The Return: Logan
You lift yourself out of your grave with the dim suspicion that you will taste roots and earth and decay for weeks. There is still blood, a muddy red stream trickling half-heartedly from the corner of your gut wound. A surprise, but not a total one. You expected something like this from the syringes they shoved under your skin. You expected death-- cold, black, temporary, like a restless sleep-- but you had not prepared for the long moments before death.
The injections were not the worst: hasty, unprofessional, carried out by trembling gloved hands while five-point restraints bound you to the gurney. A functional brutality-- you killed five of them before the gunfire brought you down long enough for the capture; the needles provided reassurance that you would not be strong enough to kill again. The beatings were not the worst: clumsy, frenzied, revenge-lust, hitting in places you knew you'd never break. Metal bones, you told them, and you laughed.
It was the dying, this time, that added new chapters to your nightmares.
You tried to escape, of course. You had no choice-- she was alone and unprotected and you knew what that would mean. Perhaps you also knew that you would be too late, only you played ignorance. It's easier to die for something if you believe it will exist when you resurrect again. So you broke the straps, killed two more of them, made it a good five miles before the hunter-killer squad caught you. This time they were more e fficient. Double-barrel shotgun blasts, aimed at both kneecaps, instant paralysis. A third bullet exploding into your stomach. Cold air rushing in around soft organs.
Blood. Vomit. Cursing. Then they surrounded you.
You landed on your back and stared at the winter sky and thought of how that color of gray would bring out Marie's eyes, you thought of the curve of her elbows in your palms when you danced with her. You thought this while they packed the gaping hole in your gut with snow, with dirt, packed it tight with their fists and laughed. You did not scream but once, and that was only when they started to bury you alive. And that was only because you knew, right then, that you would never reach her in time.
You ignored the thought that neither of you would have the luxury of time, anymore.
But you are awake, and you are alive, and you are healing, slowly but faster with each step. You will need this strength when you reach the farmhouse. Every scenario has passed through your mind ten times, every horror and every possibility. You have watched yourself step through the door and find her body, a discarded rag doll that will not respond to your bare skin. You've found her in the corner, silent and shaking with fingerprint bruises and eyes that will never be the same again. You've tried to picture her alive and safe, but this image does not readily come. You saw the faces of the men you left her with; you smelled their intent.
You watch yourself kill them until you are bored of it.
When the real moment comes, the murders will be little more than a formality. Over almost before they start. It's not worth wasting the time you'll need to heal her, if she can be healed. And, if not, then you'll spend the time finding a way to follow her back into the darkness you left not so far behind, in the shallow grave. And this time you'll find a way not to come back. Even if it means doubling back to the border and taking on every last one of Uncle Sam's boys with nothing more than your claws and a grin.
Twenty-eight miles and fifty-seven mental homicides later, you see the farmhouse. It is standing and outwardly as idyllic as you left it-- one fear disappears. Your death was successful; no soldiers found her. A wind blows across your face: scent of beer and vomit and something hot and metallic like rust or dirt. The smell of blood. Her blood. Now the fear. Now the insanity. Now the instinct to kill.
The claws beg to do away with the skin holding them back; you consent, the sunlight shining off the metal as it cuts open your hands. You drop low to the ground and begin to run. Impatient. Terrified. But the neurosis is debilitating-- your vision clouds with images of her face that last night, your ears ring with the sound of the last words. Hissed, taut, razor-wire stretched across teeth; she was panicking but trying not to show it.
(It doesn't have to be you.
Marie--
I know you're going to say it. You're going to tell me it has to be you, but it doesn't. Let one of them go get themselves killed. You stay with me. You gave me your word.
It has to be me. I'm the only one who can survive it.
Then let me go with you.
No. Absolutely not.
I'm not afraid. As long as we're together it doesn't matter...it doesn't...
It matters to me. You go with them and wait for me at the house. I'll be back by dawn.
I don't think so. I don't think you're coming back.
Of course am I. Don't you trust me?
