Rogue’s POV
When Logan came to me three weeks after we returned from Alkali like to tell me he needed to take off for a while, I couldn’t even pretend I was surprised. I mean, he is part of me, I have him in my head so I knew he would be feeling restless and on edge after all that took place with Stryker and as much as I hated to see him go, I wished him luck and asked that he at least call from time to time so I would know he was still alive and somewhat well. I was tempted to ask if he would take me along, but I knew the answer, I knew he still saw me as a child despite the fact I was nineteen and had a grand total of five men living inside my mind and with their ages combined, I was maybe close to two hundred years old, if not older.
Anyway, I put on a strong face, a classic brave front and then I walked Logan to the door, received a hug, a kiss on the top of the head and he was gone.
I cried and Scott’s shoulder that night, as he cried on mine and later we laughed at the insane pair we made, lost in our grief and pain and hurting so much neither of us could stand it.
Of course, as Scott gently pointed out, the man I loved was alive and well, even if he was a stubborn ass and according to Scott it was only a matter of time before Logan came to his blessed senses and realized he loved me.
That he needed me.
Of course, I told him he was insane, cause Logan looked at me and saw the skinny girl that had crawled unseen into the back of his trailer in Laughlin City.
But Scott smiled and said Logan had seen me for what I was and that was part of the reason he had run. He hadn’t expected to see me changed so much…he hadn’t really given thought to the reality that I had grown up while he was away so when he saw me again, it kind of threw him.
It made him realize time passed for others even if it didn’t seem to pass for him.
It gave me something to think about, but I didn’t hold on to much hope, as I went about living my life at the mansion.
I joined the team.
I learned to fly the jet.
I broke up with Bobby when he finally broke down and told me he loved John.
Yeah, like I didn’t know that. I have both of them in my head.
Those two have had some vivid thoughts about one another and I got to say, images of Bobby having sex with John can be a little disturbing.
Of course, those images didn’t trouble me as much as the ones I had of Logan with any of the too many to name partners he had known during his time.
Of course, with Logan’s memories, I just learned to erase the face of whatever woman he was with in any particular situation and replace it with me…I could picture myself straddled Logan…under Logan…bent over a dresser with Logan behind me, thrusting into me, his massive hands cupping my breast.
Vivid sexual daydreams? Yes.
Actually sex? No.
Ever after I ended my relationship, such as it was, with Bobby, and began dating Remy, I still had toxic skin.
I was still the untouchable girl.
Until Carol.
Carol. A nightmare and a blessing.
Carol that I had to kill when she went insane and randomly began brutally killing both humans and mutants.
Carol that nearly took over my mind and body and would have, had it not been for the professor and Scott and their determination not to lose me to the new voice screaming inside my head.
Carol that had once known a mutant with powers similar to mine and as a result, knew the switch within my mind that enabled me to turn my skin off and on at will.
Absorbing Carol gave me the ability to touch and fly, she gave me super strength and the ability to heal.
She also gave the Logan in my head cause to get pissed off because he is kind of on the possessive side up there and it tends to upset him whenever someone knew comes barging in to what he sees as his space.
Real Logan. Mind Logan. Both a pain in the ass.
Of course, I love both of them so I find it easy to ignore the whole pain in the ass issue.
Others, however, have a hard time with the Logan in my head.
Carol. Eric. John. Bobby. David.
Remy had no problem with them being in my head, never mind the fact that Carol and Eric are both borderline nuts.
Remy could live with that.
Knowing that a part of Logan was in me annoyed him, because he knew the truth that everyone else knew.
I loved Logan.
Heart. Mind. Body. Soul.
With all that made me who and what I am, I loved Logan and after a year of trying to feel more than friendship for Remy, I finally told him that it was unfair for me to hold on to him when I could never give myself to him completely.
He was hurt, but he admitted it was time to end the façade, for his sake and mine and when he began dating Ro three months after he and I broke up, I was happy for both of them and I went to Ro and wished her well.
She smiled and touched my hand and told me not to give up hope, because she had a feeling Logan would return soon.
But I had my doubts.
He had been gone for nearly two years, at that point and he called once every month or so and when he did, we had wonderful conversations that allowed us to talk and laugh.
And Logan got to curse when I told him about Carol a month after it happened.
He blamed Scott and Charles and himself.
I told him to chill out, I was fine, I had Carol under control and Ro was helping me with the learning how to fly thing.
