HOUR THREE & FOUR
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The place heaved with workers, several men and women were talking about the state of the roads heading into New York. Their bodies wrapped up for the cold blasts that seemed to blow straight from the cold north. Trucks from all over America seemed to be in the parking lot, their own small truck hidden in between all the giants hauling the essentials the New Yorkers couldn't do without.
Seated inside the truck stop, neither of them were worth watching, deadlines were needing to be met and everyone was busy with their own timetables. Even the conversations around them were tuned out by each other, only the orders that needed to be heard were shouted out over the smoky air.
An elderly waitress came over, her face smiling, eyes bright and going over them quickly before settling on her pad. "What'll it be?"
Marie looked at Logan first before answering, he was still studying the menu, making his choices so she went first.
"Ah'll have the chicken salad, no dressin', peach cobbler and 'high fuel' coffee." The waitress smiled as she wrote the order down turning her body toward Logan to take his order.
"Yes hon?" Logan looked up at the older woman his face neither harsh or soft, as close to neutral as she'd ever seen him.
"I'll have the lunch special, with a side order of a 'truckers grill'. High fuel coffee, large, no cream or sugar." Her pencil blurred as she wrote the order down, her smile never fading as she spoke.
"You wantin' all the sides with the grill honey?" Logan was folding the menu as she stood poised with her pencil. He didn't answer her, he just raised his eyebrow and looked *at* her, Marie noticed her cheeks flush as she just turned away with their order. She heard her mumbling to herself as she walked away, her soft soled shoes navigating across the crowded diner.
"Was that necessary?" Logan just gave her a grin that didn't meet his eyes, which held an entirely different emotion. They didn't speak, the noise around them soothed their nerves, to hear life carrying on around them while they wrestled with the internal emotions of their own predicament. When the coffee arrived it came in large mugs, more like soup bowls than real cups. A creamer and suger bowl were left on the table as their waitress shifted away again into the whirling maelstrom of humanity just past their table.
The lunch rush was fading when their food arrived, her own plate was piled high with salad, all fresh cut, all placed with the irreverance of a person used to dealing with meat and lots of it. A fresh roasted chicken half was resting on the wilting salad, Logan's food took the waitress two trips. The lunch special was a steak with fried eggs, fries, mashed potato and green beans, biscuit and gravy. Followed by a huge piece of pie and cream. The 'Truckers Grill' looked like a road accident in a meat factory, every animal was represented as far as Marie could see and smell. The 'sides' were anything but, grits, pickles, steamed vegetables, sweet rolls and a pitcher of juice. Slapping the bill on the table the waitress made her way back into the diner as Marie just watched as Logan began to eat.
It took the best part of an hour to eat everything on their table, people came and went, shouts and laughter filled the air as trucks passed by the window they sat next to. Life went on around them as it seemed to stand still for them, her salad made her feel full, the chicken settling her already abused stomach. Peach cobbler had been to give her some emotional comfort; it had been a favourite of hers when she'd been at home. Eating it had been a memory of life when it hadn't been consumed by a power other than her own will.
Logan had just eaten slowly, biting his way through the meat, chewing properly and seeing him relax with every mouthful. The Grill had been first to go, all the meat quickly being dispatched and she knew his body would burn it as soon as it hit his stomach. Winter had been hard, the fats that covered this farm bred meat were hard to find in game and his body craved the taste after a winter without.
When he only had the pie left he broke their silence, "We need a game plan Marie, I need to know your going to follow orders. Both mine and Xaviers." That made her eyes go wide, a snarl in her throat being muffled by the coffee in her mouth. "I *know* but you've gotta do this the right way. If he suspects anything but utter compliance he'll be all over us like a rash and you know it." Dropping her mug to the table surface she knew he was talking sense, she waited for him to continue laying out his plans to her.
"We need to do this in a two pronged attack, one, we need Xavier to believe that we're still on board with his way of doing things, two, you need to get back in with your old group."
"Ah never *was* in with them in the first place Logan, how am ah gonna pull this off?" Logan smiled, his eyes taking on a glint that seemed to be fired from Wolverine and not the man in front of her.
