They decided to stay at the cabin. Marie needed time to gather her thoughts, and they really had nowhere else to go. One good thing had come out of their imprisonment at the Free Zone. It had thrown the Army off from their backs.
There was almost nothing left of the original furnishing, but cabin had four solid walls, roof and a working fireplace. Logan was more than able to build a home from it to them. It gave him something to do while Marie was reading the book he had found from the remains of the Free Zone. At first he had been reluctant to give it to her. Person who had written it, had went to extreme details, describing every procedure that had been carried during the project Adam and Eve, including what would have been Marie’s part in it. Finally, after she had begged, whined and griped for it he had grown tired of hearing her, and had thrown the book to Marie.
“It’s beautiful!” Logan had done this before, for himself. Carved a bed. It had served it’s purpose well, but he hadn’t gotten this warm feeling of pride from accomplishing it that he got now when Marie’s hand was caressing smooth, polished wooden surface, eyes twinkling with admiration. It had taken him a week. Week to find right pieces and coax the form out of them. They had slept on the floor on top of moss Marie that had gathered from the woods surrounding them, but tonight they would lay down to a bed. Thick layer of hay to the bottom, and on top of it a soft quilt they had salvaged from the ruins of the complex they had been held.
“Tomorrow I’ll start with the table and chairs,” Logan said when they sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. While he had been working on the bed and scouting their surroundings, Marie had found some pots and pans strewn around the cabin. Some of them were rusted through, but few of them were in good enough shape for cooking. They had rations, Logan had managed to bring down a small deer, and now, at the beginning of the winter all kind of berries and seeds were ready and ripe, just waiting for somebody to pick them up.
“Season won’t last long. We better start to gather and dry these. You will need vitamins later,” Logan said around mouthful of blueberries. Marie tilted her head.
“Huh? Later? What do you mean?” She asked. She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn Logan actually blushed before looking away from her. When he turned to look at her again, he was completely serious.
“Something I hadn’t really thought about came to my mind when they put you on birth control back there. That shot won’t last forever.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah. You will get pregnant. Sooner or later.”
“But can’t you… I thought you could smell…”
“When you’re ‘catching’? No. I can tell the difference in your scent, and now I know nothing’s going to happen because of that shot. But that stuff they put in to you was artificial. I don’t have the slightest idea how to tell the difference with real hormones. I have never had to deal with this kind of things before,” Logan explained.
“Okay…”
“Does it bother you?” He asked.
She hadn’t even thought about it. Of course she knew how babies were born. What gave them life. That had been something she hadn’t had the time to think about. Now that Logan brought it up she wasn’t sure how to react.
“I don’t know…” She said. Logan looked mildly taken aback.
“If this is some shit about that stupid project again…”
“No! No, that has nothing to do with this! I just haven’t really thought about it… Guess I have just assumed that it was something I wouldn’t have to worry about, not yet anyway.” And that clearly wasn’t the right answer.
“Worry about? Having a baby is something to worry about for you?” Logan asked, eyes widening from disbelief.
“It’s a big responsibility. And before I met you I always thought there wouldn’t even be a chance for me to have that. To get this close with somebody, let alone have a child. I don’t think I’m ready for it. Not yet.” That was the truth. Up until Marie met Logan, she hadn’t been able to touch anybody as intimately as she could touch him. Logan huffed, grim lines settling over his face and stood up.
“Fine. I’ll be outside if you need anything…”
“Why does he have to be such a jerk? All I said was that I’m not ready yet. Yet. As in it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a baby right now…” Marie muttered angrily, staring at the pile of dirty dishes in front of her. She should go and wash them before they dried up. There was a well behind the cabin, and next to it a pile of soft sand. It had obviously been used for washing dishes and dirty clothes.
“Screw him. Screw the dishes,” she spat, curled on the bed with the book Logan had found, and started reading.
He started to remember why he had chosen to live alone rather than find a companion. Taking another person in to your life meant taking on responsibilities as well. He didn’t do that. Hadn’t done that. Now he started to feel chains tightening around him. He wanted to run, as far as he could, as fast as he could, and at the same time he was horrified from the mere thought of leaving Marie. She wasn’t ready to have children? Well’ who the fuck ever was?
“And who the fuck would want to have my children?” He spoke out loud the question that had floated to his mind when Marie had been explaining why she felt it wasn’t the right time for that yet. Only God knew, or more likely only Satan knew what had been done to him and his genes when he had been in the Army. That combined with genetic altering that had been done to Marie… No. Better not to think about it.
He was trudging through his usual route, checking surroundings out of a habit. The whole week they had spent here he had been scouting their surroundings, and it had become clear that their closest neighbors were animals scurrying around in the forest. No humans or mutants close enough for him to detect.
“Doesn’t hurt to be careful…” He muttered, crouching down. There was something on the ground. Something that hadn’t been there yesterday. Small piece of concrete. He picked it up. Noticed a trail of hoof prints and distinctive scent of a deer next to it and threw it down.
“But paranoia is a different thing altogether,” he grunted, standing up and wiping his hands to his denim clad thighs.
**… Doctor D’Acanto was reluctant to let us observe the procedure, and when it was over, she announced that she would be moving out. Whole team opposed her decision. It wasn’t wise. The whole project was… It was an abomination. Everything we had kept sacred, lines we wowed not to cross were broken…**
“Ugh…” Who ever had written the book hadn’t left a name behind, but judging from the sheer amount of details and information it had had to be somebody close to her mother. A boyfriend? No. Too cold and professional. Maybe a longtime co-worker? Marie glanced up from the book and pinched the bridge of her nose. Reading gave her a headache. She had perfect eyesight as far as she knew, so it wasn’t the act of reading itself, but the material she was wading through. There was so much of it. She had gotten only halfway through the book, page after page descriptions of failures, but now it started to look like the writer had been writing about her. Small thud from the front porch made her discard the book. Had Logan returned?
He decided to return to the Free Zone once more. He was on a mission. Hay and quilt were better than nothing, but he had a hunch he could find a real mattress from underneath the rubble. All he had to do was to dig deep enough. Quarantine quarters were left virtually intact; most of Marie’s destructive power had been focused to upper levels of the compound.
Sun was setting when he reached the Free Zone. For a moment he hesitated. It could take all night to find an entrance from under the debris. He should at least go and tell Marie where he was. Or rather go home and return to hunt the mattress in the morning.
“Shit.” He had overreacted. Now it was time to crawl back and beg for forgiveness.
When she opened the door, she expected to see Logan sitting on the porch, maybe hunched over a log and carving it, like he had been many nights before when he was crafting their bed. Empty porch and front yard greeted her instead. She closed the door and returned to her book. And heard it again. Distinctive thud, like somebody walking on the porch. She shook her head. This had happened before. The night of the fire. She had heard imaginary voices and run, and it had gotten her in trouble. Instead of running now she concentrated to the book in her hands, blocking all strange sounds out. They were not important. They were nothing. They didn’t even exist. Especially that one that sounded like somebody was sniffing and panting just outside of the door. Nope. Not real.
“Logan!”
He was walking slowly back towards the cabin, trying to form a polite way to apologize his childish behavior. Words had never been his strong suit. Sometimes they came out exactly right, but more often he managed to sound the greatest bastard that walked on the earth.
“Marie, I’m…” I’m what? Sorry? Asshole? Moron? All of them? Yeah. Definitely all of them. First one was a good thing and last time he checked latter two weren’t a crime. His ears perked. A voice.
“Marie, I’m… what the fuck?” Voice was calling him. Marie’s voice. Marie was screaming his name from the top of her lungs.
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