After long grueling years of war he had come to her. Now he was
standing at her doorstep, shoulders hunched, grim, hard lines
marring his visage, soaked through from the rain. His hair was
slicked back against his skull. Gone were wild ear-like peaks. He
had lost weight; hard muscle had been replaced with stringy tendons.
Series of numbers decorated his left cheek just below his eye, and
she recognized them immediately. Same numbers she had been carrying
with her ever since he had given her his dog tag, all those years
ago. There was writing below the line of numbers. "Model: destroyer
Code: Wolverine" There was a metal collar around his neck.
"We have been instructed to release it under your supervision. If
you could sign here and here…" She took papers from the men
escorting him and scribbled her name hastily to indicated lines. Men
took the papers and turned to leave.
"Wait! What about his collar?" She shouted after them.
"We were unable to remove Wolverine's personal weapons. Under no
circumstances should you remove it," other man shouted over his
shoulder. They stepped to the truck and drove away.
She took his hand and led him inside. Her house wasn't big, but she
had two bedrooms, kitchen and a bathroom. He followed her mutely
there, and just stood when she undressed him. Clothes were tattered
and dirty scraps, some of it too big even for him. When last scrap
of them fell from him to the floor, she couldn't stop the sob that
escaped from her. She could practically see every bone in his body,
jutting sharply through his skin. There were old scars criss-
crossing all over him, some white and thin, some as wide as her
palm, angry red and purple. She trailed one especially nasty looking
softly with her fingertips from his right shoulder to left side of
his navel. He flinched, but stood on his ground, staring off to
distance.
"Lets get you cleaned up…" Her voice was thick. Tears stung in her
eyes. Five long years she had waited and prayed for his return. All
she had gotten back of the man she loved was a dried, used up husk,
a walking corpse.
He was cold and hungry. Female unit smelt vaguely familiar, but he
discarded that notion fast. No use to wallow in past. She was better
left forgotten. This was now. He had been assigned to a new camp.
Female was most likely his new mechanic. He was hoping she could do
better than the one before her. Man had been careless drunk, and had
often left him for days without food and adequate shelter in the
field.
Logan stepped under the shower voluntarily, but didn't make a move
to wash himself. He just stood there, staring dumbly at the wall in
front of him. She took the sponge and squirted generous amount of
gel on to it. Climbed in the tub after him and started scrubbing him
clean.
This was something new. Warm water and soft sponge. He suppressed
the satisfied sigh that threatened to escape. Usually they just
hosed him down with cold water after battle. Sponge traveled over
his shoulder blades, dipping lower, scratching his skin lightly with
every stroke. It felt too good. He closed his eyes and shivered. His
mind was reeling. He braced his hands to the wall and leaned his
forehead against his arms, granting the female better access. He was
quite sure it was allowed. He felt her fingers again, trailing faded
scars on his back, just below his right shoulder blade. Shrapnel
from a grenade. Hand trailed lower, finding tangled mess of coarse
skin just above his buttocks. That one had taken him out of
commission nearly for a full day. Sniper had blown out his guts. He
had lain in a puddle of shredded innards couple of hours before
anybody noticed he was missing. Not a nice feeling. But they had
taken off the collar quickly after that and let him heal. They
needed him to take down that sniper before he got anybody else.
She urged him to turn around. He obeyed, observing her every move
silently with dull eyes. She added some gel to the sponge and
started lathering his front side. Small muscle in his throat ticked
slightly every time sponge slid over his nipples. She worked
methodically, making her way from his head towards his toes. There
was a blank look on his face when she reached his crotch. No
reaction when she touched him there, cleaning him with bare hands.
Female was efficient and thorough. Not many of his mechanics had
bothered to clean his privates. He wasn't allowed to touch there
himself. After the incident, when they had slapped the collar on
him, it had had some less desirable results. Quite a few nasty
infections had settled in. They had pumped him full of antibiotics
and it had taken care of the problems. No more hot coals in his
lower abdomen, no more wetting himself. Female kneeled in front of
him and started rubbing his legs clean. Good. Good God in heaven. He
hadn't had any idea his legs were this sensitive. He had worn heavy
combat boots for years now, and he had thought they would have
chafed all the feeling off from below his knees.
