Have His Carcase
I was Rogue. Untouchable. All that.
Marie was someone else, someone I didn't like and didn't want to know. She was weak, she cried, she wanted things she couldn't have. She held onto hopes and expectations and unrealistic dreams that I didn't share. She felt things and she wanted me to feel them too.
Most of all, she wanted Logan back. She wasn't reasonable on the subject. It didn't matter how often or how firmly I explained it to her--he was gone, that was all there was to it, and it was time to quit pretending and get on with life, she wouldn't listen. She didn't care what he'd done, that he never really wanted her, that everything she felt was just made up in her own head. She'd be satisfied just to know he was there, and she'd have been happy to go back to mooning around after him, living for glimpses of him as he walked past her and into some other room in the Mansion.
Pathetic whiny little bitch.
I didn't put up with much of it. I told her over and over. The son-of-a-bitch fucked you and told you it was a mistake. And she would look sad and shut up, for a while. Then at least I could get on with my life, even if hers had come to a screeching halt. And so it would go, feeling almost schizophrenic in its intensity sometimes. I've had to learn to live with other people's voices in my head, obviously, but this was a little different.
I mean, is it normal to argue with yourself all the time?
Is it normal to lose?
Because she could always beat me in the end, stupid powerless little thing though she was. She'd turn the puppy-dog eyes on and tell me You want him back too. And she had me there, the sloppy sentimental little brat.
I never wanted him to be dead. Never. Even if it was just so I could scream at him, so I could be the one to walk away for once and let him know how little it all meant to me too. Even if it was just that no matter how you looked at it, it wouldn't have happened if Scott had been there like he was supposed to be, if there'd been backup, if I'd just done my fucking job.
Once, when I just couldn't take it any more, I used that. Shut the fuck up, I told her. You got no right to whine about it. Whose fault is it that he's not here to tell you this himself?
I felt her cry out, and I wanted to take it back. Because it wasn't her fault, it was mine. Rogue is the X-Man, not Marie. She was supposed to stay safe at the hotel room while we took care of the bad guys. She didn't do anything wrong.
I could have gotten rid of her that night if I hadn't turned into a weakling. She'd have shriveled up and blown away in the heat of that guilt, and I'd have been better off without her. Turns out I'm weak in some ways too.
Anyone would have thought I'd gone nuts, the night I had that conversation. I wound up in the corner of my room, my arms wrapped around myself, stroking my own face over and over like it belonged to someone else. I didn't mean that. It wasn't you, it was me. It's my fault. Don't think about it. You're the one he promised to protect, remember?
She was silent for so long I thought she was gone. Finally I heard her voice, very weak. Rogue?
Yeah.
I don't want to die.
I didn't let her. No matter what it cost me after that, no matter how much whining I had to listen to. The responsibility for that helpless little girl had gotten transferred, somehow, and I was the only one left to take care of her.
She was nicer than me, anyway.
It took two years before she did anything more than cry at night. Two years of hard work and ugly fights and seeing the world the way it really was, as we all tried to convince an unwilling public that mutants actually had the right to live and breathe. Two years of living with the excuses and cover-up of the attack on one of our own, one more martyr to the Great Cause. Whatever the hell that was.
Then Scott Summers had had enough. He knew damn well that the training facilities we were supposed to be finding out about in Chicago existed, and he was sick of smiling through gritted teeth and making nice with the enemy. He planned a stealth mission and I was all too eager to be a part of it. The idea was pinpoint targeting, no loss of life if we could help it, no overt attack, just extract the detainees and get out. They'd be hoist on their own petard, because they couldn't demand back prisoners they claimed didn't exist. And trust me, before Scott let the mission go forward he knew more about that damn facility than the designers. He knew the layout of every floor, the alarm system, the manpower they had on site and every weapon they stocked. He knew their schedule down to the bathroom breaks and he knew the names and faces of every person in the place, from the janitors on up. He knew there were eighteen prisoners.
He was wrong about exactly one thing. There were nineteen.
You believe the government is hiding UFOs? You believe oil companies are keeping cold fission under wraps? You believe Lee Harvey Oswald was set up by the FBI?
You're amateurs in conspiracy paranoia. I could've believed any of that before I believed this.
I wasn't on the inside. Storm and I were the pilots and in charge of communication; her powers could act at a distance, anyway, and I was more useful as a pilot. We brought two planes, the Blackbird and our new, smaller stealth craft; she would take off first with the ones we got out and I would wait for the X-Men. She provided distraction in the form of an unexpected and unseasonable near-hurricane, and I monitored the commlinks while the rest of the team infiltrated the facility. Scott and Bobby were most of the firepower-you wouldn't believe how much confusion frozen pipes and the odd unexplained electrical fire will make. The Beast was both brains and muscle, cracking the entry codes and taking out the intervening gates, making it look like the wind had taken them off their hinges, and Shadowcat was like the pawn on the chessboard--seemingly weak in and of herself, but able to slip through defenses that had never been designed to work on the atomic level. While the boys and Storm were keeping everyone distracted up above, she simply sank through six layers of reinforced concrete and steel and brought the prisoners out one at a time. So simple. Kitty brought them out and I watched from above as they were loaded into the Blackbird, Storm took off and then I landed while Kitty went back in to extract the team.
