Victor stated, without even looking at the man or boy in question he turned to Xavier. "I will not be changing the grade, his was a failure of a camp, they hadn't built a shelter or found water or food, which were the objectives of the camp, they had eaten all their emergency rations only one day in, stole from the other camps, and their destruction of the other campers property was downright dangerous, not to mention against the rules. I will not be changing the grade, if you want to do that after the fact suit yourself but I will not cross that line. Now if you'll all excuse me; I have better things to do with my time than sit around listening to this self-righteous bullshit." Without another word, Victor stood and walked out of the room, Xavier nodded to Logan and Marie, indicating they leave too.
"So, what happens now?" Marie asked, stunned at the idea that Bobby might actually get away scot free.
"Don't know, personally don't care, it won't change anything, he'll still be an asshole," Logan groused as they made their way to the kitchen in search of food.
As it turned out, Xavier capitulated, to a degree, refusing to give a grade for the class but changing the fail to an excused absence. In typical Bobby fashion, he gloated as if he had won some great comeuppance. Logan and Marie just continued to ignore him.
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