Chapter 5: Now
The kid’s heartbroken, darlin’.
She’ll survive. She’s tough, like you.
Tough. Yeah, right. Look where tough’s got me.
Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself, sugar. You’ve got a job to do now.
But I’m tired, baby. I’m so fucking tired.
I know, sugar.
I know.
A steady weight pinned him to the seat. As his eyes slowly blinked open, the light from the cracked door in his mind grew darker and the Bronco’s dimly moonlit interior once more came into focus. Logan’s eyes felt heavy as they glanced downward to see Laura’s brown hair, almost indiscernible from the dark that surrounded them. She had initially been leaning on his shoulder, exhausted from the work of pilfering the cabin, but now her head was resting on his leg, using him as a feeble pillow. He couldn’t have been comfortable, but neither was she. Pins and needles shot down his right leg, the extremity having gone just as quickly to sleep under the weight of her. Having his nerve endings fall asleep was a feeling he was still getting used to; his healing factor had always corrected that form of discomfort in the years before now.
It was also the first time he had felt the burden of the adamantium from the outside, and his heart thud heavily, the injustice of it all causing a painful twist inside of him. Thin and petite, Laura should have been as light as feather in the wind; instead, she was just like him. It had been butchery, pure and simple. But, of course, her troubles didn’t stop there. Even if Laura never saw another day of violence in all her life, she was destined for a troubled, unordinary future. Maybe an unending one.
His gut seized up again in guilt.
If the supposed death of her friends had bothered her, Laura no longer showed it. She had settled into another even silence, although she did now answer his questions with simple, short responses, half of the time in Spanish. She was willful, but not obstinate, and she silently carried out the task of going through her friends’ things, carefully and intuitively picking out what she knew they would need. Action figures were discarded, board games set aside, as Laura picked out battery-powered lanterns and sleeping bags, medical syringes and lighters. She knew what she needed to take to survive and everything else, except for a couple of those damn comic books she dutifully carried around with her, she was willing to spare.
Outside, the world was shrouded in black. An owl flew quietly above them, crickets sung, the wind blew, but Laura’s steady breathing hovered above it all. Logan straightened up a little, looking over at the girl once again. She was thinner than he had seen her in days. Her hair hung lank on her head, her jeans muddy from the mountainside. There were blood stains on her clothes. A sharper, more knowledgeable part of his consciousness—the older him, the younger him, he wasn’t quite sure anymore— continued to shout: They had to get out of here. They should have left hours ago. They needed to cross the border. They needed to go home.
Home. But then what?
Logan knew their inventory. They had managed to scrape together a few canteens of water, some beef jerky and protein bars, a couple of blankets, some spare packs that hadn’t been destroyed. Not enough to last another day. But they had a little over nine thousand dollars left, and that was enough. Enough to get started.
But started doing what?
You’ve got a job to do now.
Logan closed his eyes, before another cough overtook him. It started inoffensively enough, but it grew in intensity, lungs searing in pain. In a few quick moments, Laura awoke, sleekly and silently jumping away from Logan, giving him an intense, strange look.
“Sorry,” he said groggily, after struggling to regain his voice.
“You are still healing?” Laura whispered in the dark. She wouldn’t let her gaze leave him, and it irked him slightly.
“Yeah, kid,” Logan said, half-lying. Meanwhile, he moved to blindly search for the keys on the dash.
“Didn’t mean to wake you up. Lay back down. There are blankets in the back, if you need them. We’re getting out of here,” Logan decided the moment he said the words, head still pounding from the pain in his chest. He shed his button-down, throwing the shirt in the back. They’d need new clothes, more food, shelter, and soon.
“¿Donde?”
“What?” Logan looked over at her aimlessly.
“¿Donde? Where will you take me?” Laura asked more loudly. Her eyes were wild, her body stiffer.
“Canada, kid,” he said, mildly annoyed.
Laura looked at him then, long and hard. “….¿Planeas mantenerme?”
“Gotta talk in English, Laura. Inglés, or, whatever. Comprende?”
“Where will you go?” she asked solemnly. Logan had found the keys, but stopped momentarily, and turned to stare back at the girl who was so very much like him.
She thinks you’re going to drop her off somewhere, and bolt.
Not now, Marie.
The girl was tense, coiled up. She seemed almost ready to jump out of the car, if need be. After all this time, it seemed, she was still ready and waiting for someone to betray her. Two days ago, that might have been Logan himself. And now…now.
“Nowhere to go anyway, so I thought I’d stick with you. That ok?” he asked. The darkness flowed between them, the sounds of night hovering all around. Even in the black, though, Logan could feel a small, careful smile starting to appear on Laura’s face.
“Si.”
---
Later on, the Bronco quietly slowed to a halt on the deserted road. The only evidence was there was no evidence, although Logan assumed a telltale white obelisk was off to the side of them somewhere, dutifully marking the divide. Logan knew how to cross in a car undetected, had done it so many times he might as well have done it blindfolded. But that, he reminded himself, had also been in the old reality. Logan calmly realized, since the jump, he hadn’t been back this far north. A funny feeling tickled the back of his throat as he stared ahead, tall pinewood trees lining the road. Laura, realizing they had slowed, looked at him hesitantly. Logan just tilted his head forward a bit. Laura looked back at the road knowingly. Ahead of them, Canada.
