The window seat was a favourite of hers, it had enough room for her to sit peacefully in, tucking her legs beneath her. Outside the winter was in full swing, snow and ice were coating the trees that surrounded the school.

Ororo was stood outside, a colourful covered figure standing as still as the statues that littered the garden. Everyone else had gone to the mall for Christmas shopping, the season of good cheer had left her numb this year. It was as if she'd been wiped clear and the incident at Liberty Island was the only thing she could blame it on.

She remembered her last family Christmas, the preparations that had started just after Thanksgiving. Buying presents, making food, filling the freezer for the influx of visitors, the peices of family that travelled to see them. Scattered pieces of genetics that converged at one time in the year to catch up with the changes that had occured over the months. Smiling faces that had once held so much love, so much hope for her...now were dreams that listed in a dark sea that held no land.

She was alone.

Sure everyone here had been great to her, helped her to feel 'normal' or as normal as she could do. No one ever mentioned the rescue she'd undergone, or the week Logan had been underground in the med bay. When she'd been prowling the halls filling the wooden pathways with his presence, she'd tried to go to see him. Been stuck in the damn elevator for over three hours, trying to force herslef to finish what she'd started. But the fear that had consumed her nearly drove her insane every time she was in that small space.
So she'd waited until he'd come out, when he'd left she'd caught him, seen his eyeline drop from hers. The way his shoulders were set, the tenseness that was in him, he didn't want to go but he *had* to, there were things unfinished and he needed to finish them.

Logan was never far from her mind, hell he'd inhabited part of her since the touch she took from him in his bedroom the first night they'd been here. But she'd left him alone in her head, memories that weren't hers locked away behind a door. But now she wanted in, wanted to explore the man who'd risked everything for her. Christmas was for giving wasn't it? He'd given her memories and she wanted to explore them, all of them.

Resting her head against the wall and letting her eyes rest on the pale surface of the lawn Marie let her mind drift to the shape of Logan in her head. The man who even now was turning to see her, his eyes filled with remorse, filled with care. His voice rich and deep as she felt his ghost hands on her shoulders.
"Marie, please, you don't need to do this, ask me, talk to me when I get back but please don't do this. I don't want to hurt you."

Smiling to herself, a quirky lift of her lips to the outside world she replied to the ghost sentry in her head. "I know what I'm doing Logan, you'd never hurt me, you promised you'd take care of me and you did. I just want to get to know you better." As she moved his shape aside she caught his sad smile, as if she'd just condemmed him to a slow painful death. It couldn't be that bad surely? She knew he was old, had odd dreams but they wouldn't hurt her would they? Shaking herself she went deeper into the piece shed retained of Logan, losing herself to the memories that were now spilling into her mind. Turning the clean snow into a perfect screen for her mind to use.

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Xavier found her.

Curled in a ball, wrapped up from the world, her room was a wreck, she'd smashed things that had been passed down from hand to hand for generations but she hadn't cared. All she'd been doing was reacting, every single person was an enemy, every room a torture chamber, and she'd been the killer. She'd woven a path of blood through them all to get out, but her casualties were the antiques not human guards.

He wheeled himself closer and her head snapped up, eyes clear and her face bright red. He knew she was struggling to keep herself calm but she managed to stay still.
"Rogue? Do you want me to help you?" He'd expected something like this sooner, but she'd been so calm, so in control. He doubted that she'd retain Logan's memories after dying but it looked like she did, he was only thankful that she hadn't retained Erik's.

His eyes carefully watched her stand, her body twitching as she fought the urge to run or fight. She wiped her face, brushed down her clothes and straightened her gloves before answering him.
"No thank ya Professor, Ah'm sorry about the damage. It won't happen again, Ah'll work off the money Ah promise." She moved slowly, her muscles fighting her every step of the way, the need to run hard and fast in her every small movement. But she made herself walk, Xavier watched her go, knowing that she'd cope, whatever had been released in her was now part of her. He only hoped she didn't regret it later.

He'd been in the middle of getting a new licence when the summons had come, a voice he'd been wondering about drifted into his skull. It's tone was one of care, of need and urgency, the words repeated over and over.
"Come home Logan she needs you."

As far as he knew there was only one person he'd left behind him where the weather was now heating up from spring to summer. Activated he pushed his way to the front, growled a few times to quiet the anger of the people around him and got his licence renewed. It wouldn't do to get stuck at the border when he needed to get across without incident. All he answered to the voice in his head was "Tell her I'm on my way."

