It takes fifteen minutes for Cypher to finally arrive. He’s tall, not as tall as Logan, but taller than Jean. Blond hair and blue eyes but a little nerdy, although that could be attributed to the stack of books he’s carrying in his arms.
“Sorry, I was upstairs translating some texts when I got your page Dr. Summers.” He’s blushing and it’s adorable. Marie’s seen him around the mansion before, but she’s not sure what his mutation is. She assumes it has to do with the translating he was just referring to.
He sends a charming smile across the room, which only makes him more adorable, before heading over to Jean.
“You didn’t need to bring the whole library.” Jean tells him with a smile.
He sends her a look that’s almost comical in its seriousness. “I didn’t, only four different languages, in case you wanted to test the extent of her abilities.”
Marie’s struggling not to burst into laughter, as she buries her face back into Logan’s chest. She manages to get herself under control by the time Cypher makes it over. “I’m Douglas,” he extends a hand. Reluctantly Marie pulls one hand from it’s secure grip on Logan, and shakes Douglas’.
“OK, these are four books, I want you to open to a random page each and read one sentence.” She shifts, to accommodate the stack of books, while still maintaining a grip on the man next to her with one small hand. She flips open the first book.
“‘The story of how Cleopatra had herself smuggled into the palace by the Sicilian merchant Apollodorus, who hid her in a bed roll or a bundle of linen sheets, has grown in the telling so that in modern versions of her tale we find Cleopatra being unrolled from an exotic, anachronistic Persian rug to tumble, alluringly disheveled and breathless at Cesar’s feet.’ I like this one, what’s it called?” Marie asks.
Douglas chuckles and glances at the cover. “It’s a Spanish publication of ‘Cleopatra: The Last Queen of Egypt’ by: Joyce Tyldesley. Looks like you can still use other’s powers.”
The crushing disappointment that covers her would probably have turned her to metal if Piotr was still around.
She’s not sure how she’s managed to make it this far and still be blinded by tears, but apparently she’s run all the way to her bedroom. Her memory is splotchy on her flight from the Med-Bay, but she’s almost certain that Logan will be here any minute.
She’s crying harder than she can ever remember at her last hope having been pulled out from under her. She’s waiting for the rage to take over, knowing her sorrow will soon have another outlet. It doesn’t take long. She curses her self, her skin, God and everyone in between for her rotten luck.
Her dresser suffers as she tears at the contents, wrenching out scarves and gloves and socks and nightgowns and tossing them hither and yon. The colorful disarray isn’t enough to fill the tearing gaping anger inside her, and she’s sure she’s giving the professor a headache with her projections.
She attacks the closet next, jeans and shirts go flying, shoes are kicked across the room, and when a heavy boot clatters into the wall with a sharp crack of wood she’s given another vent for her ire. Tears are still streaming down her face, her howls and shouts are now tempered with the sickening sound of flesh hitting solid wood.
Her hands hurt, and it’s a fresh new pain. She barely registers the bedroom door swing open, but when his strong arms encircle her, all the fight goes out of her. The tears are still falling, but now she’s exhausted. His hands are moving over her back, and she’s slightly aware of him stripping off her long gloves and pulling on her oversized robe.
His arms are back around her, and she shudders as another wave of tears begins. Some part of the back of her head is curious as to how many tears the human body can create on demand. The next thing she notices is them slipping into her bed, both still fully clothed, Logan sans shoes ‘cause she’s been barefoot all day.
“Jean says you can sleep.” Before he finishes his sentence, she’s already falling.
Marie’s meandering in tunnels, dark and wet. She hears muffled screams, and sounds of partying. A distant pop. She’s running before she realizes it. Every room she passes, she peeks inside. She’s made turn after turn, and the screams aren’t getting any closer.
She hears laughing, and darts down a connecting hallway and suddenly she’s there. Lab coats, face masks, officers with champagne glasses, along with the sickening and familiar smell of adamantium. She screams at them, long mean loud noises that don’t make much sense, but the ice shards shooting at them get them moving.
It’s not fast enough for her liking and she begins picking up random objects, charging them before tossing them across the room. They carry further than they should, because of the telekinesis. Soon they’re all gone, and she’d follow them to get her vengeance, but she needs to get him out of the water.