"Because we're gonna be sharing a room back home an as sure as eggs are eggs they're gonna want to know what you've been upto while you were away with me." He reached out toward her skin touching her face as the smile covered her.
That *would* get most of the female population wanting to know what she'd been upto especailly when it came out that she didn't need her gloves anymore. Smiling she launched into her thoughts, "Yeah, it'll be great to stand there dressed with mah arms showin', hands uncovered and finally givin em all the finger." Logan stopped touching her skin and the light faded from his gaze a little. "What?"
"Ya can't show em darlin'. Ya gotta keep covered, be 'careful' again, they don't need to know an it's better if they *don't* know you can control it. We keep that secret between us." His hand grabbed her own uncovered one on the formica surface, "I'm askin' a lot of ya I know but if Xavier finds out you can control it I'm not sure what he'll do with you and I'm not going to risk losing you because of it." He smiled at her then, a real genuine smile that reached through all the blocks in his gaze to warm her from the inside. "We'll have enough time to touch when we sleep." Her blush stroked over her skin, making his blood pound through his veins, remembering her on her knees earlier. The look of ownership in her gaze, the love she had for him covering his skin with her touch on skin that had been abused for so long. She loved him and she'd expect him to carry on showing and sharing it with her even at Xaviers.
"What are we goin' to do about that? Ah mean everyone knows ah can't touch there, an if we come down from a 'session' upstairs an your lookin fine then they're gonna start askin questions."
"Already figured that one, we'll have a few stops to make before home but we'll do okay. Once that room door is locked tight no-one will know what we do." Smiling she squeezed his hand in hers, that was one obsticle gone now they had another to deal with.
Why he'd been doing the killing in the first place.
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The skies outside were greying over as a rain front moved in, several haulers noticed and cursed loudly, they had open bed trucks and needed covering over before the rain came down. Logan and her watched them struggle to pull the covers over as the wind tried to take the covers into the darkening sky.
"You gonna answer me?" Logan just kept his eyes out on the world outside their warm little bubble, it made it easier to talk about it. He didn't want to face her softness, didn't want to see her eyes deaden as he told her why he'd killed all those people, why he'd agreed to do it, why he'd enjoyed it.
"My life, what I remember hasn't been good, everyone I cared for has been taken away, killed, destroyed by me or just plain died on me. Xavier got me when I'd been on a rampage through a list of names, the list whether it was real or not was a purpose, a way of settling the score. I killed over twenty men and women, all of them ex-military, some Canadian, some American. All of them connected to me somehow, faces I remembered they went slow, others went in accidents, fires, car wrecks. I'm good at what I do, Xavier set me up, gave me a leaked name and I went for it like a rookie. He grabbed me then and brought me *home*, gave me the spiel about how I could work for him and get what *I* wanted. I took it, swallowed the whole thing, at first it was as he said, I finished my list and Xavier found me more names to *collect*. Thing was he expected me to do more for him, I wasn't exactly pleased when I found out that some of the names he'd given me had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with him. That's when I lost it, thats when he locked me up, kept me from freedom, from killing him and everyone in the school." His eyes dark, refelcting the leaden skies above them into her own soul and chilling her. "Thats when he offered me *you*."
He turned back to the window and the first fat drops that exploded against the window pane. "I took the offer, it was the best one I'd ever had, I was watched constantly by a telepath, monitored you could say until I had the 'right' frame of mind. That came when you arrived, the day I saw you in the corridor, I knew you were the one. You were *mine*." He stopped to trace a finger down the pane, following a track of rain water as if it were a tear down her cheek.
"Soon after you were grabbed by the furball, a set up, and when he gutted you he meant you to die. I had to protect what was mine Marie, I saw to you first leaving his golden boy to sort out the problem of his carcass. You were what was important to me, when your skin kicked in it was bad but not as bad as seein you die darlin'."
Tears were standing proud but they wouldn't fall, she knew that, his voice trembled slightly as she reached out and took his hand in hers. She didn't remember much after being found by Logan, the pain of her attack by Sabertooth was squashed by the memory of Logan touching her. The rush of his mind into her own, the feeling of his need to see her safe, the personality sliding into her own subconscious and sitting there, owning her from the inside out. She'd been so upset at seeing him downed by her gift, she'd watched him for days afterward in the med bay. Hoping for him to come round when he had she'd been the first thing he'd seen, the smile on her face was still one of his best memories. She'd been pleased to see him alive, seeing him breathing after she'd hurt him so badly.