He scoffed when I told him I was now stronger than he was and I assured him that when he got home I would prove it by kicking his ass.
I cherished those conversations with Logan.
And I missed them when first two, then three, then four months passed without so much as a word and I finally decided I should go see Charles and express my concern and he said he would look into it.
And he did.
And he came to me personally and he held my hand when he told me that he had just received information that confirmed Logan was in trouble.
He had been captured by the government.
Someone was making an attempt to complete Stryker’s work.
Someone had decided to revive the Weapon X project.
Someone was determined to extract the humanity from Logan, leaving only the animal that could be controlled and dominated.
And commanded to kill.
My first reaction was to cry, I sobbed as the professor held me, then I struggled to pull all of my emotions together and I asked what was the plan…how did we intended to find Logan and bring him home.
I was ready to do whatever it took, fight whoever dared stand in my way and I died a little inside when Charles explained that a plan to track down Logan’s location was in the works, but he wanted me to be prepared for the reality that we might be too late to save Logan’s life.
The government had had him for over four months, having captured him just days after his last call to me.
Charles wanted me to be ready to face the possibility that the Logan I knew, the Logan I loved, might already have disappeared forever…there was a chance the government had him within their complete control and if that was indeed the case, Logan would be a threat and a danger.
If he was completely Weapon X, Charles asked, did I know what that meant.
Yes, I replied.
It meant he would have to be destroyed.
And we all knew only one person had the power to kill The Wolverine.
And that was me.
Logan’s POV
I could tell by looking in her eyes that she didn’t want me to go, but she was gonna be strong and not ask me to stay and I admired her for that. It proved she understood me, I was in her head and she knew I needed to get away after all that had went down with Stryker and Jean.
She thought I needed to go off alone and mourn for Jean.
She was wrong.
I mean, yeah, I did mourn Jean, I hated that she died the way she did, that she gave up herself to save the rest of us and I miss her, cause she was one of the good ones. A real, decent woman…she had heart and soul and you could tell she really cared about the kids at the school.
She cared about me.
Of course, I know she didn’t love me, she was Scooter’s one hundred percent, but she gave a damn about what happened to me and that along with the fact that she was a beautiful woman drew me to her.
But I didn’t love her.
The Wolverine doesn’t love anyone.
At least that’s what I told myself when I left Marie standing in the foyer that second time around, with no dog tags, just my word to hold on to as a promise that I’d be back after a while.
I had to run for a while.
From her.
From those damn brown eyes that looked at me and saw the good and the bad and still loved me.
And I knew it was love, not a crush, or some shit like that.
I could feel it. Smell it. She loved me.
And I loved her.
The big bad Wolverine loved a teenager girl with killer skin and a heart too damn big for her own good.
Of course, being the older of us, even if I wasn’t the wiser, I was wise enough to know I was no good for her; I knew she deserved better…she deserved someone that wasn’t part beast, someone who knew who he was and where he came from and I knew if I stayed around the school, I would forget about that and take her to bed.
I knew I would make her my mate.
So I left, told myself I would give it time, see if my feelings faded or if hers changed, but each time I called the second I heard her voice I knew she loved me still and I loved her so I decided to do more digging into my past.
I decided, if I could find out some solid information about myself, maybe that would make me a better person.
Maybe it would make me someone that deserved her.
But I still called, I limited myself to talking to her ever few months and I relished each of our conversations cause I loved hearing about what was going on in her life.
I was pleased as hell when she ended it with Ice Cube.
Not so pleased when she started dating the Remy kid.
Was pissed when I heard she was on the team, and after I heard about the Carol story I was ready to go back to the mansion and carve Scooter and Chuck into pieces.
Course, Marie, she calmed me down, told me she was fine, she was stronger and she could fly.
And heal.
She could heal.
My knees about went weak at that, cause I knew it meant she would be okay…she had the gift I had, she could heal and live and that meant she and I could have a hell of a long time together.
Just as soon as I learned more.
Dug deeper.
I needed some answers.
So I found out about some contacts Stryker had in the government.
I thought I was playing it careful, never staying in once place all that long.
I thought I was keeping myself below the radar, not drawing too much attention to myself or the questions I was asking.
Turns out I was wrong.
I caught the attention of a man named Marcus Stryker.
William Stryker’s brother and partner in the Weapon X Project.
I didn’t know Stryker had had a brother, until it was too late.
Until I was caught.