It took too long. It took so long that I was sure something was seriously wrong, that I was seconds from breaking radio silence and demanding to know what was going on. Then I saw a flash of red and part of the containment wall in front of me just vanished.
I ducked away from the glare for a second. I knew something must have gone terribly wrong for Scott to be wiping out walls; this whole mission was planned around stealth. When my eyes had cleared, I looked back out and it took everything I had to hold Marie in check.
They had Logan.
He was between Hank and Scott, an arm over both their shoulders as they half-dragged him between them, Kitty stumbling along in their wake. I put my hands on the controls and held on with all my might because otherwise Marie would have taken over, forced me to run out of the cockpit and meet them. She was incoherent.
Calm down, I told her. I have to stay here. Have to get us home.
Radio silence was pretty futile by then, but there wasn't much point in asking questions. I heard the bay doors closing and automatically my hands moved over the controls, initiating liftoff. As the plane banked up and into the air I heard the cockpit door slide open behind me, and then Scott was there, putting his hands on my shoulders.
“Rogue? Do you need me to take over?” His voice was full of concern.
I didn't trust mine, and when I spoke it didn't even sound like me. “Is he all right?”
“Don't worry. He's going to be fine.” Scott's hands squeezed my shoulders reassuringly. “You're doing great. Just tell me if you want me to take the wheel.”
No. I had to rub the back of my hand under my nose, across my eyes, but if I let go of those controls-- “Just tell me what happened.”
“He was there the whole time.” Tight, controlled, but furious. “I can't even imagine what it took for them to keep this quiet. Kitty couldn't bring him out alone--the adamantium is too dense for her to phase. So we changed the plan.”
I choked on a hysterical giggle. “Threw it out, you mean.”
“Yeah, well. Doesn't matter. After this…at least we won't have to pretend any more.” Scott sounded relieved, and I knew making nice with these people had been harder on him than any of us. “You're sure you're okay to fly?”
I sounded more like myself now. “Like I'm going to let you wreck the landing gear again? I'm fine.” He chuckled a little and patted my shoulder one last time.
“Okay. I'm going back down there. Just get us home.”
As soon as he left, she started in.
I want to see him.
You saw him. You heard Scott. He's all right.
I have to see him. I have to know for sure.
And I have to fly the goddamn plane. Shut up. You got what you wanted, all right? You saw him. I knew that wasn't all she wanted. She wanted to call Scott back, hand over the controls so she could go down there and throw herself at him, hold onto him, and somehow I knew that neither Logan nor I could take that right now. Just take it easy. You waited two years, you can wait another hour.
She quieted down at that. She was going to be a good girl, show that she was willing to wait for the reward to all her hope and faith. I let her have that for the trip home, because it kept her contained, hid my fear and the sick feeling in my stomach from her, because even then I knew she was going to be disappointed. I wanted her to have that optimism for as long as she could.
I knew better.
I broke all records for speed getting us home, and I could see our other doctor, Moira, waiting with a gurney and all kinds of medical equipment at one side of the landing bay as I brought the plane in. As I began shutting down the plane I could see them all, Logan practically hidden behind that mound of blue fur, but walking under his own power now, and even I felt a rush of amused relief as I saw him wave off the others, clearly refusing to be wheeled into the infirmary. He had a blanket around his shoulders and he held onto Hank, but he was by damn going to walk in on his own. Stubborn bastard.
I made myself finish everything, complete the shutdown. Then I sat still for a long moment in the darkened cockpit. I didn't even know what was me and what was her any more; everything was so churned up in my mind. Making that part of myself be someone else was the only way I'd stayed sane this long, and now I couldn't keep the barriers from crumbling. Marie was demanding to come out.
I left the plane and started toward the medbay, only just keeping from running. Just as I got to the doors, Moira came out, and she looked nervous. In that second, I felt Marie shudder and withdraw. She didn't want to hear what Moira was about to say.
I didn't want her to hear it either, but then I already knew what it was. So I said it first. “He doesn't want to see me.”
Moira looked surprised, just for an instant, but she covered it quickly. “He doesn't want to see anyone yet, Rogue. It doesn't mean--he just needs to be alone for a little bit, I think. He's still pretty out of it.”
I nodded. “Sure. I understand.” She looked so relieved; I could tell she'd been expecting a fight.
“I'm sure, tomorrow--he just needs to rest before--“ She came forward and put a hand on my arm. “Just give it some time.” I didn't say anything, and after a second she gave me a quick smile and went back inside.
