“Are you mad at me?”
He was wondering when she was going to say something – she had to have known that he’d picked up her scent before he even set foot in the garden. He turned, slowly, to see her step out from the heavy shadow that the manicured hedges cast and waited for her to say something else. She didn’t.
He maneuvered the smoldering cigar in his mouth to the opposite corner and frowned. “Why would I be mad at you?”
She shrugged and slipped a foot from her sandal then ran her big toe along the edge of the brickwork laid around the fountain. “Disappointed, then…”
“You gonna keep comin’ up with different words ta ask me the same question, kid?”
It was delivered with a half-smile, but she could sense the truth behind it. She had nothing to worry about with him. She never did.
“Marie.”
He looked back over to her from where his eyes had drifted to the water as it lay sleeping in the fountain. She was watching him then, taking in his every move and he felt a charge run through the air that had nothing to do with the warm, summer weather or the storm clouds brewing miles in the distance.
“How could I forget,” he answered, feeling his lips curve upward at the memory of the moment they’d shared in the hallway. Before she’d left. Before everything.
“Look, Marie,” he started, feeling the need to switch his mind from the track it had been traveling far too much recently. “It was your decision. If you felt like it was for the right reasons, then I’m proud of you for sticking to your gut. It was a big step – I’m not sure I coulda done it.”
She stared at him for a moment and noticed the way the night shadows clung to the wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. They hadn’t been there very long ago. “Why didn’t you try?” she asked softly, her Southern lilt powdering each of the syllables.
Shrugging, he took the cigar stub out of his mouth. After inspecting the end, he dropped it to the footpath and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “Woulda died, prob’ly.”
Marie smiled and shook her head at his logic. “Ev’rybody dies, Logan – or, at least, they will die. Eventually. Maybe even you,” she added quietly as she leaned in toward him.
“Yeah, well, I’m guessin’ my ticket outta here would’ve left quite a ways sooner than most.” He held up a fist to her and made a show of flexing his hand, his eyes drifting from one fingertip to the next with each successive extension.
“That metal’s not supposed to be in there,” he stated needlessly. “The second I lost my healing, I prob’ly would’ve been feeling the effect of however long this’s been in there raining down on my system.”
Her eyes widened at the revelation and she felt her heart twist for the barest of seconds when she thought of that actually happening to him.
“Not to mention how old I might be,” he added with a shrug. “Dunno if that would catch up with me or not.”
“Guess it’s not always as easy as it seems then,” she mused, turning the possibilities over in her mind.
They both stood wordlessly, their eyes following the map of concrete laid around the fountain or traveling the maze of branches that supported the finely trimmed shrubs.
“Could you, though?” she asked eventually.
He was a bit thrown by her question and faltered briefly before answering “Could I what?”
“Could you’ve gone through with it if it weren’t for the metal? For the old age?” She took a few steps forward then, ignoring her abandoned flip-flop in favor of closing the gap between them. “I mean – you’d never hafta worry about it again. Never have to look over your shoulder. It could’ve been a chance to be normal, Logan.”
Looking down at the earnestness in her eyes, he couldn’t help but soften his hard gaze. “I don't think that's in the cards for me, kid,” he ground out, his voice becoming more gravelly as it lowered.
Their eyes held with one another for long moments and volumes were spoken by the silence. She understood then. How could he ever find a true place in a world that had wronged him so deeply? That was why the mansion, the school, the people – they’d become a home to him. The only one he’d ever known. The one he’d been willing to put his life on the line for.
Marie was the one to look away first and he was thankful for that. Having heavy discussions wasn’t exactly something he had high on his list of priorities at the moment.
“B’sides,” he added, not wanting the conversation to go any deeper than it already had, “If I didn’t have the claws, what would I use to scare away those punks when they come knockin’ on your doorstep?”
Marie blushed and glanced up at him through a curtain of her chestnut hair. She reached down then, grasping one of his hands in hers and pressed the soft pads of her fingers into his heavy palm. When she brought her eyes back up to his, she noticed a light in them that she hadn’t seen before. “So I take it you’re not thinkin’ of lettin’ up on that promise any time soon then?”
He flashed her a grin and his white teeth shown perfectly in the darkness. “Not hardly.”
And she knew he was telling the truth.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I fiddled with this one for a while, but I'm finally happy with the way it turned out, which is a rarity for me.