Chapter Nine: Logan
“Just Marie,” he says before he can think. He can see her blushing, and he likes it.
“You know you’re not married to the place, right kid? The door’s open, and it’s right there,” Logan says, gesturing with a hand to the field and the line of pine trees beyond.
“I know. I don’t want to leave,” Marie is saying, although he notices the way she crosses her legs as she speaks, carefully folding her inner self up a bit more.
“Good,” he murmurs, stricken suddenly with the strangest urge to brush a hand through her hair. He always fought that urge, and he had, once, after the torch. Instead though, he stands, offering her his hand to pull her up with him.
And then he’s watching her through the haze of purple and black, Blink’s portal, and he can’t fucking get to her. She won’t let him. And now he knows why she hesitated, all of what she couldn’t say, and things are falling down around him.
“You knew it would come to this. That’s why, last night, you wouldn’t…” he stops, voice breaking.
“I love you,” she says fiercely, just beyond the rift. “You hear me? I love you. Always have.”
“Marie, baby, don’t do this,” he begs, lifting his arms up to reach for her. But she’s placing a strong hand on his chest to press him back.
“I’ll see you in another life, sugar. A better one.”
“No. Baby, baby-”
No.
“No, no, no. Baby, baby,” he’s muttering, before growling loudly as he puts two fists over her heart, pumping it for her, desperate to get it moving again. He feels her body compress as he breathes air down her lungs. But nothing. Nothing.
He stops after a while, tears rolling down his cheeks, swaying gently above her until he can do nothing but pull her closer, cradling her against his chest, murmuring her name into her hair over and over again.
“I love you, kid. You hear me? I love you. Always fucking have,” he says, and then he’s kissing her forehead fiercely, before staggering backward, out of their room and out of the life they had created for themselves as if it’s only full of dead things. All those fucking sad birds and books.
Logan woke with a start, her name on his lips. He looked around wildly, could feel the sweat on his forehead, as his eyes darted back and forth in the dark. Jesus. He had worse nightmares, but none so fucking vivid. Like watching a goddamn movie. He swallowed, and he realized the sun was setting. Why? Finally, his vision focused enough to read the time on the bedside clock.
5:56pm.
No.
He already knew they had gone. He would have heard them if they were still here, but still, he scrambled out of bed, tossing off the covers and standing, before immediately regretting doing so. He suddenly felt the onslaught of vertigo and a wave of fresh nausea. Fucking pills. Steadying himself, he walked out of the room, peering this way and that.
“Marie? Laura?”
No. No one. Everyone gone. He’d fucking missed it.
He cursed loudly, running a trembling hand through his hair, gripping the side of the kitchen island tightly. He’d missed her leaving, missed seeing her off. Growling in anger, he glanced down to see the pill box set carefully on the counter with the container “Sat. PM” open, Marie having readied the pills for him to take. More fucking pills.
“Fuck!” he said again, shaking his head slightly as he stared down at the medicine. What a fucking waste. He couldn’t even function. Couldn’t see his daughter off to her first dance, shake Cole’s hand. Suddenly, his anger doubled, and he found himself snarling, picking up the container and throwing it against the far wall, Risperidone and Isoniazid showering the kitchen floor in a myriad of shapes and colors.
Then he was stalking over to the alcohol cabinet, intent on liquor. A bottle of bourbon, only one-third of the way full. He unscrewed the cap, and stared at it through a frown, then he brought the bottle to his lips, drinking heavily.
The burn of the liquor, the mixed-up colors of pills. The silent, empty house. And then, he heard it. The thud. A sound from upstairs. Again. Almost every day if he was awake for too long, especially if he was alone.
Thud. Slam. Crash.
He shut his eyes, cursing under his breath once more.
It’s not real, he told himself. It’s in your fucking head, bub.
Louder now, and then the noises of a lamp being knocked over, of glass shattering.
“God damn it,” he muttered. Logan gripped the bottle more tightly, moving away from the liquor cabinet, headed for the door. Maybe if he went outside.
And then, the sound of screaming. Laura’s screaming. Charles’ screaming. He whipped his head back to the stairs, snarling, the animal so close to the fucking surface it was nearly impossible to hold on to his humanity. Another drink. Laura’s at the dance. Charles is dead. It’s not fucking real. The sounds of bodies being thrown about. The bookshelf falling over. Shouts, torturous cries. The animal whined again, practically hissing in Logan’s ear. Have to save them. You can be useful. You haven’t been useful in so long. Save them.
Logan closed his eyes more tightly.
Sugar, don’t listen to it. Marie again. The voice that had never left him.
“It’s driving me fucking crazy, Marie,” he said bitterly, staring at the loft warily from below.
I know baby. I know.
