He had returned to his world of white. The one place on earth he had always felt truly at peace. The only place where the demons that tormented him could be stilled. Numbed. Not only by the biting cold but by the absolute purity of the most breathtaking beauty he had ever know.
A shiver of a smile brushed his lips.
Or had thought so until recently.
He wrapped an arm around Marie’s shoulders and drew her closer, sensing her own smile at his actions.
“It feels good to be home, doesn’t it?” she whispered.
He breathed deeply, contentedly, still amazed by how keenly she knew him, how in tune she was to his moods and emotions. And he didn’t think it was only down to her having him in her head. They had forged a bond long before they had touched. Long before any promises had been made. Long before she had evolved into the Rogue and became the only match for the Wolverine.
“Yeah, kid. It does,” he finally answered, eyes affectionately roaming the landscape he knew as keenly as someone might know their own backyard.
“Do you believe in destiny?”
His breath snagged in his throat. “I didn’t believe in anything before you came along, kid.”
“And now?”
“…I believe in us.” He gestured ahead of them. “In this.”
He turned her in his arms so that they were facing one another. Her face was beautifully flushed by the cold, her eyes sparkling with youth and hope…and love.
Love for him. An ageless, fucked up man. Could he be more blessed? He wasn’t a religious man but he sometimes wondered if God hadn’t sent her as compensation for all the shit he had dealt him over the past twenty years. An angel sent to redeem him…heal him…make him whole again?
Whatever the reason he was more grateful than anyone would ever know. Not even Marie herself.
He leaned in to brush his lips across hers, her warmth a home in itself, just like this wilderness. When they parted he had great difficulty holding back his emotions.
“Thanks, kid,” he started softly.
“For what?”
“For coming back with me.”
“My place is by your side,” she insisted gently. “It always has been.”
Her words churned his guts but in the best possible way, and he reached across to run the back of his hand down her cool silken cheek. “No, kid…your place is in my heart,” he corrected, realising that a few years ago he wouldn’t even have been able to express such deep binding sentiments.
But she had freed him. Her love had freed him.
And home could now be anywhere as long as she was near.
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