Soul Searching
Marie managed to get her chores done without craning her neck to see exactly what Logan was doing outside, the sounds of rotten wood being separated from the veranda were enough. He cursed occasionally as any man would, but the sound of his destruction never had the ‘tsing’ sound. The one she’d dreamt of for a few nights, the one that still had her fascinated with the large cooks knife in the block. Lunch came and went and still he laboured outside, opting for a white flag approach Marie volunteered to take him out some food and drink. Her boss smiled appreciatively as she got her gloves on to go and order the wood that Logan would need to repair the mess he was currently making.
When she’d driven away Marie got the food ready, along with a six pack of beer still beading from the fridge. Logan was still working when she coughed politely and set the tray by his hip, he quirked an eyebrow at her and put down the hatchet he’d been using. “Was beginning to wonder if I’d been forgotten about out here.” His hands picked up the sandwich that covered most of the large plate and sank his teeth into it, chewing slowly. Marie seated herself across from him on the now shredded step and got ready to ask her questions.
“Do you remember me? I mean really remember me? Anything at all?” The hope was etched in her words and Logan wasn’t going to lie to her to soothe her fears, he knew he had a link to her, something really important. But it just seemed to be out of his reach, every time he tried to grasp it fully it slipped away from him. Swallowing the food in his mouth Logan answered her as best he could.
“I ‘know’ you kid,” he tapped the side of his nose and leaned in toward her flaring his nose again to take in a hit of her distinctive scent. He watched her skin flush as he did it, pulling back to safe distance before continuing. “Thing is I don’t remember where from, I mean I had a real flash back there when you put me down.”
Marie interrupted him, “I’m sorry about that I didn’t think you’d touch me, but I’m gloved now, will be from now on.” Her hands did a little dance in front of his eyes to show him the dove grey covering her skin, it saddened him as much as it made her smile.
“You don’t have to, if your skin helps me remember you then it can’t be a bad thing can it?” He took another bite of the sandwich, his cheeks full of the mixed meats and cheeses she’d piled in there. Knowing he loved to taste all different kinds of things, all mingled together, to experience them as a whole, a brand new taste each bite.
Marie held herself a little and tried to explain how her skin worked, “When I touch someone, I don’t just hurt them I take something from them as well, sometimes its memories…” she made sure he was looking in her eyes when she spoke next. “With you it was more.” She waited for him to react but he didn’t, he just nodded and took another bite. Talking with his mouth full he gestured to her with the remains of the sandwich.
“I touched you somewhere high up, you were hurt or in danger. The strongest feeling I had was that I had to get to you somehow, save you from something or someone and if I didn’t then I’d lost you.” The last words of his statement fell onto her soul like leaves in autumn, he really had cared for her, made the promise he’d made her seem all the more important to him. But it seemed as if this was the only time he remembered her, but she’d touched him before the incident on Liberty Island.
Squaring her shoulders she told him about the thing, from her point of view, being up in the cold, Victor threatening her, Magneto talking to her as if she were a soldier being sent out to kill. Logan listened, calmly eating the food and drinking the beer she’d provided him, it was only when she’d told him about the train that he stopped dead.
“The carriage, the seats were red weren’t they?” His brow was furrowed and the light was back in his gaze as he moved closer to her, she nodded and was about to tell him what had happened on the train when her boss’s car peeped its horn and shattered the mood.
Logan turned away and got on with unloading the wood she’d brought back for him, leaving her with the task of expecting Logan later when everyone else was asleep.
She didn’t have to wait that long, dinner was being served in the large kitchen and Logan volunteered to help out doing the dishes with her, said it’d ease the splinters out of his hands from the day’s labour. And his hands really had taken a battering, the rotten wood had splintered at every opportunity given it and even she could see several deep ones resting in the skin of his fingers. Her employer had made noises about the roof being re-shingled and Logan had quietly said that they’d come to some agreement about it after dinner. Satisfied she’d gotten herself a decent handy man around she wasn’t ready to have him leave just yet, not until everything she needed doing was done anyway. She gave a sly look at Marie and winked at her, which she read to be ‘keep him interested honey but don’t give him the goods till he’s done fixing.’ Thing was she doubted she could even give him the basics without killing him, so that was a no brainer.
When dinner had finished and people were doing whatever they did before they rolled in to sleep, Logan and her got on with the dishes. She really didn’t figure on seeing the bad ass of the house with his arms in hot soapy water but as the moments passed a calmness filled the kitchen. One that felt comfortable, as if he’d been used to this sign of domesticity once upon a time. She took the plates he handed to her to dry, watching as he flicked out the stubborn splinters that had been drawn by the hot water to the surface of his rough skin.
“So tell me about the train, why were you on it, were you arrivin’ or leavin’?” She took a breath and steadied her nerves, facing his stare as she did so.
“I’d run from Xavier’s school, there’d been an accident there.” She swallowed hard, “With you and me.” Logan’s hands stilled in the water and he turned to face her fully, his hands dripping suds to the tiled floor.
“What?” His face was creased with confusion, she could see him trying to remember anything about it but he was drawing a blank. She pushed him back to the sink and he put his hands back into the water and began cleaning plates again, his face still creased with concern.
“I told you I crept into your trailer in Laughlin Canada, well we had a run in with The Brotherhood who wanted me for that machine you took me out of, the one you rescued me from, the high place?” Logan nodded as he followed her words, “Well that was Liberty Island, on top of the Liberty Statue, my mutation allows me to absorb powers and Magneto wanted to use me to change the world leaders. Not knowing that the machine he used would end up killing them all, including me.”
