Reminisce
Chapter Three
BACK THEN
Logan came back on a Friday.
It had been two years.
It was long enough for what happened on Liberty Island to settle down from school gossip to school legend—students spoke of The Wolverine and when he might return, but it took on a bored wistfulness, the way one always refers to miracles. Marie asked The Professor about Logan several times; she was sure he was tracking him. But all he would say was, “Not much longer, I imagine.” And then, when pressed, that Logan needed time to find himself, and perhaps longer to process the results. She stopped asking.
Two years was long enough for her to begin taking classes at a local college. Most online, although twice a week she attended lectures on art history. Sitting in the fold-down seats, surrounded by so-called normal men and women, she felt mischievous, as if she was getting away with something. Much of the coursework was the same as that taught at the mansion, but no one tried to dissuade her, and when the bill for her tuition came, Xavier paid it without comment.
She joined clubs. She went to coffee shops, bookshops, art galleries. She had conferences with professors who asked about her plans as if they were hers to make. Two years was long enough for her to find hobbies and tastes the people in Meridian, Mississippi couldn’t imagine. Two years was long enough for her cheekbones to sharpen, her hips to slim in an inviting way as if calling for hands to rest on them. Who those hands might belong to was up for some debate. She was with Bobby. And then she wasn’t. Boys flirted. She flirted back. “What’s with the gloves?” “I have a thing about germs. ” It didn’t go too far.
Marie sometimes had the feeling of being in a long, winding corridor and bumping into new versions of herself, walking too fast to look behind.
They weren’t bad years. They weren’t wasted.
And yet.
Two years was less than the time it would take for The Wolverine, what she’d absorbed of him, to fade. He was a part of her, like the shadow stuck to her back. She couldn’t feel Magneto anymore; he’d been muzzled by the stronger presence. Cody was gone as well. It was just the two of them. He’d once told Marie to trust her instincts; but now her instincts were Logan, her intuition speaking with his gruff accent. She could tell when people were lying now. She could tell when they were sick. Excited. Scared. Dying. Dangerous. But still, that was just an echo of him in her head. An imprint, like a boot that had stepped through wet cement. It was real, but it wasn’t Logan.
“You’re growing into an impressive woman,” Ororo said to her one morning. The comment was met with a chorus of agreement from the other teachers. Marie had flushed with pleasure. But only she knew that this was Logan’s doing. Just knowing that there was someone out there who had thought her worth dying for—it made her back straighter, her eyes brighter.
And she missed him.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
THE NOT SO DISTANT FUTURE
The sun dug into the back of his neck and his sleeveless arms like fingers, a massage of warmth. It sparkled off the hedges and the grass, shimmered above the gravel. It was a Friday, the second week of the heat wave, and a sticky lethargy had taken over the student body. He’d canceled class. The whole building hummed with the sound of electric fans, the A/C doing it’s best to keep up. Logan had been outside for an hour, doing repairs on the bike that likely could have waited another month. He replaced the clutch, then the plugs. He figured the battery could be charged as well, but he’d need to push it back into the garage and that was several steps too near pubescent sweat glands.
While he was bent over the machine a car pulled up the drive, parking near the fountain. The driver, a plump black woman with hair knotted at the back of her neck, climbed out. “Well, this is convenient. I really wasn’t sure this was the right place until I spotted you,” she called over to Logan. He straightened.
“Excuse me?”
“The address was in the file. I knew it was a school. But I suppose I was expecting something a little less—castle.” She gestured behind him at the ivy-choked walls.
“You here about a job, or a student?” She had no outward mutation and no scent of motherhood, but that ruled neither out. Logan cocked his head, watchful, bike and his tools between them.
She tore her gaze away from the stone gargoyles. “Student, but don’t tempt me. What a beautiful place. I had no idea she came from this.” She reached a bangled wrist into a satchel dangling from her shoulder and drew from it a slightly crushed folder. “You have to understand, home visits are not orthodox, but my brother lives in Westchester, and I’m visiting for his birthday. I thought I’d take the chance.”
“What chance?”
“She never collected her portfolio at the end of the semester, and I wanted to return it to her with my notes—the work is exceptional.”
“Just who are you lookin’ for?”
“Well, Rogue”. She said the word like it had taken a long time to get used to. Also, as if it should have been obvious. “She hasn’t been responding to my emails. I don’t suppose you could ask her to come down? It’s just--I’ve got an ice cream cake in the car.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Rogue. Jesus. What kind of name was that? Though God knew there were plenty of stranger ones floating around the school.
“You don’t? But—I teach art,” she frowned at him as if he should know that, too.
He gave a brief shrug, more effective than a verbal who gives a fuck? “You can try inside, speak to The Professor. Charles Xavier, first floor, left hall.” Logan jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh. Okay. Well.” She still looked perplexed, but she started up the steps to the front door. At the top, she turned. “It’s just, the last time I saw you, it seemed like you two were pretty close.”
The woman was gone a long time, certainly long enough for that ice cream cake to melt. He could smell it, sugar and milk in the hot air. Logan removed one of the beers he’d hidden in the toolbox, popped the lid off with his thumb. The contents were warm, but that didn’t especially matter as he forgot to drink. Who had he ever been close to?
Last night, he’d walked in on Jean, her eyes pink from crying. He still wasn’t sure what was worse—that she refused to say what was the matter, or that he hadn’t really wanted to know. Even asking had been a token gesture. That was wrong, a part of him thought. If you cared about someone, then you cared when they were upset. Even he knew that.
Thirty minutes later, the front door reopened. He listened to the woman’s low-heeled boots on the brick. “Find who you were looking for?” He noted that she wasn’t carrying the folder now. “Where did you say you saw me, lady?”
She didn’t answer; she didn’t even look around. She walked straight over to her jeep, unlocking the door with a press of the fob. She got in, started the engine, and was peeling down the driveway before he could make up his mind to stop her. She didn’t respond to the sight of him lifting his hand-- hang on a second--in her rearview.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BACK THEN
The sound of the bike’s engine cracked the afternoon in half.
That Friday, the Friday Logan came home, Marie was in the game room--ignoring Bobby, who appeared dangerously close to making an attempt at reconciliation. One of her legs was stretched out on the couch, but the other was bent, propping up a sketchbook. She wasn’t drawing—flicking through the pages, unsatisfied with everything she’d made. Nothing ever came close to the things she’d imagined. Sometimes she almost thought it would be kinder to leave the pages blank. In the art club she’d joined, she felt as if she stood out more as a beginner than she did as a mutant.
But hearing it—that growl, like a mechanical beast running up the driveway, she dropped the book and all other thoughts. She was up, moving, nearly tripping on one of the rugs. If hadn’t been him, she might have been too embarrassed to return to the room, with all the kids who were exchanging Rogue-is-acting-crazy-again glances. If it hadn’t been him, something inside her might have blinked out—like a strand of Christmas lights she’d left hanging too long. But Marie did not pause to consider those things, because she knew, in the deep and wordless part of her mind.
And it was.
“Logan!”
Two years was not that long.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I just want to thank everyone who left their kind thoughts on the last chapter. Struggled a bit with this one, but dipping back into fanfiction feels surprisingly natural, even after so long away. I remember why I loved playing with familiar characters, old stories. Most of all, why I loved contributing to a community like this, with readers who are so generous with their time.
And this seems to be helping with my (forgive me) real-life writing as well. I was able to put a couple thousand words down on a story that's only produced scribbles and guilt for the past several months.
And this seems to be helping with my (forgive me) real-life writing as well. I was able to put a couple thousand words down on a story that's only produced scribbles and guilt for the past several months.
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you, thank you so so much. Please review!