They got me the day after what would be my last call to Marie.
I was walking to my truck when I felt a sudden pinch in my neck, but before I could try and process what had happened or why, I was out, lost in the darkness that took a long time to finally faded.
When it did, I was in a lab.
A collar around my neck, in a force field guarded cage.
It was then that Marcus Stryker introduced himself to me and in some ways, it was a lot like looking at his brother.
Marcus had the same cold smile.
The same arrogant eyes.
He was just as bad as William had been, maybe even more so, I realized, as he told me what he had in mind for me.
What he was determined to do.
He had a few experiments he wanted to run first, a few theories William had not felt at all compelled to test.
But Marcus did.
He wanted to find out for certain what I could and could not survive.
And if I did, he would finish the work he and his brother began and put Weapon X into play in the human/mutant war he felt certain was on the way.
How better for mutants to die, Marcus said with a smile, than at the hand of one of their own kind.
An invincible, unstoppable, human controld, mutant killing machine with no ability to think for himself.
No ability to feel.
When he was done, there would be no humanity left in me.
I would be animal.
I would be machine.
I would be his, he said.
I told him to fuck off, but he laughed and told me to enjoy what little control I had while it lasted because soon I would be nothing more than a lap dog at his beck and call.
If I could have killed him in that moment, I would have.
Because everything he promised he would do to me began the next day.
It was hell…it was brutal…the pain was enough to drive me out of my mind…any kind of torture Marcus Stryker could conceive, I endured, mostly for his sadistic pleasure, as a punishment for his brother’s death he blamed me for.
I wanted to die.
I prayed for death.
It never came.
But she did…time and time again…it was only in my mind, but she was there, so real and vivid and beautiful, gently telling me to hold on, to fight and not give up because I was not alone.
She said she would find me.
She said she loved me.
At night I dreamed I was in her arms, safe and warm, with her holding me close, telling me it had all been a nightmare.
A nightmare and nothing more.
But each day I faced reality, I was in hell and there was little chance that I would ever escape with any trace of sanity left within me.
So at night, when the dreams came, when Marie came, I told her all the things that I had never said before.
I told her I loved her.
I told her I had loved her from the moment I saw her.
I told her I was sorry I had left, that I knew now I should have stayed and began building a life with her because the past didn’t matter and now, because I had been so insanely obsessed with the past, I would never have a future with her.
I would never kiss her.
I would never make love to her.
I would never marry her.
I would never see our child sleeping in her arms.
I would die alone, with only the dream image of her face smiling down at me.
Alone in my cell, I cried, at night, and I whispered her name.
Marie…Peace.
Marie…Beauty.
Marie…Love.
Even now, as each day becomes more brutal, more unbearable, more agonizing than the last, I sit on my cell, chanting her sweet name, and in my own way, I know that I am saying goodbye.
I’m letting go.
It’s almost done.
Logan is almost dead.
Only the animal will remain.
Marcus Stryker will have his Weapon X.
I sigh and say her name one more time…I whisper that I love her more than life and I will love her well into death.
I love you, Marie.
It’s over, Marie.
I’m broken, Marie.
Stryker has won.
Goodbye, Marie
TO BE CONTINUED...
Rogue’s POV.
After the professor gave me the news about Logan, I was an emotional mess and no one could console me. I couldn’t eat or sleep, all I could do was cry and Scott set close to me while I did, assuring me that we would do whatever it took to find Logan and I couldn’t give up hope. He reminded me again and again that Logan was strong, that I had to be strong to…I couldn’t let fear control me and I couldn’t fall apart because the team needed me and Logan needed me.
Scott told me to tap into the strength and courage that I had gotten from Logan and combine it with my own strength and courage.
He told me to hold on to my faith in Logan.
I told him I would, as I dried my tears and set with him and the professor and the rest of the team as everyone was briefed as to just what was going on and like me, everyone was primed to kick ass.
There was only one problem.
No one knew for certain where Logan was at.
But the professor did know who had him.
Marcus Stryker.
I hadn’t had any idea that William Stryker had a brother, the professor had only learned about him recently and judging from what information we had, it was safe to say that Marcus was even more deranged than old William had been and knowing that did little to ease my fears.
What came next didn’t calm me anymore.
Charles said he had a feeling that someone we all knew well could tell us where Marcus might be keeping Logan.
Even before he said the name, I kind of knew what was coming.
Eric.