"Can you lean forward a bit?" She asked, indicating what she meant
by placing her hand over his neck and pulling slightly. He bent his
back obediently, hint of curiosity lurking in his eyes. She squirted
some shampoo to her palms.
She was going to wash his head, too? They had probably told her
about the lice-problem. Well, it really hadn't been problem for a
while now. Not after they gassed him to get rid of those critters.
Gas they used burnt off his hair as well, but it worked, and hair
grew back in a few months. He closed his eyes, preparing for the
inevitable sting. They used quite strong stuff when they wanted him
to a presentable condition. Then he opened his eyes again,
surprised. Instead of painful burning sensation he felt only her
fingers massaging his scalp. There was a hint of vanilla in the air.
It smelled almost exactly the same Marie had used. Better not to
think about her. Not now. Not ever. He concentrated to the female
standing in front of him. She looked familiar in a comforting way.
She was dressed as a civilian. Perhaps they weren't so strict with
the code in this camp.
Warm water cascaded over him again. She had instructed him to put
his head under the spray and rub with his fingers. All right. He
could do that. That wasn't forbidden. But it was easier to wait
instructions than to act. He had learned that quite quickly after
first whippings. No touching. No talking. No sleeping. No breathing.
No living. Not unless they told you to. At first he had disobeyed
every possible rule. He had been daring enough to escape. They had
caught him surprisingly easily. Maybe that locator, placed inside of
him, just above is liver, had something to do with their swiftness.
For some reason they had removed it before relocating him to here.
Maybe they had changed it to a newer model. He had tried to dig the
old one out couple times, but both times he had accidentally
shredded his liver. That little bugger was so fragile that all it
took to puncture it was a small nick. Not a good thing to do if you
wanted to stay conscious.
He looked more at ease immediately after she started telling him
what to do. He rinsed himself, took the towel she offered and dried
off.
"Are you hungry?" She asked. He nodded little hesitantly
"Good. Put this on, and we'll go and make something to eat," she
said, giving him her bathrobe. Under any other circumstances it
would have been absolutely too small to him. Now it engulfed his
worn and battered form easily.
She reminded a bit one man he had known years ago. Earl. He had been
a mechanic, too. Older, grandfatherly figure. Earl had been taking
care of another unit. His own mechanic had gotten shot, and he had
been temporarily assigned under Earl's supervision. Earl hadn't been
exactly thrilled.
"You make one peep, and I'll put a hole through your skull.
Understood?" He had asked, stabbing him to chest with one, chubby
finger. He had nodded. Earl had led him to his tent. His own unit
had been already waiting there. Messenger. No name. Had to be a
clone. Small, limber and agile looking girl. From the sight of him
she had retreated to the furthest corner, hissing and shivering.
Without his collar he would have sprung his claws. With it on he had
to settle just to a menacing growl. And then messenger had attacked,
kicking, and biting. Earl had separated them. He had been dangling
the messenger from the back of her jacket in front of his face,
close enough that it saw his tattoo.
"See? It's one of our own." He had plunked the messenger back to
ground, and then turned back to him, smiling almost apologetically.
"She's a little spitfire." He had spent one night with Earl and his
Spitfire. Earl had offered him generous amount of food. Spitfire had
offered him little more after she had been sure Earl was asleep.
Back then it had still mattered. Gentle touch. Pleasure that being
inside of another living being evoked. Few days later he had been
gathering intel behind enemy lines, and came across Spitfire again.
She had been agile and limber no more. Rigor mortis had settled in.
He had dragged the cold corpse back to Earl. Old man had actually
thanked him, shaking his hand and squeezing his shoulder.
"Take care of yourself, buddy," he had said.
