Libri Veritatum: Goodbyes

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Marie is not having a good morning. Logan finds a way to get through to her, at least a little bit.



Marie hadn’t slept much after the events with her family and Irene, but in all honesty, lack of sleep wasn’t all that unusual for her. When she had drifted off, her dreams had been filled with childhood memories that suddenly felt tainted or were nightmares of some unknown horror chasing after her in the future. She awoke several times, each time screaming and panicking at the unfamiliar feel of the motel room.

After a long, hot shower, she sat on the bed staring at the clock until it finally read a decent enough hour to leave the room. Trudging to the main area, she nodded at the clerk and headed straight for the coffee.

Logan was up before her, cradling his own coffee and chowing down on a bad hotel Danish. "Mornin'." he said in a friendly voice as she came moping into the lobby.

She took a swallow of the black coffee and raised an eyebrow at him. “Mornin’” she said warily and grabbed a stale bagel, shoving it into a toaster.

Oh yeah. Today was gonna be _fun_. He could tell already. Girl was a giant muddled mess of scents, jumping all over the place. If he didn't know better he'd just have to get her drunk and laid to settle her out, but with Marie that was a no-go on many, many levels. "Bring the paper with you." he told her as he kicked his boots up onto a nearby chair.

She grabbed the bagel as soon as it popped out, then walked over to pick up a paper, making her way to the table slowly while she balanced everything she held. Setting the mug down, she tossed the paper in front of Logan. She took a big bite of her bagel as she sat down so that she had an easy excuse for remaining silent.

Logan snagged the paper out of the air without even trying and began to scan it. "Fucking USA Today." he grumbled. "Tabloid." Still, maybe they'd have some real news in among the AP newswires and the celebrity fuckings.

Swallowing, she took another sip of coffee and shook her head at Logan. Right. Ignore what happened yesterday, sure why not? She glared at him, even as a small part of herself pointed out that she was aiming her anger at the wrong person. “Whatever.”

Logan looked over his newspaper at the sullen young woman in front of him. "Huh. Troop movements in Pakistan. More sabre-rattling." he mused out loud as he read. He was not a speedy reader, but he always took the time out to glance through a newspaper. He didn't know why, but he felt like he ... had to.

Marie slammed her coffee mug down on the table. “Are we just gonna not talk about what happened yesterday?” She angrily bit off a piece of the bagel as she stared at Logan, praying that anger would help her keep the other emotions warring for control at bay.

"You got something to say, I'm right here." he said, and went back to the Politics section - such as it was - of the USA Today.

“Let’s see…found out Ah’m adopted, ran across a woman who supposedly knows the future…and oh yeah, you tried to break my nose.” She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “That about covers it.”

"You got no evidence of the first two outside of a dingbat and your folks, and it didn't. You'll live." he pointed out.

“How about what she said? What she knew? And why would my parents lie?” She leaned forward and her lip was quivering as she continued speaking. “It wasn’t for lack of trying, was it?”

"Kid, if I wanted your nose broken I'd have broken it." he said, with the easy self-confidence of knowing he was exactly correct. "And maybe she made you believe it."

Without thinking, her hand dashed out to grab the bagel off the table and she threw it at him, hard. Then she stared at him in horror and tears began streaming down her face. Was she trying to drive the people that cared about her away? “Ah’m a mess,” she said as she buried her face in her hands.

Logan nearly cut the bagel in half with a claw and picked up half. "Stale." he said, throwing the half back at her. "And you are. You don't have to deal with it all right away."

She didn’t react as the bagel hit her shoulder and fell to the floor. “How do Ah not? How do Ah ignore it? Any of it?” Her shoulders shuddered as she spoke.

"Same way I do, kid. Day at a time." he said sympathetically.

She wiped her eyes before looking up. “Ah just…Ah thought there were some things Ah knew. Some things Ah didn’t doubt. And now…” She shrugged.

"I think I might know a thing or two about that." he said, offering her his bare hand. "Come on. There's something we have to do." he said, using his free hand to put his newspaper down.

Marie stared at him through bleary eyes. She hesitated and then stretched out her gloved hand to take his.

