Chapter 19: Then
December 2025 – Two Years Later
It was late afternoon when he found her. She was asleep on their bed, breath even and deep, her favorite book still cradled in a grasp that her fingers had relaxed from. Teaching a Stone to Talk. It was her absolute favorite. The X-Mansion had that feeling to it right now, that sort of sooty, crisp scent that told him the heat was running, while outside a fresh dusting of snow covered the ground, the air cold and sharp. Marie had fallen asleep in a pair of dark jeans and a caramel-colored cashmere sweater, and he knew, just by looking at her, her drifting off had been an accident. Logan simply leaned in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom for a moment, taking in the sight of her in their bed, at peace.
He had been downstairs in the gym, going through his daily Kata and then running through some sparring prep work for Fight Club. He had had the place entirely to his own, and Logan found himself liking it that way. He took time afterward, showering and changing in the locker room before making his way upstairs once more. It was remarkably quiet in the X-Mansion this morning, with Christmas eve upon them. Jean and Scott were off in the Caribbean somewhere, taking a well-deserved break. Hank was overseeing Charles’ care at the moment, and Storm was running things. The rest were home visiting families, which left Logan and Rogue to themselves, save for a handful of students who had nowhere to go home to this time of year. The semester had ended last week, and the past few days especially had been lazy in that holiday sort of way, where you indulged in too much chocolate and, after a while, began to feel slightly restless. Logan certainly had felt a growing sort of agitation from being inside a bit too much lately, and long hikes out in the snow, sometimes with Marie’s company and sometimes not, depending on how cold it was, along with his daily Kata always helped. Marie had left him to it this afternoon, having already risen earlier to commence her daily yoga and workout routine while he had slept the morning hours away. He wasn’t sure what she had been up to while he was in the gym, but now, he knew. He smiled warmly at her, as he watched her chest rise up and down with her breath at a steady, peaceful pace.
They had a series of rooms now, in an empty wing at Xavier’s that they had made a home out of. They had a living room, an office, a bedroom and a small kitchen to boot, and for the last two years they had been living like this, since their time in Mississippi. If Logan had had any preoccupations about sharing his space, sharing his things, they had fallen away astonishingly quickly. He had realized early on that the middle of the Venn diagram that made up both of their tastes had a wide middle, and he had found most of their things mixed well together. Their album collection had doubled in size, but neither of their music palates really offended the other. The Kinks went along well enough with Daft Punk like Tom Waits went along well enough with Wolf Mother. Logan had intimate knowledge at the current moment that one of his Sex Pistols albums was still on the record player, but it had been Marie who had chosen it to play in the background last night while she had lay longways on the couch, head resting in his lap while she read a book and he had nursed a whiskey. There was Yashida’s sword, Marie’s yoga mat, a little carved wooden turtle Logan had brought back from a trip to Japan for her, a comfy blanket thrown over the back part of the couch because Marie was often inexplicably cold. Bosch and Pollack hung on the wall, along with Wilco and Bob Dylan tour posters. There was a TV that rarely got turned on, save to watch a random movie. Marie like tearjerkers, Logan the occasional thriller. The dog-eared paperbacks were now mixed in with the brilliant leather-bounds, his and her taste in literature blending. Paper cranes still littered the place. Marie liked fancy coffee, Columbian and Ethiopian mainly, whereas Logan would’ve settled for whatever brew he could get his hands on, but he was grateful for Marie’s slow drip and French press creations.
Their bedroom, too, was an intimate expression of both of their likenesses. It was typically tidy, both of them decent at picking up after themselves. Marie’s grandmother’s quilt was still present, laying on the end of their bed over a more expensive downy duvet provided by the Xavier fund. The bed was a king, and although Logan hadn’t ever slept in anything that nice or big in his life apart from various hotel rooms on missions, he was grateful of this fact, because they both had taken full advantage of it most of the time. Beyond their sex life, though, the bed, any bed really, had originally been something they both had been sheepishly worried about in the beginning, slightly hesitant about sharing it for its actual purpose night after night. My skin can turn back on when I’m sleeping. I tend to stab people when I have a bad dream. Neither scenario had happened, though, in the two years they had been at it. Logan simply assumed that having another presence there while sleeping was enough to settle the anxieties in them both; at least, he hoped that was the reason why.
At that thought, Logan walked over to the right side of the bed, his side, and gently lay down next to her, his front to her back. He was completely silent as he made this move, intent on not waking her, and for long moments he lay still, lingering, before he could no longer help himself and gently ran two fingers through her streaming hair that lay out behind her on the bed. It was soft and long, it always had been, although Logan had begun to notice an impossibly subtle and random strand or two of gray here and there running alongside the beautiful brown. He doubted Marie would have cared or fussed over it if he pointed it out to her, but he never had, as it was a secret he liked to keep to himself, one that he loved about her. Certainly he had more grey show up in his own hair over the last two years, and while he had felt himself setting more of his own vanity aside, having this knowledge about Marie made him feel all the more better. Somehow more… deserving of her. Certainly more on par. They weren’t the same age, not even laughably close, but, somehow now it felt as if their lifelines ran a little closer to one another, maybe even woven together, no longer so hopelessly frayed. At least, that’s how Logan liked to picture it.
Rogue had turned forty-two last month, and while she wasn’t one to keep her age a secret, her appearance sure as hell did the job for her. It wasn’t just that she had always taken good care of herself, but it was something that ran deeper. A fiery passion for life, Logan assumed, and, anyway, if she was hesitant about getting older, she never seemed it. He loved this about her, too. What a fucking sap he had become. Logan smirked a bit at this thought, before throwing it aside as he nestled his face into the dark warmth of her hair, taking in her aroma more deeply. For a while, he lay like this, listening to her heartbeat, and, like a child might do, focused on matching his breath with the pace of her own. After a while, however, perhaps intuitively so, she finally stirred, her breathing changing as she moved under him. She turned his way drowsily, before smiling at him. She had a faint sleep line on her cheek, and he grinned as he ran a thumb over it lightly.
“Hey, lover,” she said quietly.
“Hey yourself,” he murmured, closing his eyes momentarily as she ran a hand down the side of his face, massaging his jaw line a bit through his signature facial hair.
“Must’ve fallen asleep reading,” she murmured, finally glancing down at the book she still part-way cradled in her hand. “When did you catch me?”
“About an hour or so ago,” he said.
“You’ve been watching me sleep for an hour?” she asked through raised brows. Logan just shrugged his shoulders apathetically in response, not even remotely inclined to feel guilty about such a thing.
“What time is it?” she asked, before she gave a small yawn.
“A little past two,” he said, although his guess was from the sun in the overcast sky and not because he was looking at the clock.
“Oh gosh. Jeez. That’s what I get for staying up late,” she said coyly, shooting him a guilty look.