Three days and two nights it took, by the time he'd reached the border he was in no mood to be stuck behind tourists. Bullish and boorish he just passed the line waiting and pushed his papers at a guard, sleep depravation made his mutation work overtime. But the border guard took his papers, the one in the office recognised him by sight as a regular visitor and waved his bike through with a tired wave. As he stuffed his papers back inside the leather Logan noticed the new sign on the border wall. A 'most wanted' of mutant faces, the blue bitch was on there as was Sabretooth. At least his own wasn't on there yet, he still had the freedom to move as and when he liked.

Although all the way to here he'd been wondering exactly why Xavier had contacted him that way, why he hadn't gotten him to call home. Why the mental summons and exactly why Marie needed him home so badly. The first thing he was going to do was get wheels in a corner and find out exactly why and if it took him showing a bit of claw then he'd do it.

The grounds looked the same when he pulled in, kids were everywhere, some playing games, some just goofing off but he couldn't see Marie anywhere. He could see the kids she'd been with when he'd left but there was no sign of her. When he pulled into the garage Scott was waiting for him, arms crossed and a look of concern on his face. Logan had expected something like this but when he shut off the engine he didn't get anything from him but a terse, "They're waiting for you in medbay." There were a few dents and scratches on the bike where he'd taken a header last winter and Scott didn't even notice or bat an eyelid. Worried Logan jogged to the lift Scotts footsteps following hiw own.

What met his gaze was something he wished he'd known about before now, tears were threatening to fall from his gaze as he watched her. She paced constantly, eyes not really seeing anything, her fingers tracing the walls as she paced back and forth. Her hair in long dreads, tangled up and messed as if she'd been dragged through a hedge backward. Papers were scattered everywhere in the room, their faces filled with pictures and writing, some he could see from where he was and he wished he couldn't. The first tear fell from his eyes as he watched her move from side to side through the one way glass.
"How long?"
Xaviers voice rose to wind in his ears, the subtle tone and scent telling him that even he was worried about her state of mind.
"About three months after you left, sometime after Christmas, she seemed to have a breakdown of sorts then recovered. But last month she just snapped again, this time she doesn't seem to be in control of her mind, you are."

The words lanced through him, cutting him deeper than any scalpel could, he rested his head against the glass and watched her move across the room. Her fingers bare and her eyes sightless to what was around her, her lips constantly moving as she spoke to the ghosts in her head. Turning away from the window he took in the worried face of Xavier, his words clipped and brutal.
"Let me in."

Jean had been hovering in the background and when she heard the request she began to open her mouth to protest when Logan just rounded on her. Claws drawn and his body lowered to fight, eyes suddenly hard and cold, devoid of all humanity. Teeth gritted and lips drawn back in a snarl, he would tear his way in if he needed to, nothing was going to stop him, not them, not anyone or anything. He'd caused this and he'd sort it, it was his mind and he knew his own mind and how it worked.

Xavier broke the deadlock by asking Scott to open the door for Logan, he was covered still in his jackets and shirts. His only bare skin was his face and even then it was partly hidden by his hair. Scott did as he was told, holding the door open for Logan to enter, standing upright he pierced Scott with his gaze. Adding a gutteral "Fuck off and leave us alone, I'll call you if I need your help."
"Of course Logan, Scott, Jean." Xavier wheeled himself to the doors, Jean already incredulous at his treatment of everyone. Scott followed leaving Logan in charge of the door and small internal airlock.

When they'd gone and he could hear the lift working he blew out the air he'd been holding in. Resting his head against the inner door he let the emotions run through him, let the tears fall, felt his hatred of himself, of his burden that he'd forced into her when he'd saved her life on the torch. If he'd known the price then would he have done it? Straightening up and wiping his hand down his face he knew the answer, of course he would've. The only difference would have been that he'd have taken her with him when he'd gone. At least then she'd have had the answers to the questions running round her head. His hand turned the inner door, leaving the outer one open too, she'd be coming out of there with him. There were no more locked doors for her or him, didn't they understand that a locked door only hurt her more? Made a room a cell? Squaring his shoulders he went to rescue her again, this time from himself.