“I’m losing it…” he breathed bitterly.
No you’re not. You know it’s not real.
“You’re not real, and I’m talkin’ to you,” he muttered.
There’s a difference.
“Doesn’t matter. Like he says. I’m fucking useless,” Logan murmured, drinking heavily once more until the last of the contents of the bottle were drained.
From upstairs, his daughter’s piercing cry.
“ Shit,” he snarled, setting the bottle down hard on the counter.
Sugar…don’t.
Protect them, the Wolverine hissed. Save Charles. Save Laura, the animal snarled.
“Fuck! ”
Save them.
He stalked forward. He would go upstairs, to show the animal he was wrong. To shut him up. To prove it was all a hoax, a bad dream, a cheap hat trick.
Don’t, Marie warned again. He ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time, and, before him: nothing. Not one piece of furniture out of place. No broken glass. No Laura. No Charles. Nothing.
“See, you stupid motherfucker?! ” he growled to the Wolverine, looking around the empty room. “You’re just as fucking crazy as I am…”
And then, the searing painful slide of adamantium through his back and into his stomach. He yelled through a growl, as the pain took over his whole body, and as he whipped around the room, he faced himself, and he could taste the iron blooming in his mouth, spitting blood. He growled, instinctively extending his claws and shoving them into the clone’s heart. The clone stumbled backward, shouting incomprehensibly as he did so, falling into Laura’s bookshelf, novels flying everywhere. Logan took the few moments to look down, dazed, at the blood seeping from his abdomen. He put his hand to it, and brought up red. He stared at the blood, confused, just as the clone was back on him, shoving his claws up through Logan’s left forearm, tearing through muscles and ligaments alike. Logan shouted in pain, and he could feel the Wolverine growling, grasping for control and finally taking it, as Logan’s consciousness slipped, now muted.
The animal fought the clone viciously, painting the walls of Laura’s room with blood. Being knocked backward, thrown into the mirror. Glass ground into his wounds and embedded in his hands as he shook, standing back up. Such pain. The threat moved so quick. The enemy. He would disappear, reappear. Senses failing the animal, he stumbled forward, unable to track the clone properly. Where? Where was he? Where were the ones who needed saving?
“Logan….”
The animal within Logan turned his head and stared at her. Smell was off. Somehow different. Older now. Different. Not real. Not his mate. His mate was dead. He had watched her die. Held her broken body amidst the paper cranes and piles of books.
The animal sneered, already confused and vulnerable. Threat. Threat. Everything was a threat. Nothing was to be trusted.
He took a step forward, once more noting the scent was off. And then he was on her in an instant, claws once again out, pinning her against the wall. The metal, so close to the beating pulse in her neck. So close to violence, to once more ending a life.
And then, she was grabbing his arm, the one that should have been mutilated, and he stared at it, confused by it for one fleeting moment, and the animal inwardly whine in pain as the pull happened. The jerk, the rubber band stretching, pulling him out of everything, out of his body, out of his mind, before quickly snapping back.
He felt himself hit the edge of Laura’s bed, the animal having retreated, and then he felt the solid warmth of Marie in his arms. He glanced down at this wife beater to realize the blood was gone, the wound as quickly healed as if he’d been in his prime. But no tear in the shirt. No bloodstains either. Time in reverse . He could feel himself crying, and he realized that it was because he was fucking terrified.
And Marie. His Marie. She was alive. She was real. And god. God. The animal had almost killed her. He had almost killed her.
“You...god he almost….I almost... fuck. Fuck!” he breathed bitterly into her ear. He felt her grip tighten as her fingers were threaded in his hair. He felt his hands shaking, he felt his ragged breath, he felt himself coming back, but barely so, as if teetering on some edge, desperate to stay in control.
“It’s alright sugar.... It’s gonna be alright,” she whispered desperately. He sobbed into her shoulder, as she ran her hands along the muscles in his back, holding his shaking body tighter. She quietly murmured soothing truths into his ear, but still he breathed out bitterly, hating everything, hating life.
“Tell me you’re fucking real, kid,” he finally said, as hot tears ran down his cheeks.
“Yes, real. I’m real , ” she said clearly, her voice even and careful. “You’re with me. You understand?” she said, and he gave in to her, once more lowering his head to her shoulder as the rest of his lucidity returned. He focused on her touch, the quiet cadence of her breath. After a while, they both laid down on the twin bed, as she still idly stroked his back. His mind, exhausted and bewildered, began to drift, and, once more, he slept.
--
He woke to the steady patter of rain outside and the occasional rumble of thunder. The room was dark now, and for long, unending moments he idly ran his fingers over her shape, trembling hands steadying as they outlined her profile, lips settled on the nape of her neck. She had fallen asleep too, and for awhile he felt content to listen to her breathe, watch her sleep.
