In ancient times people believed that the Fates controlled the lives and deaths of mortals. They were often described as three women, one old, one middle-aged and one young, who together held the life-threads of the humans in their hands.

When Marie's teacher had told that story in the fourth of fifth grade, Marie had smiled and snickered at the thought, just like the rest of the class had. After all, it was just some legend from a civilization that had long ago ceased to be.

For some odd reason, though, she'd remember the story in the years to come, and when her mutation showed, she'd decided that the Fates definitely had a sick sense of humor. She had never actually believed that they existed, but she couldn't bring herself to accept the thought that her mutation was just a freak of chance. She needed to know that there was a reason for her curse, that there was someone - anyone - she could blame for it.

Once, while on the road, she'd lost her temper and raged at the three heartless goddesses, not believing in them for a second, but raging on anyway.

It had just felt so good to give in to her anger.

Maybe by coincidence, she got picked up by a trucker mere minutes after her fit of rage. He was heading for Laughlin City.

Five hours later, she saw the Wolverine for the first time.

---

Sick sense of humor indeed, Marie thought as she stood on the balcony and watched as the moon slowly lit the forest around Xavier's mansion.

Since that day in a smoky bar in Canada, Marie had ever so slowly started to believe in Fate. After all, the story she now found herself in was way too twisted to be a coincidence.

Marie was quite sure that wherever the Fates were, they were laughing their godly asses off.

A teenage girl with lethal skin and a near-immortal man with no memory of his past, who is best known for his cage-fights and his adamantium claws...

...And they fall in love.

Not to mention the fact that everyone around them would do almost anything in their power to keep the two away from each other.

She's too young, he's too old. She's too fragile, he's too violent.

He's half animal and she can't touch.

What no one saw was the fact that the two of them completed each other. They were two parts of the same soul. Mentally, they were connected on a level that the Professor and Jean couldn't even begin to comprehend. They shared memories and feelings - pain, suffering, anger, joy...love. The fact that Logan was still in Marie's mind, was a proof of their need to be together - emotionally, mentally and physically.

And still, they couldn't be together. Weren't allowed to be together.

Oh, yeah. The Fates were definitely having fun.

For a short moment, Marie thought she could see the faint silhouette of three women hidden in the shadows of the forest.

She shook her head and sighed.

If that was the kind of deities the ancient Greeks had to live with, no wonder they were famous for their tragedies.

She was willing to bet that those three goddesses also thought the whole mutant-thing was extremely funny.

Probably caused it, too.

What were the odds of mutations like that to happen, anyway? Marie couldn't remember the exact numbers, but she knew they were unbelievable low, even at their highest.

Sometimes she thought the Fates needed a new hobby. Or at least some new favorite toys.

She was pretty sure that her and Logan's story wasn't very far from being as screwed up as the Summers' family tree. And that was seriously weird, if anything was.

Maybe that was what the Fates had fun with when she and Logan got a rare break.

---

Something made Marie snap out of her thoughts and focus on the forest once more. This time it wasn't three silhouettes, but one.

The Wolverine soundlessly appeared from the shadows and stepped out in the open. Marie could see that his clothes were dirty and had cuts and holes in them. A stripe of dark, dried blood ran across his pants. His hair was tangled and covered in dust.

Marie wasn't surprised.

This had become sort of a ritual for them - sometimes, Logan needed to let the Wolverine loose, to let the animal side rule for a while.

He would be hunting.

And she would be waiting for him.

Marie watched soundlessly as Wolverine's nostrils flared when he caught her scent. He lifted his head and looked to the balcony where he knew Marie would be.

His hazel eyes spoke of a desperate longing so deep that Marie almost felt a physical pain from being separated. She could read him like an open book and as she looked into the depths of his eyes, she found pain, lust, anger, and under it all, a desperate need to be together. They were too far away from each other - they belonged in each other's embrace, not separated by deadly mutations and the X-Men's misguided attempts to protect them. The distance between them and naked emotions in Logan's eyes sent a stab of pain through Marie, and she knew that her own gaze, the feelings it conveyed, did the same to Logan.

For an eternal moment, the world stopped and there was only them, and for just the briefest of seconds, Marie could almost imagine a world where they wouldn't be apart.

Then the Gods sent the world spinning again, and the spell was broken.

Logan smiled sadly at her and ran a hand through his messy hair, before he slowly made his way inside.

Marie closed her eyes tightly in a vain attempt to keep the tears from falling.

They couldn't even leave. If they did, the X-Men would play the mighty superheroes and track them down in a misguided attempt to 'protect them from themselves'. Even if the team did leave them alone, Marie had no doubt that she would sooner or later use her 'gift' on someone - weather accidentally or on purpose - and she would need the help of a telepath to cope with it.

In a way, her and Logan's story had been a constant fight against a pre-laid destiny and the three ancient women who controlled it.

And as she looked one last time at the moonlit forest, she somehow knew that those elusive Fates had won.