That first night was the worst for her, she kept expecting someone to come and seperate them. Knowing that there was someone from her rigid life before resting only a short distance away made her nerves go through the roof. Logan had had to wrap himself around her just to get her to settle, his hand constantly in her own trying to comfort her as the emotions began their rollercoaster ride again.
He'd finally had enough when the moon had set, she was still half awake and they needed rest or tomorrow would be even worse. "Marie." he shook her from the half sleep she was in, noticing her eyes that were red-rimmed and scared. "We gotta talk." Shifting her around so she was resting in his lap, his back against the wooden wall he'd
built to protect them.
Moving silently she knew it would come to this, her fears finally coming true. They were going to take him away from her, make her leave him behind. Somewhere in her own mind she got control of the voice that was whispering into her ear and squashed it flat. If he'd meant that she wouldn't be here right now would she? She wouldn't be
wrapped up in his arms, she wouldn't be able to feel his love for her growing at her thigh as he moved her into him. His face was calm and the emotions she could feel from him were concern; he was worried about her; so she listened.
"Look I'm not going to sugar coat this Marie I'm not like that but you gotta understand somethin'." She nodded as she watched the struggle for words to explain what was happening around them. "We've got a responsibility here Marie, you've seen them kids." She nodded yeah she'd seen them but she'd seen worse travel on by, Logan's mood
changed and she caught a spark of life in him that she had never given him rise in him. "They need help and we can give it, if we choose to."
She froze in his grip, he wanted them to stay here! He wanted them to stay with them, he saw her work out what he was trying to get through to her and tightened his grip on her. "They won't be here Marie, they won't be near us. Maybe a days walk away but they need somewhere to stay, somewhere safe. Hank's a mess, he barely had the
strength to get out of the trap. Pete's a bag of bones and can't even use his power; if he does he collapses afterward. Marie we've done it, we're 'living' they're not even surviving. All the fancy training, all the soft living, all the crap Xavier fed em didn't do them any favours darlin', we made it. You an' me, together, we did
it and we're gonna keep on doin it too. Just cos they're over the next hill don't mean anything is gonna change between us. Once they have the basics they're on their own again, your mine always have been, always will be an' nothin is gonna change that darlin'. Nothing."
She really wanted to beleive him, she did, even when he turned her back to the bed showing her exactly how much he loved every inch of her body she still couldn't help quieten her mind. Letting herself get lost in the assurances he gave her, that he'd always put her first, put them first. She'd been shaken and the only way open to
him to prove what he'd said was to do it and it was the unknown that frightened her.
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Over the next week they got their story, about how Hank had been doing some tests on the people who were down in medbay already. He'd injected Peiter first, he'd been down there with a concussion from the danger room, thing was the lack of beds had meant he'd been exposed to the sick and as such he'd been given the only thing Hank had.
Hank had tried it first on himself, that had been a given if Logan remembered anything about the big guy. Jubilee had been later, she'd been out at the mall when a group calling themselves the Friends Of Humanity had chased after any mutants that had been obvious at the mall. She'd gotten involved and earned a knife wound in the back, after being patched up she'd been innoculated too, Anne was a test case, she'd been for the cure but it hadn't worked for her at all.
Her powers had remained the same after the cure, so Hank had used her immunity as a test for the others. Thing was he never had the time to do it, what Logan had told him came to pass just a week after the mall incident.
They came in armoured cars, guns blazing, mouths screaming
obscenities at children as they fired, Ororo tried to stop them but was almost cut in two by the gunfire. After they'd seen their leader destroyed the rest of the teams just melted away, everyone took what they could and left. Death was already following them, the virus showing symptoms on at least half of the people that had raided the school. Hank's worse decision had come at this time, he'd grabbed the ones he could, the walking wounded and left the rest. They were dying anyway but the wrench had taken it's toll on the big man, forcing him into a depression that had been hard to come out of.
He'd left to the sound of his lab being smashed apart taking any hope of a cure with it. He'd prepped a suv in case and was glad he had that day; taking only three others with him, guilt was something that you felt later and it had hit him hard. They'd been travelling West hoping to find a space to run into but there had been chaos everywhere. Everyone was a target now and thats when the sentinels had been deployed, law and order were long gone by then.