Magneto.
The man that had damn near killed me, the man I had already had to work with once, and now, he was possibly the only one with the means to tell us where Logan could be found and the look I gave Scott was the same look he mirrored back at me.
Mags was not a mutant we trusted.
But he was the one we had to turn to.
Well, he was the one the professor and Scott turned to, as Charles decided that it would be best if I didn’t have a confrontation with Eric.
So I stayed at the mansion, I paced and I ranted and I paced and Ro was kind enough to sit with me and listen when I cursed myself for not having realized sooner than Logan was in trouble.
She told me I couldn’t have known, no one could have known, but now we did and we would find him.
Charles told me that same thing when he and Scott returned from the meeting with Eric three hours later and I learned that Logan was likely at an old base in northern Canada where the Stryker brothers had various connections.
“So now what? Are we going after Logan?”
“Just as soon as we go over the layout of the base.” Scott answered.
“Eric had that?”
“It seems Mystique found it when she retrieved the information on the base at Alkali, so Eric held on to it, just in case.” Charles didn’t seem surprised, but I was curious as to why Magneto had handed over what we needed and I asked if he had an agenda, but the professor didn’t think so. “Don’t worry, Rogue. We will find Logan.” But his eyes told me I needed to remember our previous conversation, the one in which he had warned me that the Logan we could find might not to the one I remembered.
The one I loved.
He could be someone dangerous and deranged.
Someone I might have to kill.
They called him a weapon.
Weapon X.
They said he was a machine. A killer. He was controlled by them.
By a man named Stryker.
Stryker gave the orders.
He followed the orders.
They kept him caged, like an animal.
Some were afraid of him, he could smell their fear, could sense it when they had to be near him.
He heard them congratulate themselves on his creation.
He heard them say the man that had been in him was dead.
And it made him wonder.
Had he been a man?
Had he been more than a weapon?
Sometimes he thought so…sometimes there were hazy images…sometimes he felt sure he had once had a name.
But he couldn’t remember it.
He couldn’t recall who he might have been.
But at times, at night, when he was too restless to sleep, when he lay curled up in his cell cold and alone, he sometimes could see a face…hovering above him, he could see a beautiful face dominated by brown eyes and framed by white streaks that stood out vividly against her chestnut hair.
He knew he knew that face.
He had seen it before.
And not in the lab…she was from before the lab…before when maybe he had been a man…
But then the clouds of confusion would come again, the fog would overwhelm him and her face would fade away.
The peace that came with her face would fade away.
Then he became a weapon again.
Rogue’s POV
The night before our mission to find Logan, I dreamed about me and him together, just outside the rundown bar where we had first met in Laughlin City.
In the dream, I walked up to him as he was standing there and when he saw me, he smiled and held out his hand that I took and he pulled me close, looking down at me as I touched his face.
I’ve missed you, Logan.
I’ve missed you, Marie.
I have you back now and I am not letting you go.
I will never leave you again, Marie.
He moved to kiss me, finally, but before he could, I woke up with his name on my lips and tears in my eyes.
I woke up wondering if I would ever get the chance to really kiss Logan.
I wondered if I would ever get to make love with Logan.
Or would I just have to kill him?
Would I place my hands on Logan and turn on my skin?
Would I feel him spilling into me?
Would I be like Scott, forever lost and alone and without the one that I love more than life itself?
To tortured by questions I wasn’t certain I wanted answered, I set up in bed, noticing for the first time a CD and a note on my nightstand.
I immediately recognized Jubes’s handwriting.
Hey, girl.
I know you aren’t gonna sleep tonight, so I thought I would provide something for you to listen to, to remind you what I already know. You would do anything, go anywhere to get Logan back and we are gonna help you out, babe.
Hold on, we’ll get your man back.
Jubes
Smiling, I unwrapped the CD and placed it in the player, wondering what Jubes found that could remind her of me and Logan.
Once, she had given me a copy of Beauty and The Beast and I threatened to kick her ass if she ever called Logan a Beast again.
The memory made me wistful for the days when Logan was around, when I knew he was safe.
When he was with me.
Then the song began.