"When I woke up you were there, just waitin for me. I asked Jean how long you'd been there, she told me every day after class, even coming back after dinner, just in case I woke up. You don't know how much that meant to me to hear that; an afterward you even let me near you, let me touch you. Every time I went out I hoped you be there, let me be human for a while an you never disappointed me. Even when you were with those little pricks who kept sniffin round you, you *always* came to see me *first*. Just knowin you gave a damn made it worth the pain, made it worth the effort Marie, that you'd be there for me when I needed you." The tension in his voice rose, watching as he swallowed something down, words that he didn't want to let out. She gripped his hand tight and touched his cheek as the first tear fell down his skin, mirroring the rain outside.
"Say it, let it out Logan. Ah'm here an ah'm not goin' anywhere, ah love you." His eyes clenched shut as he fought with his own reactions, he wanted to run, wanted to get out, away from this pain but the man needed her to know the reasons, the why and it'd hurt to reveal.
"He was going to use you as bait again, he wanted me to stay away, to leave. I found out from Scott, he was discussing a plan with Xavier, there were movements in the south and they were going to use you as bait to draw out Buckethead. He still wanted you, still does if I'm any good, that was why I took the last assignment I did, thats why I didn't let you near me. I knew you were curious, that you wanted to know what I did and where I went. All I did was use that curiousity to my advantage, Xavier wanted me to train you, to show you how to kill cleanly. But I wanted you to come to *me*, an you did. I used you to get what I wanted." The disgust in his voice made her sick, that he thought he'd used her as badly as Xaiver had. Steeling her voice she squeezed his hand until he looked at her directly.
"Did you do it protect me?" He nodded slightly. "Do you love me?" His hand in hers squeezed back and stroked her skin, the touch enough of an answer. "There wasn't much of a choice there Logan, not for me or you, you did what you thought was best. You kept me with you, showed me what you were doin' even made me face upto what the world was really like. Ah'd been livin in a fantasy land till then, you took me out of it, gave me everythin you had to give an you expect me to be mad about it? Logan honey you ain't much of a thinker are ya?" She smiled then a ray of light in a dark place, her voice whispering to him, helping him to ovecome this burden of guilt.
"Ah mean if ya hadn't where would ah be right now? Probably locked up in some cell somewhere with Mystique and ol Buckethead for company. No sugar you got me out of there, brought me where ah could be what ah was meant to be. Free, with you."
At that moment she could see that he wanted nothing more than to run with her, to lose themselves in the world. To stay away from the manipulating claws of Xavier but if they ran they'd always be running. He could do it but Marie couldn't one day she'd stand and fight, and she'd lose against all of them. He didn't want that, couldn't face that happening to her, so they'd take apart what they could from the inside. Then they'd destroy everything else, until there was nothing left of the man that had ruined so many lives in the name of 'progress' and 'integration'.
Now they had to plan how to get into heads, the first being Jeans, to unbalance her further, to send her over into madness. That was a plan that would have to wait until they were home but the seeds had already been set in her mind. Jean was a killer, an assasin like they were, all they needed to do was prod her in the right direction and she'd do the looking herself. Her subconscious knew what she was doing, deep down in her mind it knew all they needed to do was make it rise and for that they'd need intel. So when they got back they'd return to their old jobs, Logan on the team and her in the beta team as well as tracking Xaviers 'enemies'.
The rain was still hammering down from the sky when they ran to the truck, the table far behind them in the warmth of the diner. A tip left on the cluttered table along with the money to pay for the space and time it had taken to clear their souls. Along with the scent of tears and fingerprints on the glass where hopes had been made and plans given actual depth.
Taking up the money the elderly waitress smiled as they pulled away, her good wishes for the two of them following them down the highway. Love may only come once in a lifetime but when it burnt as bright as it did for those two it made the rest of the journey worthwhile, even if you were on your own.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Truck stops are the places where life changing decisions are made everyday, here we get to listen in on Marie and Logans.