That night passed in near silence, the only occasional sounds to hear the sobs of lost and hurting people. The few children they had rescued where all piled into one dorm, by their own choice, using each other’s presence for comfort. The rest of the children were still out in the world somewhere, the older students who had accompanied them knowing to take them to various safe houses the Professor had scattered around not too far away.

Scott was trying to distract himself by planning the best ways to collect all the students and return them to the school. Ororo was trying to meditate in her rooftop garden. Bobby found himself back where he had been when this all started, in the kitchen, staring blankly at the six holes that now marred the refrigerator doors. Kurt tried to make himself scarce, he didn’t feel right intruding on the group that was now so mired in grief, so he found himself a couch, in a darkened library, and went to sleep.

--

Late into the night Logan paced his room. His thoughts churning, running over the situation again, and again. Trying to figure out where he could have changed something, anything, that would have stopped Marie. Why had she done it? Why had she gone out there? What had she been hoping to achieve other than giving him a body to recover? Because he would recover her, even if it took him the rest of his life he would find her, whatever was left.

That water crashing down on her would have been like several tons of concrete. She would have been crushed, the churning water twisting her body in unnatural ways, tearing her limb from limb. She probably wouldn’t have died instantly, would have felt it all, every broken bone, every torn muscle, every impact into rocks and debris, before finally her brain ran out of oxygen from water filled lungs.

As his mind was flooded with images of Marie’s broken body, her dark chocolate eyes found his through the churning water, he could hear her soft southern voice.

“Why didn’t you protect me Logan...

“Why didn’t you save me...

“You left me Logan...

“You promised...” her voice taunted him.

“You promised me Logan.”

With a startled gasp, Logan jerked up out of bed, falling right off the side and landing on his hands and knees. He scrambled for the bathroom a moment before his stomach lurched, retching at nothing – he hadn’t eaten in almost a full day – before he collapsed on the floor again.

“Marie... I’m so sorry Marie,” he whispered, as he began to sob.

That was a weird feeling that, crying, he couldn’t remember ever having done it before. The closest he had come once before had, oddly enough, also been because of Marie. That time he held her on the statue, willing her to live, to take his mutation and breathe.

When he was done sobbing like a child, he kicked himself into gear, climbing to his feet and heading for his room. He dragged out his pack and hurriedly stuffed all the items he had emptied out of it mere days before back in. Even his dirty laundry he stuffed back in, he didn’t have time to wash it here. He was going back to Alkali, he would be there until he found her, he owed her that much.

It wasn’t until he pulled open his door, and heard the sobs coming from another room that he remembered, they had lost Jean too. He hadn’t even given her one moment of thought since Marie had teleported out of the jet. That thought brought him up short as he pondered it... but of course he hadn’t thought about Jean, it was Marie that was his, it was Marie almost every action of his revolved around, it was Marie he was in love with...

~Since when?~ he asked his own inner voice, watching in silence as little snippets of memory began to float through his mind. Marie asking if his claws hurt... the shy smile she shared with him in his truck... on the train when she had just told him she had him in her head but she still cuddled up to him and let him make promises... the sad smile she had given him when he left, right after she told him she wished he wouldn’t go but she was letting him go anyway, and her brilliant smile when he came back.

~Oh,~ was all he could come up with in response, ignoring the snigger of his own subconscious.

This realization didn’t help his current frame of mind. All that time wasted distracting himself with Jean, had caused him to miss out on what little time he had had with Marie. Didn’t he feel like an idiot now!