I can't imagine, any greater fear
Then waking up, without you here,
And though the sun, would still shine on,
My whole world, would all be gone,
But not for long,
If I had to run, if I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers, just to climb a thousand walls,
Always know that I would find a way, to get to where you are,
There's no place that far
It wouldn't matter why we're apart,
Lonely minds or two stubborn hearts
Nothing short of God above
Could turn me away from your love
I need you that much
If I had to run, if I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers, just to climb a thousand walls,
Always know that I would find a way, to get to where you are,
There's no place that far
If I had to run, if I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers, just to climb a thousand walls,
Always know that I would find a way, to get to where you are,
There's no place that far
Baby there's no place that far
By the time the song finished, I was in tears again, but I smiled as I wiped them away because Jubes had found the song that said it all.
There was no place that far.
There was nothing I wasn’t will to do or fight or face to save Logan.
I also knew something else in that moment.
I knew I wouldn’t kill him. I knew I wouldn’t have to.
Even if Stryker had succeeded in turning Logan into Weapon X, in my heart, in my soul, I knew that I would reach out to Logan…I knew I would face whatever he had become and somehow, someway, I would bring him back to me.
I would bring him home.
Nothing short of God above would stop me, and even He would have His hands full, because I fully intended to get Logan back in my arms where he belongs.
Blood.
Death.
Blood.
Destroy.
No thinking.
No feeling.
Feeling not allowed.
He was meant to kill, programmed to kill, he was Weapon X and he was a machine the men used to murder…they put others in the cell with him…they told him to kill…use the claws and kill.
But he couldn’t.
Why?
Stryker…he could hear the one they called Stryker demand to know why his weapon was not responding to commands as he should.
What was the flaw?
Find it, Stryker demanded…find it and fix it…make him kill…make him accept that he is a weapon, a machine, a mindless, animal destined to do as his ‘owner’ commanded he do.
Punish him, Stryker said.
Show him that there were consequences for not following orders.
Show him that he could feel pain.
And he did…he felt the beatings…the electric shocks…he felt the chains ripping into his flesh.
He heard the laugher of those charged with punishing him.
People that knew he healed, so they could be as brutal and vicious as they wanted to be…they could coldly torture him until their heart was content and he would heal so they could do it all again.
They could torture him until the darkness came and wrapped around him.
In the darkness, there was peace.
There was peace because she came to him in the darkness.
Only this time…this time it was more than just a hazy image of her innocently beautiful face lingering above him.
This time, he was in a different place…he was outside in the snow, standing beside an old building that looked battered.
This time, he looked up and she walked towards him, a radiant smile on her face.
He held out a hand to her.
She took that hand and he drew her close.
She lifted a hand to touch his face.
I’ve missed you, Logan.
I’ve missed you, Marie.
I have you back now and I am not letting you go.
I will never leave you again, Marie.
He moved to kiss her, but before he could, he awoke with tears in his eyes and her name on his lips.
Marie.
Marie.
Marie.
The girl was Marie and he was…
The name she had called him had disappeared, but hers remained and for him, that was something; for him that was proof that he had indeed been a man…he had been more than an machine meant to kill, he had been a man.
A man Marie had loved.
A man that maybe she still loved.
A man that had to find his way back to her…somehow…someway…he had to find a way to Marie cause Marie could help him find a way back to himself.
To the man he had been.
The man he wanted to be again
Rogue’s POV
The base in Canada was a lot like Alkali had been, under ground and secluded and I knew seeing it brought back painful memories for Scott, but in his typical fashion, his leader cap stayed in place and he sounded confident and sure and positive victory would be ours.
He pulled me aside before we left and told me he knew it would work out, that Logan would come home with me.
I prayed to God he was right.
I continued to pray on the jet, sitting alone, wondering briefly if I would be like Scott on the return trip home.
Would I be as broken as Scott had been on the return trip from Alkali?
The moment the thought crossed my mind, I forcefully dismissed it, recalling the song I had repeatedly listened to the night before.
If I had to run, if I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers, just to climb a thousand walls,
Always know that I would find a way, to get to where you are,
There's no place that far
I repeated the words to myself again and again as Scott landed the plane with his usual grace and he flashed a smile I couldn’t help but return as I shook my head.
“Sorry.”
“You call that a landing?”
He remembered Logan saying those words and he laughed.
But the laughter was brief, we had to get serious and fast, cause Logan needed us and we had to get to him.
Scott divided us up into two teams, me him and Bobby on one, Storm, Jubes, and Remy on the other with Kitty stationed on the jet, ready to provide back up for whichever team might needed it.
And just like that, we were ready; we knew the lay out and the objective and my mind and heart were determined that Logan would be with us when we left.
