Time to Live
Almost forgot the legal disclaimer part...don't own them, wish I did, but gonna make them jump through hoops anyway.
Summary: After X3, Rogue took the cure, and Logan has to heal. Rogue decides to live her life, and it leads her on an adventure of discovery and pain until she finds her way home.
A/N frenchy, yes I am aware of that, however in this case, some people do have reactions to the wormwood itself, which is what I am basing this on. I can't drink it without a severe allergic reaction, his reaction is related to the fact that Victor cannot take the adamantium, its an allergic reaction.
This is the last chapter in this one but I will be doing a sequel...to answer the questions about Victor.
CHAPTER 11
She woke up on the bed, he was holding her hand, and her power kicked in, drawing his thoughts into her mind.
I can't believe all of this is my fault. How could I have hurt her, I need her. I love her. You are such a damned idiot, you were better off before you got your life back, better off not knowing what you'd lost, what it felt like to lose everything that mattered. You're gonna lose her too. She has to hate you.
"Ah don't" She whispered. "Ah love ya, ya dope."
He looked up at her, and then pulled his hand back. "You...when did it start?"
"A couple days ago, brushed a teacher handin' in a paper, got what she was thinkin'." She took his hand again. "It's only out of control when Ahm half awake, or not payin attention. Guess gettin' it back slowly is letting me learn how ta turn it off." She tried to sit up but he put a hand on her shoulder.
"Lay down, Darlin. We can talk like this, and..." She felt a low cramping in her gut. "I was gonna warn you about that, can you pull my power, Marie." He was being calm, comforting.
"Why?"
"Cuz if you can't, certain things are going to be...less important."
"Log..." the cramps became more intense.
"No time. Turn in the fuck on, if you want to keep this baby." He said, his eyes full of pain. She felt for the switch in her brain, and felt him invade her mind, felt his power fill her, felt the cramps subside and every small ache and pain in her body fade. She shut it off, but not before she got a very strong sense of how he felt, not only about her, but about the baby.
"Ah..." She gulped. "Ah, don't know what ta say." She whispered as she released him. He just brushed his lips across her forehead.
"Darlin...I didn't want ya gettin' that last part." He whispered, his head bowed, and she could smell the tears, his powers wouldn't last long, but she used them while she had them.
"Well Ah did." She stroked her fingers through his hair. "Why wouldn't ya want me ta know...?"
"I wanted ta prove it to ya, I still don't know what I did...how all this..." He gestured to her, laying on the bed and she knew he meant the baby.
"Well last time Ah checked...it takes a sperm and an egg to combine in tha..." He kissed her to shut her up and she grinned as she kissed him back.
"You know that's not what I mean, Marie." he whispered, and the pain and fear were back in his eyes. "Did I hurt ya, did I do...did I..." She covered his lips with her fingers and kissed him, wishing her powers worked in reverse so she could just show him how she felt, how much she loved him, needed him.
"No...you didn't." She whispered.
"I remember you sayin I didn't want ta do it...I remember just bits and pieces, damned allergy."
"What?"
"I'm allergic to the crap, used it twice ta try ta kill myself, after Mariko died." He whispered. "If I drink enough, it shuts my mutation off, but I'm so drunk I can't do anything about it."
"Did you know, this time, what it did?" She asked. If he'd tried to kill himself...
"No. I didn't know and by the time I finished the first couple drinks, it worked just like booze is supposed to and I just wanted ta forget. What happened with Jean...it brought up the feelings if not the memories of what happened and I felt like I'd killed her again...not Jean, but Mariko, and with you...I felt like I'd gotten her back."
"Logan, Ah don't want ta be somethin that reminds ya of somethin else, Ah don't want ta lose you to a memory." She whispered.
"You're not. What happened between us, it brought up feelings, things I needed to deal with that had nothing to do with you." He whispered.
"Is that why you called for Jean when you..." She blushed, her cheeks burning. It wasn't something she had a whole lot of experience with.
"I called for Jean?" he looked at her puzzled.
"Yes. Screamed her name actually." She couldn't keep the hurt out of her voice.
"Shit, no wonder you're pissed." He hit himself in the head. "Darlin, I was dealing with feelings that were tied to things that had nothin to do with you or Jean, and Jean was...the focal, the thing that brought them up in my head, and heart. And I know why now."
"This better be good." She snapped. He was digging himself a very deep grave.