“Not sure that was entirely your fault,” he smirked, before moving over her to press his teeth lightly to her shoulder.
“Wasn’t entirely your fault either,” he heard her say sassily. It wasn’t new for them, letting the Wolverine take over occasionally. Logan had routinely tried to voluntarily embody both personas at once during lovemaking, but so far he had failed in these thought experiments. Still though, usually due to Marie’s encouragement, he sometimes gave the Wolverine what he wanted, letting the animal take the reins when Marie specifically asked. Logan, at first, had felt a bit…well, put out by it all, but upon letting Marie have what she wanted, sometimes distant, blurry memories of those nights would resurface, and he always made her tell him about it in the morning, no matter how uncomfortable it was for her sometimes to recount the experience. Three gouges in the headboard, occasional broken furniture here and there, tears practically commonplace in the sheets. He knew Storm by now probably had a separate itemized line for Logan and Marie’s rooms, and while some things were routinely replaced, some damaged things stayed—like the headboard—small reminders of the extent, and complexity, of their relationship.
“Did we break anything last night?” he asked at this thought, and she turned around to face him more fully.
“I don’t think so,” she grinned, before turning over to look at the true time. “2:13. Damn. You’re right. You’re always right. I gotta go. I have to cook,” she said.
“Now?” he asked, frowning a little.
“Christmas party for the students tomorrow. I’m in charge of the meal,” she said, working out a kink in her neck with one hand.
“Meal?” he asked.
“The whole meal. We’re so understaffed right now,” she said through a groan. With the knowledge that she probably would be gone for a while cooking today then, he reached for her again.
“Not yet. Come closer,” he said, pulling her to his body. “I missed ya, baby.”
“We saw each other this morning, and last night...” she trailed off.
“That’s not fair. Like you said, I wasn’t around for last night,” he muttered.
“You mean… you don’t remember it…at all?” she asked, a funny expression on her face. Logan cocked his head a bit at this in confusion. They had talked about it before it had happened. She had asked for it, and she had been with him long enough now to know his memory, let alone his consciousness, was typically never around for the fun.
“No, not really. Why you askin’ all the sudden?” he questioned, before moving over to work his mouth up the side of her neck, massaging gently as he did so, taking over the job from her hand.
“It’s just…I don’t know. Sometimes he can be so...”
“What?” Logan pressed, murmuring into her neck.
“Gentle,” she said. At this he leaned back once more, truly surprised.
“Gentle?” he asked. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She just shrugged her shoulders, smiling at him oddly.
“Well, what’s the fucking point of that then?” he asked.
“Hard to explain,” she said softly, that quirky little grin on her features still, before she stared at him a bit more closely, and he realized her eyes had settled on where his collarbone met the base of the muscles in his neck.
“Hey,” she said, pulling him a bit closer.
“What?” he asked.
“I didn’t catch this last night,” she said. Fuck, Logan thought, as her hand gently traced over a small, light scar. That had been happening lately, the scars. Small ones, nothing major, thin lines left over from where he had healed during missions where he had cut it a little too close. He usually never pointed them out to Marie, but she always had a way of finding them, as intimate as they often were with each other.
“This a new one?” she asked warily, running the pad of her finger over it once again.
“S’nothing,” Logan said, sloughing it off. “Mission from last week,” he finished a bit lamely.
“You mean the one with the bad tip?” she asked. Marie had been absent for that particular mission, opting to cover classes for Jean and Scott instead, and he thanked his lucky fucking stars she had. Everyone had survived, but the mission had been a complete and total fuck-up.
“Things got a little rougher in the lab we were staking out than I might’ve originally said,” he murmured, moving up to cup one breast, trying his best to distract her.
“A little rougher? What, did you guys end up in a knife fight with the lab assistants?” she said, staring at the scar once more.
“Something like that,” he grumbled, but, as he noticed her still-furrowed brow, he reassured her once more.
“Hey, darlin’, stop your worrying,” he murmured, bringing a hand up under her chin to tilt her head upward, her eyes now meeting his own instead of lingering on the scar. The deep brown of her irises were wide for a moment more, before she finally sighed, relenting as she pressed her forehead to his chest and he leaned into her easily, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
“I don’t like it,” she grumbled into his chest.
“I know, kid,” he murmured. She laughed a little at his occasional but usually rare use of the old nickname, and he smiled a bit. Good. That had been the point. To distract her.
“So what do ya plan on making for the youngsters?” he asked, desperate for a change in subject. At this, Marie seemed to perk up once more, now moving to sit up at his reminder of the tasks ahead.
“Bread pudding. Squash casserole. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows, I think, if I can manage it all,” she said. That last one had Logan perking up as well, as he once more threw her a smirk.
“Marshmallows? Is that so?” he asked slyly.
“Oh, don’t get that look in your eye, sugar. You’re not setting foot in my kitchen,” she said.
“Why not? I make good company,” he teased, grinning. They both knew Logan was notorious for distracting her while she cooked, or sneaking bites of her food here and there, much to Marie’s frustration. She only shot him a narrow look in response.
“Listen,” Logan compromised. “How about you make me a coffee while I’m down there, I pay you for it by kissing you long and hard, and then I make myself scarce while you get to the serious cookin’?” She smiled at him a little more, even as she swung her legs off her side of the bed, stretching as she did so.
“Hmm, maybe. Coffee this late though?” she asked, looking back at him over her shoulder.
“Funnily enough, even though I don’t remember shit right now about last night, I’m just about as tired as you are. Must’ve earned this feeling somehow,” he said. And then she was grinning ear-to-ear at him again.
“Hell yeah you did baby. Especially when you had me up against the wall,” she tilted her head to the corner behind him and Logan followed her gaze to see the telltale mark of three new holes in the drywall.
“Hell, woman, I thought you were saying he was gentle,” he said.
“In the beginning,” she toyed, throwing him a wicked smirk.
“Aww, fuck,” he muttered, turning to stare at the wall again. “Does he always gotta bring those out?”
“I think he was just trying to hold on to something,” she said, grinning widely.
“Hell,” he remarked.
“Ok. Coffee,” she said, finally standing as she gave into his bargain. “But then, you scoot.”
---
“James Howlett, step away from the food unless you wish to be flambéed.”
When that name came out, he knew he was in trouble. Logan had stuck around a little longer than he had bargained for, but the smell of simmering butter and baking cookies had caused him to intentionally wear out his welcome. Plus, Marie was in that sexy little lacy apron, and he couldn’t ever get enough of that. Now having finished with the baking, Marie was currently surrounded by a myriad of vegetables and oils and spices, delegating tasks to a couple of the students that had offered to help, and she was fucking sexy as hell, all power and knowledge, using that knife to slice up squash so effortlessly between those nimble fingers…
Eyeing a plate of sugar cookies near where she was working, he found himself moving closer, and, before he could help himself, he snatched a still-warm cookie shaped like a reindeer off the plate.
