'Merry Christmas Logan!
I know you'll probably get this sometime after the event but hey I wanted to let you know that I'm still thinking about you here.

Everyone's been really nice to me here (so far), I took some exams last month, still not sure if I passed them or not but Ms Munroe seems to think I'll do okay. Bobby (the blonde haired kid you saw me at the foostable with?) he's been kinda sweet to me, we've been talking and I think he's trying to get me to go out with him. Thing is I still don't feel *safe*, I mean my skin's all covered up but it's still risky you know?

Anyway, how are *you*? The only reason I even have the address for this is because I stole into the Professors office to look in his desk. I overheard him telling someone you'd sent him a letter asking for more help, so I went to find the address. Almost got caught too but I managed it.

How are you Logan? Are you doing okay? Reason I ask is that I'm not sleeping well, not dreams as such, just a feeling of unease as if theres something lurking waiting for me to drop my guard. So apart from having a few nights distrubed sleep and wondering how your doing out there hows your Christmas been?

I know how you spent last year, locked up in a small motel room while you listened to the local radio station wishing you were somewhere else with a good whiskey.
See it's like this, when I experience something it kind of triggers a memory of sorts in my head and I get something of yours. That one came up because of the *huge* tree in the Rec Room, when I saw it the memory of seeing a real one still in the ground popped up. Thing was back in Meridian I'd never even seen snow never mind a tree like that one. So it was kinda a hint who's memory it was, I get flashes about once a day. Little things mostly, like what a dinner from 'Matt's on Highway 35' tastes like and if it tasted anything like what I was doing at the time I hope you got your money back.

Don't worry about your memories in here, I don't go prying into them Logan , I wouldn't. I know how private you are, hell I'm not exactly open either. I never even thought I'd be keeping a journal but I am, kind of helps me to keep my thoughts seperate from yours.

You see you kinda pop up once every three or four weeks (do the math Logan I'm not going to spell it out for you), I even punched out someone for not moving fast enough. Hurt my knuckles somethin' bad but it felt *so* much better, so now I just avoid folks and write it out. Mind you Ms Munroe has given me some paints and canvas so I might have a go at painting next time it happens, never know you might have a new picture in your room when you come home.

You are coming home aren't you? Even if it's just for a stop over? I know your out doing what you need to, your looking for the important things, the things that matter to you. I understand it, same as The Professor does, everyone else though...I don't know; they think you're not coming back. Sometimes even I wonder but then I remember what you said when you left, that you'd be back and I trust you Logan. You'll come home when your ready and I'll be here too, ready to smile and catch up with ya.

I'm not expecting you to write back Logan, I know your probably away from mailboxes but I just wanted you to know that someone remembers you, what you did for all of us and especailly for me.

About that Logan........The Professor has some information for you but I'm going to tell you first. After all it concerns *me*, remember when you picked me up at Laughlin? Sabertooth had been on his way to get me, he was under orders to grab me by any means necessary and bring me back alive. He could do anything he wanted to me as long I got to Magneto *alive*, you see Magneto had had the machine ready a month before he knew about me. I was just a perfect vessel to use, a new born mutant with no one to miss me, a runaway.
So you see Logan it was *my* fault you got dragged into all this, all the pain, all the fighting. I was the one who snuck into your trailer, I kind of took everything you had away from you. I mean you had a life before I crashed into it and shook it up.

I just wanted you to know that it wasn't your fault things happened the ways they did, it just happened. I'm sorry I destroyed that life you had Logan, no matter how lonely or upsetting it was for you to live it. I just wanted to let you know that, I'll understand if you don't want to hear from me again after this. But I'm hoping you'll want to, even if it's just to collect your tags.

Yours
Marie.'

*********************************************

The small light in the cab of the truck he was in was barely enough to see the dials of the dashboard but he could read her words perfectly. The card she'd sent was a winter snow scene covered in small white glitter, the words crammed into the hard cardboard shell.

Outside the world was freezing, trees were groaning with the cold as their bark froze. He traced her lines with his fingers feeling the depth of her pen on the paper, betraying her emotions as she'd written it. Lifting the envelope and smelling the inside of it, a small trace of her was still inside the paper shell. A smell of home, of cotton and skin and inside a white hair, broken off from it's root. Seeing it he snagged the small translucent hair and held it up in the fading light from his truck, it looked like a piece of winter made flesh. A thin reminder of her time on the torch, where she was burned up only to be brought back by his touch.

Closing the card he put it by the side of him as the light finally faded from the small bulb above him. The cold biting hard as his breath began to plume in the dark, the heat fromthe solitary tear on his cheek being leeched away quickly by the death outside. His whisper only heard by the groaning trees, "Merry Christmas Marie, see you soon."