"She reminded me of the pain, the death. She reminded me of losing Mariko, even from the beginning. When she begged me to kill her...it brought up those feelings, but it brought up other things too, things that you reminded me of, things I felt for you...feel for you, that are comfortable, that are peaceful, that are things to live for. Mariko brought me peace, like you do, she made me smile like no one but you, her love was not hard and demanding, but quiet and peaceful. It took me months to realize I loved her, years to ask her to marry me. She was my life, I planned on being there when she died of old age, instead I had to feel her blood run down my hand, watch the life extinguish from her eyes. Jean reminded me of death. You reminded me to live."
She just looked at him, tears running down her face. She'd felt it, but had been afraid it was just an echo of what he'd felt before, but now...she knew, this was what he'd been looking for, why after they'd come to Xavier's it became so important for him to remember.
"So..." She scooted over in the bed, and he took the hint stretching out next to her, and she curled against his side, cheek pressing against his chest, his heartbeat right under her ear. "tell me how it happened?"
"Mariko?' He asked, on arm wrapping around her, fingers stroking her hair.
"No silly, your memory." She giggled.
"Oh...well when I was carrying Kayla out of Three Mile island Stryker..." He said.
"Kayla? Three Mile Island? STRYKER!" Marie looked up at him.
"SHIT, it's a long fuckin' story." He growled.
"Jest give me the short short version, for now." She grinned, remembering her favorite scene in a movie.
He chuckled. "Do you...do you...okay kiss her, you're married." She had no idea he even knew that movie. He leaned down and kissed her. "Okay now for the short short version of the life of James Howlett."
"I was born in eighteen thirty four, Victor's about four years older than I am. I was eleven when the claws came out the first time, they're bone under the metal. I used them to kill my biological father after he murdered the man I thought was my father. The bastard told me with his dying breath who I was. Victor was there, and we took off, he protected me, finished raising me, then we, well we just kept runnin'. From one battlefield to another. I was about sixteen when the healing started full force, and so was he. We've watched each other's backs, carried each other out of the trenches when we were hurt so bad our healing couldn't keep up, we've got a very long history. Yeah there've been times I wanted ta kill him, there have been times he's wanted ta kill me, but we're brothers." He stroked her hair as she lay there listening to him. This was the most she'd heard him say at one time in the entire time she'd known him.
"Anyway, Victor was there, for the wedding, and after we went after all the bastards that killed my wife, and I killed the last bastard, cutting his heart out with my claws, we came back to the states and reactivated our commissions in the US Army and volunteered to go to Nam. That was where I tried ta kill myself the first time. A guy introduced me to absinthe, and I was drunk for the first time in my life. We were out in a rice field and a Vietcong sniper hit me, just in the leg but it didn't heal, so I stood up and dared him ta kill me. He tried, frankly the idiot was a bad shot...didn't hit anything vital. Victor patched me up, and a day and a half later, the healing kicked in again. It was close...and Victor gave me hell over it, over being a selfish bastard that just wanted to abandon him to be alone for the rest of his excruciatingly long life." She felt him tremble under her cheek and hand resting on his stomach.
"After that, he wouldn't let me near that stuff again, but he, well he'd been getting more brutal, aggressive, over time, and it just kept getting worse. Finally he snapped, was gonna rape a girl he'd found after we'd cleared a village, when the Colonel stopped him. He ripped his head off. So we had to stand up in front of a firing squad...which didn't work...so we were stuck in a hole for about a month until they could figure out what to do to kill us. That's when Stryker showed up. We didn't have a whole lot of choice about joining him. We were on a mission in Lagos when I snapped, I couldn't take it anymore, and that time I did, abandon Victor, it took him a long damned time to forgive me for it, if he has yet, I still ain't sure. Anyway I took off, went back home, Canada. It was there I tried a second time. I remembered what Victor said in Nam, about living forever and being alone...and I didn't want to."
She felt the tears on her face, her heart aching to hear these things that maybe it was best he had forgotten. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. There were tears in his eyes too, but he wiped hers away with his thumb.