“I swear to god, baby,” she warned, a fiery look in her eye, and yet he still brought the purloined cookie to his mouth, biting off its head and savoring the flavor of butter and sugar on his tongue.
Marie had already grabbed the sharpest knife she could find from off the counter and started moving toward him threateningly, with the most Logan-esque snarl he had ever seen before on her face, and that included the handful times right after her skin had stolen his mannerisms.
“No need to get violent, darlin’,” he joked, although he found himself instinctively backing up, knowing better than to stay within stabbing range of Marie and her kitchen knife.
“Out, you brute!” she said, now using the knife to point to the door.
“What if I’m bored?” he asked, before washing down the cookie with another sip of his coffee that was now only lukewarm. Despite the bargain he had made with Marie, that was the truth of it. There was little else to do, even in a house as big as this one.
“Well, make yourself useful then,” Marie finally sighed. “I was gonna do it, but now you can. Take that sandwich,” she said, still using the knife as a pointer, “Over to Storm’s office. A little bird’s told me she’s been working all day and she usually doesn’t know when she needs a break.” He smiled at his woman for a moment more, before offering her a smug salute. She rolled her eyes at him as he picked up the plate, nodding once before leaving the good smells of Marie and her cooking behind as he made his way through the X-Mansion, intent on making good on his delivery.
Storm had been taking on copious amounts of work with Charles’ fading health. Planning the master schedule and syllabus, overseeing the steadily growing concerns of parents, the ones who were at least still invested in their children’s education, and, hell, she was even in charge doing payroll. While Scott was dutifully still headed up the various scattered, but often waning, X-Men missions, all activities that happened above the basketball court had been placed in Storm’s hands. Although Logan had helped out far more than he had when he first arrived here after the jump, his time was still mainly his own, and he knew this was simply not true for Storm. Considering this more, Logan decided to make a pit stop at his and Rogue’s rooms, setting down the plate with the sandwich on it to fumble around in the liquor cabinet in the living room, finding a bottle of the good stuff before making his way to Storm’s, the bottle under his arm, balancing a couple of clean glasses in his other hand along now with the plate.
He found her in her study, where she had been practically living lately, eyes glued to a haloprojection that seemed to be showing dozens of boring Excel spreadsheets.
“Hey Storm,” he muttered, as she finally looked up.
“Logan,” she said, through a thin smile, before running her hands over her face.
“Working? On Christmas?” he said, shifting the things in his hands slightly as he walked further into her office.
“It’s Christmas eve. And the spring semester’s not gonna plan itself,” she grumbled, as Logan sat down the plate at her desk.
“With love…you know… from Rogue,” he muttered, and she smiled at him.
“What, no love from you?” she teased, until she saw what else he had and her face got oddly serious.
“You shouldn’t speak so soon,” he playfully lectured her, setting the heavy glass bottle down on the desk in front of her before unstacking the glasses for them both.
“Bless you,” she said tiredly, as Logan opened the bottle of whiskey and poured her a generous splash, and then some for himself. He watched the woman for a moment inhale the smell of the alcohol, before taking a generous sip. He smirked a little through his own glass as he leaned against the desk by her. One of his favorite things about Storm was when she loosened up a bit, and usually that was due to Logan’s urging and a good bottle of liquor as a gift. It was funny how some things stuck. In this timeline and the last, they were by all accounts very good friends. His surliness to her optimism, her light to his dark. It was what had kept them going when they were practically living on death’s door in the previous timeline, and now they’re relationship was something he valued in a place that was dwindling with people, both students and faculty alike.
“So…what’s the damage?” he finally asked, not really keen on knowing the answer, but also realizing she probably needed unload on someone and that, for right now at least, he wasn’t wanted elsewhere. Logan wasn’t about to forget the intensity in which Marie had been brandishing her kitchen knife.
“We’re down to thirty-six students,” Storm said.
“Jesus. What else?” he asked. Storm sighed, setting her down her glass and rubbing her temples slightly, and Logan was already topping her glass again with more whiskey.
“We’ve already combined history and philosophy, math and physics, and class sizes are still ridiculously small. I just feel bad. There’s not enough for Bobby, Kitty, Peter, the rest of them to do. I feel like we’re all just…twiddling our thumbs around here, wasting Charles’ money,” she finished exasperatingly.
“Shit, ‘Ro. I don’t know what to tell ya,” he said, before taking another sip of his drink. Logan already knew that it was true that they were seeing fewer and fewer students walk through Xavier’s doors, although now it seemed like there was a growing general consensus that the mutant population was dwindling worldwide. Logan personally had not met a mutant under the age of fifteen in the past two years, and no one still seemed to know why. Cyclops and Storm were dead-set that some onerous force was responsible for wiping them all out in a sort of quiet, deliberate way, and while Logan wasn’t necessarily prone on disagreeing with them, after what he had seen in the previous timeline, through recon after recon, tip after tip, they had found nothing that suggested anything remotely evident of foul play. Yet.
“Do I want to ask how the latest reconnaissance mission went?” Storm finally murmured. Logan knew full well that Storm already knew what had happened, Scott having likely debriefed her immediately after they had returned, but it was obvious that she was asking for Logan’s perspective, divorced as it was from Scott’s detailed, but often emotively detached reports. Scott recalled events with his mind; Logan, with his body.
“Uhh,” Logan still found himself mumbling, suddenly wary on revealing the whole nasty truth to her. Scott might have had a point on this last one, Logan realized as he fumbled around for his words. “You know that we figured out it was a bad lead a little too late. There was a lab there, but it was just routine experimental work. Illegal genetic engineering, yes, but more to learn how to duplicate rare genetic diseases. They still put up a hell of a fight though. The security systems these days… remind me of some straight up medieval torture device bullshit,” he finished, mind flying to the way Marie had traced her fingers over the scar this afternoon that he had earned from the mission.
Storm only gave another sigh. “Nope, that definitely doesn’t make me feel better,” she grumbled before immersing herself once more in the projections in front of her.
“Hey,” he said, intuitively placing an arm on her thin shoulder before grabbing her glass and forcing it into her hand once more. “Maybe… let it go, just for today,” he murmured. And then she was looking up at him, and he noticed her eyes, those eyes that could throw a fucking hurricane into rotation over her enemies, were glazed over with the nascent beginnings of tears.
“Storm, what?” he began, before she interrupted him.
“Charles’ appointment with the oncologist didn’t go well,” she said, before breaking her stare at him, glancing once more down to the glass in her hands. Shit. If Storm had been busy, Hank had been bombarded, between spending most of this time in the lab constantly looking for answers, developing potential drugs and flying in various leading but also discreet specialists in the field, including surgeons, oncologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. Dr. Hank McCoy was brilliant, but he didn’t have a degree in every single medical field available to him, although Logan knew if Hank had found the time, he probably would have. “It’s definitely not a brain tumor, or a brain infection,” she finished.