They had eaten in silence. For some reason he seemed extremely
reluctant to speak. She put it out of her mind, labeling it stress
related. You didn't go through five years of hell unscathed. He did,
however, seemed to pay serious attention to her every move and word.
Every time she asked something he did it. Passed the salt, poured
himself some milk, took second helpings.
This was good. Food. His body needed the fuel. It had been over
eighty hours when he had last eaten. Just after he had gotten back
from the field. Rations. Usually he got two pouches of proteins and
few capsules of something he couldn't identify. This time he had
gotten double the amount. He wondered if they had noticed what he
was doing to replace the lack of food? Hell, every unit did it. You
did it to survive. Bodies were so mutilated to begin with, nobody
noticed if there were some pieces missing. He usually chose soft and
small organs. Easy to swallow, full of nutrients. He had heard of
one guy, who had developed serious issues about it. They had given
him a new name. Tepes. He had taken up drinking blood. He had been
stupid enough to get caught red handed, so to speak.
"We'll just leave the dishes. I'm wiped. Are you tired?" She asked,
stretching and yawning widely. She actually wasn't that tired, but
Logan looked like he was ready to fall asleep at any minute now,
eyes hooded, swaying slightly on his seat.
Sleep? She was going to bed now? He should probably go to sleep too.
They didn't like it when he was shuffling around while they slept.
Made them feel uncomfortable. One of his mechanics had gone as far
as to shackle him in the corner every night to keep him at bay. He
didn't sleep that much back then. Didn't need to. That was before
they put the collar on. After that he needed sleep just like anybody
else. At first it had been quite scary, to be that tired. He had
tried to stay awake, but his body simply refused to obey. Finally he
had given up.
"You can sleep in there. Linens are clean; I changed them yesterday.
I'll see you in the morning." Leaving him to his own devices,
closing the bedroom door behind her, was probably hardest task
during this whole evening. She would have wanted to cuddle next to
him, under same blanket, just to feel and hear him breathing, to
know he was alive and there with her. But somehow she got the
picture he wasn't ready for it.
Clean linens? She gave him a bed? Only times he had slept in a bed
during these years were those when somebody had needed his services.
That hadn't happened so often, last three years not once. They tend
to steer clear from battle units, and chose more pliable ones. They
preferred clones. Safer that way. Clones weren't fertile. And they
were prettier. Battle units carried scars, and like him, often cases
in-built weaponry. Not so big turn on in bed.
"Christ! Would you look at that!"
"Yeah. No way to remove those. Look at that tattoo. It was built
before war."
"And we are supposed to turn it loose?"
"Just leave the collar on. There's an address it's supposed to be
taken. Lonely woman, Probably a mutie, too. A wife! Christ! This
one's got a wife!"
"It was legal before the war."
He woke up. That had got to be the weirdest dream so far. A wife? He
snorted. He didn't have a wife, that much he remembered. There had
been no one. Nobody but Marie. She hadn't been a wife. She had been
just a kid. Just a kid, and so much more. It hurt to think about
her. She had been his life. Everything good in it came from her.
Everything he was before the war. At the lab they had taken away the
man, giving him claws and will to kill. She had restored what they
had taken from him. She had done even more. And now he couldn't even
remember her face. Everything else from her he remembered. Her
scent. Their conversations. How she moved and talked. And that god
awful baggy, green cloak she wore. She had given him a piece from it
when he left. He had lost it. He wasn't sure when. He had held it
when he had lain in the puddle of his own blood and shit. It had
been raining. There had been no feeling below his waist. He hadn't
dared to look. Hadn't wanted to know. Later they had told him there
had been only his skeletal structures left from below his ribcage to
his toes. He had lain there, staring at that small tattered piece of
green cloth.
She lay wide-awake. She had tried reading. It wasn't working. Logan
was here. Just a thin wall separated her from him. Just a thin wall,
and five years. She wanted to go to him, and erase those five years.
Make them disappear. She wanted him back so bad it hurt.
"Are you awake?" Whisper from the door. Female stood there. He
turned to look at her, to show her he had acknowledged her presence.