With a wave of her hand each small metal apparatus holding him down is carefully removed, the larger pieces fall apart where they sit. She reaches a gloved hand into the water and thanks whoever that she’s in long sleeves, because he’s clutching at her without paying any attention. His breathing is jagged, and he’s pressing his face into her stomach. Marie mumbles soothing nonsense to him, trying to coax him from the water coffin.
Her eyes catch sight of the walls and she fights the urge vomit, dozens of X-rays lined up like wallpaper, and it doesn’t take her long to realize they’re all from different stages of his torture. Finally he’s standing, but he hasn’t let go, he’s still gripping her tightly as she walks him toward the doors.
They should be stepping out into a dank dark corridor, but instead, they’ve stepped through into a small clearing in the forest. There’s snow everywhere, but she’s not cold. A large fire’s roaring and she’s amazed at how clear everything in this dream is, how real it feels.
Logan pulls her down into a pile of furs next to the fire, wrapping her tightly in his arms, thanking her over and over for saving him. ‘Thank You’ and ‘I Love You’ tumbling head over heels from his lips over and over.
“You’ll never know what you’ve done for me. I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known you. My Marie.” He’s mostly asleep now, and so is she. She takes a moment to marvel at the impossible reality of dreams as his hand settles roughly against her cheek.
Marie takes her time floating into wakefulness, enjoying that odd disoriented feeling between the dream world and the real world. It’s here that she can still enjoy the feel of Logan’s bare hand against her cheek. She sinks further into his embrace and knows that back in her bed he actually is holding her tightly, passively against his chest.
Her mind wanders, and she’s only slightly amazed that she can remember the dream fully. Everyone can for those precious moments before reality invades and take root in their brain. She can see faces and name plates, they flash before her eyes in slow motion, and she tries desperately to remember them. The acrid scent of boiling metal is stuck in her nostrils. Her ears ring with echoes of Logan’s declarations of love and devotion.
Most importantly she can consciously shape the direction of her dreams. Imagine Logan stripping the clothes from her body, the feel of his hands on her skin. His lips on hers. No pain. This was all she’d ever have.
“I wouldn’t count on that, darlin’.”
Suddenly she’s fully awake and blushing. Brown eyes snap open, and she’s got a close-up view of unshaven cheek and smooth lips. She’s also very aware of his hand on her face. She quickly jerks away, mindlessly scared, but there’s no where to go. The pillow and Logan’s strong arms are behind her.
It takes her a second to realize that there isn’t any pull. She’s not flooded with the memories he’s accumulated since their last contact. Only fleeting thoughts and conscious decisions. She contemplates, his earlier statement, going over everything she’d thought earlier. Touching, kissing, holding, loving.
‘Marie’s got some intricate fantasies.’
“Well, I’ve had plenty of time to come up with them.” She blushes, and blurts out. Quickly she plants a hand over her mouth stemming the flow of words.
‘God damn.’ Logan’s thoughts echo through her mind. When she’s sure she won’t pop out with anything embarrassing, she speaks again.
“You’re not the only one who can read thoughts.”
“Holy shit.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
“Nuh-unh.” He replies with a smirk. If it’s at all possible, her face gets even redder.
“How?” she asks.
He removes his hand from her face. “Try now.”
“Try what?”
“Well, obviously it only works when you’re touching someone.” Another smirk, he’s on a roll this morning.
“Hey, I just woke-up, and now I can touch. My brain isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders here.”
“Well, that much is- ” His comment is cut off by a spare pillow to the face. A small scale war ensues until Logan has Marie pinned on the bed, arms above her head, legs wrapped around his hips. Her heart races and a very detailed image passes through someone’s mind. Quickly they disentangle.
“You should go see Jean.” Logan’s almost blushing now.
“Only if you come with me.” Marie replies, eyes darting down to her hands twisting in her lap. She, on the other hand, is sufficiently scarlet across her face, neck and chest. She feels the weight on the bed shift, and looks up as he plants a kiss on the top of her head.
“Be back in 20, get a shower.”
A short while later, Marie is stepping out of the shower, marveling at how this time yesterday she was in practically the exact same spot. Except the knowledge bouncing around in her head is completely different. She’s toweling her hair dry in front of the mirror, when she catches her reflection, her heart aches.