"I was in a bar, in a town near Laughlin City actually, when I found a guy who had the green shit. I bought every bit he had, and proceeded ta get totally drunk. Then I picked fights with every damned bastard in that place, and just let them beat the shit out of me. Finally this girl stepped in and flat cold cocked me. The next thing I remember is wakin up in this cabin, near a mountain peak. She was cooking and I remember being sick just from the smell...hangovers are a bitch. She introduced herself as Kayla Fox and said that she wasn't about ta let me kill myself in that bar. I stayed, I wasn't in love with her, but I loved her...if that makes sense. I was there six years, workin loggin, she was a Kindergarten teacher. I would watch her with those kids, see fathers picking up their kids and think of Mariko, of our little one. She knew I was sad, but I couldn't tell her why. Six years later, Victor killed her, or rather pretended to kill her so I'd chase him, agree to get the metal, and try to kill him. It was all a plan by Stryker, he'd created this thing, from a bunch of different mutants, called it Weapon eleven...we had once called him Wade, he was a part of our team...anyway, I found them both at Three Mile Island, and Kayla was alive, told me she'd been working for Stryker the whole time because he'd kidnapped her sister...anyway I walked out, Victor attacked Kayla and I had ta go back...I beat the shit out of Victor, and he dared me ta kill him, but Kayla stopped me, begged me ta help rescue her sister. I did, but she was shot, and then I had ta fight Wade...and Victor stepped in and helped. Somethin about "no one kills you but me, brother." or some bullshit, anyway we managed to kill it...I found Kayla as I was heading out, completely forgot about Stryker, which was a mistake. I was carrying her to safety when Stryker shot me with a special gun he'd had made...just ta kill me. It had adamantium bullets. The gun was strong enough for the bullets to penetrate my skull...but not exit."
She looked up at him and ran her fingers over his forehead. He took her hand and placed a kiss in the palm.
"I carried those damned bullets up there for sixteen years." He said softly. "Victor had the bright idea of having Hank and Kitty get them out. He had Hank guide her to where he thought they might be inside my head with her hand phased. Then she'd go solid grab it and pull it out...and I'm so damned glad I was unconscious for the second one. The first one hurt like fucking hell...That little bitch was pissed at me or something."
"Kitty's not a bitch..."
"She was flirting with your boyfriend..." He started.
"He wasn't my boyfriend, not really. I mean he was, I wasn't in love with him but I loved him I guess." She grinned at him.
"I guess I'm not the only one who's got some 'splaninin ta do, Lucy." He grinned as he said it in a bad Cuban accent.
"Well, after Ah got back after the cure, Ah called mah parents in Mississippi. They didn't want ta talk ta me, but Ah got a packages in the mail about three days before Ah left. It was mah adoption papers, and a letter sayin' they couldn't think of me as a daughter anymore. Ah wanted ta find mah birth mother, but Ah had ta get out of there. Ro was smotherin' me and most everyone Ah knew except you and Bobby and Kitty were gone. Kitty came ta me and apologized the day before Ah left, told me what happened, why she and Bobby were skatin' on tha fountain. Ah admit Ah broke down, told her everythin' about bein in love with you, about mah parents. She was gonna help me track things down, but Ah ended up not havin to. When Ah got here Ah was unpackin and Raven came in. Ah'd left the package of papers on tha desk and, her bein her, she grabbed them...she had an identical set in her bags...with her termination of parental rights paperwork. We were both a little stunned, but...she ain't as bad as ya think, still scares the hell outa me when she's 'normal', ya know Mystique, but Ahm even gettin' used ta that."
His arm tightened around her, and she knew it was comfort.
"It was the rest of the family that really...made me feel laik Ah had one for the first time. Remy's well a pain in tha ass, but for a step brother he ain't that bad. Myst took him in when he was a baby, and raised him. He's the only kid she actually got ta raise. Kurt's been great...he's mah half brother and was just as thrilled ta find out as Ah was. Victor's been...weird, but great. Once ya get past tha big bully shit, he's not that bad. Ah ain't met Graydon, but Ah don't really want to. They've all been there, tryin' ta get me through things."
"I guess we both had to deal with the past." He said softly.
"Yeah...Ah needed this time, but Ah needed you too." She whispered.
"I'm sorry baby. I ain't gonna make promises I can't keep, but I'm gonna do my damnedest not ta do that to ya again." He whispered.
"You better not be talkin about..." He silenced her with his mouth.
"Darlin," He eased her hand down past his belt buckle, to the throbbing flesh under the fabric of his pants. "There's no way in hell I'd torture us both like that. I meant I'm gonna try not ta leave you alone like this. You get inta too much trouble." She looked up at him and grinned. He moved, urging her onto her back as he settled on top of her. "Now I think we're both through talkin...and I hope to hell you've got enough control for this...cuz I'm a hungry Wolverine and I got a taste of what I want for the rest of my life...and you are it, Darlin."