“He’s takin’ too long, Kurt. Somethin’ happened. Ah know it. Somethin’ happened,” Marie mumbled as she paced around the fire, tangling her fingers in her hair. “What if he’s lyin’ dead in a ditch? He coulda pissed some of off an’ they hurt him.”
Kurt reached over and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Logan is fine, Marie. You know that as well as I do. After everything Logan’s been through he’s not going to be taken down by people in a bar fight.”
“Ya don’t know that,” Marie insisted, tears filling her eyes. “There coulda been too many o’ them. He coulda pissed off the wrong people and they coulda hurt him. So we should go lookin’ fer him. T’ see if he’s all right.”
“Marie, Logan is all right. You’re just overreacting. You know it and I know it. So stop worrying,” Kurt told her, steering her towards the fire. “Now I want you to sit still and relax. No more worrying. Logan will be back as soon as possible. Trust me.”
“But what if--”
Kurt held a hand up, stopping Marie before she could get started. “I said no worrying, Marie, and I meant it. What we’re going to do is sit here and swap stories. I will tell you what it was like for me growing up in Germany and you tell me about Mississippi.”
Despite all of Marie’s efforts to stall or distract him, Kurt started talking about his life in Germany. He told her about the farm he lived on, his family and what it had been like for him growing up. She had tried to keep her mind on Logan, but it wasn’t long before Marie found herself drawn into Kurt’s stories about his life. Kurt had grown up in a small town in the country. Somewhere that everyone had known each other. Because of this, Kurt had attended school with the other children his age and hadn’t been ridiculed or persecuted like other mutants would have been.
“Yer lucky,” Marie said with a sigh. “Soon as Ah found out ‘bout mah powers, Ah had t’ high tail it outta there. Ah’m from the South an’ they don’t take too kindly t’ people bein’ different ‘round there. It was safer fer me just t’ go.”
“But then you ended up in that awful place being experimented on,” Kurt reminded her.
Marie shrugged her shoulders, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “Doesn’t matter. If Ah hadn’t been there Ah never woulda met Logan. Ah don’t wanna think o’ what mah life would be like without him.”
“Then I guess you’re lucky that you don’t have to find out.”
“Very lucky,” Marie agreed, flopping down on the ground.
After that, Marie fell silent. She stared at the dancing flames, mesmerized by their fluid movements. The grace and flow if the flames reminded her a great deal of Logan. Logan possessed an incredible agility even with the massive metal-lined skeleton in his body. For the life of her, Marie couldn’t figure out why Montgomery had given Logan the name Wolverine. A wolverine was nothing more than an overgrown rat with a bad temper. Granted, Logan did have a bad temper, but there was nothing rat-like about him. To Marie, Logan seemed more like a giant cat-- a tiger perhaps --than a wolverine.
“So, is she in a full out panic yet?”
The instant that she heard Logan’s voice, Marie’s head flew up. She glanced over her shoulder, a wide grin appearing on her face when she caught sight of Logan standing just within the range of the firelight. With a squeal, Marie jumped to her feet and bolted towards Logan, throwing her arms around his neck.
Logan winced as she pressed her body flush against his. That sent Marie into an instant panic. She pulled away quickly, glancing up at him nervously.
“Logan, what happened? Are ya all right?” Marie demanded, pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, whimpering when she saw the bloodstains on the dark denim. “Oh Gawd! Ah knew it! Ah knew that ya’d get hurt!”
“I’m fine, Marie,” Logan tried to assure her, smoothing his fingers through her hair and pulling her back towards him. “It’s not like I could just knock them out and have it done with. I had to at least make it look real so they wouldn’t get suspicious. It’s harder to get a challenger when you beat the crap out of everyone.”
“But ya got hurt,” Marie whimpered, lightly tracing a finger around a giant purple bruise on the right side of his chest.
Carefully removing his t-shirt from her grip, Logan took her hands in his own. “I’m fine, Marie. Or at least I will be in a few hours. You don’t need to worry, Marie. Besides, we finally have some money.”
Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, Logan pulled out a wad of cash.
“So what do you guys say about a real meal?”