The dog tags. The pain that she feels spread through her chest is what she imagines it would feel like to have Kitty reach into your chest cavity and squeeze your heart. She reaches up, dragging a finger along her skin where the chain would rest, before heaving a sigh of regret.
She had yet to tell him they were gone. With everything that had happened in the last 36 hours, her mind had been elsewhere. Mentally she rehearsed what she would say when he came back to her room. Better to tell him right off. A quick survey of her closet reminded her of the disarray she had made of her room yesterday. She picks up a dark blue pair of jeans from the floor and a white bodice top with black floral embroidery from the top of her dresser. Quickly she finds a pair of white short gloves, and a sheer white scarf. She finishes dressing in a combination of depression and elation.
She’s fingering an abused spot on her closet door when Logan returns.
“How are you hands, anyway?”
She turns toward him sheepishly, “They’re fine now. Hurt like a bitch yesterday.”
“Which is why people without adamantium skeletons and healing factors shouldn’t try and tear down doors with their knuckles.” He chides, looking at her pointedly. “How’s everything else?”
“Well, there’s something I wanted to tell you about your tags.” Her eyes are focused on her hot pink toenails, peeking out from the denim. There’s no way she’ll be able to tell him this while looking at him.
“They’re not lost.” He says. It’s possibly the one statement that could wrench her eyes from the pretty shade of pink.
“What?” she asks, she’s confused and he’s just standing there looking at her. No explanation forthcoming. “What do you mean?” she asks again, this time with a bit more clarification.
He’s fishing something out of his pocket and walking toward her. He places hands on her bare shoulders and images flash through her mind as he turns her around. He settles the tags around her neck.
“Jean gave them to me while you were out.” His hands are back on her bare shoulders, the slideshow continuing in her minds eye. “She did a CT Scan on your head shortly after we got you back to the Med-Bay. You can’t wear metal in there, so she thought I’d wanna hang onto ‘em. Now I’m giving ‘em back.”
She spins in his arms, hands going up to encircle his neck in a fierce hug. “Oh, thank you Logan! I thought I had lost them.” There’s skin touching everywhere, and as Logan’s arms slip around her waist to return the hug, they both become very much aware how good it feels to the other. They break apart quickly.
“We should get to Jean, I already called and told her we were coming.”
She cocks an eyebrow at him, searching the floor for the dark blue jacket that matches her jeans. “We’re gonna have to talk about this eventually,” she says slipping into her jacket and zipping it halfway. She notices Logan’s eyes linger briefly at her cleavage, where the dark denim makes her pale breasts just a bit paler and she grins.
As if they were still touching, or maybe Logan really is telepathic, he yanks his gaze up to meet her brown eyes. “It’s summer.” He says, in a lame attempt to cover his ogling.
“Summer or not, short gloves and a bodice top are no way for me to be running around a mansion full of kids. Besides, we don’t know if the touchy touchy only works on you or on everyone, and I don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Remy’s pervy thoughts running through my brain. Fleeting or not.” Slipping on socks and boots, which just happen to be side by side thanks to her temper tantrum, she stands and strides toward the door. “Ready?”
Logan’s stuck in thought, and it takes him a few seconds before he moves, walking through the door she’s holding open for him. “Jean should let me kill those boys.” She hears him mumble as he passes. She closes her door and follows him down the hall, eyes on his ass in the tight jeans, and thoughts on the last couple hours events.
It doesn’t take Jean long to get her up on the table, blood drawn and vitals taken. “How do you feel?”
“Great,” Marie replies, “Actually, I really can’t remember feeling this good.” She looks at Logan while shes talking, smiling brightly.
“Hmmm,” Jean makes a note on her ever present charts, and taps her chin thoughtfully. “I’d like to do a full physical on you Marie. And another CT Scan of your head. Logan’s healing is quite extraordinary, and you’ve been sleeping with it for nearly 18 hours now. Considering that a regular person heals the most while sleeping, there’s no telling what it could have accomplished in that time.”
With a deep sigh, Marie relents, heading over to the small closet like room that Jean had indicated to change into the standard Med-Bay issue black tank and shorts. She can hear their voices through the door only slightly muffled.
