xp_logs | Logan, Marie: Back To The Place We Started From (Reply)

Saturday, Logan and Marie drive back from Canada. In the car, they talk some and Marie gets to put the pieces of Logan's past together. Well, the past fifteen years of it, anyway.

Marie curled up in the passenger seat, watching the still-bare trees pass by outside. The fields were just now freshly ploughed, but there was little green to be seen this far north. "How did you meet them?" she asked at last, not looking over at Logan.

Logan glanced at Marie from the corner of his eye. "They found me. They were..." He sighed. "They were camping in the forest I was living in. I was...hunting. Hunting them." Another sigh, this one quieter than the last.

Marie looked over at him, thinking. "I see," she said quietly. "When?"

Logan counted the years in his head, then counted them again. "Thirteen years ago."

Marie thought back and realized that she was five at that time and blinked, then shook her head. "And what happened?"

Logan frowned. "I think Mac shot me."

Marie put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile and then leaned over to kiss Logan. "What happened after that?"

"They helped me find myself again," Logan said simply. "I was lost in th'beast an' they helped me find my way out."

"They're good people. I'm glad they were there for you." She reached up to run her bare fingers through his hair. "I was right when I thought they felt a little like your parents."

He gave her a look that clearly said he thought she was crazy. His parents. Phht. He was older than Heather on a /bad/ day. "They're good friends."

Marie laughed at him. "Think what you will. It's all a matter of perception. It's just how it feels in your head, that's all." She kissed him again, wiggling in her seat to be able to do it properly. "How long did you stay with them?"

"Six years, about. Lived with them for a year or two, gettin' back t'myself, then I gotta job with SHDivision, an' gotta place a my own, nearby." It was strange to be talking about all of this, after keeping it to himself for so long.

There was familiarity about what he said, a kind of rightness to actually hearing it in her own ears in his voice. "What did you do?" she prompted gently.

He glanced at her again, then watched the road while he spoke. "Group called Team X, a NATO covert ops team."

"Did you like it?" She traced the line of his cheekbone with a fingertip, watching his face as he spoke.

"Yeah, it was a good time," he said, nodding. "The team was a good one, mostly."

"Why'd you leave?" It was a question she really didn't want to ask.

"Me an' one a th'other guys, we didn't get along so well." That was an amazing understatement. He and Victor had hated each other so much that, unless they were on an assignment, they couldn't be in the same room without trying to kill each other.

"And that was it, then," Marie said softly. "Do you want me to shut up?" she asked, a little guiltily.

Logan shook his head. "Nah, I don't mind talkin' 'bout it."

Where did you go after?"

Logan switched lanes. "To a bar. To a lotta bars." It would sound as though he'd become an alcoholic, but she'd met him in one of those many bars he'd hidden himself in, and he hadn't been drunk.

"For... all those years?" She couldn't quite fathom it and frowned at him.

He thought about the timing. About five years. Yeah, that seemed right. "Five years, yeah. I drove around a lot, went back t'visit Mac an' Heather some."

"I love you," she said simply. It was good to have the pieces together, at least a few of them.

Logan glanced at Marie, grinning, and switched lanes again. "I love you, too."