I leaned back against the wall and waited. I was waiting for the tearful questions, for more demands, for denial. I didn't get any of that. I expected to feel that bright light inside me flicker out for the last time, now that it was finally over, the hope that somehow there was another interpretation to put on that final conversation between us. Somehow I'd always held onto the hope that if only there had been time, he'd have said something else, something that would make it all right. That it was just that he'd wished it had happened a different way, not that he wished it hadn't happened at all.
I couldn't believe that any more. I couldn't even pretend I believed that any more. I just wouldn't have believed that it could still hurt this much after all this time, losing that. Losing hope. Losing her.
But she wasn't gone. I thought she was too weak to handle the truth. Instead, it was shattering me, and she was holding me together.
It's all right. He's all right. It's enough.
I stood there, just breathing in and out. I felt her touch like a gentle breath against my cheek.
It doesn't change that I loved him. He can't change that. It doesn't make it any less real, what I felt. That's mine, no matter what. And he's alive. He's alive.
Quiet joy, cutting through pain. We weren't two people, Marie and I. For so long I'd ridiculed my own feelings, dismissing them as just a crush, just a hopeless schoolgirl passion for a hero that didn't really exist. I wanted to think that so no one else could think it before me. But it wasn't true. It wasn't some idealized notion of Logan that I loved. It was him, rough edges and all.
He didn't feel that. Probably wanted nothing less. It had been easy to make promises to a little girl, to someone who looked at him like he was perfect, made no demands and didn't ask questions. Once I changed, once I grew up--he didn't know what to do with that, when it wasn't so simple after all. Maybe it was something he just couldn't feel, I don't know.
And right then I knew how it would have to be. He did want something that drunken night, maybe even something he saw glimpses of in me, something that normal people take for granted. It isn't his fault that it all went so wrong afterwards. He's had so much of his life torn away from him, and no matter how fast you heal, I think there are some wounds that just never close. Logan can't be what I wanted him to be, and I love him enough not to ask him to try.
So I didn't try to see him during the week he spent in the infirmary, or even when he moved back upstairs. I waited until he came downstairs on his own one day, walked into the room where I was working and stood there until I put down my pen and looked up.
He looked wary, guarded, and I wondered briefly what he saw. I was different now, older of course, shorter hair, muscles and sinew replacing baby fat. I didn't get up from the desk, but I smiled. “Hey. You look good.” He did. Thinner, a little pale still, but almost normal.
“You too.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sorry I haven't seen you.”
“I figured you'd want some time to recover. Before you faced the welcoming committee.” I got up then, came over to him and gave him a quick hug, awkward and almost impersonal. “Good to have you back.”
I felt his arms go around me, just for a second, before I pulled away. I had to, because no matter how many times I'd rehearsed this in my head, it was different with him there. It was making the blood in my veins ache with wanting to hold onto him so tightly he wouldn't be able to let go. But if I'd ever had a doubt, it was erased by the look on his face when I pulled back.
It was relief. He kept a hand on my shoulder, and said what I guess he still had to say. “Look, kid--what happened that night--“
Kid. Oh, that said it more clearly than any amount of other words. I knew what it meant. He needed it to be that simple again, needed for it not to have made a difference, what happened. It meant I could still be near him, as long as I didn't make him acknowledge the truth again.
I'm not a kid, Logan.
So I took a breath and I made it all right. “It doesn't matter, Logan. It was stupid, we were both drunk, and it was a long time ago. I'm just glad you're okay.” I made myself look up at him, meet his gaze, because otherwise he wouldn't have believed me.
For a second I didn't think he would anyway. He searched my face for what felt like an hour before he relaxed, and he tightened his grip on my shoulder for a second before he let go. “Okay. Good.” He smiled a little, and suddenly he reached out and pulled me against him in a real embrace, a little rough but no longer awkward, and so familiar, the kind of hug he'd have given me to make me feel better way back when he first knew me. “I'll see you around,” he said against my head, and then he let me go and he was gone.
So that's the deal now, between me and Logan. We're easy around each other, teasing sometimes, I flirt with Remy or Bobby under his nose and he pretends to threaten their lives. He ruffles my hair when he leaves the room and sometimes throws his arm around me carelessly. I get his jacket if we go for a walk and it gets cold and he gets a sparring partner for when Scott's busy. This is all I can give him, I get that now. All he has to give. And it's all right. I can be what he needs me to be.
It's better this way. I think maybe he would try, if I made him, to face the fact that I'm not really that little girl any more. I think he'd try to feel what he knows I wanted him to feel. I was wrong--that promise he made still meant something to him after all. It's just that he made it to the little girl.
And if that's all I can be to him--that's enough. I tried for more once, and we almost lost this. He needs this, simple and uncomplicated as that. I can do that, because I'm not a little girl any more. There are things you have to give up to grow up. Fairy tales, and Santa Claus, and sitting in the back seat while someone else drives. What you get in return isn't as pretty, but it's real.
This is worth it, even if it's not what I used to want. Because it's real.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Some things get better. Some things don't.