“Yeah, ah think so. Ah’m just messing around up here. There’s not much of anything here that has to go back with us. It can all be sent to Templestaff.”
Ororo went up the step ladder into the attic and found Marie sitting on a foot locker that had been her father’s.
“How are you really doing?”
“Ah think ah’m reconstructing mahself and finding ways to deal with all this crud without them here. Ah know ah’ll never be the same as ah was before, but ah’m tryin’ to remember ah got things to live for.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Well, ah ain’t gonna be able to sell the house now. Logan and ah will have to come down and move things to Templestaff before we can do that.”
“Ah can handle that, Cuz,” Sookie spoke, her head popping up from the floor. “Seriously, if ah can get rid of dead bodies, ah can pack up this place for ya. And ah can get lots of hunky help to move everything.”
“Wouldn’t that help you, Marie,” Ororo queried.
“Yeah, yeah it would actually. Seriously?”
“Seriously… Then ya’ll could concentrate on the funeral and stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“Great, now let’s eat!” Sookie said before her head popped back out of view.
“In a minute, I need a little more time up here,” Marie asked of Ororo.
“I’ll let them know,” Ororo spoke as she stood and dusted her clothing off.
Marie continued to look around the attic and found a box that was marked Marie. Once she opened it, she realized what it was. It was everything she’d left behind in her room that fateful day that accident happened and she’d had to run away. They’d even put her sheets from the bed into the tall cardboard box. When she lifted the sheets, right on top lay her atlas that she’d planned to take with her to get to Alaska. She hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left before because she could only take essentials in the duffel bag that had been an old bag of her father’s. She gingerly lifted it out of the box and sat down on a chair she’d had in her room. The pages were slightly worn with age. The pictures and ink seemed so fresh. Tears began to well up in her eyes and then she thought about Logan. She felt a pang of regret that she had left him behind, but she needed this time to herself. After she wiped her eyes with a tissue from her pocket, she carefully put the atlas back inside the box and she sheets above that. There was no way to fit it into the rental upright to get it back to the Blackbird. She would have Sookie ship that box to New York.
The Kitchen
D’Ancanto’s House
Meridian, MS.
7:00 A.M.
Sookie had been sharing a memory from her childhood with Ororo and Alcide when Marie came into the kitchen looking a bit ripped to shreds by an emotional wood chipper.
“You okay, darlin’,” Alcide asked as he stood as soon as she entered the room. He held out her chair for her.
“Yeah, much better now ah think. Thanks,” Marie spoke before he placed a paper plate of still warm scrambled eggs, hash browns, and sausage in front of her.
Her inner Wolverine growled his approval of the food and his disapproval of Alcide hovering over his girl. She quickly took a bite of sausage to make him shut up inside her head. He had already started a bad headache.
“Good to hear,” Ororo said before she took a sip of coffee.
“Ah know ah wanted to head back to take you guys back, but… The more ah thought about it, ah need help here. Ah gotta go get mah parents tomorrow and ah gotta get things set up for a memorial. Ah gotta go shopping for supplies and then ah gotta have a funeral on Saturday…”
“You ain’t gonna have much energy,” Alcide said as he grabbed the last sausage on his plate.”
“What should we do then?” Sookie stood to get more coffee and take her paper plate to the trash.
“Ah hate to ask, but you two look relatively normal. Ah’ll give you a list, go to the addresses, and let them know there will be a service for mah parents. If they don’t wanna come for him, they might for her. If they decide they don’t wanna because ah’m a mutant, that’s fahn, may they rot in hell. Then let meh know about how many confirmed they’re comin’.”
“You got it,” Sookie sat back down.
“’Ro and ah will go pick out some flowers and get a party rental for chairs. Since we’re doing a funeral, we gotta feed the crowd. So we’ll get a menu together… Seriously considering just buying a couple extra-large pizzas and a case of beer.”
“Marie, we don’t have to feed them,” Ororo offered. “They’re supposed to bring you food.”
“Sugah, this is the south and this is practically KKK central. We’re lucky they haven’t picketed the house because you’re a black woman in a white man’s house. Hell, we’re mutants and that could still happen. People will go anywhere for free food and I don’t want to eat something poisoned.”
“Well, in her defense, what if they won’t eat your food because they think it’s poisoned?” Alcide spoke as he stood and put his paper plate in the trash on top of Sookie’s.
“True, true,” Marie took a bite of toast.