There simply was no other option.
Storm, Jubes and Remy went ahead, it was their job to create a distraction, to get the guards and doctors off balance.
It would be up to me, Scott, and Bobby to find Logan.
Please, please, hold on just a little longer, Logan.
I silently pleaded with him, praying that somehow he could sense I was near as a loud explosion shook the entire compound and a bolt of lightening followed.
The mission was on.
The ground shook.
There was a noise, a noise so loud it hurt his ears, made him wince as he pressed himself against the back wall of his cell, confused.
He was so confused.
Something was happening.
He could hear frantic screams…the doctors he hated, he could hear them scream and something flashed…another booming noise rattled the ground and he closed his eyes and tried hard to will the hazy from his mind.
He tried to latch on to a clear thought, but it was hard, everything was so loud and smoke filled the air.
Smoke was everywhere.
But beyond the smoke there was something more.
There was a scent he recognized.
A scent so familiar.
A scene so wonderfully familiar.
His head snapped up and he slowly stood, his legs unsteady beneath him as he sniffed the air.
And he knew.
The scent was her.
Marie.
The scene mingled in with the smoke was Marie…so sweet and innocent…the scent of pure beauty and perfection.
Marie.
She was near.
She was close to him.
He closed his eyes and drew in a breath, hoping with all his might that this wasn’t just a dream.
He hoped his Marie was really coming for him.
To take him home
Rogue’s POV
The distraction created by Storm, Jubes and Remy served its purpose, the doctors and guards within the lab were frantic and off balance, the daytime attack Scott had been wise to suggest was unexpected completely.
Scott blasted a hole into the side of the building, one that I quickly followed through, with Bobby close behind…my heart was racing, but I made myself concentrate on the battle.
Luckily.
I took out two guards before they could fire a shot at Bobby and three doctors made the mistake of standing in my path.
Everything seemed to be happening too fast and too slow, all at once, as it did with all missions, but the objective of this one mattered to me more than any mission ever had and my senses and instincts were keen.
And then I heard Scott calling my name and from the tone of his voice I knew.
He had found Logan.
I don’t remember running down the hall…following Scott’s voice…it’s blurred in my mind how, but suddenly I was standing before a force field guarded cage.
Logan was inside.
He could only wait.
Wait and listen.
The screams around him grew more frantic, the explosions seemed closer.
He wanted to break free from the cage but the electric force field held him trapped.
And then a man was there…a man in an oddly familiar looking uniform…he wore a strange looking visor over his eyes…he said a name…he spoke but the words made no sense and the man in the cage was afraid.
He was afraid the man with the visor was a doctor.
A guard.
Someone there to hurt him again.
And then…suddenly she was there…the girl from his dreams, the one that came to him at night.
Marie.
Marie.
Marie had come to save him.
Rogue’s POV
Everything stopped the moment I saw Logan, I felt the world come to a standstill…all the sights and sounds around me faded and I cried out his name, tears in my eyes and on my cheeks.
He looked so confused.
He looked so relieved.
His eyes were wide, filled with fear and hope…his hair was a tangled mess and I could see the evidence of wounds healing on his body.
I was only vaguely aware of Scott using an optic blast to disarm the force field and then I was moving towards Logan slowly, recalling in the back of my mind what Charles had carefully warned me about.
I recalled that Logan could be gone.
But I refused to believe it as I said his name and he looked at me…he looked at me and I knew what I saw in his eyes was recognition.
I knew he remembered me.
Logan
She had called him Logan.
Logan.
That was his name.
He was not Weapon X.
He was not an animal.
He was not a machine.
His name was Logan and he was a man.
And she was Marie.
His Marie.
He pushed away from the wall, his eyes burning, the emotions he was told he was not allowed to feel swelling in his chest as she held out a hand to him.
A hand he reached for as she said his name again.
A smile came to her lips and he could see her relief in her eyes, though her tears, as the voice he had not used in so long softly whispered her name.
“Marie…”
She nodded slowly. “That’s right, Logan. It’s me. It’s Marie.”
“Marie.”
“I’m here for you, Logan. I’ve come to take you home.”
Home.
Home with her.
Home with Marie.
A sob escaped him and his body almost went limp with relief as he reached slowly for her hand.
He pulled her into his arms and she went there willingly, clinging to him as he buried his face in the fragrant sea of hair and she held him tight.