I do, but you don't understand. You can't leave me with them.
I'll only be gone long enough to do the job. Promise me you'll go back and wait for me.
I can't. Promise. I've never asked you to do anything for me, but I need this. I need your word and I need it now because we're losing time. I have to find them before they find this place. You have to promise me so I can know you'll be safe.
I do.
Say it out loud.
I promise. But I won't be safe. You know that.
Baby, I have to go.
Logan...)
A kiss planted across her lips, harder than you intended because it comes and goes so fast, and then you ran before her eyes could break you. You promised yourself that the monsters you were leading away from her were worse than the strangers you left her with. You measured one pain against the other and tipped the scales away from her. You knew she would live, if she stayed. The mutants wanted her alive; the soldiers would want her dead, just like they killed you. Or at least that is how you justified leaving her alone, breaking every promise you had made to never forsake or abandon.
Now you smell her blood and you know that it wasn't justification at all. It was denial. And it won't be enough anymore.
Stone wall pressed against your back, underneath a window, listening to the voices inside, heroin high on the scent of her blood, but it's not a pure dose. There's something else mixed in with it, someone else. A stranger. The voices lend answers.
"How could you let her get away like that?"
"She had a knife, man, how could I stop her? I couldn't grab her...her skin. y'know?..."
"She killed Tomas! I don't care how you stopped her. Why didn't you just grab her when she made for the door? Didn't see her hands? Shaking so bad she could barely hold it. Forget using it."
"Tomas was stupid, man. I told him not to try it on her again. I told him, ya heard me."
"The little slut deserved it. Bout near broke my ribs last night. In two places."
"Maybe it's better she's gone, y'know? Tomas could only control her skin for so long. Like sleeping next to a time bomb."
"Time bombs don't have legs like that. Up to there, know what I mean?"
"Right on, man."
A dual laugh. Your claws sing in the silence, a metallic call for release. One more moment, you promise them. Just one more.
"What do you think happened to that animal dude she was with? The one with the claws?"
"Uncle Sammy's boys got him locked up somewhere, in a little cage, or maybe he's just dead. I dunno. But he ain't coming back. We don't got anything to worry about."
"Maybe one of us should keep a look out anyway."
"For what? His ghost? C'mon."
"I don't know...I thought I heard something, man..."
"You're drunk."
"He's coming back for us, I can feel it. He's gonna find out what you and Tomas did and he's gonna come back for us."
"Dead. I promise. Gimme that bottle, anyway."
The next sixty seconds blur, distort, curl at the edges like burnt paper, wrapping you inside a glowing hot blur of motion and energy. Kicking the door down, feeding off their screams, grabbing the mutant with the bottle and unceremoniously--exactly as planned-- slashing his throat through the middle. Smell of new blood, rotten and sweet like decayed fruit, rushing to the brain. Scent of her old blood jolts up another magnitude. Catalyst.
The other man tries to run, tries to fumble for the gun in his lap, but you pin him to the wall. Claws through the shoulder muscles. He screams: it is high-pitched and thin, like a dog yelping when kicked. You would think more of the dog. Your lips form the outlines of words but it is difficult to push them out through the red haze.
"Where is she?"
"....don't.....know...."
Twist the claws, just enough for another scream.
"What did you do to her?"
"....n-noth-ing..."
Another twist. His eyes bulge, wet balloons ready to pop.
"wasn't....me...man....didn't....touch....didn't cut..her....please"
Cut her. Oh, God. Oh, God. You kill him, but it is an afterthought. A twitch of a wrist, a spray of wetness across your face that you don't bother to wipe away. Your brain disconnects from your hands, from your legs; you stumble, stagger back against the wall searching for a measure of control. Fighting to breathe, fighting not to breathe.
And that is when you see it.
The mattress you held her on three nights ago, pushed back against the wall, which is splattered with dark red paint. The same paint covers the mattress, and the floor beside the mattress, and the cloak lying spread open on top of the cement. Beside the cloak, a scarf, also splattered with the red. Only it is not paint. You realize this.