“What if Alcide smelled the food? He’s got a strong nose…” Sookie said as she started rinsing the coffee pot.
“So does Marie,” Ororo put her paper plate in the trash on top of Alcide’s.
“Don’t go there. He’s already itching to get out,” Marie said. She was the last one on top of the breakfast pile of paper plates.
“Who’s itching to get out,” Sookie asked.
“Long story ah don’t have tahm for,” Marie headed for the staircase. “Ah need to get that list. Mah mama’s address book’s upstairs in the box headed for storage.”
Davis Family Mortuary
Meridian, MS.
Friday, June 25, 2010
10:00 A.M.
Marie entered the building and that same perky blond, Bree Davis was ready to capture her prey. She rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses.
“How can ah help you?”
“Ah’m here to pick up mah parents.”
“Oh, where’d you drop them?” The girl giggled a few heart beats later. “Sorry, dead people humor.”
Marie wanted to make a comment about stiffs but that would be sinking to the girl’s level. She was above that. She was an X-Woman after all…
“Don’t worry, ah got it,” she weakly smiled so the girl wouldn’t feel so bad.
“Last name?”
“D’ Ancanto.”
“Oh yeah, just came in early this morning. Be right back.”
Marie tried not to lose herself in the low playing elevator music in the background as she waited for her parents ashes. She started to pace after a few more minutes; her inner Logan was on edge because it smelt like death everywhere. There were even a couple different scents that mixed in with death. There was pretty death, which smelt like flowers and death. Then there was room freshener death, where they used too much room freshener to hide the smell of death. The current scent of the room smelt like a piece of Lemon Head candy on steroids and death. Then she got a reprieve from the Olfactory Prison when Bree came back with two plain dark brown plastic containers.
“Here they are. So sorry for your loss,” Bree said as she passed the boxes to Marie.
“Thanks.”
“Have a good rest of your day.”
“Ah’ll try.”
Marie put her parents on the floor as Ororo started up the engine. She buckled in and smiled at Ororo to let her know that she was doing all right.
“Where to, kiddo?”
“Let’s go shopping…”
“You got it.”
Kitty Belle’s Restaurant
Meridian, MS.
2:00 P.M.
Marie and Ororo sat down at a table they were directed to by the hostess. They had gotten everything done by the early afternoon and decided to eat out for lunch. The ladies both had ordered sweet tea and were waiting to put in their food orders. The establishment screamed diner with its internal décor but the outside looked more like a Denny’s.
“’Ro, do you think ah’m ready to get married?”
Ororo nearly choked on her sip of sweet tea…
“What ah mean is, do you think ah’m ready to get married given what happened with mah parents and how Logan ah have been lately?”
“Oh, Marie… I’m not worried. You have plenty of time to get married. You’re not getting hitched until two thousand and twelve. That’s a little over twenty-two months from now, I think. There’s plenty of time to love and hate each other before then,” Ororo smiled.
“Ah know. Ah just… Ah seemed so sure when ah proposed that ah was ready an’ life seems to be gettin’ in our way. Ah’m almost twenty-three and doubts have been poppin’ up…”
“Well whack ‘em back, Marie. You love Logan and you both consented to marry one another; that’s a good thing. Look, Hank and I went through our own periods of doubt before we got hitched.”
“What happened?”
“He knocked me up…” Marie laughed. “Seriously, no. I was just kidding. There was just something about him when I watched him and Logan one day, outside the mansion, bein’ all manly, building an addition to my greenhouse.”
Marie blushed a little.
“Come on ‘Ro, you had the hots for his furry and sweaty blue abs didn’t ya?”
“Hell yeah, girlfriend… Mind you, Logan wasn’t so bad lookin’ either; a girl has got to have some limits. I’m not Jubilee.”
“True, true.”
Ororo suddenly had an idea she thought about passing by Charles when they returned… Something that involved Logan getting sweaty and being shirtless on a beautiful day… One of which she could definitely engineer. The waitress popped up and they ordered lunch. The women continued to talk about their men, Ororo’s little one, and the plans they still had left to complete.
The Parlor
D’Ancanto’s House
Meridian, MS.
8:30 P.M.
