xp_logs | Logan, Marie: That's My Soul Up There

Directly following this scene, Logan goes looking for Marie. He finds her tired, in more ways than physically, and they talk about why she's so exhausted, and then he carries her upstairs and puts her to bed.

Logan checked his room first, because she liked to meet him there, sometimes, when he'd been gone. It was their room, sort of, and he thought it made her feel more normal to be there waiting for him. She wasn't, so he went back downstairs to check her room, next. Before he'd knocked on the door, he knew she was inside, but he knocked anyway.

"Come in." Marie was curled up in a chair, staring at CNN covering the Disney sabotage. She was in her pyjamas and wrapped up in a blanket, being tired made her cold, but she couldn't fall asleep.

Logan pushed the door open and walked inside, letting it fall closed behind him. He immediately walked toward the chair. "Hey, baby."

"Hi..." She turned to look at Logan, smiling up at him. "How'd it go?"

"I was onna plane," he said. "Twice." As though that explained everything. He shrugged. "It was good. We got what we needed."

"Good." She reached out to him, her hand covered in a thin, white glove. "I'm glad it worked out. Hopefully this will shut that cell down."

"Scott seemed confident," he said, taking her hand and sitting down on the arm of her chair. Without realising, he rubbed the spaces between her knuckles. "Long day, baby?"

"It's still yesterday for me, so yeah." She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it gently.

"Why aren't ya sleepin', then?" Logan leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

"Can't sleep," she said softly. "Just... it doesn't stop, y'know? I'm trying to do this right, but it's not easy."

"What're y'tryin' t'do, baby?" he murmured against her hair. "Helpin' your friends, y'mean?"

"Bobby's falling apart. I can't help him except if he wants me to... and we know what happened last time I tried. And Nathan," her voice broke, "he's... he stops breathing now, in his visions, when the person he's seeing through dies."

"Happens a lot, does it? The thing with th'breathin'." He didn't expect an answer and kept talking. "Bobby...shouldn't he be seein' somebody if he's gotta problem? Samson, or somethin'. 's what they brought th'guy in for, right?"

"It's new. And... no one just goes to a therapist, Logan." Marie got up and pulled her hand away from him. "That would be too fucking reasonable." She paced around the room, hugging herself. "...sorry."

"Y'want Chuck t'force 'em, mebbe?" he suggested with a shrug. "Don't think that'll work either, but y'could ask Scott t'give it a shot. He's got Wheels' ear on shit like that."

"Already told him about Bobby. With his trick of icing over the whole kitchen, it's obvious he's not got his power under control. And, no... no one can be forced." Her voice got more tired and more bitter with every word. She stood in the middle of the room in her pale blue pyjamas, staring at her silver-painted toenails. "They want to be loved into it."

Logan pushed himself up off the arm of the chair and went to stop her mental pacing. "What's it they're sayin', these days? Tough love?" He reached out to tug on a lock of her hair. "Mebbe y'should give it a shot?"

"More like no love." She shook her head angrily. "I can't do it anymore. I can't. It keeps up, I'm not going to be able to love anyone, I'm going to be so tired out and disappointed. I'm so done with this, Logan. I told Scott, Samson's there for them for forty-five minutes. I live here. In the middle of them and all their broken pieces."

Logan looked at her for a long moment, and took a step backward. "Y'don't hafta, y'know. My room-- /our/ room -- is right upstairs," he murmured quietly, almost too quietly, as though he felt maybe a little guilty for offering it as an option.

"I didn't ask for this job," she said quietly, wearily. "I wanted it, more than anything I thought. This was my dream, you know, to fix all this. But not here. Not now. I'm not ready. I'm never ready."

"Fixin' all this, that ain't your job," he said, shaking his head. "Doin' what y'can, when y'can, that's your job."

"Doing what's got to be done is my job," she corrected him.

Logan shook his head. "No. It's yer job t'do what y'can an' t'make sure someone else knows, when there's somethin' t'be done that y'can't do, so they can do it or find somebody else who can. Just like onna mission."

"I can do it," Marie said quietly. "That's the thing. In the moment, I can do any of this. But missions end. This? This is life, and it just doesn't quit."

"'s not th'same, baby," he said, shaking his head again. He started to explain why she shouldn't keep killing herself to help her friends, and then realised she was saying the same thing. Oh. "D'you... Y'talked t'Scott." He wasn't sure what to say, after that.

"I did. Yes." Marie nodded, hugging herself, and she shivered. "I..." She shook her head. "I'm tired. I need to go home."

He stepped forward again, wrapping his arms around her. "Upstairs?" he asked, just to make sure.

She put her head on his shoulder, nodding. "As long as you're there."

"Wherever y'need me, baby," Logan whispered, scooping her up in his arms. "Let's get y'upstairs, so y'can get some sleep, okay?"

"I'm sorry," she said against his shoulder.

"For what, baby?" he asked, shifting her in his arms to open the door, then pulling sharply so that it would swing closed behind them.

"Needing you so much," she said simply.

If he hadn't been carrying her up to the rest she needed so badly, he'd have stopped, then so he could look at her face. "Baby, that's nothin' t'be sorry for." He sure hoped it wasn't. Otherwise, he had a lot to be sorry about.

"I never meant to, you know." His warmth and familiar scent were lulling her to sleep, making her drift. "I always wanted to be sure I didn't lose you like that."

Logan was fairly certain he was confused. "Lose me like what, baby?" he said quietly, climbing the stairs to the third floor.

"Never wanted you to leave 'cause of me needing you too much," she explained drowsily.

He shut up, after that, not wanting to hear anything else about what she thought of him. Feeling a little sick, he opened the door to his rooms, kicking it closed behind him, and walked toward the bed.

She reached up to touch his face and realized she was wearing gloves still when her fingertips didn't meet his skin. "I'm sorry," she said again, waking up a little to focus on him. "I love you so much."

He laid her down on the bed, crawling up after her. "I love you, too, baby. More'n anythin'" He pressed a kiss to her glove-covered palm, his eyes on hers.

Marie's smile was soft and contented, she snuggled down into the pillows, but her eyes were a little afraid. She offered up her hands to him, a silent request for him to bare them.

Logan complied, pulling slowly on the cloth covering each fingertip until they were loose enough to tug off of her entire hand. When both hands were bare, he pressed another kiss to the palms, his breath warm on her soft skin.

She traced his features with feather-touches and then kissed the fingers of each hand in turn and touched them to his mouth. "More than anything," she echoed. "Can you stay?"

He returned the kiss to her fingertips and snuggled in beside her on the bed, one arm curled over her belly. "Mmhm. Not goin' anywhere, baby." He breathed deeply; her scent was soothing, and he felt a little drowsy, now.

Marie snuggled up against him, soaking up the warmth of his body. The weight of his arm over her was grounding and she slid easily into sleep between one breath and the next.

lyrics from "King of Pain" by Sting