A third dead man lies in the center of the floor, a gash carved down the center of his chest. She did that, your brain tells you, only part of you refuses to believe it. She, who is so fragile, capable of something so harsh and so ugly. But there is something uglier. When you pick up the cloak, it is ripped down the center. Torn completely from end to end.
Then it hits you, the pain, the nausea. It hits you straight in the gut, a pounding filth worse than when they packed dirt into you. Worse than the freeze of the snow against your soft organs, yes, worse than the suffocation that filled your lungs.
You move fast; you make it to the door before the bile hits your throat, before you drop to your knees and vomit in the snow until there is nothing left in your stomach. Until you taste blood but it is not enough.
From that moment on, it will never be enough.
The Phoenix Compound
December 10
It's winter, and the rain is cold even in the desert, and it provides a convenient excuse for shaking. I've been sitting on the doorstep for an hour, and I'm soaked through to the skin. At least it hides the tears, rain within rain, dangerously unpredictable after so long a drought-- I only cried once, after it happened, and that wasn't until the night Scott found me. I never cry when I'm alone. It's a survival instinct; you bottle up the tears until something in you feels safe enough to pour them out. Now Logan's back, and here it comes again, the pouring out. Does that make him safe?
He was always the danger, he was never the danger. I assigned blame, anger, because they were walls against the fear, but I always knew that I was the danger, the psychosis. He can't break me, I'm already broken. I can break him, though. I found that out tonight when I saw his eyes collapse inward when I said I didn't care. I lied. Didn't I? Or am I just empty, impotent, unable to care at all? Not even for him. Wait, I know that can't be true yet. It still hurts.
While we're on the truth thing, I'll admit panic. He got too close, and I wanted it so much that I let him, but as seconds passed, I lost sight of him. I saw the others. Their faces, not his. Their hands. It was not fair, this invasion, but I could not stop it. So I threw it in his face. I hit him where I knew it would hurt. To be fair, he did exactly the same, but for once, I think I hit a little harder.
Why? I never wanted it to go down this way. I wanted to love him just as much as he wanted to love me. It's just too late, that's all. Too many bad memories, too many scars.
I close my eyes, the liquid between the lids hot and stinging despite the chill on the rain around them.
"Marie?"
Scott's voice; he's back, an explanation will be in order. Pull yourself together, Rogue.
"What are you doing out here?"
I try to smile at him, nonchalance we both know he could see through blind. The important thing is that I tried.
"Nowhere else to go."
The smile collapses in the rain like wet tissue paper.
"You're soaked."
He unlocks the door, nudges it open with his foot while he helps me to my feet, hands full of my arms and elbows and my shivering.
"You're coming inside."
I don't know what I am to him now that I am Logan's responsibility and not his. It feels like outside, like returning to a country from which one has been accidentally banished. The official mistake has been admitted, apologized for, revoked, but you're still a stranger. You've forgotten the customs, grown rusty with the languages. Paperwork can't change that. Only now he's looking at me and I'm not sure which one of us is the exile. Maybe we both are.
"Am I allowed? Won't it get you in trouble?"
"Doesn't matter."
He's still holding my arms and steers me through the door before I can protest. I drip water onto the cement, listen to my teeth knock together, as he strips the blanket off his bed.
"Wrap up in this."
"Jean will kill us both if you've caught pneumonia on my doorstep."
I obey, slower than I should, the cold has made my bones ache.
"Where is she?"
"Will's been running a fever...today it got kinda high....she's staying with him at the infirmary."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"Just a cold, she says. She's the doctor, she's usually right."
He says it more like a prayer than a fact.
"Sit down, I'll make some coffee. Can't guarantee it'll taste like coffee, but at least it'll take the edge off the chill."
This is what I owe him for the most....the way he knows how to simply exist when I need him to exist, without prying or demanding reasons or asking questions. He just waits for me to open up on my own, lets me know in his own way that's it's safe.
"Tell me what I have to beat him up for this time."
