Part 25

I didn't need the rings and the formality of Logan's plans, but he wanted so much to give me the dream, and when Logan got something in his head it was nearly impossible to persuade or dissuade him.

The little town we had been lucky enough to find didn't have a church, but it did have a Legion Hall, which was used for all sorts of occasions, and with the hall came access to a Chaplain. The ladies at the post office were only too thrilled to help me sort through online bridal catalogues and pick a very simple Victorian style dress, with lots of ivory lace: Logan loved me in lace, and long ivory gloves. Since that first day in town no one had batted an eye at my gloves. Everything about us, including our eccentricities had just become a normal part of the community.

There was still snow on the ground when we married. Everyone in town seemed to have been there, the story being that we were doing it up right finally, after the hasty ritual in my hospital room. My white knight was provoking a great deal of good natured jealousy amongst the women of the town, most men believing that to do it up once was far more than enough. But I do believe that our happy occasion brought a lot of joy to our friends.

I suppose, thinking back, it could only have been more perfect if our friends from Westchester could have been there. I know I spared more than one thought for how Kitty would have stood up beside me, and how I would have wished for Kurt to give me away. I had hesitated to include anything about the wedding in any of my emails to him. Really we only exchanged generalizations in our correspondence, reassuring each other of mutual safety and happiness; as much as I wanted to tell him everything, we both knew it wasn't prudent.

I did think of my little blue friend wistfully for a few moments as John came to get me, as I waited in one of the offices, hastily converted to a dressing room.

"Are you ready Marie?"

"Yes John, thank you." I stood, took his offered hand and kissed him quickly on the cheek. Nearly nine months of practice and meditation in this paradise had given me enough control to hold off the powers for a few seconds with humans.

We entered the hall to the smiles of all our friends and I couldn't help but smile back as I felt my eyes beginning to fill with tears. John gave my arm a comforting pat, and tucked a handkerchief into my hand; so much like Logan. I dabbed at my eyes, and looked up to see Logan waiting for me.

That day, perhaps more than any other, I came to know pure, perfect happiness, in the arms of my Beloved, and to the cheers of our friends.

We spent six years in our little town, being absolutely normal. Logan continued to work at the mill, and though they often offered him management positions he turned them all down, favoring the time in the woods, with his crew. In the off season he hunted and did odd jobs around town, fixing up trucks, helping with building projects, and moving things around for the ladies at the Post Office, still coming home with muffins and breads.

I continued to work in the office a few days a week, and spent time in the little library studying my German until I was passably good, considering I only had one other person to speak it with. I took a few correspondence courses, indulging my love of history, and sociology. I also started teaching a weekly lesson in Tai Chi at the Legion Hall, which morphed into a bit of martial arts for the local ladies. When the winters came Logan and I couldn't really spar at our place or in the woods regularly, though we did, to keep ourselves sharp in all weather conditions. After considering it for a while we decided that it would be all right to use the hall for some indoor practice. Of course we never used the adamantium in public, but Logan did have his Katanas. The swords were one eccentricity that caught on rather quickly. We'd only had one match to ourselves before word got out and we found first an audience for ourselves, and then students. Once again we used the mail order services to purchase a few training blades and we taught whoever wanted to learn. We even ran the tavern ourselves for two weeks when John took Mary on their first vacation in fifteen years. And while I made adequately decent pot roast, with Mary's recipe, it didn't quite live up to hers. Though I did add a sweet potato pie to the menu for that two weeks, which went over very well, and which I had to teach Mary how to make when she got back, due to popular demand.

It had been so easy to forget everything else in the world, we didn't own a television, and only watched at the tavern, and then, usually only the local news, and sporting events. News of the normal world certainly reached us, and we saluted fallen soldiers at the Legion, and followed the politics of the day. Sometimes you could read between the lines of certain stories to find the undercurrent of the lives we had left behind, and I expect Logan did it more regularly than I. The 'mutant problem' never seemed to make it into general conversation; no one really cared up where we were, one way or the other. So long as you looked after your family, and your friends, and didn't get obnoxious after one too many, and stood when the flag was lowered to half staff, then you were good people, even if you did wear gloves everyday, or know your way around Japanese weapons, or study German in your spare time.

I was never able to completely forget the world that I had fled with Logan, I still carried my blades in my bag with me wherever I went, and we still practiced nearly everyday, and I still meditated on the rain, because I knew that eventually that world would come for us. But that knowledge didn't make it easier when everything crashed down around us.