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Counting worked best, fifteen paces long, twenty wide, if she kept the count going she could function. Thing was the memories kept intruding making her lose count, horror shows of death and blood. Of pain and death, of warzones and people holding out hands that were in pieces, women and children running away to suddenly be torn apart by explosions that left them as tattered red rags. Covering her with their internal organs, the memory of the smell rich in her nose. The copper and iron of blood mixed with the vegetable stink of intestine, her hands covered in blood, sticky with it. She knew her hands were clean under her gloves but it didn't take away the memory, her eyes darted to the clean sheets of paper on the table. It helped to get the images out of her mind, to draw them, to describe them, to pour them out of herself onto their clean white surfaces. To rid herself of them, she could draw the faces of those she'd killed, of those that had taken her from her life and tortured her. She had no blocks in her head like Logan had, she didn't have his ability to forget. Everything he knew she knew and it had overwhelmed her, all of his pain, all of his doubt, all of *HIM* bloomed in her head. Wolverine's instincts, his rages, his needs and drives, everything. She'd gotten to know her own body better over the past few weeks in here, her emotions heightened to where she could sense the cycle of eostrus in the air. Knowing who was ready to concieve and who wasn't, her own body's chemistry being understood for the first time. So when Logan walked in she knew exactly who he was and what was on is mind.

He didn't speak and neither did she, she only stopped moving her eyes still dancing over him taking in the small details that others would miss. The new line at his temple, the four new brown hairs where they used to be black. He just breathed in the air in here, reading her, telling him her state of mind without having to ask. Trusting his instincts on how to handle her, her own body jumping and nerves firing in her need to reach out, to be touched. But it was her voice that moved him, the whisper that had once been a shout.
"Logan?"

He was over the gap between them before the word had even finished coming from her lips, wrapping himself around her, a solid representation of what she'd been going through. He was *there* and that meant she could collapse, she didn't have to fight as much, he'd explain it all to her. He'd take her through it, guide her, tell her what was him and what was her, he'd end the confusion for her. Tell her where she began and where he ended, yet inside she knew that that line would be forever blurred now. The words she'd needed to hear floated onto her skin as she finally passed into a sleep that wasn't tormented by his memories.
"I got ya kid, I'm not goin' anywhere without ya. I'm here Marie, as long as ya need me." Her hands gripped his body to hers as she fell into sleep, her grip so tight that she had to drop with her. Rocking back and forth with her through the day and into the night, his eyes taking in the images all around her, his memories laid out for him to see. The answer to his past had laid in her not out on the road, not in him chasing ghosts but right here, where it could become a future too.

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Three weeks he spent with her, locked away from the prying eyes of everyone, learnign all he could about her and himself. The thing was it was slow going, he had to be sure that she was freeing herself of his mind of his memories. He soaked up what she gave out, names, places, times, dates, events. She was a walking repository of his sins and he didn't know how to apologise to her for leaving her with the burden all alone.

It was when they'd moved back upstairs and into a room with a small sitting room connected to it, so they could have the privacy they needed. Marie had been sitting on the bed, her fingers playing with the cover that lay on it. Her gaze had hit his as he'd been sorting through the pages of memories she'd revealed that week.
"Will you sleep with me up here?" Her voice was tight with emotion, downstairs they'd slept curled round each other on blankets. Like animals do, but a bed isn't for animals and inside Marie knew that Logan still thought of himself as an animal sometimes.

He met her stare head on, seeing her fragile self needing the truth, needing to hear what he thought.
"I don't know Marie, what do you want to do?" He made her choose, made her use *her* will, Marie's mind not his own. She paused for a second then answered him, her voice unsteady but her hands gripping the cover tighter to her.
"Ah need ya to sleep with me still, Ah can sleep when ya there next to me." He nodded and moved over to her, making her move over a little so he could stay next to her on the bed. Raising a gloved hand to her cheek and stroking it down her skin, skin that finally had some colour to it, some life bck that he'd drawn out of it.
"Remember what I said the day I came back?" Marie nodded her gaze dropping to his knees next to hers, "Think I've changed anything?" She didn't answer him in words, she just held him and let the fear pass out of her. It didn't matter what people said or thought of them, when she was well enough they'd be leaving. He wasn't going to leave her here where they locked her up, where they didn't understand the need for open skies above you, where the smell of lemons made you panic and look for a way out.

Holding her to him he snuggled up with her on the bed, her smaller form fitting his snugly, he'd been chasing the past when it had been under his nose all along. All he'd had to do was get his head out of his ass long enough to see it. An now he had he wasn't going to lose her because of what other people thought.
"I got ya kid, I got ya."

Life went to certain rules, it had certain things that had to be done before they left each hotel.

Bleach was poured down sinks and toilets, gloved up they'd clean every surface they touched, even down to taking the sheets from a bed next door to put on their own stripped bed. Their sheets would be burned later when they were away from civilisation. She'd learned that this was necessary, they hunted men who if they found one trace of them would stop at nothing to kill them both.