“You aren’t gonna check her skin?” Logan’s gruff voice, slightly annoyed.
“Yes Logan, I’m going to test her touch, I just wanted to get this done first. The machine takes a moment or so to process the results, if we have to do more, I would rather know. She’ll want to be out of those clothes and into her own as soon as possible. She’s not very comfortable so exposed.”
“Yeah,” Logan replies. He’s a bit deflated, she can tell. “I’m just worried, I mean, this is great for her, with the touching and all, but what if there’s some bad repercussions?”
She’s done changing now, but still listening to their conversation. Obviously they think she can’t hear them, and she knows as soon as she opens the door, they’re gonna shut up. Jeans speaking again, and she tunes back in.
“I don’t think there can be anything bad to come of this. Your healing ability is fixing everything that’s wrong with her. It will be amazing to chart the changes in someone new, the long term effects on the normal body. It could possibility even fix genetic issues we don’t even know about yet.” Logan must’ve given her a look, because she changes to a gentler tone and indulges something he’s projecting loudly.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let her become some kind of guinea pig, that would be devastating. Which is why I think we should keep any changes about her mutation under wraps. I’ve already talked to everyone who knows, they aren’t to act any differently, and they aren’t going to talk about it. We wouldn’t want the wrong people to get wind of this.”
She hears Logan grunt in approval and decides to enter back into the room. She doesn’t feel exposed until she walks back out and feels Logan’s eyes rake her form. This time he refrains from staring at her chest, as she moves toward them. He stares at his boots instead. It’s just as obvious.
She wiggles her bright pink toes, and smiles at Jean. “Question?”
“Yes?” Jean asks, smiling.
“When I’m in here seeing you, can it be just you, me and Logan? I mean, I’d rather not let everyone one in, and I don’t want people to know I can touch. That’s all I need Remy to think he can do. Especially the thoughts thing.” She tries to suppress a shudder and only manages marginally.
“Ugh, could you imagine just what Remy would show me- ” She stops when she realizes Logan’s got an almost faint growl rumbling in his chest. It’s a particular emotion she hasn’t seen him display as of yet. Jealously looks good on him.
Jean’s still lost, but she replies to Marie’s initial question. “Absolutely,” she moves to her desk, “I’ll put it so that a spoken password must be used to enter when you’re here.” A few clicks of the keyboard and she’s done. “Shall we head to the X-ray Room?”
Marie smiles, nods and moves to follow Jean. Logan falls into step beside her, reaching out to skim his fingers over her forearm before clasping her hand for a quick second. Just, long enough for his reassurances to flow through their connection. She has an idle thought that he doesn’t want to hold on long enough to let her know what he thinks about all the skin she’s exposing. She giggles to herself, receiving a questioning look from both of them.
They enter the room, and Marie stops, staring at the large machine she remembers from her first ever visit to the Med-Bay. They’d loaded her into it to make sure she didn’t have any injuries from the car accident. Her musings are interrupted by Jean’s soft comforting voice.
“We’ll do your CT Scan, first. Then we’ll test your touch. After that, I can have a look at the results and we’ll see where to go from there,” She smiles softly. “Are there any questions?”
“You aren’t afraid?” she asks timidly, her voice barely a whisper.
Another one of those serenely confident smiles Jean’s so good at.
“Not at all. I think this has something to do with the head trauma. It’s so completely sudden. Look at it this way. Before now there was no sign of a change in your powers. You’ve been touched by Logan numerous times, and it’s affected him basically the same way each time. The only differences were the amount of time the contact lasted. That was equally proportionate to the amount of time he was out. Had the time that Logan was unconscious begun to shrink, considerably, then we would have expected your touch to eventually not affect him. But that’s simply not the case. The reason for this change in your powers, is external. Not internal. Therefore, if you can touch him you can touch me.”
Jean’s waiting patiently while Marie turns her theory over and over in her head. After a few moments, she lets out a slightly hesitant, but mostly confident. “Ok.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Cypher belongs to Marvel, and the book is real, I don’t know if it’s out in Spanish though. This is the last pre-written chapter, so comments will definitely spur me into writing more!
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading! Tell me what you think!!