Hank described the sentinels as robots, large machines that were programmed to find life and destroy it. People weren't afraid of them at first, that was until they began taking humans as well as mutants. They'd been programmed to destroy anyone who had the virus, thing was everyone they met had it or carried it. Hank's face told
him enough of what he'd seen happen on the roads with these things.
It was winter when Logan's comment about Alberta had been brought up into his mind, instead of keeping still and waiting for winter to fade they struck out in it. Heading due north, walking mainly after the suv had been destroyed by humans, the things they could use had been stolen and the rest burned.
Food wise they'd been eating what had been left in pantries along the way, resting in houses when there was no other shelter. Picking up the rest of the kids as they went, some of them were definately mutants, others they weren't so sure of. Two had died on the way here, malnourishment and scurvy, Hank's eyes had grown wet at that, listening to him curse the world as he'd held a child in his arms dying from lack of vitamins. He'd had surgery as a toddler, scar tissue that had been built over his blood vessels broke down, he bled to death in minutes. His skin showing the dark stain only after
Hank had put him to rest in a house which they'd burned.
Marie listened too, the journey sounding like a nightmare, one that kept coming, kept showing you worse sights the more you walked into it. She didn't look at the young kids, she couldn't but it was Anne who came upto her. Resting her head against her shoulder and crying, the tears making her own hard resolve crumble, the tears she'd held in check for so long broke through. Destroying her old heart, washing away the pain she'd held so close to her skin, seeing the remnants of the ones who'd hurt her laid so low. The ones who'd survived were only there by chance, by luck, she'd been with Logan,
seeing him as a lucky charm for a moment. Someone who knew the world like this, someone who'd seen the evil men do to each other in good times; so when this happened he'd been ready. So had she in a way, only seeing someone she'd cared about injured, abused, hurt made her rethink her position. How lucky she'd been, how much Logan loved her for real, how much he'd given up for her the moment he'd known what she'd needed.
She caught him watching her reaction as the words slid out of them all, how Jubilee had had to use her body to gain food and shelter for the rest of them. How Peiter had had to rescue her more than once from cages where men kept their women to 'protect them from others'. Life had cost her friend more than she'd ever thought, survival had given Jubilee a haunted look and a face that no longer
smiled. The kid who loved to shop was nowhere to be seen, only a hardened veteran of life was there in her form. It hurt to see, it hurt to realise what she wasn't the only one suffering, she hadn't been the last to know what pain was at the hands of another.
It tore her open, flooding her with images of her own killing, her own cruelty to others, the part of her that was carried by these people coming home to her. They knew her as the Rogue, the one who cared, who smiled, who laughed at the world when it told her she couldn't do something. But Rogue was dead, a memory, she was Marie
now, and the two couldn't exist in the same space, Marie was harder, stronger, forged in the wilderness by pain, anger and hatred.
When Jubilee called her 'Rogue' she snapped her head round to glate at the young woman but found her voice quietening to a normal tone when she saw the dull shine in her one remaining eye. "I'm not Rogue, she died the day I left the mansion Jube's. My name's Marie, my real name, the one I took back from everyone who hated me, called me less than what I was. Rogue was a mask, a childs mask and just as hollow. My name is Marie."
Jubilee just nodded slightly and asked if she could use it, Logan watched her reaction as she flushed a little, her emotion riding high as she answered her.
"Sure." She was risking herself here, letting someone who wasn't Logan inside again but she wanted it if truth be known. The smile that covered Logan's face was real and the heat in his gaze was pride, he was proud of her so it must have been the right step.
She let Anne hold her a little more, shifting into the embrace of another human being, one she'd cared for once before the crushing weight of hate had squashed her ability to feel. She just let the tears fall, knowing they wouldn't stop for a while, all the while seeing Logan smile and give her strength in his gaze on her. He
loved her, was proud of her, needed her and that was the one thing that surprised her. He showed her that in his gaze, in his movements toward her, he needed her as much as she needed him. And she liked it.
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