Logan accepted it and then led her back up to his room. "Look. You're all fucked-up inside. You think your life is a lie, your parents frauds, and now you got some geezer telling you you're gonna fuck up big if you're not careful." he told her as soon as they were inside, grabbing her by the upper arms. "You got no idea what's real and what's bullshit."

And this is supposed to make me feel better? Her body stiffened as he grabbed onto her and she stared at him, wondering where he was going with this.

Logan took one hand off her upper arm and cupped her chin with it. Within seconds, her power had kicked in and the two of them sank to their knees - her with the force of what he was sharing, him in weakness as she drained him of his very essence.

--

~What the hell am I, Mac?~ he/Marie shouted at the man in uniform, waving his/her claws in the other man's face. ~I'm a killer! And I don't want to hurt you!~

A long walk in the woods - the shadows flicker with hidden life, and the place smells _alive_ with woodland beasts. He never felt like he was at peace, but the wild places soothed him, made him feel more like he belonged somewhere. Anywhere. ~Are you just an animal, Logan, or are you a man?~ came a remembered voice.

~My name's not Logan.~ said Logan/Marie. ~You named me that.~

The view from inside a tank - watery, distorted green, swimmy. Outside, shadowy men in uniform toasted their success, sipped their golden champagne. In the tank, the men did something, and a whirring drill whipped the water into a white-tipped froth as the drill-bit sank towards his/her body.

A violent jerk, and he/she goes flying into a snowbank, feel the hot sting as a broken piece of windshield cuts his/her forehead down to the unbreakable bone. Consciousness returns and he/she dusts the snow off while walking back to the remnants of his/her camper. "You all right, kid?" he/she called, worried for the passenger he/she'd picked up back in Laughlin City. "Kid?"

--

She pushed away as her eyes snapped open, breaking the contact, her mind reeling as she sorted the images. Feeling what Logan had felt…it was close to what she felt. Not the same, definitely not the same, but close. Wondering who he was, what his purpose was…feeling used by others. That was the part that bothered her that she hadn’t been able to name until this instant. She was just a piece in someone else’s chess game and she didn’t like the way that felt.

But then there was hope too…just because she didn’t know where she’d come from didn’t mean her life was a sham. What she had lived, that was real and nothing could take that away from her.

Her mouth tried to form the words but couldn’t, though the gratitude was evident in her eyes. She wasn’t healed yet, and she had a long way to go until she would be, but now she was closer.

Logan was, unfortunately, in no shape to appreciate her epiphany. He looked like a thousand miles of bad road - his flesh was grey and doughy, his eyes sunken. Giving Marie his memories, his being, had taken a great deal out of him.

She picked him up and set him gently on the bed in the room, sitting on the edge while she waited for his healing factor to kick in. Her mind continued down the path it had started down until he appeared to have recovered enough to hear her words. “We got one more stop to make.”

"Two stops." he said, picking himself up off the bed and looking into her eyes. Satisfied by what he saw there, he grinned weakly at her. "I'm starving."


Marie can’t leave Meridian without seeing one more person.

There was one more thing Marie needed to do before returning to New York. “Wait here,” she said to Logan. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and walked through the door that automatically opened as she approached.

The first thing she always noticed was the smell. A mix of disinfectant, cotton balls and something she couldn’t name. She knew where she was going, even if she hadn’t been there in years. She could never forget the location – room 403 at St. Catherine’s long-term care facility. Opening the door, she smiled sadly at the still form lying prone in a hospital bed. He looked smaller than she remembered…paler too.

“Hey Cody.”

Pulling a chair to sit by his bed, she reached out to gently brush his bare hand with her gloved one. For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the beeping of Cody’s heart monitor and the drip of his IV. As she watched the rise and fall of the boy’s chest, she became lost in her own thoughts until she heard another sound and realized she was sobbing. “Ah’m sorry. Ah know that doesn’t make it any better, but Ah am and always will be.” Ah would give anything to swap places with you.

Standing over Cody, she pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and leaned down to softly kiss the boy’s cheek, carefully keeping the scrap of cloth between her lips and his skin. As she straightened up, one of her tears fell and landed on his cheek and she hastily wiped it away. She knew there were no words left for her to say, but she stared at him a few moments longer. He was her living lesson. One kiss had cost her innocence, but he had lost his existence. She closed her eyes in a silent prayer, then turned to leave, walking numbly down the corridor until she was outside again.