His voice hovers over the whistle of the coffeepot, not serious at all, but casual to the point of revelation. I've got him worried, this time. Then again, I'm betting I'd be a little scared myself if I got a good glimpse of a mirror; I must be a mess. Didn't even stop to get my coat.
"It's not him. It's me."
"How so?"
He drags two chairs out from the table, offering one to me then sitting down beside the stove, within easy reach of the coffeepot. The flame from the gas refracts itself across his glass.
"I can't do it. I can't be with him anymore."
"Two days ago you said things were improving. What went wrong?"
"Everything. All at once. Bang."
"So let's start at the beginning and work toward the bang. Tell me what you did this afternoon."
"He bought me a radio. It was a piece of junk, but he spent a lot of money on it just because he thought I'd like it. Because we used to dance."
"Did you dance?"
"Yes."
"He didn't pressure you--"
"No, I wanted to. Or at least I thought I did. But then he was so close and I didn't see him anymore. I saw the others. It was too much...I panicked. Said things I never should have."
"Like what?"
"I made him admit what happened to me. I made him say it all out loud, even when I knew....what it would do. And then he yelled that I blamed him. And..."
I blink to chase away the moisture still leaking from my eyes; can't blame the rain in here. "I told him I couldn't blame him because I didn't care enough for it."
He reaches for the coffeepot and pours the steaming black liquid into two blue plastic cups. White curls of smoke rise into the air, bony fingers pointing accusation in my direction.
"Is that true?"
"God, no, it's the opposite. I don't know why I said it...awful... but it just hurt and I wanted him to hurt the same way. And it worked. That was the worst part. It worked."
I watch my fingers occupy themselves with loose threads on the blanket, unraveling as I am unraveled.
"You can go ahead and say I'm horrible and selfish and cold and I'll believe you. Just go on and say it flat out."
But he doesn't say it, not in the first few seconds, not even in the next minute. He presses a cup of coffee between my hands, a diffuse warmth that seeps through the plastic and through my gloves to defrost the first few layers of my skin. It's too hot to drink, but I consider swallowing a mouthful anyway. Just to feel the burn.
"I'm not going to lie to you just to tell you what you want to hear. You're not those things, Marie. You've survived things that would have killed most people, because you've refused to let those things beat you."
He takes a sip of the coffee, grimaces a little as the bitterness hits his mouth. Cream and sugar are luxuries that require money that could go to things like extra blankets and medicines for sick baby boys.
"So you've changed a little, just like Jean's changed and I've changed. That shouldn't matter because you're still holding on to what's really important-- who you are-- and they can never change that."
"You believe that? About any of us?"
"I have to believe it. If I didn't, I'd have quite a long time ago."
"Believing something doesn't make it truth."
I test the contents of the cup in my hands: metallic, black, mouthful of heat that scalds the taste buds on the tip of my tongue. This urges another sip. Penance bought on the edge of a plastic cup.
"Today just proves it. Proves we aren't going to get through this one."
"What makes you so sure?"
"He can't accept that it happened, and I can't pretend that it didn't."
He takes another slow drink. "I don't think he wants to pretend."
"He wants to treat me the same way he always has. It's all he knows."
Another sip; disappointment that it has already begun to cool.
"But I don't know how he even looks at me, if he really knows what they did..."
"Logan looks at you the same way I look at Jean."
"How?"
Now he sets his cup down, and slides back into his chair, staring into the bright blue flame of the stove. His jaw tightens, then relaxes, then tightens again as he searches for words.
"He wishes that it never happened, or even that it happened to him, that's how much he wants it because he knows nothing will change. But that doesn't mean he sees you as anything less than beautiful."
His voice has dropped until it is low, a soft hissing of breath like the sound of the gas flame. "It's not you that he can't accept, it's himself. His failure..."
I listen to him drift into silence, watch his knuckles grow white around the cup. My hand twists free of the blanket to rest on his knee; I want him to feel I'm telling the truth. "You didn't fail us, Scott."
A pause, too long.
