**What the hell was I thinking**, Marie thought as she made her way across the school grounds. Her courage was starting to wear off as she got closer and closer to where Logan stood nearly a hundred feet away. **What am I going to say to him? “Hi Logan, just thought I would drop by to tell you I’m pretty fucking pissed off at you for ignoring my existence these past few weeks.”** Yeah, right. Like that would go over smoothly.
Still, Marie had to try. If she had any shot at rekindling her friendship with Logan, she was going to have to take the initiative. Even though she was pissed off at him she still wanted things to work out.
Fifty feet away. Marie was becoming more nervous with each passing second. She could clearly make out Logan’s features now. He was slumped against the tree right across from the Professor’s grave. He had his arms folded across his chest with a cigar in his left hand. He was staring straight ahead of him, and since Marie was approaching him from the right, he hadn’t noticed her yet. Well, not that she was aware of. With his advanced senses it was impossible to tell.
Marie finally stopped a few feet away from Logan. She stared at him, waiting for him to acknowledge her approach. When he hadn’t moved or said anything for a whole minute she was starting to get frustrated. Was he really going to ignore her once again?
Yes, he was.
Well, it looked like Marie was just going to have to speak up. “Hey,” was all she managed to say.
Logan nodded his head very slightly and Marie took that to be the acknowledgment she was waiting for. Sighing deeply, she spoke again.
“What’s up?” She was really trying to keep this conversation casual. It was better to get him in a good mood before they started to talk all serious.
Logan finally turned to look at her, meeting her eyes momentarily. The glare she got from him almost sent her running toward the mansion. He no longer looked peaceful and relaxed. He was furious.
Trying her best not to seem afraid, she kept eye contact with him. She hoped her returning stare looked braver than she was feeling. Logan must have realized that she wasn’t going to back down because he finally spoke up. “What do you want?” He barked at her.
Ouch. Right to the point, then. So much for trying to soften him up. Why was it always like this with him? Why couldn’t they talk normally? Marie’s sudden anger reminded her of why she came here in the first place.
“I want you to tell me what the hell your problem is,” she said angrily, suddenly sure her eyes looked just as furious as his.
He averted his eyes from her menacing glare and took a long drag from his cigar before answering her. “I ain’t got no problem.”
Oh, so he was going to play dumb. Well, Marie would clear that up for him then. “Yes, you do. You’ve been ignoring me for the past month. And when you do acknowledge me for even the slightest moment, you look like you want to kill me,” she said, happy to finally be getting this off her chest. “I don’t know what I ever did to you but your crap is really pissing me off.”
She had him cornered. There was no possible way he could deny what she just said because he knew that she was telling the truth. Marie couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say.
Still not looking at her, he said, “Sounds to me like you’re the one with the problem.”
Was he serious? “Really? And why’s that?”
Logan took one more drag from his cigar before throwing it on the ground and turning to completely face her. He looked pretty angry again. “You wanna know why? For one, I’m not the one who came out here to have some shitty talk about whatever it is your talking about. What the fuck does it matter to you? You’ve been perfectly fine the last month and now all of a sudden you wanna come out here and do this with me?” He snarled at her.
She protested, “Logan you’ve been avoiding—”
“Don’t act like this is all me here. You could have talked to me anytime you wanted to. Don’t blame all your crap on me,” he barked angrily.
Marie couldn’t remember ever being angrier. This was nothing compared to when Bobby broke up with her. She wasn’t even this angry when she found out about him and Kitty. Logan was blaming this past month on her?
“Ugh! How am I supposed to talk to you! Every time I enter the room you find an excuse to leave. I’m not the one who’s been going out of my way to avoid you! I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past month, but you’re not letting me! I never did anything to you, you arrogant—”
“You left me,” he mumbled half-heartedly.
Marie paused. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Logan must have realized he said something he shouldn’t have. “Never mind,” he said.