She walked to him and climbed to bed next to him, on top of covers.
He expected her to strip and get on to business. Instead she just
lay there, placing her head on his chest.
"I couldn't sleep." They usually didn't come to him for comfort.
This was weird. He was a living, breathing reminder of all that was
expecting when you opened your eyes next morning.
"Could you… Could you hold me?" Hold her? Maybe she was just shy? Or
needed this? Needed a little foreplay? Wanted to pretend they were
something else than just expendable pieces of machinery? Well, he
could do that. He wrapped his other arm around her, placing his hand
on her hip. She sighed and cuddled even closer.
"Do you mind if I stay here for the night??" He didn't know what to
do. Did she expect him to answer that? Probably. Was it okay to talk
now? They sometimes wanted him to talk.
"No. I don't mind." Words sounded weird. Scratched his throat. There
was something wet on his face, rolling down his temples. She fumbled
a bit, and placed her hand over his chest, palm ending on top of his
heart. Her whole body was tense. Why was she doing this if this made
her feel uncomfortable? Surely she could go and pretend with
somebody else? They didn't encourage relationships between units,
but there was no actual rule against them.
"I have missed this. I know it sounds stupid. We never slept
together, but…" Poor thing. He knew exactly what she was talking
about. First year had been the hardest. He had never slept with
Marie. Not slept with her, not fucked with her, and yet he had
missed both acts with her. Well, she would get over it. Had to get
over it. One could go nuts out there if didn't learn to numb one's
feelings.
"It will get easier." She hadn't punished him for talking, so it was
safe to assume he was allowed to speak now.
"I'm glad it's over. You're finally home. I missed you so much…" She
started to stutter, and gave up, burying her face to his chest. She
was crying now.
Home?
"Uh… What do you mean? Over? Home? What is this?" He pushed her away
from him and stood up, heart hammering. She was still crying.
"Didn't they tell you? The war is over. You don't have to… You don't
have to go back… You're home now."
Well that would certainly explain the way she had treated him, to
some extent. But it didn't explain why he was here. Home? He didn't
have a home. And if she wasn't a mechanic, who the fuck she was? And
why the hell he still wore his collar? Was this some kind of
rehabilitation program? If that was the case, they could just remove
the collar, then.
"Take this off. Now." He was leaning closer, yanking the collar
around his neck.
"I can't… They didn't give me the keys." He was struggling with it
in earnest now, fingers curled around it, cursing and pulling.
Fuck it. He could do it. Had done it before. He closed his eyes. Had
to be quick. Quick enough to cut all the way through before blood
loss did him in.
Oh, no. He wasn't going to… She screamed when claws shredded their
way out from his hands. Within a second both of his arms were almost
black and swollen, blood flowing from wounds between his knuckles.
Soft clunk when collar fell to the floor. Then he was on top of her,
claws back in, but other fist pressed threateningly against the soft
underside of her jaw. His breathing was harsh and labored, and he
looked like he was ready to keel over at any second.
"Who the fuck are you, and what is going on in here?" She could feel
tips of his claws, digging in to her skin. For a moment she
contemplated on turning her skin on, but that would most likely kill
him to the spot. And that wasn't something she was ready to deal
with.
His mutation kicked in slowly. He started to hear her heartbeat.
Fast and erratic. He could feel texture of her skin against his
straining knuckles. Soft and warm. There were small golden flecks
mingling with brown in her eyes. White strands of hair on her
forehead. Just a few. For some reason she had been plucking her hair
from there. Last one to return was his sense of smell. Message that
came through was enough to release her and back off. He knew that
scent. Knew it well. And he had nearly maimed her. Finally there was
a face he could connect with the rest of his memories.