"I lost her. I couldn't even protect my wife. Or you."
"Ever stop to think where we'd be if you hadn't brought us here? Where I'd be if you hadn't found me?"
"I always believed we'd win. Xavier tried to warn me about the other possibilities, but I wouldn't hear it. I was so sure we'd be able to save them. But look at us." A snort, disgust. "Real heroes."
"No one can save everything....no one. But you have saved the important things, and that is what you need to focus on. Your wife, your son. You've held on to what you love."
"Isn't that what you think Logan's trying to do?"
I set my half-empty cup beside the stove, toying with the edges of the blanket. I've stopped shivering-- on the outside-- but I still want the chrysalis around me. An enclosure, a barrier, a place to hide. With some effort of the will, I stand, dropping the blanket back into the chair.
"You think I should go back."
"Doesn't matter what I think about it, or about him. You do what you think. If you want to stay here, you're welcome."
"You'd get in trouble."
"I already told you, doesn't matter. It's your decision."
My decision. Mine, not his, not Jean's, not Logan's. Mine. But what if I don't know what to do? If I am the one holding my life in my hands, why am I so afraid I'll drop it? I know I'm supposed to say something hopeful and uplifting here, something to give him a signal that it will be okay. I don't; there is no need to compound lies. Neither of us knows if it will ever be okay, not even Scott for all his philosophy of chin up and stiff upper lip. I'm not doing this because I'm sure. I'm doing it because I believe what I said to him. You can save the important things. It's too late to save myself, or Logan, but maybe we can save us. What we have together that makes up for everything going wrong individually.
He walks me to the door; I expect a last word, an attempt to change my mind, but he doesn't. A smile for him, plastic like the coffee cup but it will have to do for thanks until I locate the real thing. Then it's back into the rain.
I walk through the door and into a distinct feeling that I have just entered my past. It is dim, transient, moving toward me like starlight, like something that happened millennia ago and is just now passing before my eyes. Something I can observe, but not alter.
The room is dark; I expected that. He's visual when he's in pain, he wants it Technicolor vivid, splashed across everyone else like red paint on poster board. Graffiti rage, spray painted and vulgar but overlooked as the understandable violence of tragic youth. We all thought of ourselves as tragic, once. Now it has deprecated to just plain pathetic. Before my eyes adjust to the darkness-- which is only a shock because I am too tired to resist it-- a spasmodic fear clenches my throat, like the nights in kindergarten when I used to see monsters in my closet, which turned out later to be crumpled socks and misplaced stuffed animals. The monster, here, is the fleeting belief that he is gone, but it deflates into an overstuffed giraffe when I hear his breathing. Heavy. Sharp. Muffled, like he's smothering something inside him that he doesn't want me to hear. He smelled me coming, probably before I even reached the door, he has had time for preparation. For battening down of hatches. I consider it an unfair advantage, but decide I owe him one.
He will make me turn on the lights myself if I want to see him; he is waiting for it and for this reason I hesitate, letting my eyes blend to black. I want to see him the same way he sees me. It is not easy, but I am trying to understand. At first there is nothing, a wall of unvaried darkness, like a quilt pressed too close against the face. Gradually it becomes two-dimensional, then three, until I can recognize shapes and outlines and more individual degrees of black. He is midway between charcoal and ebony, masked, unreadable. We could stare at each other this way for hours and never see beyond the outline of our shapes.
I suspect we have been guilty of that all along. Squinting to read emotions in the dark, growing frustrated then furious when we could not see.
A fumble along the wall, gracelessly, until I find the light switch. Sub-ambient rust orange glow dirties the room: the light bulb is corroding even as it burns. Ugly light, made uglier still by the numerous bare patches on the cinderblock walls and cement floors that magnify the dinginess. I had never noticed how bad the room is until now, because I am used to cracked walls and cold floors. But now I look and think how barren, how desolate. How far from the places we thought we'd be.