After Xaviers they'd wandered a few places, met up with men who'd been injured in the war and who remembered Logan. She went alone, telling them she was his granddaughter and he'd asked her to look up his army buddies in his will. Some had been grateful to be remembered, others just slammed the door in her face and she could understand their bitterness to him. Hadn't he left them for dead, hadn't he stepped over their broken bodies to take the target and when they'd cried out in pain he'd just ignored them. To kill was the only purpose he'd had then, war was meant for things like Wolverine and he'd saved just as many as he'd killed.

But their main job had been tracking those who'd stolen his life from him. Not the government, oh no, they both knew how stupid that would be, how quickly they'd show up on the radar and be 'dealt' with. So they went for the scientists, the researchers, those who would have left the government and into private practice.

It was hard at first, to work together as they did, making Marie relive the horror she'd seen in her mind. Remembering and doing were completely different, their first one, a tech who'd strapped Logan down to the gurney that dropped into the tank had been a man in his seventies now. He had grandchildren of his own, the pictures were everywhere in his house, a smiling woman had opened the door to them before they'd entered and scoped out the interior.
Using their memories the story they had was one where she was searching for her father. She was a mutant and she was fathered by a guard at a military encampment and she'd been given a bunch of names to chase. One of the names had given him as a lead to other facilities where her father may be.

He was reluctant at first but when she'd lifted her face to his and let her eyes show him the pain that she'd absorbed from Logan, a list had been easy to procure. Many of the places were defunct and long gone but the names had been gold dust. Several matched the memories of faces in both their heads, they'd left and gone on their way but they'd both returned later whennight held sway over the perfect suburbian landscape.

B&E was easy when you had Logan, no alarm, no true security lights, nothing to stop anyone from getting in who really wanted to.

Inside they'd split up, Logan had gone to the computer in the study with some of their own hardware while she went upstairs. Creeping silently through the house she felt the nerves of a first mission but had the strength to know that she could do this. If she could control herself and her skin she could walk through a house she wasn't supposed to be in. Tracking the scent of the old man she turned the handle of his room, the silk glove sliding on the brass as it turned. Letting it swing in on it's own to it's own resting weight against the frame, revealing her target. She stood there for five long minutes, her body ready but her mind unsure, it was only when Logan chuffed at her from the bottom of the stairs that she moved forward.

The memeories helped her here, his face leering at her own as he strapped her down, the way his eyes had glittered with expectation as she'd been hoisted up. The pure delight that she'd seen ride through him when Stryker had approached with the first needle.

Tugging at her glove edge to reveal her tanned skin to the darkness in the room, her stealth covering the ground between the bed and the door with the utter patience of the already dead.
The breath of his wife next to him easy and settled, but the man next to her was waking up, he sensed her presence and it disturbed his dreams. Making him restless, making his tired heart pound in his chest as she got closer.

When she was hovering over him she brought the memory of the first injection of molten metal into her body forward in her mind. Held it in her skin ready to be loaded into the man who was beginning to wake. Her breath whispering to him as her finger ends grazed his own skin, 'Remember me'.

Her touch pushing the pain, the hurt, the pure terror into his frail frame, listening to his heart stutter as the shock of the invasion went through him. The eyes as they shot open, sightless in the darkness where she could see clearly. His hands clutching at his chest as the pain ripped through his body, a heart attack, a full blown heart aneurism, the muscle dying from her touch. Her skin forcing the pain into the man who helped create it. When his wife began to stir she left the dying man behind her, backing out of the room as the wife began calling to him. His last breath already rattling round the bedroom.

They left as silently as they came, taking nothing but the copy of the hardrive, leaving nothing but the death of their tormentor.

And that's how they started their journey, how they got to live in this life of hunting, stalking and killing. For some it was auto-accident, others it was slow poisoning as they added a filter that released a small amount of it through the water line to the house. There were many ways of vengence but they were careful, very careful.

And after each one they'd go to their home for the night and cross off the name, wipe it through and destroy the page they resided on. Then they'd touch each other, hold each other in the dawn light, curl up on the same bed naked as they were born. Love was in touches, sliding against each other, remaking the connection between them until there was nothing but the two of them in the world.

And when they left the room, there was no trace of them left behind, nothing but memory and they were erasing their own as they went through this life. Along this road of vengence, it wasn't for everyone, it wasn't the black costume of hope that went with Xaviers view of the world. It was their own, something they shared together, bound by it, content with each other at last.

It took a while to finish the list but then again they had all the time in the world.