Her entire world was spinning on a whole new axis. In a matter of minutes, the life that Marie had fought so hard to build for herself and Logan had crumbled completely. For a brief instant Marie had held onto the hope that Kitty would be able to remove the chips from Logan’s brain and make everything normal again.
Everything had happened so quickly that it was hard to believe it had all really taken place. At first everything had been going perfectly. Kitty had removed the two chips at Logan’s temples without any difficulty. All they had needed to do was flip Logan over onto his back so that Kitty could properly reach the final chip that lay imbedded at the base of his skull.
That was when the trouble had begun.
Hank had just released Logan from the metal cuffs when suddenly Logan’s upper body had arched off the bed. He had begun growling and trashing like a man possessed. For all his superior strength, there was only so much that Hank could do. Holding Logan in place for any amount of time was not one of those things.
Everyone had watched on in horror as the sharp knives shot from Logan’s knuckles. Caught off guard, Hank’s arm had been cut by the lethal blades.
“Jean, get in here!” Scott shouted, rushing towards the door. “Logan’s going ballistic! Something’s wrong!”
The following events happened faster than at a rate that was hard to comprehend.
Jean rushed into the room to aide Hank, Scott and Kurt who were attempting to hold Logan down while avoid getting clawed.
“Logan, no!” Marie screamed, pulling her hair back from her face.
“Jean, do something!” Scott cried as Logan kicked him away.
With a roar, Logan lurched into an upright position, shoving Hank and Kurt away.
Continuing his forward motion, Logan rammed his right hand forward, catching Jean in the stomach.
With his claws.
As they watched on, Logan seemed to realize what he had done. His expression changed drastically, going from murderous to horrified in a matter of seconds. The agonized cry that escaped from Logan’s lips tore at Marie’s heart. She went to go and take him in her arms but Logan scrambled off the bed and out of the room.
“Oh God! Jean, no! Jean!” Scott wailed, collecting his wife up in his arms.
Marie ignored the others as she charged out after Logan, hoping to stop him before he did something to hurt himself. Having spent nearly a decade together, Marie knew that Logan tended to react drastically to the actions of his baser side. The last time he had accidentally let the animal out Logan had disappeared for a week with no word. When he had finally returned, Logan had been a wreck. He’d been fidgety and had avoided all his friends for fear of hurting them like he had hurt Marie. As far as Marie was concerned, what Logan had done hadn’t been his fault. He had woken up screaming from a nightmare and caught her arm with his claws. The wound had been healed in less than ten minutes, but by then Logan was gone. It had taken him another week before he was back to his normal self.
When Marie saw where Logan was heading, she began running even faster. No good could come from Logan going into the hanger.
“Logan, no!” Marie shouted as she burst into the hanger a few moments after Logan did.
“I have to, darlin’! It’s the only way!” Logan called back as he shoved at the armoured door that protected the hanger from the waterfall beyond. He had cut himself a door with his claws just large enough for him to fit through.
Marie let out a choked sob as slowly made her way further into the hanger. “Logan, please.... I need you....”
After a moment, Logan turned his head back towards Marie and gave her a sad smile. “And I could kill you.”
Marie got only a few more steps before Logan launched himself into the thundering shower of water.
For a few seconds, Marie watched in horror as Logan disappeared from her sight. Screaming his name as loud as she could, Marie sprinted towards the opening. Even though she knew that it wasn’t likely, Marie prayed that Logan had somehow managed to catch the ledge of the hanger and was dangling safely above the ground.
Instead, all that she saw was a curtain of water.
“LOGAN!” Marie wailed into the churning abyss. Tears blurring her vision, Marie collapsed to her knees when she got no response from Logan. Her hair and clothing became saturated from the continual spray of water, but Marie paid it no mind. Her face was already soaked enough by her tears.
Soon even her knees were not enough to support her and Marie curled herself up on her side. Strong and resilient as he was, Marie was not sure that Logan would be able to withstand the thousand foot drop to the sharp boulders that waited for him at the bottom of the cliff.
The thought that Logan could be lying broken and bleeding at the bottom of the waterfall spurred Marie into action. She would not be of any help to him by crumbling into a sobbing heap.
“Roguey, what’s going on?” St. John demanded from behind her. “I just passed the medlab it’s a madhouse in there.... Then I heard you screaming.... Talk to me, Rogue.”