Sookie felt bad that they could only get half of the women on Marie’s list to come to the service for Marie’s mother. Alcide tried everything he could, just short of growling at them to get them to agree to attend the service. Some of them he’d promised private strip shows for, but they had to go to the funeral first. He had no intention of following through, because he intended to leave Meridian and never come back. He lived in Bon Temps with Sookie and that was that. So, Sookie went and sprang for pizza for dinner. An all meat and cheese one for Alcide, a combination pizza for the other girls, and a pepperoni pizza for breakfast because no one was going to want to cook considering the funeral was going to have them all busy. The girls spent the rest of the evening putting flower bunches together to tie to the chairs on the ends of the aisles and gluing programs together while Alcide went on patrol outside. Everyone went to bed just before midnight to get some rest.
Marie’s Old Room-Owen’s Model Boat Dock
D’Ancanto’s House
Meridian, MS.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
5:45 A.M.
Marie was up early before sunrise. She got dressed and snuck out of the back of the house while Alcide had snuck in the front of the house to be with Sookie for a little while. She went out to the alley behind the back fence and waited for the full moon to rise. When 6:32 in the morning struck her watch, Marie let it loose and suddenly howled. It was a long and mournful lamentation. The urge came from her inner Wolverine since it was a full moon. Then there was a roar and abruptly Alcide appeared by jumping over the back of the fence, skipping the access door all together. He was shirtless and growly. Marie was super lucky that he wasn’t shifted into his animal form…
“What the fuck was that?”
“Morning to you too,” Marie teased.
“You don’t howl like that without a reason,” he chided her.
She didn’t really have a reason that seemed sensible to anyone other than herself. She’d come out to release some emotion and she was done crying. Alcide wouldn’t understand that her inner Wolverine cried out for something different than more tears. Fighting or getting drunk really wasn’t an option since she was about to hold a funeral in a little under three hours for her parents; for people who probably wished they weren’t there to begin with.
“Just go on back to bed or my cousin. Ah’m fine. Sun’s up so ah’m not under vampire attack.”
“You should call him,” Alcide spoke out of the blue.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly how it sounds, Marie. A howl like that to a were like me, says that you’re missing your mate. Other humans think you’re just bein’ strange.”
“It does? Really?”
“Seriously. Besides, it’s a full moon if you haven’t noticed. Tonight, I’ll be out gettin’ my howlin’ on. Still, I think you should call him…”
“Ah’ll think about it. You go on back inside. The funeral is in less than three hours and ah need to center mahself.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, now git. Go on.”
“Howl if you need anything,” he teased.
Marie watched him disappear behind the gate and then heard the back door close before she began to consider what he’d said. Was her inner Wolverine trying to tell her something? If she caved and called Logan, she wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to make it through the funeral even though she had some support. He had that effect on her where if he talked to her a certain way, it turned her into an emotional puddle. No, she needed to be strong for herself and wait… She could call afterward… Maybe. The sun rose up through the trees and she decided it was time to head back inside.
Templestaff
Meridian, MS.
9:00 A.M.
Marie sat in a simple folding chair, with Ororo seated to her left, and Sookie on her right with Alcide seated next to her. She wore a simple black blouse and black pencil skirt. She wore opera gloves and a hat to cover up because she felt like it. No one could really get a good look at her face through the small mesh rectangle covering her face. She was the typical mysterious woman in black that attended funerals. Marie was sure they’d be gossiping to figure out just who she was. The minister read the twenty-third Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer before he asked if anyone had a few words. Not a one stood to share anything. She figured it was because she was a mutant or the women had been pressured by their domineering, racist husbands not to talk to a mutant. She turned in her telepathic ability and over heard what some of them were thinking…
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter took me way too long to get done... But then that's what writer's blocks do. They're meant to drive you crazy when you get stuck. So I took a break and now that I have my advance tickets to see the new Wolverine movie on the 25th next week... Inspiration came back... Yes, Logan marched right in and dumped his backpack on the sofa. Then flopped down on the other seat next to it. He looked road weathered but happy...
And as of posting this, I have seen the glory that is the Wolverine come alive on the screen!
Many thanks to my friend ImOkay, who fell in love with my work on another fandom and as I broadened her horizons... Because she hadn't heard of our Wolverine nor Rogue, I turned her on to my work here and I continue to broaden her knowledge here... Welcome!
And as of posting this, I have seen the glory that is the Wolverine come alive on the screen!
Many thanks to my friend ImOkay, who fell in love with my work on another fandom and as I broadened her horizons... Because she hadn't heard of our Wolverine nor Rogue, I turned her on to my work here and I continue to broaden her knowledge here... Welcome!
Chapter End Notes:
Enjoy and PLEASE Review!