Marie’s anger flared at his words. “You think I left you? You’re the one who backed out on this friendship, you bastard! You left me!” Marie roared at him. She was sure someone had caught them yelling by now but she didn’t give a damn. Logan was making her angrier than she had ever felt.
Logan glared at her so acidly it made her cringe. He didn’t yell his next words though, which made it all the more worse. “At least I didn’t go take the cure. I didn’t abandon everyone I cared about.”
She could not believe that he went there. Did he not have any idea what she was going through? “You listen to me, Logan. One, you had your opportunity to stop me, and you didn’t. Two, I didn’t abandon anyone. In fact, the whole mansion seems to have abandoned me,” she said, trying to hold back the tears in her eyes. “Most of my friends won’t even look at me. My boyfriend dumped me. Charles and Scott died. And this is the first time you’ve spoken to me in a month.” She was sure she was crying by now. “So don’t lecture me about abandonment, Logan. You have no idea what the word means.”
Looking away from him, she let the tears overwhelm her. He probably thought she was so weak. She couldn’t even give a good telling off without crying. She really needed to go back to her room and be alone. Crying in his presence was killing her.
Marie could not have been more shocked when she felt two big arms enclose around her. Logan was hugging her, running his hand through her hair, whispering comforting words. Marie cried even harder into his chest. She couldn’t understand why Logan would be trying to comfort her. But oh, did it feel good. Finally she was able to share with someone what she was going through. She hadn’t realized how much pain she had been enduring these last few weeks.
She wanted to hug Logan for the rest of her existence. It felt so nice to just be in his embrace and have that feel of friendship back. Even if it was only for a moment, it felt wonderful to her. She wasn’t sure where their friendship was going to go from here, but at that moment, she didn’t care. She was in his arms for the first time in what felt like forever.
Minutes passed and the two of them remained in a strong embrace. Eventually, Marie’s sobs began to die down into choked sighs. She tried to take deep breaths to calm her heart beat. When she had finally calmed down enough to look up at Logan, she found him looking down at her with an unfamiliar expression. He almost looked…confused. Like he had no idea what was going on around him.
“Logan?” she choked out nervously.
Her voice must have snapped him out of his trance because his guarded expression returned to his face. He softly let go of her and took a few steps back. “Sorry,” he said.
Suddenly Marie was the confused one. “For what? I’m the one who just ruined your shirt,” she said factually.
He didn’t say anything in return, instead just looking at her with that guarded expression. She really wanted to know what he was thinking. Was he regretting their moment of togetherness? Wishing he hadn’t reacted to her sobs? An air of awkwardness approached Marie as the realization of what had just happened hit her. One minute they had been screaming at each other across the school grounds, and the next they were hugging the living daylights out of each other.
Marie wanted to know why he had comforted her instead of acting disgusted with her tears. “Why did you do it?” she mumbled.
When he hadn’t answered for a whole minute, she assumed he hadn’t heard her question. She was about to repeat herself when he answered, “I don’t know.”
His answer kind of shocked Marie because he sounded so confused. Marie had no doubt in her mind that he was telling the truth. He sounded just as conflicted with the situation as she was.
She suddenly remembered something he had said earlier. “Is that what you think? Is that why you’ve ignored me?”
This time he really didn’t understand her question. “What do you mean?”
“Earlier, before…well, before I kind of broke down, you said that I left you. Is that what you’ve been feeling all along?” She was dying for answers here, but she didn’t want to sound too impatient or frustrated.
It took him awhile to think over her question. He continued to stare at her, this time searching for something in her eyes. Finally, he slumped his shoulders and answered. “I guess.”
Trying not to let the impatience overtake her, she said calmly, “Why?”
After another three minutes of thinking it over he spoke up, “I guess…well, you were the first person I met for a very long time, kid. I lived on the road for nearly fifteen years, fightin’, gettin’ drunk. I didn’t ever really have a purpose in life. It was like…I was living for nothing.”