“But… there’s still a diagnosis, isn’t there?” Logan was asking, intuiting the truth once more as he refilled their glasses.
“They do,” she said. Storm had obediently held back her tears, but still rubbed her eyes. “I was waiting to tell the rest of the faculty, you know, until after Christmas. And the students sure as heck don’t need to know yet.”
“Tell me,” Logan found himself quietly saying, and when she hesitated further, he pressed her. “Storm, cut the bullshit. I can handle it,” he said. If anything, their former and present friendship had been founded on a mutual trust, and she knew it.
“Alzheimer’s. Moderate to severe decline,” she whispered.
“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. Logan had suspected a diagnosis along these lines, had discussed it with Marie at night on far more than one occasion, but hearing it out loud was another thing entirely. “And what about the—” he began, before she interrupted him.
“The seizures?” Storm finished for him, throwing him a knowing look. Logan wasn’t a doctor, but he knew enough to know seizures weren’t typically indicative of this particular brand of disease. Charles had been drifting in and out of focus lately, and sometimes Logan would walk into his office to find the professor shaking slightly, eyes rolling back in his head. It sent every instinct inside of Logan on edge, because even though they seemed to be moderately light in intensity and Charles was able to recover from them easily enough, every time they happened Logan had noticed the shift in the atmosphere, almost as if the atoms were changing, as if the air wasn’t safe to breathe anymore. The seizures weren’t all that terribly often and no one else seemed to have noticed the shift, so he had kept that piece of information to himself up until now. But at Storm’s acknowledgement of them, Logan’s mood darkened considerably.
“There’s no medical explanation for them, at least not yet. But I just keep thinking, his mind, it’s too powerful, you know? Under such duress, maybe it’s screaming out for help in anyway it can.”
“Storm,” he said cautiously.
“They don’t want him around anyone. They’re starting to think…well,” she trailed off.
“What?” he pressed.
“Nothing, Logan. Nothing. Just… keep doing what you’re doing, eh?” she asked through a heavy sigh. He looked at her concernedly, but he knew, at least on Christmas, to lay off. He’d get to the bottom of it eventually, of that he was sure. Meanwhile she was talking again, and Logan paid better attention once more.
“I would have never guessed it, even five years ago, but you’re some really important glue, you know that? You help hold this family together,” she said softly, offering him a terse but still genuine smile.
“Well, Rogue would say y’all might be rubbing off on me, as much as sometimes I wish you squares wouldn’t,” he said through a small smirk.
Storm only smiled back at him, before murmuring, “A wise one, your woman.” Logan growled slightly in approval.
“I choose ‘em right,” he said, moving to stand from where he had still been leaning on the desk. “You know, once I wise up and finally get around to it.”
--
Logan had checked on Marie again to still find her in the kitchen, although her mood had improved considerably. He had said nothing as he walked over to her and kissed her briefly, even though she was holding a five-pound bag of flour, before leaving the kitchen once more and wandering back to their rooms. He had resigned himself to writing out lesson plans. Fight Club was still Fight Club, but it had also evolved into full-blown classes three days a week, and Logan was intent on ever at passing on and tailoring his knowledge of martial arts for any student who was interested, and that was the majority of the thirty-six students left, apparently. Logan’s fingers firmly gripped the pen he held in his left hand, pressing hard onto the lined paper of the notebook in front of him. Marie knew better than to tease him for using a pen and paper to make lesson plans, even as she trended towards tablets and various screenless computers for her own planning, despite her collection of books. But Logan couldn’t type for shit on a touch screen, discovering it had made his hands ache more often than not, and voice technology made him feel like a goddamn fool. Besides, in Logan’s mind, it didn’t feel real unless he wrote it down. Finishing up the last sequence, drawing arrows back to the last page and asterisking an important combination he needed to remember to teach Mirage the next time he saw her, that’s when he noticed a chocolate cupcake appear at the table on a porcelain plate next to his notebook. Immersed as he was in everything, he had missed her coming into their rooms, let alone the office itself.
“Happy birthday,” she murmured. He turned around in his swivel chair, incredulously looking up at her, before smiling. Marie had flour in her hair, a smudge of chocolate frosting on her cheek. Her hands had been freshly washed, he could smell the mint in the soap, but she was still wearing that sexy little apron. It was obvious she had just recently finished up in the kitchen, and had come directly back to him when she was done.
“I don’t have a birthday,” he said.
“Of course you do; you just don’t know when it is. But, I figured, it’s festive around here right now, so now’s a good time to celebrate as any. Besides, it’s ‘bout to be a new year, and you had to have a birthday sometime in the past twelve months,” she said, wiping her hands a bit on her apron as she did so, even though they were already clean. He realized then she had been planning this for quite some time, and was a little nervous in telling him about it, and the whole adorable thing had him once more deeply appreciating her. He glanced over to the delectable looking cupcake, and then back up at her. He was suddenly stricken with the strong urge to lick the chocolate frosting off her cheek.
“What? Not gonna eat it?” she asked, through a small frown, before looking back at him.
“In a bit. Right now, I’m hungry for somethin’ else,” he said, rolling a little closer to her in his chair and trapping her between his two legs.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she grumbled, even though she was still smiling.
“You smellin’ like shortenin’ and powdered sugar? No fucking way I’m kidding,” he said, snaking his hands around the backs of her thighs.
“You always wanna get down to it after I’ve been cooking,” she said through another demure grin, as he gently placed a kiss on her navel through her soft sweater and apron.
“It’s like two meals in one,” he murmured into her flat stomach, before standing himself. He was on her neck, then, bringing her closer and licking up the side of it to behind her ear. Hints of sage and cinnamon and coriander. And…was that nutmeg?
“Delicious,” he managed to say. Meanwhile, he realized she was taking the apron off, and now swatted him playfully with it, before tossing it aside.
“Hey, my birthday, right? A Christmas birthday? Doesn’t that mean I get double the presents?” he teased. She laughed at this, before holding a him at arm’s length again so that she could look him in the eye. “You know, I did actually get you a present. Other than the cupcake,” she said with a grin.
“Really?” he said, cocking a brow in response. This was new for them. They both knew they weren’t really gift people. For events or special occasions Logan and Marie were far more likely to travel or go someplace. Still, something about the glean in her eye had Logan excited, in all kinds of ways. “Can I have it now?”
“Nope,” she said, widely grinning. “Wait for tomorrow. But…for now…ah hell, I was gonna take another shower first, but I also knew to be prepared in case that didn’t happen,” and then she hesitated, before slipping off her sweater, and then moving to slough off her sheer tank top. Underneath, she was adorned with the prettiest charcoal grey lingerie he had ever seen on her, embroidered with cream roses that matched the shade of her skin at every seam.
“Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he murmured, the heat between them growing, and she flushed a little. He was already unbuttoning her jeans as he picked her up and walked her into the bedroom. As he laid her down on the bed, he finally discovered a matching pair of panties and growled approvingly.
Logan wasn’t necessarily a lingerie kind of guy, but every once in a while Marie would pick out something new and probably expensive, and damn if she didn’t look beautiful in lace and silk, the texture of it meeting the smooth planes of her stomach, gracing the notches in her ribs. He realized, then, that the Wolverine was also letting out a growl in endorsement, and he deliberately shook off the animal’s insistence at being with her.
“He wants out, but I ain’t sharing you with anyone tonight,” he muttered into her neck.
“Good,” she said. “Stay with me.” He growled again in agreement.
“Got any sort of Christmas wish you want fulfilled?” he finally murmured, asking while he still could, intermittently planting kisses along her collarbone.
“It’s your birthday,” she whispered.
“Fake birthday,” he muttered. “And I like seein’ my woman good and satisfied.
“Mmmmm,” she only said, as he kissed his way down her stomach.
“Cut them off,” she finally said after some time.
“You sure? They look expensive,” he muttered.
“You wouldn’t have thought twice about that last night,” she teased, and then he let out a predatory growl, not one to be outdone, as he unsheathed one claw on his hand and easily slit through the delicate fabric, leaving her naked before him.
Her arousal wafted upward easily around them both, dizzying him. He felt himself hold the chain on the animal tighter as he moved downward, lingering now just in front of her warmth, before giving her a long and steady lick. She moaned, before he grinned wickedly, moving back up her body. “Screw you,” she said, and he only snickered a little.
“How ‘bout the other way around? Touch yourself,” he said, his eyes darkening as he took another hit of the smell of her arousal, all hints of joviality disappearing from his voice.
“Logan,” she said hesitantly.
“Do it,” he growled, and he realized somewhere deep down that he needed this, needed to regain control over them all, especially after whatever had happened last night. Logan was also still fully clothed, and he intended to keep it that way, at least for a while.
“God,” she murmured, even as she lowered her hand downward, toying with herself. She moaned a little as she found her center, pressing her thin fingers there.
“Good,” he whispered headily, “But I’m sure you can manage more than that, after all that multitaskin’ I saw you do today in that kitchen.”
“You’re terrible,” she said, and he grinned wickedly against one of her breasts because she was already sliding a finger inside herself, while his mouth returned to her nipples. He broke contact from the hard, long suck he had going after a while though, as he realized she wasn’t giving herself enough of what she really needed.
“Another,” he muttered, and she obeyed, to his growl of approval.
“The animal ever ask to see that?” His question was a taunting rasp in her ear.
“No,” she barely could reply.
“That’s right,” he said. “Because he doesn’t see what I see. He fucks you long and hard, but he doesn’t know you like I do.”
“No,” she breathily murmured, as then she moaned beneath him, her own touch truly beginning to undo what semblance of humanity she had been clinging to.
“That’s it, baby. Take ‘em in deeper,” he slurred, but after a moment he heard the frustration in her voice, as her other hand grasped at his shirt.
“Logan…” she moaned.
“What?” he asked seriously.
“I need…” she barely breathed, her hips moving up desperately to make contact with his own.
“What? That not enough for you? You wanna take more?” he rasped. His eyes met hers and she began to slow as she stared up at him, and he quickly grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t you dare stop,” he threatened, even as he slid his hand closer up and added his own thick finger to hers, now both of them moving in and out of her.
“You listen to me, baby,” he muttered, mouth now lingering at her ear. “You listenin’? I let him out to play to satisfy both of your fucked-up whims, but you both better not dare for a second forget who’s in charge,” he warned, teeth once more hovering over her neck as he forcefully added a second finger to her two. “Fuck. So wet,” he growled a moment later.
“Hell, sugar,” she said, voice strained, and he knew that it was still not as much as she really wanted, not near enough, although he also knew she was far too close to her own orgasm to reason.
“That’s it,” he growled. “That’s it. Come for me, baby,” he urged, before finally biting down hard and deep into her as she writhed under him, and she was gasping for breath, clawing at him with her free hand, losing herself in her own pleasure, and then they both felt her convulsing around them. For a moment, nobody moved, until he worked his way lower to give her one more long, languid lick up her center. She shuddered as he did so, feeling the aftershocks of this effect, and it was only after she finally began breathing normally, that she shot him a scowl.
“You’re evil,” she snarled. He could only chuckle a little in response.
“Christmas is hours away, baby,” he growled into her ear. “I don’t gotta be a saint just yet.”
--
The Christmas party had gone by uneventfully, which was to say successfully in a school inhabited by mutants. Charles had spent the last couple of weeks more or less himself, and had even stayed up past his typical hour tonight, playing chess with Hank long after the students had gone to bed. After Hank and Storm had assisted Charles upstairs, they had both joined Logan and Marie in the grand sitting room, talking for a long time afterward, the mulled wine warm on everyone’s tongues. It was good, Logan thought, to see them all laughing so much, and Logan realized there had been a sort of quietly increasing anxiety in them all, over the last several months especially. As Marie let out a tipsy giggle, he smirked and shot a glance at her. She and Hank were in a knee-deep discussion of the various literary motifs of Shakespeare, specifically Hamlet, and Logan had only been half-listening.
“Ophelia, pregnant? I just don’t see it,” she said, even as she grinned at Hank.
“I can assure you, my dear, it’s quite true,” he said, through another sip of wine. Marie had shot Logan an apologetic look, being wrapped up as she was in conversation with Hank for over an hour, but Logan shrugged his shoulders, smiling. When she was happy especially, Marie was a delight to be around. He might be a possessive bastard, but he didn’t mind sharing that with a few other people now and then.
“But to take her own life like that? Drown herself?” she said a little more seriously.
“I assure you all the literary flags are there for the reader to accept as canon. For example, if you take a look at act three…” Logan had rolled his eyes playfully as they continued talking, finally stalking back toward the kitchen to hunt down another helping of sweet potatoes, when he found Storm quietly making her way upstairs once more.
“Is there anything else you need, ‘Ro?” he asked, stopping in his place in the middle of the foyer. She paused, looking down at him, and he could see that she was tired, just a hint of lingering sadness in her features, and he was reminded once more of the news she had shared with him yesterday about Charles.
“No, I’m ok, Logan,” she said, sighing. “It was a good party, wasn’t it? For the kids?” she asked.
“All in all, no one got arrested, so a success for you, maybe a let-down to them,” he grinned. “Although there’s always New Years.” She smiled back and then began climbing the stairs once more.
