Sunlight was blinding her, the ice crystals on the powder snow making everything glow and shimmer around her. Squeezing her eyes shut to narrow slits helped but it didn't help her following Logan. The sled was heaped with clothing, food, contraband, guns, even pelts, he'd taken everything he could. There'd be no trace left of the men they'd killed.
As soon as the thought went through her mind she'd felt a stab of fear run through her, she'd *killed* someone. The man had been reloading a gun, he hadn't been pointing it at her, he hadn't done anything to her. Logan's presence in her mind just added 'Yet' to the thought, as they'd made their way home she'd seen the stuff Logan had packed up. There were pelts of wolf, bear, lynx, beaver, even a close dark fur she didn't recognise, whoever they'd been they'd been hunting here for a while.
Bringing her mind back to the reason she'd killed the man in the cabin, her training had nothing to do with the way she'd reacted. She'd seen Logan down on the floor; she paused there correcting herself, no it had been Wolverine on the floor. Seeing him injured so badly had snapped something inside her, letting the force she'd seen running through Logan as he'd killed the interlopers on his land have free reign over her. She'd *used* him to kill, used his weaponry, used his anger, used his darkness to destroy. Inside she felt the stain of him on her mind, the door now opened would never be fully shut, she couldn't deny that she'd enjoyed it. The sense of pure purpose, of will; to destroy that which would've killed her if it'd had the chance. Wolverine hadn't given them it, she wasn't the same person she was three months ago, she was some*thing* else now, someone else. And it was this that was troubling her as they trugded through the cold snow fields back home.
They took a detour to get the elk carcass, there had been wolf tracks around the pile but the ice hadn't been broken open. Logan did look at her as he smashed open the pile of frozen rocks and snow; his gaze was calculating, reading her face and her silence as he dug for the meat. Handing over the chunks of flesh for her to wrap in the cold furs, when it was all done he wiped his hands on the furs and reached for her own. "Pop em'," she knew what he was asking, moving her hands out of his own she felt her tendons move in her forearms, forcing the bone blades out of her hands. The pain sharpened her mind as the blood flowed out of her ripped hands, it was the first time she'd let them out fully. As long as her forearms the blades were tapered, rounded almost, but the undersides were deadly, ridged and serrated, cutting, slashing implements. Her own blood mingled with that of the man she'd killed, the fresh blood staining the snow, steaming gently in the frigid air.
Logan ran his bare hand over hers, her skin humming gently as he did it, she didn't take anything from him, not a thought, not a memory but her blood did stop flowing. Lifting her hand he looked at the blades and studied them closely, his eyes were locked onto them, as if he was trying to remember something for himself, about himself. She nearly flinched when he ran his finger down the inner edge, his blood ran fast and hot to the already stained snow. The narrowing of his eyes showed the pain it gave him but he stayed silent as the wound healed slowly.
Dropping her hand he stepped back; his gaze was blank but his body hummed with unspoken questions. He wanted to know *how* this had happened, why she'd manifested these weapons, how he could touch her and she only took his healing from him, nothing else. She beat him to it, her voice shuddering in her throat as the words spilled from her into the frozen land around them. "Ah don't know Logan, honestly ah don't. Maybe ah'm meant to be like this, maybe that's why Xavier always let me stay around ya. Maybe he knew more about me than ah knew mahself." Her accent had thickened as her emotions got the better of her, the face of the man she'd murdered rose into her minds eye tormenting her. "Jesus Logan! Ah *KILLED* a man back there! Ah did it with these!" She lifted her hands to show him the blades that stood stark agains the sky.
She needed him to understand her, that she was scared of what she was becoming, she needed him to show her that what she was feeling was a normal part of what she was going through. That she should feel fear of herself, that she was dangerous, that she had an animal inside her that wouldn't let itself be hurt or him for that matter. "Logan...Ah need you to talk to me dammit! Tell me ah'm not goin' to be like you, never trustin' mahself around people just in case. Tell me ah'm not goin' to end up stabbin' you one night when you piss me off too much and leave you in a ditch with wounds so bad it takes you a month to heal em!"
Tears were flooding her vision as the creature inside her mind began showing her the uses for the weapons she had on display. Lifting her hands to her head she screamed out to the world, a cry of anguish and frustration, a memory opening like a lotus in her mind. Logan standing in snow naked, bloody, a scream so much like hers echoing out of his mouth, body healing self inflicted damage, blood everywhere on the perfect surface all around him like petals on water. The spatter patterns recognisable, as were the cuts that were healing up on his body, trying to ease the hunger, the rage, the knawing emptiness in his mind. Pain and blood were all he knew, all he could know at that moment and her own mind struggled with the strength of it as it flowed through her. Dropping to her knees in the snow she howled into the wind as Logan watched her come to terms with the choice she'd made. His own face hardened to the sight in front of him, but it didn't stop his heart from breaking knowing it was him that had turned her from his saviour into a damned soul like himself.
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Back at the shelter the meat was stored in ice, the rest cooked in the pans and crocks Logan had brought back with them. It was nearly dark when Marie found her emotions stable enough to communicate again. "Logan?" He turned toward her, understanding in his gaze and his movements slow.
"Yeah kid?" Again the old title, she must have worried him.
"Hold me."
He put the pot back on the fire, coming direct to her and plucking her into his lap, wrapping himself around her. She still felt cold, distant, lost, even in the warmth that surrounded her, she knew why, she'd lost herself. Marie was lost somewhere inside her own mind, the core of herself was there but everything that had happened to her over the past weeks had finally broken over her. She needed to know she was still in there, still in charge of her mind.
"Why?"
"Why what?" She snuggled into his breathing chest, trying to hide from the answer he'd give her, the one she hoped he wouldn't.
"When you woke up you tried to kill yourself for hours, why?" She kept her eyes on the pattern of the plaid shirt he was wearing, she didn't want to see his face as it went through the emotions she knew were churning him.
"I didn't want to live with them, didn't want the pain, didn't, couldn't face what I was, what they'd 'made' me into." She nodded as her fears were confirmed, she could taste his sorrow on the breath that went through her hair.
"You think I'm going to try don't you?" He stilled, even his heartbeat slowed for a second as the thoughts went into words in his throat.
"I'm not sure, are you?"
She was sure, she was in there, she knew it, she could feel herself fighting to survive, but she needed time, time to pull herself together. Training was nothing to the reality, to feel someones blood roll over her hands, to taste the copper on her tongue as they aspirated blood over your face. She had to assimilate the darkness that had been unleashed in her, come to terms with it. It wasn't fear of it that disturbed her but her own willingness to kill, all the hate she had held inside, all the pain just waiting to be used and turned on others. That her *own* darkness had found a willing partner in Wolverine, he'd show her how to use it, how to hone it, how to kill without remorse or feeling. *That* was what scared her, that she was capable of such savagery and that Xavier had *known* it too.
That he'd groomed her for this, put things into motion for this to happen for her darkness to be used as a weapon. It had been her choice to go with Logan yes, but if she hadn't what would he have done since she knew about where Logan went on those 'seperate' missions. Would he have turned her mind into jelly, made her go to Logan, tricked Logan into killing her?
A sense of steel filled her blood, she'd get through this, put herself back together, make herself stronger, live as she was meant to, honestly, all of herself nto just what was 'polite' or 'acceptable'. Then she'd go see Xavier and turn this darkness on him, let him see it's depth and see if he could survive it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Time for facing upto everything she's asked for, her training, her missions, her life, her relationship with Wolverine and Logan.
Thing is will she keep her mind while she does it?
Thing is will she keep her mind while she does it?