---
Following a pile of new clothes and boots for each of them, five pounds of shaved ham, two loaves of bread, three tubes of Pringles, eight Tootsie Roll pops, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a pair of reading glasses slowly rolled their way to the end of the Walmart check-out line. The sound of smacking gum, the burn of florescent lighting, and the sheen from the clerk’s bleached blonde hair all seemed jarring and bright against the dark world Logan and Laura had just come from. The clerk noticing the eclectic nature of the goods on the conveyer belt, slowly turned her gaze from the merchandise making her way toward her to Logan and Laura, and blinked.
“You got cigars?” Logan asked gruffly, his fingers twitching a bit. Laura had buttoned up her jacket and he had done the same with his shirt, but he knew they both looked terrible. They had found themselves idling outside of the Estevan Walmart at two in the morning a few minutes ago, and Logan hoped that the world had gone to shit enough for someone not to call the Canadian Center of Child Protection on them both.
“We only sell tobacco in aisle nineteen, sir,” the bleach blonde woman murmured, through narrow eyes. Just by smelling her Logan knew she partook in purchases on that aisle often, not that he was judging. He would have fucking killed for a Cuban.
“Forget it, then,” he grumbled, not wanting to make even more of a scene. Cautiously he took out the manilla envelope, just now noticing its blood-splattered front. The woman’s eyes jerked down to it quickly, but remained silent as she began to check them out. Logan cleared his throat, happy to soon be out of this god-forsaken place.
Any vegetables, Logan?
She just lost the only family she knew. I’m not gonna force her to eat a bunch of fucking celery.
But, you’re responsible for her now, right?
Right?
“Sir?” the woman asked. Logan looked up then, the woman clearly waiting on him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want plastic bags?” she asked, gesturing to the white ones next to her.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Logan asked, frustratingly.
“Ten cents a bag.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Logan grumbled. As the clerk began bagging the rest of the junk food and clothes, Laura started collecting the bags as she finished each one.
“Two hundred and thirty-four dollars, eighty cents.”
“Jesus fuck,” Logan cursed. Goddamn fucking inflation. He shoved back a particularly cruel, very old memory of himself flicking ten cents on the counter for a Coke in some diner a zillion years ago, while the woman’s eyes widened and she leaned back just a little, once more looking from him to Laura and back. Laura coolly smiled behind her pink and blue sunglasses.
“You take American money?”
“Umm, yes sir. 2% upcharge for the exchange rate.”
Logan grabbed three grubby hundred–dollar-bills and put them on the counter. “That about cover it?”
---
Logan slept for the next two days in the motel room. The place had been nothing nice, maybe the cheapest in town, but he wasn’t about to pay for anything fancy any longer now that their income was fixed. The room had a couple of beds and a shower and a TV, and that was enough. That first night, the water pouring over him in the shower, Logan had looked down to see that his skin had finally stitched itself back together, although the scar would be horrendous. He barely gave it another thought, though, as he could manage little else but putting on a clean shirt and jeans, before dragging himself into the bed closest to the door, not even bothering with the blankets.
Laura sat on the other bed, watching him as he did so.
“Stay put,” he heard himself saying to her, face muffled by the pillow.
“What am I going to do?” she asked, looking around the room.
“TV,” Logan gestured over to the boxy-looking device that had to be at least thirty years old. “Stay inside though. Keep your head low.”
“Mierda,” he heard Laura mutter on her breath.
“I heard that,” Logan mumbled, through closed eyes.
--
His dreams were surreal and wild. They flickered, sporadically jumped, sped up and slowed down, cruelly lingering in the worst moments and flying through the better ones. The beaches of Normandy, his skull cracking, the pain immense and heavy at being sent back, the slightest flicker of a green coat, contrasting brightly with the red seat of a train, the Canadian wilderness in wintertime, the earth quaking under his feet, claws embedded deep into the wall, trying to move…
Logan shot up with a start, breathing heavily as his eyes darted this way and that. He wheezed heavily in the afternoon light. On the television, a soap opera played softly. Snacks littered the room, the half-empty bottle of Jack he had downed the night before sitting on the peeling paint of the desk. And…Laura?
Logan got out of bed, prowling quickly around the room.
“Laura?” he asked, headed to check the bathroom. The door was open, no one inside. His heartbeat quickened, a shot of adrenaline speeding up his movements. Instantly he was back at the other bed, rifling through the covers, looking for her pack, any sign of her. How could they have known their route? How the fuck would he be able to track her? How long had it even fucking been-
Just then, the twisting of a key in the door knob, and Logan froze before Laura aimlessly entered the room from the outside, backpack in hand, sunglasses still on. She stopped immediately, as she felt his bulky frame seething in anger, but still looked up at him calmly.