The realization absorbs at least two milliseconds of concentration; subsequently I am slow to realize that he is sitting beside a fully loaded black duffel bag. He's wearing his good boots, his better jean jacket. The jacket, the boots, and the half-smoked cigar serve as indicators of his restlessness-- they only appear in conjunction with one another when he's ready to hit the road. Of course he doesn't look at me. That would be requiring too much. Though he doesn't ignore me either, rather directs his concentration very carefully somewhere I am not. Recognition by avoidance, as one would avoid a wound.
He expects me to speak. Mine was the last word; reason dictates it must be the first. I am not sure what it should be, but the decision needs to be made quickly. Silence is a killer. Like the sound of dust gathering on violin strings, of cigar ash flaking to the floor, it denotes a paralysis. An impotency of communication both regrettable and shameful.
In the end, I improvise, straight off the top of my head, a shot in the dark because his face still seems covered in the charcoal mask.
"I didn't mean it."
The words bounce off the empty spaces in the room, their echoes thinner, more tremulous than I intended. Uniform calm must prevail at all costs; I cannot afford another shattering.
"I know, baby." He shifts his cigar to the other side of his mouth, his voice not so much angry as vacant, like the room. "I know."
"But you're leaving anyway?"
"I told you. I'm not going anywhere until you give me permission to go." A flick of sardonic smile. "Shouldn't be too hard to dismiss someone you don't care about."
I flinch, he sees it because his eyes flick toward me for seconds. Instinct. He is afraid I am going to lapse into some act of melodrama, such as tears or fainting. The fainting, at least, would be an advantage. A momentary, willful bypass of time. I would not have to live the next few moments, I could black them out then wake up when everything was right again. There is no doubt in my mind I could muddle through this if I was unconscious. I am so much more eloquent when I am in oblivion.
"You don't live by my permission." I tell him. "I don't blame you for walking. Go right ahead. But do you want to at least give it a talk, first? Last words?"
"I think we've pretty much covered everything that needs to be said."
He still hasn't looked at me. A growing concern; he's never been able to hold out this long before. I try again.
"Would it help if I said please? And that I'm sorry? That I want you to stay..."
"C'mon, kid." Another sign of trouble. He hasn't called me that for two years. "We've both done each other enough harm. Let's just cut damages and move on."
"Thought you promised not to leave me alone."
"You won't be. Scott's here....he's a good man. He'll take care of you."
"I don't want to be with Scott." A fight to keep my voice level, free of any hint of frustration. "I want to be with you."
"That why you can't stand to let me near you? Or talk? Or touch? Like I'm one of them...."
He throws his cigar to the floor, reduces it to ashes with one calculated stomp. This proves to be the most unsettling development yet: Logan never wastes cigars, not unless he is seriously disturbed with the kind of anger that goes past graffiti language and fireworks, the kind that shuts him down one section at a time until it's like talking to stone. His hand moves toward the duffel bag. Our conversation has reached crisis, broken off into a cliff twenty yards in front of my feet. I can try to play it safe and slide off the edge anyway or I can jump and hope for a bungee cord. An intervention.
This time I don't think about it. I close my eyes, I jump.
"I came back hoping to explain that. All of it."
This draws his full stare, a measured gaze that can't quite hide the red swollen circles around his eyes, or the flickers of hope in his pupils.
"Marie, you don't have to do this unless you're ready. If it hurts this much, then we'll just give it time. I'll come back in six months, a year--"
"If it hurts," I cut him off, gently, trying to smile, trying to be the brave one, "then it will heal."
His hand moves away from the duffel bag.
A deep breath, footsteps across the tile, settling myself carefully at the foot of the bed, a good three feet away from him. Room to think, room to breathe, for both of us. I'd use a chair, but there aren't any and the floor's too cold to sit on this time of year.
"So, how do you want to do this?" he says.
He says it like we're going to fight hand to hand, or kiss, or execute some other such complicated maneuver. Too casual. Not casual enough. We can't even get our deceptions right, tonight, the little lies usually involved in normal conversation. Only this isn't going to be a normal conversation and we both know it.
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