[The Theory]
Following lunch, Marie was quiet for the better part of an hour. Logan enjoyed a post meal cigar and she enjoyed a pumpkin latte, the miles disappearing under the truck and an old Johnny Cash CD on repeat.
"Penny for 'em," he finally offered. He'd been watching the wheels turning in her head since they left the diner.
"A penny? These are top shelf thoughts, mister."
Sitting forward, he dug his wallet from his pants and tossed it to her with a grunt, a hint of amusement pulling at his lip. "That cover it?"
"You bet." She put his thick wallet between her hands and tucked her fingers between her knees before looking back out the window.
"What's on your mind, kid?"
"I have a theory. About us, I mean. I was just thinking on it a little, seeing how today's events fit in."
He wasn't surprised she'd been thinking about them. He had been too. "Let's hear it."
"It's a little out there, a little interactive so bear with me, huh?"
"Sure." Now he was really curious.
"Logan, what happens in nature when something tries to chase a predator who's not interested?"
"Depends. If it's a cub, it generally gets ignored or swatted if it's bein' too annoyin'. If it ain't a cub, it usually gets ignored or killed."
"And if it runs?"
"Then it gets chased."
"What happens then?"
"If it's food, it gets caught, played with sometimes - and then eaten. If it ain't food, then it usually gets played with some and then mounted."
"Really?"
"Sure. That's animal nature, baby. Life's too hard to expend precious energy on something you can't eat or fuck. In general, they sleep when they're tired. Play when they're full. Rut when they wanna. Hunt when they hafta. Make babies in the winter. Raise 'em in the spring when everythin' is green again."
Her eyes were far away. "That sounds pretty nice."
He shrugged. "Nothin' wrong with a simple life. S'better'n mosta the lives I've had."
His hand found her thigh again.
She was quiet for long minutes. "I chased you once, when I was a cub."
It was as if someone had suddenly blown the sand from the cracks and what she'd been trying to say was instantly clear to him.
"And I ignored ya."
"And then swatted me down."
He winced. "Yeah."
"But then I grew up."
"We both did."
"And I ran. I've been running ever since."
"I know. I've been chasin' ya for years now."
Her beautiful face was in profile. She turned to look at him, her eyes clear and bright.
"And then I finally stopped running and waited."
"For me." He could hear how fast her heart was beating. She smelled so good. "You waited for me."
She nodded. "Yeah." Her voice was quiet.
"And then I caught ya." She nodded again. "You know I almost killed ya, darlin'." He'd been right on the edge. He wasn't too far from that place even now.
"I know."
"I was so angry."
"You were hurt."
That stabbed deeply and he didn't like feeling vulnerable, even now. "We both bled," he offered, thinking of the scar on her arm.
"And now?"
"Now?" She saw his teeth flash. "Now we're playin', baby."
"And later?"
Hooded hazel eyes with an amber flash turned, catching her gaze. "I think I was pretty damn clear about what's gonna happen later."
"Maybe just the 'little death', then...?" There was a playful light in her eyes.
"Ain't gonna be no little about it."
God. Her whole body shuddered.
They both fell quiet. It was Marie who broke the silence later as the shadows started to grow longer.
"You know, building the Rogue. I did that for me. But you know what?"
"What?"
"She was what I needed—for me. But she's also what he needed."
"He?"
"Wolverine."
"Hmph." His fingers tightened on the wheel.
"He was never comfortable with Marie. Never. He would have touched her but he'd have hated himself the whole time and eventually that would have poisoned him as surely as my skin."
"Don't talk about your skin that way."
They both were aware he hadn't contradicted her about the rest of what she'd said.
"It's okay now. It really is. Carol changed everything. I can be what I need now, and what you need... and what he needs. And that's something different than growing up, Logan."
"I get it, kid." She was a predator in her own right now, strong and beautiful and deadly, with tender spots underneath. Spots that still wanted to cradle his soft places even after everything they'd done to each other.
"Do you?" She wasn't sure he did. Not really.
"Balance. We have balance now."
They did.
And it was glorious.
