The bluff wasn't perfect but the water source was clear of
pollution, Logan and Marie spent the first months wandering before winter hit. The people they saw were wrecked, looking for someone to take charge of them, to tell them what to do. The only ones who seemed to understand what was going on and how to survive were the
truckers they met. Logan was enough of a brawler to make it not worth their while challenging him over Marie, she'd touched a few and she'd put them down permenantly. Seperating her own consciousness from theirs was easy, her own emotions flooded them in the moments before their deaths. She made them feel the fear she had, the self loathing and hurt that others had given her. Only Logan touched her skin, only he held her, only he understood why
she'd killed the men who'd wanted to hurt her.
Alberta wasn't perfect but it was big, the land mass alone was enough for them to get lost in. They'd made a permenant camp just five miles from the Peace River, the town was enough to raid if they needed to. When they'd reached it law and order had long gone, the radio Logan had brought with them spoke erractically and randomly.
When it did it was usually to tell anyone who was listening to get to a medic centre, or if you were sick to just stay put and put a piece of white cloth outside your door.
Logan had just kept quiet as the world fell apart, building the shelter they needed, Marie had been learning too. She learnt what foods they could glean from the abundance around them, the roots and tubers that were plump from a summer. When the berries came she ground what she could, dried the rest over fire with the meat that Logan hunted. Keeping the fires small just in case, they didn't see anyone they didn't want to for nearly a year. Spring had finally warmed the ground through when the sound of the bear trap went off, smiling at Logan as they both pictured the meat that would soon be drying and filling their bellies.
When they reached the ridge, the movement of people made both of them freeze. Signalling Marie Logan told her to go to the left he'd go right, silent and deadly they split up, a perfect hunting team.
She had no qualms at killing out here, Logan had pointed out to her what humans were really like underneath. Savages three meals away from anarchy, pull the plug and watch the monkeys dance. If what she'd seen in the town nearby had been anything to go by Logan was right about human nature.
The town had been a wake up call for her, blood covered many cars and bikes. Dead bodies were in the streets showing wounds that weren't just death blows, they'd been mutilated afterward. Some even had pieces missing, Logan hadn't kept her from anything, she needed to know how dangerous life was now. He'd made her take a gun but
only to use it at long range, even then only when there was no other option. The houses were the worst, the ones with the doors wide open, showing how it used to be, how the life within them had suddenly halted. As the virus had turned against the ones that had used it, the little pieces of life trying to find new hosts and finding it in those who carried the X-Gene. Justice Logan had called
it but the words had been dead ash in his mouth, he'd been disgusted at the sight of so much death. Yet there was nothing they could do but survive it, pick the world clean of what they needed and live.
Logan was a survivor and he'd made Marie one too, she wasn't the same girl that left the mansion a head case. She was something else entirely.
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He'd watched them try to get someone out of the trap, their co- ordination made them obvious, these people had been trained. Narrowing his gaze he breathed in their mixed scents, tired, hungry, despairing; yet there was a familiar scent mixed in with those below. One he knew, one that made the now defunct phone at home seem
familiar, the dark blue hand that came above the rim of the pit making his memory fire; Hank!
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Marie almost screamed when Logan just walked out of cover, they could be armed, they could kill him, she knew how much it took out of him to heal and he was just walking toward them! Anger flushing her system she dove out of cover toward the group her hands bare; curled into claws ready to attack if she needed to.
Her eyes met a face she once knew, the scar going across her once smiling face twisting her skin. The old name almost out of her mouth as the blue hand flailed for help out of the hole, seeing the colour she never expected to see again; her anger faded like mist. Throwing herself down into the ground and pulling with all her strength, her bare hands gripping the blue furred hand as the tears rolled down her face. Only when the head moved upward to see who was helping did she smile, the amber gaze still cared for her, still held some warmth for her and her heart leapt for it.
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Logan watched as Marie pulled her one friend out of their bear trap, wrapping herself into his fur as he listened to her voice. He'd been everything for her for too long, she needed others to round her out again. He knew she wasn't healing as well as she could but her safety had come first and he'd made her safe, just that there were
pieces of her that he couldn't heal with kisses or touches in the night and screamed promises.
He scanned the rest of them, only three other faces he remembered, Peiter being one of them, his frame still big but his skin hung off his bones. Jubilee was another the scar that ran down her face taking in one now blind eye telling of the struggle they'd had to get here. The other was Anne, a kid whom Marie had been tutoring before everything had collapsed around them at the mansion. The
others he didn't know and he didn't want them near him. Jubilee walked toward him, her scent showing her fear but she didn't show it in her movements.
"Logan," she waited for him to answer her but he kept silent, recognising his intent she carried on. "We're passing through, on the way to the coast. We need somewhere to hole up and heal up for a while." She turned her head to look at some of the other kids they had with them. Their scared faces showed enough of the journey for
him to know it hadn't been easy on them. "We won't be staying long. Some of us just need a break, we've been running for nearly four months now. No matter where we go someone seems to be there before us, usually humans." There was a lot she wasn't saying but the way Peiter stood a little straighter told him what had usually happened when they stayed somewhere. It opened something in him that he didn't want to recognise, leadership.
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Marie was lost in touch, in sensation, just smiling her head off at the big blue man that was in her arms. His rich baritone making her skin shudder as he held her close to him, "Rogue, you look so well! How long have you been out here, have you met up with anyone else? Have you both been alright? Have you seen any sentinels?" The words
didn't matter to her, all she cared for was the touch of another person on her skin. Someone who once cared for her, she felt glad that Logan had phoned that warning now, she'd thought he'd done it to get at her for a while. But he'd been right she'd had friends there, not many but some, tears drying in Hanks fur she turned to
see Jubilee trying to talk to Logan. Her hands gripping his fur tightly as she saw the scar running down her face, Hank's deep sigh and the voice that filled her world told her what had happened.
They'd been gathering food from a storehouse, Jubilee was the last to come out but she'd found a young child hiding inside the storehouse. Scared and frightened half to death the child had seen him and freaked, pulling a blade down Jubilee's face taking an eye with it's passage. She'd just held onto the child as Hank had come over to them both, trying to save the child, to help it but as soon as they'd camped for the night the kid had run. Jubilee had been in a bad way for weeks, the socket becoming infected and if it had been anyone else but him with them Hank was sure they'd have lost her.
Hank raised his arm to wave at Logan and saw a slight nod in his direction. Marie let him go and went back to Logan, needing the comfort of his embrace,of his security seeing others from before had disturbed her inner calm. She no longer knew where to place them in her world, were they enemies or not? Looking to Logan she tried to find the words to express it but came up short, instead she showed him using her skin. The tumult of emotion running through him, she caught his reaction to her touch; smiling as he just growled at her. Telling her they'd keep a distance, let them camp here, eat here but they'd be seperate as much as she wanted them to be.
Inside Logan couldn't help but wonder how things would turn out; the past was here for her to face, everything they'd been running from had found them both. Watching the little band of survivors he knew that they wouldn't last much longer without help. That they got here at all was a testament to how luck played it's part in survival. No things were going to change again and he doubted that either of them would be happy about it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Legacy is out, the mansion is dead and Marie is finally pulling her head back together. The last thing either of them need is a reminder of the life they left behind, but that's what they get.