Kurt and Marie, Monday evening

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Kurt finds Marie brooding on the roof. He can relate to what is bothering her more than most at the mansion, but she isn’t quite ready to heed his advice.

Marie had been sitting on the flier’s platform for hours. She had curled up and was floating just a few inches off the ground, her mind running through the events that had occurred in Meridian. She kept replaying one scene over and over again. Being told that someone had just dropped her off at the house in Mississippi all those years ago. It was probably why she had procrastinated writing a report to give to the team, despite the potential importance of the journal. She didn’t want to tell everybody, not until she herself had figured out how to deal with it. Closing her eyes, she began taking in deep breaths and letting them out, trying to resume some level of inner calm, but failing miserably.

Kurt was up there for the simple reason that it was one of the few quiet places in the house, and he liked it. This was forgotten, though, as he saw Marie and the expression on her face. "...Marie?"

She tried to put a smile on her face, but barely managed to get her expression to change at all. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” What was meant as a joke came out far more plaintively than Marie had intended.

"It does seem to be becoming a pattern", he agreed lightly, walking over to sit beside her. "Did something happen on your visit home?"

"Home?" The word was bitter. "Ah didn't go home. Ah went to Meridian. This is my home."

"...I see." Carefully, "Do you want to tell me what happened there?"

Marie opened her mouth, ready to tell him that she just wanted to be left alone with her thoughts, but as she looked over at Kurt she changed her mind. Maybe he would understand. “Ah left something out of my team report…” she trailed off and looked down at her gloved hands. “Ah’m adopted,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

"...well, I can certainly understand why you would not include that", he said gently. "It is no one's business but your own, unless you choose to tell them." He was one of the best-placed in the mansion to understand, in fact, given his circumstances.

“Only a few people know. Ah just…Ah don’t know what Ah think about it yet.” Liar. You feel betrayed, alone, confused. She shuddered slightly.

"I do not think anyone would expect you to know that, yet. I remember when my mother first told me... and I was much younger than you, then."

“Ah don’t think they ever planned on tellin’ me. Ah don’t think they would’ve if she hadn’t made them.” One tear trickled down her cheek. “How could they?”

"Would it have mattered so very much if they had not?" Kurt asked softly. "If they had you from a baby, if they raised you and loved you... is there really so very much difference whether your mother birthed you or not?"

“They should have told me,” she said stubbornly. “They shouldn’t have kept it a secret.”

"Perhaps", he allowed. "But can you see that they may have thought they were acting for the best?"

“Right,” she scoffed. “It sure didn’t feel that way. It felt like Ah was just a pawn in someone else’s game. And y’ know what? Ah don’t want to play.”

“Then no one will make you", he returned calmly. "But tell me, Marie... whose game?"

She looked up, surprised by the question and the fact that she didn’t know the answer. She bit her lip and thought for a minute before responding. “Irene’s maybe.”

"And why would she choose to play such games?" He wasn't trying to doubt her word, just trying to make her re-examine it.

“Ah don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me,” she said petulantly. “But she’s the one who started it all, then and now.” Realizing she hadn’t explained that part to Kurt, she elaborated. “She’s the one who dumped me off in Meridian with the D’Ancatos.”

"...I see. And did she tell you anything of your birth parents?"

"No. " The word echoed in her mind. Why couldn’t Irene have given her at least that? "Ah don’t know anythin’ about them.”

"I do not know who my birth father is or was, either", he said quietly. "But only because my mother does not. Irene simply handed you to them with no questions asked?"

“They were just happy to have a kid,” she told him. “Couldn’t have any of their own and they wanted one so bad, they just took me from her. Ah think they were afraid to push her.”

"Then it was not their game", Kurt pointed out. "They wanted nothing but a child... are you still angry with them for doing nothing but treating you as theirs?"

Marie blinked repeatedly. She couldn’t deny the truth of Kurt’s words, but she was still too angry for them to do much good. “They shoulda been honest with me,” she said. “How do Ah know that anything else they said isn’t a lie?”

"What do you mean by 'anything else'?"

“Anything. That they love me. Who knows if that’s even what really happened?” Marie knew she was acting like a child, but she couldn’t make herself stop.

He paused for a few minutes, thinking. Then, carefully, "It seems to me, Marie, that you can either accept the rest of what they told you at face value, going on what they have done, or you can spend the rest of your life second-guessing the time that has been."

Marie looked up at the sky above her. When she finally spoke, her voice was filled with longing. “Ah want to believe them…Ah just don’t know if Ah can.”

"Give yourself time", was the only advice he could give. "But do not burn your bridges yet."

She thought of the look on Sharon’s face as she turned her back and began to feel the smallest inkling of guilt. “Ah’m not so sure that Ah haven’t already.”

"Then talk to them. If they have loved you all these years... many things can be forgiven."

“Maybe some day,” she said, unaware that she was echoing Logan’s words to her parents. “Ah don’t think Ah’m ready yet.”

"As you will", came the quiet answer. "But Marie... I would not wait too long."