~ooOoo~
"Kid?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you somethin'?"
"Sure. It's all an open book. Anything you need, sugar."
Marie could see he was uncomfortable and she wondered what he wanted to ask about. She knew that rushing him was the fastest way to get him to clam up again, so she waited for him to get his thoughts in order.
"That stuff in your head you got from me. What's that like?"
She smiled. "Those are the best parts of me. Bright and good. That's how they feel."
"Mmph." He sighed. "That's real nice, real good to hear... I'm glad they're not hurtin' ya, but it's not what I mean."
Her head cocked as she looked at him. "Oh?"
"I mean-" His jaw tightened. He wasn't really a talker and things like this had always been hard for him.
"You mean the content more than how I feel about it?"
"Yeah."
"That part of you I keep with me... it's a lot. More than anyone else. Probably because I took so much from you the first two times and probably because you just had more to give. Your well is deeper." He chuckled but it wasn't a happy sound. "I get memories, mostly. If they're intense, I get how you feel and what you think about them in addition to the memory itself, if that makes sense."
He winced. "Sorry."
"I'm not."
"No?"
"I like it, though I think in some ways it made things harder for us in the beginning. Made me feel like I knew you better than I really did."
"Nah. That ain't right. You always saw deep into me. Right from the beginnin'. Even before I ever touched ya."
Her smile was back. "Yeah, I kinda did a little." He gave her a pointed look. "Or, you know, a lot."
"Made me as uncomfortable as hell, still does sometimes, but I like that you look at me and see more than what everyone else sees."
"You've always been beautiful to me, sugar. Even when I could have cheerfully strangled you."
"Heh."
"I wonder though—" She stopped short and smiled at him instead. Maybe she should just stop while she was ahead. "You know what? Nevermind."
"No. I wanna know. You get questions, too." He couldn't say he was an open book because that wasn't true. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But he could give a little.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I like that." She shrugged a bit when he nodded. "It's not really a question for you so much as it is just a sort of internal wondering on my part. I have so many memories from you. Places you've been. Things you've seen. Sometimes..."
"Keep goin'." It was hard, but he wanted to know where she was headed with this.
"Sometimes I wonder... well, I mean- I know you say you don't remember much before about thirty years ago. I do though. I have some things before that and I was just kind of wondering if maybe the things I got from you somehow bypassed whatever it is that keeps you from reaching them?"
That wasn't what he was expecting at all. He'd never considered the idea that she might have pulled memories that he didn't have access to.
"I dunno. I never thought of it like they were still in my head. I just thought they were gone. Taken or destroyed. Not like they were there but I just couldn't get to them." But it made sense, though. He had nightmares and dreams of other lives he'd lived. Experiments. Wars. Women. Glimmers and slivers rather than a complete picture. Those had to be coming from somewhere, but to be honest, he wasn't focused on trying to find what he'd lost anymore. How like life to hand him answers from the one place he'd never thought to look, long after those things had ceased driving him.
"Hmm..."
"C'mon."
"Anything from Vietnam?" Bone claws and firing squads and a brother-in-arms lost to the madness inside him.
"Nope." He looked over at her. "You guessin' I served or you have memories of that?"
"Memories." Her voice was soft. "They're not all bad, okay?"
"Hmph."
"More?"
"Yeah."
"Do you remember Nagasaki?"
He nodded. "Yeah." Too much. That would probably be fresher for her because of the touch in the motel room. His memories of that place had been stirred by the time he'd spent there with Mariko.
"What about D-Day? Omaha beach?" She had a very clear memory of him with a cigar in his mouth and a rifle in hand, rushing the beach under heavy German machine gun fire.
He shook his head.
"What about the trenches at Marne? WWI?" Barbed wire and biplanes, mud and blood and the stench of mustard gas and bloated bodies.
He shook his head again.
"Gettysburg? Vicksburg? Bull Run?" Bayonets and cannon balls and a tattered Confederate flag lying in the bloody grass. He wore his hair longer then and his mutton chops were fuller. She liked it.
He looked at her sharply. "What?"