“Have a good night, Logan,” she said, and Logan couldn’t help but call after her, “It’ll be ok, Storm.” She stopped once more sighing. “I hope so, Logan. Merry Christmas.”
Logan found himself frowning a bit, food forgotten as he silently made his way into the sitting room again, now to find Marie alone.
“Where’s Hank?” he asked.
“’Retired for the evening.’ His words,” Marie said. She had been staring into the dying fire, a small smile still on her face, before taking another sip of mulled wine. He liked the smell of it on her. It was cinnamon and cloves and currant, and her lips were just barely tinted a deeper red because of it. “Just me for company now,” she added, looking up to him, her eyes bright. He padded over to her lazily, moving her feet up off the overly cushioned leather couch so he could sit on the opposite end, before placing her feet in his lap.
“That’s a real good meal you made, baby,” he said approvingly once more, hand gently massaging one of her feet as he did so.
“You think everyone liked it?” she asked, and for a brief moment he saw a flicker of that young girl again, a bit unsure of herself, still in need of a little approval.
“I think they much as said so, a few hundred times over,” he smiled a bit tiredly. “You wanna put out the fire and head up soon, or-?” And then he stopped, seeing her face illuminate once more with excitement.
“Oh! Logan! I almost forgot. Damn this wine for making me forget. Your present!” she said, whipping her feet around to stand, and then she was pulling on his arm, to get him to stand too. “Oof!” he said as she suddenly jerked him forward, pulling him down the hallway, her energy coming back to her in leaps and bounds.
“Marie, wha?” he asked, even as she was babbling in front of him. “You know how hard it is to have something delivered by tractor trailer without you hearing all the fuss? Why do you think I insisted that you listen closely to Dark Side of the Moon loudly for subliminal messages with those noise-cancelling headphones?” she said, and then she was throwing open the doors of the garage, pulling them both through, and there it was under the bright lights, winking at him like an old friend, filled with all the magic this world could offer. A 1948 Harley-Davidson FL Panhead.
He stood there, eyes wide, staring at it for a moment like it would surely disappear if did anything much else.
“Holy fuck,” he finally murmured under his breath, cautiously now stepping toward it, forgetting Marie for a moment as its beauty pulled him in like a tractor beam.
“It’s right…right? This is it, isn’t it?” she said, unable to hide the excitement and anxiety in her voice. Logan ignored her for a moment, carefully running his palm over the smooth, black surface, the metal practically humming under his hand. It was goddamn perfection, this bike. He finally looked back up to her, eyes wide.
“How did you know?” he asked, and although he probably sounded like a six-year-old, he didn’t care.
“Not all the memories you pass to me are bad, sugar,” she said through a flush of her cheeks, looking down. He stared at her with nothing short of pure awe in his eyes, stealing a glance at the bike again, before looking back up to her once more.
“Come here, right now, woman,” he growled, and then his hands were in her hair and on her waist as he pressed her to him, kissing her deeply tongue running over hers before impressively biting her bottom lip. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before,” he said, looking at her with dark eyes, “Ever.” She smiled widely at him.
“I’m not gonna ask how much it cost,” he added through a sigh, turning back to look at beauty once more.
“Nope, you should definitely not ask that. Although, I have been saving,” she said, then smiling a bit as her gaze met his, she added, “Wanna give it a whirl?” Logan looked back down longingly at the beautiful machine, before an image of a tired Storm on the X-Mansion’s staircase floated through his mind. First thing’s first.
“Hell, baby you know I sure as hell want to, but…,” he trailed off, smoothing her hair a little as he did so. He had yet to tell her the news, taking a page from Storm’s book and waiting until the party was through and Marie was more relaxed, but he knew she’d kill him if he found out he had waited much longer than that. He had planned to tell her upstairs in a little while, but they were so close to the outdoors anyway. And although there were no windows in the garage, he could smell it in the air regardless.
“It’s snowing,” he said, through a small smile.
“So?” she asked.
“So I thought you might wanna go for a walk,” he said.
“Out there? In the cold?” she asked, suddenly looking a bit confused.
“Yep,” he said. She looked once more around, sighing.
“You and your late night impromptu walks. You’re lucky I love you so much, or you’d be on your own,” she said.
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” he mumbled, taking her hand in his.
--
The snow was only falling in a gentle, lackadaisical way outside. It wasn’t too blustery, nor too cold, Marie had even admitted, but as the night whirled around them, something felt off in the quiet wind, and Logan sensed a bleak sort of foreboding in the air that he hadn’t picked up on earlier as they walked farther into the woods that lined the edge of Xavier’s property. Perhaps it was the weight of the news he bared, or maybe it was just a part of the growing paranoia, a raw anxiety that had been smothered temporarily by the Christmas cheer but now he felt steadily returning. Whatever it was, it was back though, and something in him had him digging in his boots, refusing to walk further into the black night with her.
“This’ll do,” he murmured, grabbing her hand in the cold.
“Logan, what?” She began, before he cut her off.
“Gotta tell you something baby, and you ain’t gonna like it,” he said, and she gripped his hand tighter, looking up to him with a careful question in her eyes. He knew she knew what this was about. There was no way she wouldn’t have been able to guess.
“Well, go ahead then,” she said quietly.
“It’s about Charles. Storm told me,” he muttered. “Thought it only decent to tell you after the party.”
“What is it, then?” she asked carefully, trying to keep her voice even. “Cancer?”
“Not quite. Alzheimer’s. The quick and nasty kind,” he muttered.
“Shit. Shit, Logan,” she cursed, eyes wide as she looked at him again. “What are we gonna do?” she barely whispered.
“I think the same thing we have been doing, I guess. We’ve got Hank workin’ on it, so…” He trailed off, but Marie wasn’t really paying attention to him anymore; instead, her gaze was now focused on a spot just off his right shoulder.
“Soon enough they’ll be no one left to teach anyway. They barely need us as is,” she spoke the truth boldly and Logan didn’t know what to say in return.
“Don’t think that far ahead,” he finally settled on.
“How can you not?” she asked, looking up to him once more.
“Because,” he said exasperatedly, “I’ve learned that, if you do, things tend not to go the way you planned.” Marie bit her lip at this, and he could practically feel the swell of quiet anger at the world rising within her.
“Do you think… we’re obsolete?” she finally murmured, her breath visible as it rose up into the cold night air.
“What do you mean, darlin’?” he asked quietly.
“I mean… society doesn’t feel animosity towards us, and we run into little trouble unless we go looking for it, but…we’re still going extinct. And…if Charles…” she dropped off for a moment, swallowing hard before beginning once more. “What would we do here anymore? I mean, how do you fight when you have no one else to fight against, or fight for?” her voice was empty and still, and he disturbed Logan deeply. It was the saddest question he had ever heard Marie ask, his Marie, so intent on believing in a just cause, always faithful a decent world was out there on the horizon, if still out of arm’s reach.