As tempting as it was to interrupt, she held back. She needed to hear what he had to say. “Anyway, one day I met you. Now, I’ll be honest, kid. It wasn’t exactly the best place to meet,” he chuckled, remembering that faithful day in Laughlin City, just as she was. “I remember the first time I saw you I thought, ‘what the hell is a nice lookin’ young girl doing in a shithole like this?’ You didn’t really seem to fit in. There was something about you that was just so…good. And pure.”
Seeing her expression, he held up his hands. “Hey, hey, let me finish. You see, I had lived for the longest time around people who don’t give a damn about other people. People who only care for themselves. Those kinds of people always made me sick. Hell, I used to be one of those people. And then I see you, and it’s like the first good thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is what it is.”
He went on. “After I found you in my camper, I wanted to dump you at the side of the road. Not you, particularly. It was just the idea of responsibility. I had been living my life without anybody to care for except myself. I knew if I’d have given you a lift I would have the responsibility to treat you right. I just couldn’t handle that. But after lookin’ back in my mirror and seeing you look all sad and shit, I knew that you deserved better. That I had to get over myself and do what was right for you.”
She had always wondered why he had changed his mind and decided to pick her up. Now she knew why. She let him continue. “Things got a little crazy from there. First Sabretooth, coming to the mansion, meetin’ Chuck and the others, stabbing you in the chest…it was all too much to take in. I still felt like my life didn’t have a purpose, though. But you know what did it kid? It was that night on the train. I made a promise to you. Do you remember what it was?
How could she forget? “You promised to take care of me.”
“Exactly. It was at that moment that for the first time in fifteen years I felt like my life had a purpose. I felt like there was a reason that I existed. To take care of you,” he said, smiling down at her. “And, well, we’ve definitely had some pretty close calls, like you being kidnapped by Magneto and flying out of the jet that one time, but you’re still alive.”
Logan stayed quiet for a few seconds before speaking again. “Anyway, it was never my intention to hold you back. That’s why I tried to let you decide about your decision to take the cure. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I was a little caught up with Chuck and Scott’s deaths, and Jean and Magneto’s plot against the humans. I should have been there for you, kid. No matter what the excuse is. I failed on my promise. And for that, I’m sorry.”
When he had stayed silent, staring at the ground, for nearly five minutes, Marie was sure he was done speaking. She was shocked by his words. He had just described his feelings about the past year of his life and how she had played a major part in it. She had never known that he felt so strongly about the promise he made her. The thought warmed her heart.
There was one thing she still needed to know. “Logan, I still don’t understand what you meant when you said I left you.” After all, this was her original question.
He looked back up at her, and the look in his eyes confirmed her suspicions. He had been trying to avoid answering this question. Realizing he had no other option, he answered honestly.
“You were right, kid. You never really left me. See, after you came back from the cure, I kept waiting for you to leave. I figured since you weren’t a mutant anymore you wouldn’t want to live here anymore. You were my first friend here. Hell, you’re a big part of the reason I even stuck around. I thought you were gunna leave me, so I guess I started to drift away from you. I kept waiting for you to leave. But you never did, and I kinda ruined things between us.”
It finally made sense to her. Logan had started to drift apart from her out of his own fear. She had been so stupid as to actually think he didn’t like her anymore because she was a human. She was ashamed with herself for ever thinking those thoughts.
Marie felt happier than she had in weeks. She looked up and met Logan’s eyes. “Look, Logan. I know things between us have been…rough,” she said for the lack of a better word. “But I’m willing to try to get us back to where we used to be. I want us to be friends again. I’ve missed you.”
Logan looked at her and smiled softly, “I’ve missed you too, kid.”
Smiling even brighter, she stepped forward to link her arm into his and twinkled her eyes mischievously. “Come on. The Tigres are playing the Colts. I’m sure we can catch the last half hour if we hurry.”
Logan’s smile matched hers as they made their way back to the mansion. She knew he couldn’t deny a hockey game.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan and Marie finally talk.
**Marie's thoughts**
**Marie's thoughts**