Eyes wide, Marie took the money from Logan, rapidly counting it. When she had the total, she looked up at Logan in shock. “Logan. This is over a grand. Ah’m holding over one thousand dollars. How on earth did ya make that kinda money?”
“Just like I told you before I left. I did some cage fighting,” Logan told her, grinning down at her. His entire face darkened only a few seconds later and he chuckled humourously. “Seems that even after a five year absence, my reputation still stands.”
“What are ya.... Oh Gawd,” Marie moaned, pressing a hand to her mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck once again, the money forgotten as she as the meaning behind Logan’s words sunk in.
Montgomery had spent five years cutting him open.
Marie had known that Logan had lost track of how long he had been in the facility. However, they had both just assumed that he had been there for a year. Two at most. The fact that he had been in that hell for so long broke Marie’s heart.
“I didn’t realize that it had been so long,” Logan mumbled against her throat. “I thought that it had only been a few years. Not five. That was five years of my life that I can’t get back. Five years that I can’t even remember. Yeah, I know that it’s probably better I can’t remember, but I still want them back.”
“Ah’m so sorry, sugah,” Marie murmured, clutching at him tightly. “Ah wish that Ah could make it better, but Ah really don’t know what t’ do. Ah don’t know how t’ give ya back all those years, but Ah can promise ya that Ah’ll be ‘round fer the next five years. Even longer if ya want me.”
Logan squeezed her tightly,, holding her body as close to his as possible and still remain to separate people. “I want you to stay.”
“Then that’s exactly what Ah’m gonna do, Logan,” Marie promised him.
“Touching as this moment is, I seem to recall the offer of food that didn’t have to be gutted and skinned first,” Kurt spoke up, interrupting Logan and Marie’s solitude.
Spinning around in Logan’s arms, Marie turned to glare at her brother. “In case ya didn’t notice, Kurt, Logan an’ Ah were havin’ a moment. On that woulda ended in a kiss if ya hadn’t interrupted us.”
With a dramatic roll of his eyes, Kurt stepped forward and cupped Marie’s face in his hands. Hesitating first, Kurt kissed her quickly on the lips before pulling back and shuddering. “There. You’ve had your kiss. Now can we please get going. I’m hungry.”
Marie could only stand there in shock. Of all the things she had expected Kurt to do, that certainly hadn’t been an option. The fact that Logan couldn’t seem to stop laughing only made it worse.
Taking several deep breaths to control his laughter, Logan wrapped his arms around Marie’s waist and pulled her back against him. “Now that Marie’s had her kiss, I say we get ourselves to an all night diner I passed on the way here. We’ll get us some food then find a room in a hotel.”
“Two rooms,” Kurt amended.
“Then we’ll find two rooms in a hotel,” Logan continued, lowering his chin onto Marie’s shoulder. “That way Kurt can have some privacy and Marie and I can... well we can do what we’ve been doing for the past week. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Oh Gawd.”
With their plan of action decided, their belongings were bundled up and the fire was put out. Since all they really had was a few blankets and the bags they carried them in, it took only about two minutes for them to pack everything up. It took a little longer to douse the fire. Normally they would leave it burning all night so that only the embers remained in the morning. But since they weren’t going to be there, none of them wanted to take the chance of the fire growing into something more.
“Ya know, Ah think Ah’m gonna miss sleepin’ under the stars,” Marie murmured as the three of them left their campsite. “It’s so beautiful out here. It’ll be a shame that we have t’ sleep inside four walls. Confined an’ all that.”
Logan looped an arm around her shoulder, pulling Marie against him. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back. I like sleeping out here better myself. But we won’t always be able to. It’ll start getting colder eventually which means that we’ve gotta find some sort of permanent shelter. As for tonight.... Consider this a break from everything that’s been going on. A chance to be normal people again.”
“Normal is highly overrated,” Kurt said from Marie’s other side.
“That it is. I still want my girl to sleep in a bed for at least one night, though. I want her to not have to worry for a little while. To be happy again,” Logan said, more to himself than to Marie or Kurt.
“Ah am happy,” Marie assured him, wrapping an arm around his waist in a sort of sideways hug.
Logan pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m glad to hear it, darlin’. Very glad. Because you make me happy too. More happy than I thought I’d be for a long time. I guess this means that things are finally starting to look up for us.”