"Sugar, I'm from Mississippi. I know my Civil War history. Your coat was blue, Yankee." She'd lost family at Vicksburg. It was long before her time, but nobody ever forgot their fallen kin. It was a point of southern pride, even now. Sometimes she thought they might be proud of how she turned out. Sometimes she wondered if they'd have strung her up too. She was the new unpopular minority now.
"Yankee? I'm Canadian."
She laughed.
"And I'm a girl with a thing for old soldiers. Especially the Canadian ones." She'd always had a soft spot for those who had served. Even as a child she'd liked sitting and listening to their old stories.
"Thank Christ." He sighed and the flicker of humor left his eyes. "You got any that aren't so goddamn bloody?" It was disconcerting enough she could remember things he couldn't, but even more than that, he hated the idea of her seeing him rain death down on everything in his path. He knew what he was like. Even if he couldn't remember those fights, he remembered enough of them in the years since then.
"Sure. You remember the twins in Vegas, right? Circa 1970? White gogo boots and gold lame hot pants?"
"Oh yeah." His lips twitched. "Blondes, right?"
"Not real blondes." Her eyes danced as she teased him.
"Heh. It ain't right you remember more about that than I do." Not right and a little embarrassing, but he needed to focus on the lighter side of this because if he thought too hard about it, he was going to come off the rails.
"It's not all like that. There are good things too. You looking up at the northern lights. You sleeping up at the cabin, enjoying the stars and the wide open space. You riding an Indian, right off the line. You hunting in the crisp autumn air. Nice things. Good things."
"How far back do they go?" His voice was tight but he had to know. "What's the first one?"
"Sugar, I—"
"Tell me, kid."
"You running in the trees."
"Like an animal?"
"No. Like a kid. Eight or nine maybe? Running from something bad." Running the night he manifested. Some revelations could wait. They had time.
"Jesus." He'd reached his limit. "No more. Not now."
"Sure." She kept her voice light.
It might be years before he was ready to really talk about that. "All this time. You never said."
"Hey, they're not my stories to tell. And it's not like I have everything, you know? I don't get like a complete chronological brain download or anything. I just get bits and pieces. Like broken glass. Most of them are out of context and don't make much sense. It's hard to find one with something that can even identify a time or place."
"Whaddya mean?"
"Like I have a very vivid memory of you sitting at a wooden table eating a bowl of oatmeal with blackberries in it. I have no idea where that place is or when it is, but I can tell you that you put an extra spoonful of brown sugar because the berries were too tart."
"When it is?"
"Hey, it could be ten years ago or a hundred, you know? There's nothing there to identify a place in time."
"Still-"
"I wasn't trying to hide anything, Logan. I have a lot up there that's not you, too. Erik remembers some of those wars too, you know?" She was a little defensive now. Maybe it would have been better if she hadn't opened this can of worms.
"I know. I'm just surprised. I stopped givin' a shit about findin' those answers a long damn time ago."
"You did?"
"Yeah."
"When?"
"When a little girl sassed her way into my truck. After that, what I'd found slowly became more important than what'd I'd lost. It didn't change overnight, but that's where it started."
"Takes a while for an old dog to learn new tricks, huh?"
He flashed his teeth at her. "Woof."
~ooOoo~
His wallet was still tucked in her fingers a dozen mile markers later. "Can I look?"
He shrugged. "Knock yourself out."
She opened the thick wallet. It was full of cash, a hefty wad of smaller bills, tens and twenties mostly. Blood money. Some of it still bore the spatters.
"You been fighting, sugar?"
He nodded.
"Sometime between now and the Pacific, will you take me along?"
"Fightin' — that's his territory."
"I know."
"You really wanna see that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Did he really need an answer? He seemed to be waiting for one. Maybe he did need the words. Or maybe he knew she needed to say them.
"I like watching him. He's magnificent. Beautiful." He looked at her sharply. "I haven't forgotten the first time."
"Me either." He inhaled, his head spinning at her scent and her words. "Liked whatcha saw?"
"I did." He made her insides turn to honey and run down her thighs.