“It’s over, Logan. It’s all over. We are going to go home.”
Home.
Marie.
He held her tightly to his chest and cried.
He was going home with Marie.
Rogue’s POV
Marcus Stryker is dead.
I feel no remorse, no pity, no compassion, my only regret is that his death was not more painful.
But I am glad to be able to say I am the one that killed him.
He confronted me and Logan as I was leading Logan from his cell, after Scott had gone ahead to alert the others.
He ordered me to stop, he told me he wouldn’t allow me to walk way with his weapon, his prized life’s work.
I told him to fuck off, I wasn’t leaving without Logan…I told him Logan wasn’t a damn weapon, he was a man and more than that, he was mine.
He laughed and aimed the gun.
Before he could pull the trigger I knocked it from his hand and I snapped his neck.
He died in an instant, but he knew who had killed him and why he had died.
It is my hope that he and his brother are now burning side by side in hell, because that is what they deserve.
That is what they deserve for the hell they forced Logan to endure.
The hell that made him tremble as I held him in my arms as we set in the back of the jet on the way home from Canada…images of the hell that Logan suffered thanks to both William and Marcus Stryker will haunt him for long years to come.
He will never be able to forget the pain he has endured.
The anguish he was subjected to.
I know his nightmares will be frequent and hellish, but I will be there to hold
him.
To comfort him.
To love him.
I will be there to remind him that he is a man.
And he is mine.
The Professor’s POV
It has been a month since Logan’s return and I am relieved to say that he is returning to normal more and more with each day. I know he still has a long road ahead of him, that is a reality I can not deny, but I am here to offer my support, as is the rest of the team, and all the more importantly, he has Rogue at his side.
When the X-Men returned from their mission, Rogue refused to have Logan kept in the med lab, she took him to her room and announced that Hank could see him there but under no circumstances would Logan be forced to endure an exam unless he willingly consented to it and even then, Rogue stated she would be in the room. And it is rather obvious that Logan wants her there, needs her there, for days after his return she was the only one he would respond to and even now, I can tell she is the only one he feels completely safe with.
That, I am afraid, is something that will never change.
Of course, I am not surprised.
From the moment Logan and Rogue arrived at the mansion years ago, I sensed they were somehow fated to be together.
She belongs to him and he belongs to her.
Stryker was a fool to think he could come between two people so in love.
He was a fool to think he could remove the man from The Wolverine, because Logan and The Wolverine are really one in the same and both love Rogue with a passion that defies any force a men like William and Marcus Stryker can conceive.
Rogue said she is glad they are dead.
I did not tell her as much, but I agree.
More than anything, thought, I am glad that Logan is home, here with Rogue, clearly content to forget the past and embrace his future.
Logan’s POV
I am home.
Home with Marie.
I still can’t believe it…at times I am afraid this is a dream and at any moment I will awaken to find myself back in the lab, strapped to a metal table or trapped alone in my cell.
I have shared that fear with Marie and she has assured me again and again that this is real, she is real, and she and I are forever.
She says she will never allow me to leave her again, for any reason, and I am fine with that because I have no desire to leave her.
I am done with the past.
I am putting it behind me…it is defeated…the past is as dead as Marcus and William Stryker and I am glad.
I am ready to focus on the future.
Mine and Marie’s future.
I have told her, many times, since I have been home, that I love her…I say the words often and with emotion; I say the words more easily than I ever thought I could, but I find now that saying them is easy because I feel the love so strongly.
And she loves me back.
She says it as often as I do.
She whispers it to me in the middle of the night when the dreams come.
She says it when we make love.
She says it first thing in the morning, when I wake up to find her watching me sleep.
The professor says I have a ways to go, that I have a lot I need to work through and he has said he will help me, but he also understand that the one I am most comfortable with is Marie.
She is the one that will help me.
The one that is already helping me.
Marie is the reason I survived the hell I faced in the lab.
Marie kept me sane.
Marie kept me alive.
And now I intend to live with Marie for the rest of our days.
Already, she has agreed to marry me. To be my wife.
She says she wants a family with me. I want that to.
I want everything with Marie.
I smile thinking about it now, as I lay awake, with her sleeping in my arms, her head on my chest, just above my heart…my heart that beats for her and because of her.
My heart that is hers and always will be.
The future is ours to discover and explore and live to the fullest and we will do so as partners.
As man and wife.
Because I am a man.
I am Marie’s man.
THE END
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