“Where the hell were you?” Logan growled, rounding on her. Laura, by contrast, didn’t seem the least bit threatened. She dropped the bag next to the door, and walked across the room to flop down on her own bed.
“Me aburrí. Caminé alrededor del edificio,” Laura said carelessly.
“Laura, English,” Logan barked. Laura frowned a bit, her eyes growing darker with anger.
“Sería más fácil si usted acaba de aprender español. Eres tan terca. Y viejo,” Laura said crossly, hands forming into fists. Logan glared at her. His Spanish was shit, but he knew an insult when he happened upon one. He must have scowled just long enough at her, though, because her mood evened out again. She crossed her legs on the mattress, dirty boots and all. “You were sleeping. I walked around.”
Logan growled lowly at her again, before striding over to the window near the door, peering out into the light through the blinds. The parking lot was practically empty, the sky overcast. The muddy Bronco sat in the nearest parking spaced. With one quick, fluid move, he drew the shades again.
“We’re not in the free and clear yet, kid,” he said to her cautiously. “We may never be.”
Laura said nothing as she watched him walk over to the desk, his exhaustion suddenly back in his bones, and picked up the bottle of whiskey.
“Deberías comer algo,” she said, looking at him fixedly. “You need to eat something.”
“No, I don’t,” Logan muttered.
“No. No tengo que comer tan a menudo. Su factor de curación no funciona. You should do more than drink,” she offered, finally kicking off her boots as she did so.
Out of spite more than anything, Logan looked at the little girl for a long moment, before purposefully taking a large drink of the stuff, although it was hard not to cough as it burned his throat. Laura glared at him.
“Headed for the shower. Do not leave again,” he growled. Laura sighed a bit as she stood restlessly, walked to the other side of the room, and flopped into the only chair. Logan noticed that she purposefully picked up one of her X-Men comics, so that he could see her do it. Logan’s head pounded a bit heavier as he watched Laura bury her nose in one with some ridiculous version of his own face printed on the cover. He rolled his eyes, about to turn around, when he noticed a flash of platinum and brown hair again and a pretty face on the back of the comic book. Logan truly leered at the comic book and at the younger mutant then, his stomach lurching as he found his way into the tiny bathroom, shutting the door forcefully behind him.
--
Later that night, he awoke to the sound of rain. The street light casted long, eerie shadows into the room, even through the binds. Profiled on top of the orange light, Logan could make out Laura’s form, still sitting in the chair. Her knees were to her chest, her head resting on her folded elbows. She was awake, he could tell. Logan inwardly groaned as he sat up, the rumble of thunder moaning in the distance reflecting his mood. He realized, slowly, for the first time the stiffness was more due to sleeping too much on an uncomfortable bed, than because of the lingering pain from the wound in his chest. It was as good as it was going to get after what had happened at the Munsons. He understood that now.
“You ok, kid?” he asked.
Laura turned to look at him then. She hadn’t been crying, but her face was twisted into an emotionally pained expression.
For a while, no one spoke. The rain created a chorus outside, pinging on the Bronco’s hood and smacking the asphalt outside their door. Distance remained between them, but both of their feelings of anger from earlier had dissipated. She ran hot, but she often cooled easily too, as soon as the threat was over. Fuck, she was just like him. Logan, sighed, sitting up better, and once more caught sight of the comic book Laura had been reading to spite him earlier. He picked it up slowly, at first as if it was going to burn him, before slowly and then more casually flipping through the pages.
“I had people too, you know,” he found himself saying. Laura perked up a bit at this, releasing her legs, and turning to him again.
“The X-Men?” she asked.
“Yeah, for a while. The X-Men.”
Laura looked at him for a long moment. Another rumble of thunder.
“What happened to them? ¿Por qué ya no eres así?” she pressed, pointing to one of the frames on the page.
Logan didn’t answer, as he felt the thin page she pointed to, the ink feeling rough on the pads of his fingers.
“It wasn’t like all this, you know. Most of it was nothing like this, but, uh,” he started flipping through the pages again quickly, trying to find something he remembered, something to cheer her up. Then, there it was, in all its artistic glory: the Blackbird against a blue frame, gracing the illustrated, cloudless sky. Logan pointed to the jet in the panel then looked back up at her, hopefully.
“The pájaro negro?” she asked excitedly, mood turning upward, a smile blossoming on her features.
“Yeah,” Logan said, relieved, as both of them now sat staring at the page. “Pájaro,” Logan attempted. Laura’s smile widened even more.
“I hated flying. I fucking hated it. Some things, kid, just aren’t meant to be in the air. You and I are one of them,” he said, looking up at her. She returned the stare, nodding at him seriously in agreement. Logan briefly wondered if she had ever even been in a plane.
“What else? ¿Qué más?” she asked him.
“Well,” Logan said, through a small cough again, closing the comic book and handing it back over to her. “It was complicated, and I wasn’t always around, but the X-Men, we were, you know, like a family. Sort of.”
“Una familia,” Laura murmured, looking down at the comic book with a melancholic smile. Slowly she brought her eyes back up to him.
“Yeah,” Logan said, “Like that.”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000