The winter winds were cutting, it was only August for fucks sake!
The unseasonal weather had Logan worried, the animals were beginning their migrations early and he didn't have enough food cached to last them the winter. The small underground icehouse was already in use with the fish that had been caught from the rapids a day's hike away. Something was wrong with the world and Logan didn't need Hanks brains to work out what was going on, something had happened somewhere and they were going to have to struggle through the next couple of months.
Marie was becoming more self assured, more the woman he knew she was underneath but he hadn't thought about what she'd do or feel about what he had in mind. The cabins over the south ridge housed the kids and Hank, he tried to remember not to call them kids anymore.
Jubilee was no longer a child, neither was Pete, only Anne seemed to retain some childish joy at life. But then she tended to look after the other younger kids.
Thinking about them made his mind go back to the day he'd finished the kids housing, the way they'd shuffled inside, looking at the rough beds and mattresses stuffed with grasses. Anne had been making sure the kids were picking their own spaces when one of the younger ones had just picked his hand up and pulled him to her small bed in
the corner.
Not knowing why but glad of the contact from the small child, he let her pull him to the corner when she just hopped up on the mattress.
Pulling her thin skirt up over her bony hips and dropping her tiny chest into the soft hay beneath her. His gasp had made Anne turn round, he had to give her some credit she didn't even blink when she pulled the kids skirt back down and sent her outside. Telling her to go see Jubilee and tell her she'd done it again, Logan was stunned by the little childs actions. As if what she'd done was the most natural thing in the world, that offering herself to a man was something she always did.
Anne waited until she'd gone before talking to him, her voice small and hollow in the dirt floor room
that was now their home. "Don't be mad at her, she doesn't know any better. We found her at a truck-stop, she'd been there for a while chained to a sink, thats how she'd survived. The water tank still had water in it, so she was only thin when we found her, we think the corpse in the front was her abuser. She called him Harry, when
someone does something nice for her she just does it. She doesn't even see it as bad, Hank thinks she'll grow out of it eventually but we don't tell her it's wrong. It wasn't her fault."
His hands were itching when he left, the little smiling face that was now talking to Jubilee was lost in the excitement of having a real bed again. One someone had made her, not bought or told her to share. Jubilee noticed his hands and she clutched the little girl to
her as Logan walked away, re-enforcing her teaching that she didn't need to offer herself like that. The look in Jubilee's remaining eye told him she trusted him, trusted him with the information, expecting him to act as he would anyway.
He'd used the anger to cut the roof of the other cabin, that someone had done this on purpose made his blood itch. He was glad the fucker was dead, the little girl found him later, tired and sweaty from using up his anger. She just touched his cheek and he saw her gaze
enter his heart, she knew what had happened to her. She was aware of everything but she wanted the dream like everyone else did, that life could be normal again. He didn't speak but he did hold her, squashing her tight to him as he looked out over the valley. Her small body breathing in his scent and smiling, he hadn't hurt her
and given time she'd understand why he was different from Harry. She was a mutant of that there was no doubt in his mind but what her mutation was he didn't know. Whoever had given her up didn't want a daughter like her and so had given her away when the cure had worn out of her system. Where had Xavier been for kids like this one?
Where had been the compassion for her when they were talking about the problem with humans and mutants?
He'd be there for them and he'd made the promise to himself before he realised what he'd done. He'd have to talk to Marie about it, what he needed to do, what he wanted to do with them. He couldn't let them suffer more than they had already, they were his, they were in his territory now. He'd lead them better, show them how to live well, how to survive. Yet this was all academic if the weather continued to worsen, the first snow would be down in weeks not months. He'd have to get everyone organised gathering food now, and that meant getting Marie to teach them the plants they needed to collect.
Letting his breath out he went to see Marie inside their own house, the weather gathering on the horizon. He could hear her humming a tune, since the kids had been here she'd been smiling a little more.
Her cheerful nature coming back out but her steel was still there just under the surface and he hoped she wouldn't use it on him now.
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