He now realized that she had taken him in to jolt him out of the hallucination and out of the grasp of the crazed animal who had believed what he had saw. It had worked. And she stayed close to him to finish the job, slowly drawing him back from the murky dark world he had been in.
But it had been too close. Too fucking close, and in that moment, he knew, that whatever was happening to him couldn’t happen for much longer. That he’d end up hurting someone.
He was out of his goddamn mind.
Slowly, to calm himself, he tried to recall how it felt, the warming feeling of Marie pulling him in. It was not so unlike that day in the back of the bronco or that last night in Westchester or even on top of the Statue of Liberty. Like leaving. Like flying, a kite catching the wind. Like living.
He had known already. Had known it deep down. How it would end.
But she didn’t.
She was stirring at his touch now and, slowly, she turned to face him, sleepy eyes blinking open, a small upturn of her lips, a quiet smile.
“Are you alright?” she murmured. He sighed a little, moving his hand upward to graze a thumb across he scar he’d given her their first night in Hay River. The one that would likely disappear. She leaned into his touch, and he rumbled a bit in approval.
“Yeah kid. Yeah,” he finally muttered. She smiled again, and he pulled her in a bit, lips just brushing hers as she gently ran a hand through his hair. He pulled back then, staring at her intently for a moment, and then made up his mind. He would tell her now. It couldn’t wait anymore.
“This can’t go on much longer,” he said softly. She pulled back just the slightest, tension tugging at her features.
“It’s just a bad week,” she finally muttered, but she had lowered her gaze and her hand had now fallen away from the side of his face, as if her body knew the real truth.
“Not long ago a bad week was coughing a little too hard and long, darlin’. Not nearly slitting your throat ‘cause I didn’t recognize you,” he muttered cynically, and he could once more feel her body stiffen slightly.
“Stop that,” she whispered.
“It’s the truth, kid,” he said simply, moving to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“You would never hurt me,” she murmured.
“I’m not so sure,” he muttered, thinking once more of Charles’ limp jaw from a week ago, and now thinking of the pain Logan had felt when the clone took a swipe at him. He had tasted blood. Felt the stab. Smelled his own fear. All of it real, and all of it a fucking hallucination.
Logan shuddered a bit, willing himself to focus.
“Marie, look at me,” he said, bringing a hand to lift her chin, her eyes were clear, but something was quivering within them, like something fragile. Like something about to break.
“I want you to do it,” he said quietly, although he maintained eye contact with her, even as the hurt, confused expression in her irises bloomed. The furrow of a brow. The slight quickening of her heartbeat.
“What?” It was a word she barely said, something just shy of a whisper.
“When the time comes, I want you to do it,” he said more clearly. Now, she really was frowning, moving to sit up, breaking eye contact and looking around the room as if she was searching for the moments that had happened just before this one. Finally, she turned to him again, even as he shakily moved to sit as well.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she muttered.
“Yes, you do,” he said, but she was now shaking her head.
“Marie, I need you to look at me,” he said quietly, and when she turned back, there were tears.
“When the time comes, you absorb me. You end it,” he said. Her eyes darted to his sharply, before she abruptly stood, arms folded, her back to him. For several long minutes she stood there like that and he waited, watching her.
“No, ” she finally said. Logan sighed, sitting up a bit more, running a hand through his hair. It was the answer he expected initially.
“Marie,” he said quietly from his spot on the bed. Meanwhile, she had begun to pace, and he watched her silently as she moved back and forth across the length of Laura’s darkened bedroom. Outside, thunder.
“Do you understand what you’re asking of me, baby? What you’re really saying? ” she interrogated, her voice panicked and heart rate elevating.
“I do,” he said flatly. “As much as I can understand, I do.”
“ Then why are you asking me?” she hissed.
“You really wanna watch this thing play out till its last notes?” he said evenly. “Because it ain’t a pretty tune, kid. I can feel it getting worse, ramping up. And I won’t let you or Laura see that. ‘Specially not with your safety in jeopardy,” he added bitterly.
“You wouldn't hurt me,” she said again, this time forcefully through tears.
“Marie, I don’t know what I would do. Because, when I’m not sleeping, and I’m sleeping all fucking day, I feel like a fucking time bomb. I can’t live like this,” he said, running a hand through his hair desperately. She watched him do this even as she paced, a blank, haunted look in her eyes.
“Logan…” she began, but he cut her off.
“You listen to me, woman. I won’t do this for much longer. I refuse to. So in short of attempting to drown myself in the fucking lake out there or shooting myself in the head with that fucking adamantium bullet, you’re my only option.” She stopped then, standing dead still in the middle of Laura’s room.