He sat outside. It was still dark, but only in few hours sun would
rise. This wasn't happening. Warm, tingling sensation washed over
him. They had never left him free this long. They had slapped collar
on as soon as they were sure he was able to go on. Now his mutation
was working overtime, repairing old scars, getting rid of dead
tissues. This simply wasn't happening. He had spent years forgetting
her. Now all those memories were coming back, linking together with
the face he had found. It hurt. His brain hurt. His gut hurt. Torn
look on her face. Scent of fear and disappointment masking vanilla
and peppermint.
He groaned and wrapped his arms around him, swaying back and forth.
He didn't dare to close his eyes. As soon as he tried, he saw her
under him, blinking back tears, scared out of her wits. And she had
never, ever before been scared of him.
He had just gotten dressed, she had been keeping some of his old
clothes for him, and walked out. Had he left? She was slowly
collecting her courage. She got up from the bed. Small trickle of
blood escaped from her throat to the front of her nightgown. He had
nicked her. Just a little, nothing life threatening. But he had
nicked her. Never before. And he hadn't known her. She went to her
room and locked the door behind her. She wasn't ready to go out and
see if he had truly left. Not yet. She curled on her bed and closed
her eyes. Conjured up a memory from past. Logan sitting on a swing
at Xavier's front porch, smoking a cigar and smiling.
Last one to go was a tattoo on his cheek. He could feel when it
started to fade. Soft burn when his metabolism ate the ink. Few
hours more, and nobody could tell what he was. Where he had been.
What he had done. Nobody. He could just leave. Away from her. Away
from her face and life. His memories were now complete, and he had
gotten even some extra. But that didn't matter. He could forget. He
had gotten quite skilled with it. He could just take few nice
memories about her, and forget the rest of them. He had done it
before.
He started to get up, when suddenly door behind him opened. Small
hands wrapped around him from behind, and he could feel warm breath
tickling his neck. Soft lips pressing a single kiss to his skin.
"Welcome home, Logan."
"Don't." He tried feebly to shrug off her hands around him, but she
held on tightly.
"I want you to come inside. Now. It's cold out here."
"No." Then the scent of her blood wafted to him and he bolted to his
feet. What had he done?
"I can't even heal you. I can't. I don't want you to see me. I don't
want…" He trailed the little brownish red path with his finger, from
her jaw to her breasts where it ended.
"I don't want you to heal me. I don't need you to heal me. I need
you. All of you." He saw from her eyes she was telling the truth.
"There's not much left, Marie. Maybe nothing. Is that really what
you want?" He whispered, afraid of what she would answer.
"Come home, Logan. Come home with me. We can make this work."
He sat down again and buried his face to his hands. That was the
answer he had feared for. There was no way he could leave now. He
felt like throwing up. Like crying and screaming. Claws were
itching. He was itching all over. Now that he had broken the collar,
there was no way to stop that itch. No way to escape. He was
trapped. And he wasn't absolutely sure if it was a bad thing.
She knew she had won when he started to cry. Silent sobs, face
hidden to his palms. She had seen him like that only once before,
right after Jean's death. Right after he had killed her. So now that
it was safe to assume he would be here when she woke up, she
returned back inside. He needed to deal with things on his own
before he was ready to come to her.
All those years memory of her had kept him going. One time he had
gotten caught, and spent less pleasant week behind enemy lines. They
had kept him sedated so they could use him for entertainment. Marie
had been there, in his hazed dreams, holding him, guiding him
through it all. When the camp he had been held as a hostage was
destroyed, his mechanic had found him crawling from the ground,
naked as a day he was born, covered with sweat, blood, semen and
other bodily fluids, and grinning like an idiot.
"I saw an angel." Well, after that he had seen pretty horrible
things, when they had pumped his system full with some shit which
was supposed to clear his head, but that was an entirely different
story.
"I have got to pull my shit together. I can't keep relying on you.
Not anymore." There was newfound strength in his posture and his
words, when he stood there leaning to the doorframe.
"You deserve better than what I have to offer right now. I don't
want you to settle to second helping from the government. Let me go."
She watched his retreating back. This time he hadn't left his tags
with her. There was no need to. She already had those, and now she
had even more. His promise to return.
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