“Stop that. That talk, baby,” he found himself admonishing her. He didn’t want to hear what she was saying no more than he wanted to believe it. She said nothing back to him, instead giving him an honest, open, and fearful look, which was so much worse.
“Look, if all this ends, we move on,” he said warily.
“To what?” she practically hissed in the cold.
“We’ve got each other,” he muttered, but an icy feeling had started to settled within him.
“For how long?” she barely murmured, and he stiffened a bit more.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You know what I mean,” she said more forcefully now, eyes once again lingering on the scar on his chest. Suddenly Logan felt a rise of anger too at her acknowledgement of the things he refused to think about.
“Marie, stop it,” he said, even as she looked at him severely. She was still frowning, and he found himself clutching her hand tightly to try and once more shake her out of it.
“Come on. Enough of this. I meant to tell ya and I did. So, we’re done with it. Let’s do something, huh? Go somewhere. That ’48 ain’t gonna show itself off without a little bit of help.”
--
It started as nothing much, a peculiar feeling, maybe. A tickle, verging on something more annoying. He cleared his throat a couple of times, genuinely surprised, the foreign and strange sensation of coughing finally truly waking him up, his eyes now opening wearily to take in the cold and darkened room of a bleak January morning.
What year? What year was it now? 2026, revised timeline, he told himself slowly, mind once more aching from the effort. Where? Where the fuck was he? Westchester, in bed with Marie, he responded, and everything in him growled approvingly. He coughed a little once more, before turning toward his left and finding her doused in a thick pile of downy white blankets, hand clasped tightly to the hem of one, holding it more closely to her bare shoulder. He knew by her breathing pattern that she was also awake, but barely just.
“My turn today,” he said groggily, his voice feeling like gravel.
“Charles always wants it to be your turn,” she muttered from her cocoon of blankets, finally shifting slightly to rub her eyes.
“Yeah, well…” he said, drifting off.
“I’m starting to get the feeling he only trusts you,” she murmured, finally looking up to him as he groaned getting out of bed. As he moved to stand, he stretched his neck and shoulder a bit in the soft grey light as he did so. He yawned, turning back around to find Marie staring at him.
“What?” he said, shooting a questioning glance at her.
“Nothing. It’s just…you’re beautiful,” she murmured quietly.
“Heh,” he said, rolling his eyes, before leaning back down in bed and kissing and nipping her ear gently, before whispering into it. “This won’t take long. Don’t start your day until I’m back,” he muttered.
After he had showered and dressed, Logan woozily stared back at his reflection momentarily in the bathroom mirror. He knew he needed a shave, but didn’t have the time or energy right now to do so. Just then, the tickle in his throat was back and he found himself involuntarily coughing again, and even though he swiped a hand towel from the bathroom to stifle it, he heard her stir once more from the bedroom. After it was over, he stood up straight again, albeit a bit groggily still, before slinking out guiltily from the bathroom. She was sitting up in bed now, long dark hair gracing the top of her beautiful breasts, but the look on her face was serious, solemn.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” she barely whispered, clutching the blankets in her hands as she did so.
“Just the start of a cold, Marie,” he said indifferently, before moving towards the bedroom door.
“You don’t get colds, sugar,” she murmured, and he only offered a shrug of his shoulders.
“’Bout time I caught up then, huh?” he grumbled, and her frown deepened.
“Remember what I said,” he muttered, pointing at the bed she was in, willing her not to move out of it. “I expect to find you here when I get back.” She finally smirked a little at him, before laying back down in the mess of blankets, intent on getting warm once more.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a wave, before creeping a hand to pick a book off the bedside table she was currently reading. The Gene: An Intimate History. Fucking perfect.
--
They took turns daily assisting Hank in the med lab with Charles now, but Logan found himself in here the most often, Charles specifically requesting his presence on a routine basis. Logan was not a nursemaid by any stretch of the imagination and had far from the appropriate amount of bedside manner, hadn’t even known Charles the longest out of the bunch, but Logan had begun to silently assume this had something to do with the jump in time and the intimate amount of knowledge both men shared about what had happened, everything that had been. In addition to this fact, Charles, lately, had been, well, difficult to be around, if only because sometimes his moods and murmurings were so goddamn disturbing, and Logan realized he was one of the few with skin thick enough to listen to the professor ramble and wasn’t as vastly disturbed by it all. Logan took Charles as he was, just as Logan did with everyone else, and maybe this, come to think of it, was the reason Charles found himself preferring the older mutant’s company over anyone else’s.
Logan’s cold had persisted this morning, and he struggled to not cough in front of Hank as he sat with the professor, trying to chat him up while Hank set out everything he would need to take Charles’ blood. Hank had been intent lately on trying to find a medicine that might more effectively counteract the effects of the degenerative brain disease in Charles’ mind, but so far had been relatively unsuccessful. Logan coughed quietly once more, involuntarily succumbing to for a moment, even as he tried as hard as possible to abstain from doing so.
“He’s sick, Hank,” Charles said, looking up to Beast once more.
“S’nothing, Charles. Just a cold. Don’t sweat it,” Logan muttered, but Hank still shot a concerned, fleeting glance down at Logan, which Logan carefully and blatantly ignored.
“How’s he doing, Blue?” Logan finally asked, intent on changing the subject.
“A good day today,” Hank murmured, glancing once more at Charles as he extracted some murky liquid from a nearby vial.
“I would appreciate if you two didn’t talk about me as if I weren’t here,” Charles said sharply and Logan suddenly felt like a child being reprimanded by a parent for coloring on the walls.
“Sorry, Charles,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair tiredly.
“Is it alright if I leave you two, for a moment, to prepare a few things? A couple of vials of blood today, Charles? Logan, if you don’t mind?” Beast asked, already turning on his large heel to exit the main quarters of the med bay.
“No problem,” Logan murmured, looking back over to the professor. He was disturbed to see Charles’ brow now more intensely furrowed, as if the professor was experiencing signs of deep distress at Hank’s exit.
“Charles, do ya need Hank to come back in here or-” he began, before Charles interrupted him, suddenly grabbing Logan’s wrist tightly to the point where it was uncomfortable.
“You must get me out of here,” Charles whispered severely, turning sharply back to look Logan directly in the eye. Logan’s discomfort suddenly spiked, as his nose told him that the man meant every damn word and meant it as the truth.
“Charles, I don’t think you understand,” he found himself trying to say.
“James…” the professor muttered underneath his breath.
“Charles,” Logan rebuked.
“I am a hazard…” he began, before Logan cut him off.
“No, you’re a professor. And Westchester needs you,” he said evenly.
“You found yourself out there…on the island,” Charles murmured, and Logan realized now the professor was somewhere far off, vanished in the vast expanse of his own mind.