"Me, too." His hand squeezed her knee.
"I was just afraid of how it made me feel. What watching you called up in me."
"Even then?"
"Even then. It was so wild. Powerful. Primal. It doesn't scare me anymore."
"Good. You know that's a two-part equation, right?"
Fighting and fucking. She knew.
"I know."
"He doesn't do hearts and flowers."
"I don't either."
He chuckled. "That makes three of us then."
"Is that a yes?"
He nodded, just once. Her approval always did it for him. Better than any drug and far more addictive.
He watched her pull out his license next. "James Logan. 37. Northwest Territories. I guess you weren't kidding about it being an alpine cabin." He grunted. "Birthday, March fifth..." Her voice trailed off. March fifth was the day he'd put his claws through her chest. That couldn't be a coincidence. Why had he chosen that date when he'd had the license made? "The fifth?"
He shrugged. That was too much too fast. Everything had been different after that day. A watershed that changed the course of his life forever. It wasn't until years later, until after Japan, that he realized he'd been reborn that night. That was the night that the future had become more important than the past.
"Logan?"
"That was the night I rejoined the livin', kid." That was all he could give her right now. Before that he'd just been surviving. Drifting. After she'd touched him, the world had been a very different place. It still was.
"Because of me?"
"Because of you."
Her eyes stung. She touched her scar. "I did this on the fifth."
"Because of me?"
"No. Because of me." Her voice was soft. "But I wouldn't change a single thing because I really like where I am now, you know?"
"I know."
She went back to his wallet wanting a return to a lighter mood, giggling at the movie stub she found. "Really, Logan? Skyfall?" She knew what his working life was like. James Bond wishes he were half the man Logan was.
"Don't give me that look. You know me. C'mon."
She rolled her eyes. "So we're not gonna see you on the top of a train any time soon?"
Not again.
"Not really my style." He snorted, but there was a little glimmer behind his hazel eyes that she could only guess at. "But at least they're always good for a laugh." Watching a spy movie with Logan was probably as annoying as watching a flying movie with Scott had been. He'd loved the aerial scenes but always bitched about how they'd gotten all the technical details dead wrong.
"You have no idea." Her eyes were sparkling as she fished out her wallet and pulled a worn Skyfall movie stub from the random collection of papers and coffee receipts. Halfway around the world, they'd seen the movie within days of each other.
"You too, huh?"
"Nah. I just have a crush on Daniel Craig," she teased.
"I thought it was that Neo guy."
"Him too. And don't forget Indiana Jones. Who was, by the way, my first actual real crush."
"Hmph." He rolled his eyes but she could see the amusement in the set of his mouth.
"Or maybe it's just I have a thing for violent leading men..."
"Keep it up and you're gonna get the real thing in action."
"Mmm..."
"Heh."
Her little fingers flicked through it slowly, savoring unraveling this little piece of him a bit at a time. A credit card. ATM card. Numbers for a Harley dealership. Storm's business card with Jubilee's number scratched across the back in Logan's distinctive, blocky scrawl. Condoms; a strip of three, extra large, ribbed, lubricated. She shivered. That was a hell of a lot of personal information right there.
Her eyebrows shot up. "Most guys only carry one."
"Most guys don't heal."
It was somewhere between smug and embarrassed.
His words came to her from a long-ago conversation.
I have the healin'. I can go as many times as you want. As many as you need, baby.
God, they needed to stop soon.
"Hmm..." She kept looking. A book of matches. A small pencil. A worn silver key. She held it up.
"Cabin."
She tucked it back away. Hidden under a fold was a worn photograph. Not her. Not Jean. Not Mariko. An ultrasound, fuzzy and gray with a baby's blurry profile and one perfect little hand.
"Kaya," he said softly.
It was Japanese. A place of resting.
He didn't have to explain. She understood.
Her tears fell; the softness that he couldn't and wouldn't give himself.
Johnny Cash played on.
Next up: The Walk. They were circling around some sort of physical catharsis. It was either going to be sex or a fight...
(So, which will it be? Sex? A fight? Some of each? Magic door number three? lol)