Pushing herself to her feet, Marie slowly turned around to face him. “Johnny, I need to know the quickest way to the bottom of the falls. I need to get down there now.”
“Wha--”
“Logan’s down there!” Marie shouted, her panic and fear taking over. “The big idiot panicked and jumped! Now I don’t know whether he’s alive or not!”
“He’s alive, Rogue, and you know it,” St. John murmured as he pulled her into his arms. “Now I’m gonna go get Bobby from the gym and we’ll have him make us a slide of ice. Can you behave that long?”
Marie glanced back towards the waterfall and nodded her head. “The sooner ya get Bobby the better. Otherwise I may just end up jumpin’ down after Logan.”
Then St. John was gone and Marie was left alone in the hanger once again. She walked slowly towards the hole in the wall and stuck her head out a few inches so that she could look down at the ground far below. She was so high above, though, that there was not much she could make out at such a distance. Just faint outlines of the many sharp boulders that made up the bottom of the waterfall.
The thought of Logan having fallen so far made Marie’s blood run cold. She wanted Logan back. She wanted to hold him in her arms and never let him go. Before she could do that, though, Marie would have to deal with Logan’s lack of self-worth once they found him. Whenever his more instinctual side got the better of him, Logan would react very badly and his self-worth would plummet. Years of dealing with Logan’s sometimes odd logic, Marie knew the best way to get Logan make him feel better.
“I’ve got him, Roguey!” St. John shouted, snapping Marie from her contemplation of the waterfall.
Spinning around, Marie let out a relieved sigh when she saw the two men jogging towards her. She watched them for a moment before turning her attention back towards the waterfall.
“I’ll be there soon, Logan,” Marie murmured under her breath as she stared down at boulders far below.
“Are you sure that he went down there, Rogue?” Bobby asked as he and St. John reached the ravaged wall of the hanger.
Marie gave him a horrified look. “Of course I’m sure, Bobby. Now please just get me down there. Logan could be hurt... or worse. I need to find him.”
Holding out his hand, Bobby created an ice slide to carry the three of them to the bottom of the waterfall. The trio rode the slide down at the same time Bobby was creating it so that their momentum would not be too great and they would go flying when they reached the bottom.
As they spiraled towards the ground, Marie kept her eyes glued riverbank, hoping to catch sight of Logan. Marie wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not that she couldn’t see Logan anywhere.
“I think I see him!” St. John called over his shoulder when they were about halfway down.
Marie’s eyes darted every which way, trying to see what St. John was seeing. “Where’s he at, Johnny?”
“Over there by the woods!”
Marie looked in the direction St. John had pointed out, but she couldn’t see what he saw. No matter how hard she strained her eyes, Marie couldn’t see Logan anywhere. Not a single hint of Logan anywhere. Whimpering in the back of her throat, Marie felt her panic growing the longer she went without seeing Logan. At that point, she would have even preferred to see Logan floating in the river so long as she could see him.
As soon as they reached the riverbank, Marie began spinning around in circles, scanning the landscape for any sign of Logan.
“LOGAN!”
~*~*~*~*~
“LOGAN!”
At the sound of Marie’s scream, Logan moaned and stumbled deeper into the woods. No matter how much he wanted Marie then, he couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t trust himself near her. Not after he had killed Jean. Marie had been standing right next to Jean and it could have very easily been her that he stabbed in the stomach.
Logan stumbled on the uneven ground and went crashing to his knees. A pointed rock jabbed into his shin, but Logan ignored it as he sluggishly pushed himself off the ground. Gulping in lungfuls of air, Logan leaned against a tree. His body ached from the painful landing at the bottom of the falls. The rocks had cut into his flesh and his rapid healing made the pain that much more intense and disorienting.
“LOGAN, PLEASE ANSWER ME!”
Logan could clearly make out the panic in Marie’s voice and wished that he could have told her that he was still alive.
Pushing himself away from the tree, Logan continued staggered away from the mansion.
Away from Marie.
Away from his children.
Away from his home.
“Logan, please....” Marie sobbed, her voice catching at the last.
Forcing his aching limbs to respond, Logan followed the curve of the river as it led him further and further from the mansion and the people that he cared about...
... and brought him closer to Magneto.