The silence grew between them both as he handed her plate after plate, it was only when they got the pans that he spoke to her. “So I went and rescued you from the machine, but who took me there? And how did we both end up in such a mess? I remember travelling Canada, but I don’t remember you, my nose does, I mean my senses ‘remember’ you but my mind’s a blank.” Marie sighed and crossed her arms as she watched Logan scrub the remains of dinner from the bottom of the large pan.
“I don’t know but I do know you cared enough about me to come looking for me when I ran away from there.” His eyes when they met hers shocked her with their intensity, the need she could feel radiating from their hazel depths.
“Tell me what happened, why did you run, what did I do to you?” She almost choked, he thought he’d done something to her, hurt her somehow (well he had) but it hadn’t been his fault. It had been hers.
“Logan you didn’t hurt me…” he caught her pause and he straightened up, pulling away from her a little making her reach out to him and catching his arm tight. “Look let me explain it to you.” She pulled him away from the sink and grabbed a clean towel for him to dry his hands on. She opened the back door and they went out into the chill evening air, guiding him to the swing seat she put herself between him and the outside world.
“Now I need you to listen to me, not to interrupt or break in while I get this out okay? It’s hard enough for me as it is, so please tell me you’ll just listen; then ask questions?” Logan nodded and she relaxed back into the seat and began her story.
“I’d run from the school because someone told me that everyone was angry at me, I’d been allocated a bed in a dorm but I couldn’t sleep there. My skin was too much of an issue for me, what if someone tried to wake me and touched my face? If I had a bad dream and my hand touched someone asleep and I drained them to death? So I went to find you.” Logan’s eyes held a new intensity and Marie held up her hand to stop the question before it aired itself.
“Now you’d come with me here, we’d both escaped Magneto and Victor and were being helped by Xavier. Thing was I didn’t feel ‘safe’ if you get my drift, so I went to find the room you were in, the door was open and I just went in and settled in a chair. I slept for a while but you woke me up with a bad dream, you were tossing and turning and I wanted to help you wake up. Thing was I didn’t have any gloves on so I was trying to help you by talking to you, leaning over you, when you woke up out of your dream. You were still asleep I think and your…” Marie held the hand closest to her and felt between the knuckles of his large hand. “Your blades fired and I was too close. You stabbed me in the chest, through the lung to be precise, when you woke up fully you screamed for help, you looked so frightened and so sorry. But you see I’d seen you heal from a crash earlier, so I knew if I touched you for a little while I’d get your healing. Heal the damage you’d done to me by accident, so I touched you. You saved my life Logan.” He gripped her hand that was within his and he faced the darkness showing her his profile, the tension in his jaw plain for her to see. He needed to hear the rest of it and she carried on.
“I told them it had been an accident, that you hadn’t meant to hurt me at all. I left to get to my own bed and tried to sleep but your memories were still running around my head, the dream you’d had was enough to keep me awake. I understood why you’d reacted the way you had, you’d thought I was there to hurt you, not help you wake up. Anyway the next day everyone avoided me, even my so called ‘new friends’, they told me to leave so I did. I didn’t know it had been a shape-changer, one of Magneto’s crew that wanted me off the grounds so they could snatch me. I left soon after it got dark and when you found out, you followed me, found me and promised…”
“To take care of you.”
Those five words sounded like granite, his fingers constricted on her own and she could feel the tension in him, he sighed and turned to look at her, his face half in shadow. His eyes different by the light of evening, one hazel and warm, the other dark and filled with something she wasn’t sure of. “I promised to take care of you didn’t I, on the train?” Marie nodded, Logan grunted and squeezed her hand tighter, raising it to his lips quickly and kissing the back of her covered hand. “I did didn’t I?”
Smiling she answered him, “Yeah you did, you came for me when it looked like nothing else would, you saved me again up on the statue, put yourself last and almost killed yourself doing it.” He nodded and looked away into the darkness again, when he looked back his eyes were dark, holding something she hoped wasn’t for her.
“So if you’re so important to me, mean so much to me, then why don’t I remember you on my own? When you told me about it all I could see it, see myself fighting to get to you, the look on your face as I stabbed you. Who took you away from me, who made me forget you?” Marie just let the words slip out of her mouth, there was only one person she knew of who could do such things, stop time, alter memories.
“Charles Xavier did it, the man I ran from, the school I ran away from. He must have, there’s no one else I know of who could do it.” Logan just stared at her, as if trying to ascertain anything else from her words or scent, when he found nothing else he turned into the darkness again. When he spoke the words were dripping with malice and hate, “So why did you run away from me this time?” She shook his hand and grabbed his head, turning toward her, tears already running down her cheeks.
“I didn’t run from ‘YOU’ Logan, you weren’t there anymore, you’d gone looking for something about your past, something Xavier had given you. I ran from them, from that place, whatever it is, it isn’t the ‘safe’ place you thought it was for me. I didn’t run from you Logan, I’d never run from you. You’re the only one who touched me twice, who cared enough to save me, you promised me and to me it’s something you don’t often do is it?” Logan was silent for a while, the darkness of the evening deepened as the night took hold.
“No I don’t promise anyone, no one but you.” He wiped a tear away quickly not giving her skin time to react to the touch. “But I’ll promise you this, when we go back we’re goin back for everythin we can get.” Marie let herself collapse against him, resting against his arm and the solid warmth he was putting out into her world. He might not be himself totally but he had enough to go on and she was sure as hell going with him when he left here. They both had something to say to Xavier, and by the look on Logan’s face she doubted Xavier would make it through the conversation.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan finds out about his history with Marie
Chapter End Notes:
As always feedback welcome as are story ideas, what do you want to happen? Let me know...