“We lost so much…” Charles added. Logan said nothing, trying to understand, trying to find a reason, or maybe an excuse, to believe in the professor’s words.
“They were right upon us,” he muttered.
“Who?” Logan found himself asking.
“The Sentinels, you fool. You, unconscious. Rogue and I, helpless, seconds away from death… while you drowned…” he trailed off. Logan had abruptly stiffened at the professor’s words, but then Hank was back entering through the double doors of the med bay. Logan realized, a little too late, that now Cyclops was with him. Scott and Jean had returned home a couple of weeks ago, and Logan was more grateful for this fact than he’d care to admit. He had recently found his peace with Scott because the truth was, shit didn’t get done in this place without both Storm and Scott around to take the lead.
“How’s it going in here?” Scott asked, although it was obvious to Logan that Scott, feral-less as he was, could still sense the unease in Logan’s posture.
“Fine,” Logan finally murmured, clearing his throat once more as he stood.
“You’ll be back tomorrow, I presume?” Charles said, surprising Logan with a new clarity now with which he spoke. Something about it was extraordinarily haunting, and Logan couldn’t quite shake off the bad feeling.
“’Course,” Logan heard himself saying.
“There’s something there…I know there is,” Charles muttered to no one.
Logan looked quietly to Scott, and then to Hank, before they all worriedly glanced back at the professor.
“When…that’s the real question….when would you know to do it?” Charles murmured to the air, before falling into silence once more.
---
As he came back to the room, Pink Floyd was on the record player, but the record had ended, the occasional click of the needle skipping as it idly turned to the tune of nothing. The light in their room was still muted, and Logan was a bit put out to see the bed empty. As he paid closer attention, however, he could hear their shower running, and he moved toward the bathroom. Logan took a moment to inhale the steamy air that had risen up from the hot shower, a gentle relief for sore lungs. He found himself pulling off his clothes, intent on joining her. As he got closer, though, he began to notice that something felt wrong, like a sharp or flat note in the song of Marie’s essence that shouldn’t be there, and Logan frowned. As he opened the glass door to the tiled shower he found her standing under the hot spray, a look on her face that seemed far off, distant, as the water beat down on her, her long brown hair dripping wet, water tracing droplet patterns on her beautiful skin. He instinctively grabbed her by the arm, murmuring a “Hey” as he did so, and as she looked up to him then he noticed she had been silently crying. As he quickly pulled her tightly to his taller, muscular frame, she easily leaned into him, the warm water now pouring down on them both from the faucet overhead. He heard her let out a quiet, desperate sob, and he murmured an “It’s alright, kid,” into her wet hair. She was kissing him then, long and hard and desperate, and he took her roughly up against the shower wall, even as the water hit their bodies, the steam wafting upward, long trails of condensation billowing up around them both.
--
He wasn’t with her the first time it happened. It was a Tuesday afternoon, she was teaching, and Logan had been down in the gym training Mirage one-on-one, working through a set of complex movements and sequences. As he blocked her quick uppercuts and roundhouse kicks, the sweat dripped from his temple, and it felt good to bob and weave, anticipating what was coming next and sometimes not, both of them part of an intricate, steadily-paced dance that only a spar could provide.
It was quick, rude, instant. All of the sudden the whole gym seized up, the room convulsing and writhing in tension as a high-pitched tone pulsated through the place, and the right kick Mirage was about to deliver fell apart with her as she dropped to her knees instantly, both hands at her head before she seemed frozen in place, unable to really move. Logan staggered back a bit as an agonizing pain exploded in his own mind, and although he still managed to remain standing, all of his movements had slowed, as if long, thick ropes had been attached to his limbs. It lasted no more than minute, and then the grip the earthquake had on their brains relaxed, and they fell backward a bit, both cruelly discarded by what had just ripped through them. As Logan struggled to breathe, he found Mirage on the floor, groaning in pain. He was down at her side in an instant, checking her pulse to find it irregular and weak, but there. As she looked up to him, a fearful confused pain in her eyes, he saw a single, thick drop of blood falling from her nose.
“What… was that?” she said weakly, still in pain, but Logan had looked up sharply, his senses screaming along with the entire mansion, the moans and shouts ringing throughout the halls. Whatever it was, it had happened everywhere, to all of them. Marie. He looked back to Mirage for mere milliseconds, before she gave him a quick nod of the head, wiping the blood from her nose as she did so, and he was staggering out of the room, finding his strength dutifully returning to him again as his body quickly began stitching himself back up. Back up from what though? He could practically feel the neurons in his brain healing as he flew up the stairs towards the classrooms, and he found her there, leaning against the wall outside of her own classroom, breathing heavily. She had dropped her mug of coffee and her books, the russet liquid now seeping near the sole of her boots, splattered onto the creamy pages of Othello, bits of ceramic mug shattered all over the floor. There was sweat on her temple and she was clasping her head in pain, but she seemed to be in one piece.
“Hell, baby, Marie, you alright?” he said, breath coming in stiltedly and heavily, as he held her tiny face in his hands. She silently nodded, grimacing, as if trying hard to concentrate, and he realized she was trying to get the words out. “Students, here. I need to help them. You go,” she managed through gritted teeth.
“No,” he said, as he brought her closer to his seething chest. He could feel her shaking her head underneath his grip on her.
“Baby…it’s ok. Getting better. You…can still walk. You're the only one right now. Charles. Check on Hank and Charles,” she managed to say, and with another tight grip on her shoulder, checking her pulse one more time to find it regulating and steady, he left her there in the hallway again, running past people who were leaning on furniture for support, some crumpled on the floor, but he still heard each set up lungs breathing, everyone’s heart still at it. They were all still alive.
In the med bay, Charles’ chair had tipped over, and the old man now lay unconscious on the floor, although Logan sensed Charles’ vitals were stable. Hank was still on the ground and Logan raced over to them both, easing the older man up to lean him against the farthest wall as Logan knelt beside him. Logan finally looked to Hank, who was still gripping his head in pain, blood also dripping from his nose. Like an atomic blast, the worst of it had been centered around the point of origin. Charles.
“He’s alive. It was a seizure. Worse,” Hank managed to say, growling under his breath as he did so. Logan looked up to the other mutant then, the language between the two clear as day.
“Logan,” Hank muttered. “Before they come, look at me.” Logan did so, taking his attention off of the professor once more, as he watched a dark shadow pass over the other mutant’s face. “Not again…” he struggled, trying to summon up all of his words. “Understand me? This… cannot happen again.”
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Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for all the beautiful feedback for the last chapter. Four chapters left, and I've got rougher drafts of all of them written. I feel...really weird about this story coming to an end. Anyway, the next chapter should be up on Monday or so, I'm hoping. Thank you guys again for all the love and support.