“You wouldn’t ,” she murmured through narrowed eyes.
“I would,” he said simply. “But I’d prefer somethin’ a little less graphic.”
Marie was actively crying now, her arms clung to her body as she stared at him helplessly.
“You have more time,” she murmured. “I need you to have more time.”
God. This was too fucking much. He realized he had already stood, striding over to her in two paces in the middle of the bedroom, taking her into his arms, as she lay her head against his chest.
“I can’t kill you,” she barely whispered. “I just can’t.”
“Yes. Yes you can,” he murmured into her ear. “I know I’m askin’ for too much. But it’s what I want. It’s how this thing ends. And just….think about it for a second Marie. Could you do that for me? Think about what it would mean,” he said, swiping his thumb across one cheek, wiping away a tear. At his touch, her eyes closed, and her voice was quivering as she spoke.
“If I completely absorb you...you’ll….” she said dropping off.
“Be with you. Marie, I’ll be with you. For good ,” he finished her sentence for her. She opened her eyes then, and he found a broken world, a grieving world, but a vibrant, alive one too, the one he’d live in, nestled inside those eyes, staring back at him.
“Would you want that?” he asked quietly. This was the only part he was unsure of, because only Rogue could really know what that felt like, what it meant. She frowned, but after a few moments nodded her head softly. He issued a low, approving rumble in response, pulling her into his arms once more. He stroked the back of her head, hands threaded in her soft hair, and he was reminded of how she had held him, right as he had come out of the hallucination.
“Laura wouldn’t forgive me,” she said after some time, and Logan’s heart lurched. He had thought of Laura too. He had thought of all of it.
“Kid, I’ll talk to her. And she would. You’d take my healing factor, or what’s left of it. Might mean you stick around a little longer, see her grown. And that way...that way I can see her too. Watch her grow up.”
She pulled back from him slightly then and carefully surveyed Logan, a slow, steady realization in her voice.
“You’ve thought about this. You’ve known for a long time this is what you’d do,” she said simply, now understanding the truth.
“Yes,” he answered.
She stared at him for a moment, and he felt it. Felt her fear, her anxiety, her dread. But also the acceptance, the decision. That she’d do it. She’d kill him, but more than that. She’d be the unending harbor to his fucking soul. And that … the love there... fuck. The love was overwhelming.
“When?” she whispered after some time in the dark, and his grip on her tightened.
“Soon,” he murmured quietly into her ear.
She breathed out steadily, and he sighed, holding her closer to him. Some time passed like that, before he finally held her back a little, looking at her once more.
“I’ll have to talk to Laura,” he said quietly. “After the dance maybe. Or tomorrow.” And then he heard Marie’s sharp intake of breath in the dark.
“Oh, god. Wait,” she said, suddenly looking around the broken room wildly as if for the first time. “What time is it?” she breathed, and Logan realized he had no clue. How long had it been?
“Fuck, 9:15! Fuck!” Marie cursed as she saw the clock, then instantly she was flying down the stairs. Logan followed quickly after, and just as a fresh swell of guilt and confusion threatened to rise within him, Marie unlocked the front door, throwing it open to the dark wet air. They found Laura there, head bowed, bedraggled and wet in her blue dress, shoes hanging from her hands, sitting on a chair on the deck in the rain. She seemed smaller somehow, cold, but she instantly felt their presence and quickly stood. Even through the downpour, Logan could tell her sharp eyes quickly assessed both of them. Their postures, the weight they now carried. Laura instantly knew something was terribly, horribly wrong. That everything had somehow changed. Fuck.
“You didn’t answer your phone. I walked, but the door was locked,” Laura finally murmured to her bare feet.
Marie stumbled forward, instantly cradling the girl between her arms, and Laura hugged her as hard back. Logan stood a few paces away, arms crossed in shame as the cool rain soaked through his wife beater, through his mussed hair. He winced as Laura finally brought her gaze to him, and barely murmured something through the steady rain and thunder
“Another?” she quietly asked. He could practically feel parts of himself cracking under the strain, the guilt, but he still managed to give his daughter the slightest nod of his head.
Laura exhaled, dropping the blue sandals onto the floor of the deck and determinedly walked toward him. For the slightest moment he thought she was headed past him to the door but, instead, she was firmly hugging him in the rain, already knowing what he could barely understand, and his trembling hands could do nothing but hold the young girl, hold on for dear life.
Finally, he glanced up to Marie from where she stood near the deck chairs, watched her pick up Laura’s shoes. Her sweater was now wet and clung to her thin shoulders, and she now hugged the sandals tightly to her. Meanwhile, in the distance, the crash of thunder from the summer storm, a strand of lightning across the lake illuminating the wet, black sky for a single, fleeting moment.
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