It’s only a short while later that Marie finds herself being helped out of the machine by Logan. The contact is comforting and Marie holds on a little longer than necessary. Sensing her need for connection, Logan wraps an arm around her and holds her while they walk toward one of the beds. Jean starts to compile on the computer before walking over to meet them. Carefully she pulls off one of her gloves and climbs up onto one of the beds.
“This is just precautionary. On the off chance that I’m wrong I want to be able land on something soft instead of the floor.”
Confidentially and carefully she reaches out her hand upturned to receive Marie’s own.
She’s nervous looking at Jean’s bare fingers, but the doctor’s unspoken reassurances and Logan’s arm around her lend her strength. She places her fingers into Jeans. Nothing happens beyond the telepathic communication. It’s like a party line, where everyone talks together. No pull from her skin, just an open line directly into her thoughts.
‘Hey Jeannie.’ Logan thinks.
‘How weird is this,’ Marie replies.
Jean shrinks back but doesn’t pull away. ‘How amazing.’ She thinks to her friend.
Marie blushes when she reminds herself not to think about what happened earlier with Logan. Which of course brings the thought directly in her mind. Then Jean does pull away, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at having seen such an intimate moment, no doubt.
Logan growls quietly and brings Marie closer to his side. She snuggles in for a long moment, enjoying the feeling of him. Instead of staying that way, which is what Marie really wants to do, she pulls out of his reach and faces Jean. The doctor has already gone back to her terminal. Marie can see the images flashing by on the screen.
“There’s a number of things that I’m noticing with just a cursory glance. This here is the repaired damage that you sustained from the head injuries. It seems to have affected the part of your brain that controls impulses. We know that because of the extensive research done on mutants who actively use their powers during CAT Scans. I can also tell you that your senses are greatly improved, more active than they were previously. Does that seem accurate to you?”
She hasn’t given much thought to her senses, but realizes now that they are more than she could usually hear. The hum of the computer is louder, she can hear both of their heartbeats loud and clear, even in the distance she can hear footsteps and chattering through the floors. Sounds that she wouldn’t have been able to pick up a lifetime ago. She can smell Logan, all woodsy and cigar, and the scent that is Logan and Logan alone. She absently wonders when he had time to nip out and into the forest.
Jean smells different as well, the perfume that she usually wears is there, but stronger, and she can tell that Jean has her own scent as well, one she recalls from the last time she had enhanced her senses.
“Hmm… I wonder if it’s because you’re still standing right next to me.” She says to Logan. He steps far enough away to be out of her range.
“Nope,” she says at the same time that Jean lets out a little gasp.
“I wouldn’t think so. Logan, Marie. Come and look at this.” They come back together as they both walk toward Jean. There, on the computer screen, is an image straight out of her nightmares. A skeletal hand with three claws overlying the bones in her forearm.
Logan’s deep warning growl doesn’t register in her head. Claws, she has claws. Carefully she lifts her arms and points it in a direction safely away from Jean and Logan. She struggles for a moment to send the claws firing and when she finally does so, it’s with a painful tearing in her knuckles.
“Holy shit.” Logan nearly shouts. Then he’s reaching out and looking at her in awe. He touches the back of the bone, staying away from the very sharp inside.
“What… I mean…” He lifts his own and lets his own adamantium claws slide out of his skin. He’s staring at them in awe, holding them this way and that comparing them to Marie’s. A look of utter shock passes over his features before he retracts the claws and lays a hand on her arm.
“God, Logan. I’m so sorry.” She replies aloud to the astonishment she feels rolling off of him. He didn’t know that he’d had bone claws underneath the metal, had assumed that they’d been an addition to his mutation, not a part of it.
She guides him to a chair and has him sit before he falls over. Then he chuckles.
“Well Marie, looks like you’re just like me now. Ain’t no harm in us hanging out together close by since you can’t absorb my powers any more than you already have.”
She can feel the astonishment in him, but also the excitement. She hears him plain as day through their connection. He should feel bad for her, resigned to living an endless existence, but he can’t bring himself not to be thrilled to be able to spend all the time in the world with her. Now-
The connection cuts off abruptly when he lets go of her, a sheepish and embarrassed grin on his face.
“Gotta keep some thoughts to myself, darlin’.” Marie can’t help but laugh, there are plenty of things that she’d rather keep in her own head as well, but she’d have to pull him aside at some point and let him know that she’d been thinking right along the same lines that he had.
Now she turns back to Jean, “Anything else?”
“Well, it seems that your bones are stronger, not necessarily denser, but there are definitely places that have grown in strength compared to your previous results. There are other things as well, your hips are wider, for instance. Your muscles are in better shape and you’re likely stronger because of that. Your lungs have increased in size, but only barely. I can only assume that your new healing factor is working overtime to make improvements to your body.”
She trailed off and Marie had a stray thought that she still had a set of bone claws sticking out of her hand. It didn’t seem to hurt to have them out, just a mild sting in her knuckles that didn’t seem to dissipate no matter how long she had held them open.
She remembered the day a few years back that she had asked Logan if it hurt when they came out. She tamps down the memory of the old Logan, the one who seemingly had nothing to live for, and focused instead on the man in front of her.
This wasn’t the Logan of her memories, that man had evolved into the man he was today. The man she loved with all of her heart and being. She hadn’t told him, of course, but she thought that he knew. Now they had all the time in the wo-
The Professor broke into their thoughts with a urgent message. “Everyone meet in the Conference Room on the main floor of the mansion. Something important has happened.”
It didn’t take them long to get up to the Conference Room, just the minute it took Marie to change back into her clothing. After everyone arrived, the Professor turned to them, his face grim.
“There’s been a special, secret meeting of Congress. The Mutant Registration Act has been passed.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This one is much shorter than the others. I decided to get on to posting instead of waiting for like five scenes in to post. Plus I'm more into shorter chapters than I was back then. (I wrote this around the same time as Last Call, but never posted it for some weird reason.)
Chapter End Notes:
Reviews are love! Thanks for reading.
Shoot me if you want for the Cliffy, but there won't be another chapter if I'm dead.
Shoot me if you want for the Cliffy, but there won't be another chapter if I'm dead.