(Five years later. Xavier school for gifted youngsters.)
"Are you sure about this Tiger? I really don't feel right leaving you."
"It'll be fine darlin', Me and lil bit here will go find Brodee and Kegon." He said smiling down at the infant in his arms. Sara stopped him with a hand on his arm. "I really don't mind Victor. I'll stay with you tonight. " She said staring up at him. "Sara, Its Marie's bachelorette party. She wants you there baby. We will be fine, I'll get the boys and I'll take them out to dinner. We'll make a night of it. Won't we princess?" He said cooing at the baby. "Victor she's only five weeks old and you've already spoiled her rotten." She said laughing. "So? She's mine it's my job to spoil her." They had made it to the rec room and it fell silent when he walked in. "I still make people really nervous in this place." He said with a chuckle.
"Victor! Can I see her?" Salem asked jumping up from the sofa and running to the big man the best she could. "Hi, darlin'. How yah feeling?" He asked kissing the top of her head. He leaned down so she could better see the baby. "I'm OK." She said smiling at him. The people in the room stared at the young woman in astonishment at the easy and casual way she interacted with Sabertooth. "Is she behaving in there darlin'?" He asked rubbing a large hand over Salem's round belly. "Yeah, she's being good?" She said smiling at him.
"Ro, You really need to breathe honey." Sara said whispering into the weather goddess's ear. "What?... Oh, I'm sorry it's just..." She flinched and panic shot through her body when she watched Victor's huge clawed hand wrap around the baby's head to support her. "Does...Logan know Victor touches his wife like that?" She asked watching the two interact. "Ororo, He loves Salem. He'd cut his own hand off before he'd ever hurt her. Logan knows that. He loves his kids too. He worships the ground Brianna can't walk on yet. And frankly your assumptions are really pissing me off. He's not the same man you met years ago." Sara said trying to hold her anger in check. Ororo watched as he helped Salem said down and then handed her the baby. He crouched down beside the chair and smiled at her as she played with the child.
"Sara..." Ororo looked down at her hands ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, Please forgive me. Its just...It's so hard to get past what I knew about him and the way he is now." She looked up at the woman beside her with a sad smile. " I know he's struggled and worked hard to become the man he is. Please...forgive my ignorance." Sara smiled back at her and hugged her. "You should talk to him sometime, You might like the man he is now."
It was a little past 3 AM when he heard the giggling women come in. Sara had made it back around 2 and after she made sure Salem was in bed and safe she fell into bed herself and was sound asleep in no time. He smiled as he heard the last of the girls stumbling in trying hard to be quiet. "Did anybody tip the cab driver?"
"Kitty did." He heard someone trip and fall and then bust out laughing uncontrollably. "Jubilee shut up your going to wake everybody up." Someone said a bit to loudly. "I'm going to get a bottle of water." He recognized that voice. It still had the soft southern accent he remembered from years ago. He heard a round of "No's" when she asked if anybody wanted one too.
Marie froze when she saw him setting at the table. She looked at the bottle beside him them back to his face. His shirt was unbutton and the baby was resting on his bare chest. "You want to set down?" He asked watching Marie from across the staff kitchen. "What..are you doin' up? Is she OK?" She asked staring at the sleeping baby on his chest. He could smell her fear and the way her body shook a little. "She was hungry and upset. So we came down here so she wouldn't wake up her brothers." His large hand patted the baby's back. Marie looked at him in amazement. He could almost see the question forming in her head. "Why are you holding her like that?"
"She won't calm down unless she can touch my skin when she's scared or upset. It's a feral bonding thing. In the wild it would keep her safe from predators. It's usually the mother's pheromones, But Sara's not feral so it's up to me. "
"She has your mutation?" Marie asked leaning in closer to him to look at the baby.
"Yes, She does." He said holding out her small hand. Marie stared at her tiny kitten like claws on her small fingers. He gently turned her small head and Marie's eyes nearly popped out of her skull as she looked at her little pointed ear. "Oh my god...That is so cute!" She said reaching out and touching the tip of her tiny pointed ear. "Thanks." he said with a chuckle. He pushed his hair behind his ear and She saw his pointed ear. "I didn't know you had ears like that." She said setting back in her chair. "Yeah, I know." He smiled at her and she stared at his fangs. She looked away quickly. "It looks like the only thing she got from her mama was her good looks and her dark hair." She said laughing lightly. "Yeah, thank god she looks like her Mom." he said looking down at the sleeping baby.
"I..I should get to bed. I am getting married tomorrow." She stood up to leave
but a large hand on her arm stopped her.
"Marie...I need to tell you something." He said looking up into her face.
"Please set back down."
"What is it?" She asked a bit nervously.
"Sara told me a long time ago to really heal I had to forgive myself and... And ask the ones I've wrong for forgiveness." He looked away from her as he spoke. "There are a lot of people I can't ask, because they are dead. But...I can ask you. I'm sorry for what I did when you were a kid. I'm sorry I was so fucked up in the head that I let you suffer like that. I know now it was wrong." He looked down at the baby when she started squirming a bit. When she stopped he looked up at her for a long moment. "Can you ever forgive me Marie?" She didn't know what to say the lump in her throat was choking her.
"You know...The whole time I was there you never let them hurt me. In a way you did protect me." She said looking down at her hands. "It's amazing how fate intertwined our lives again Victor. You know Sara is the catalyst for all this. She fixed you, And she fixed me. She gave me a gift that changed everything in my life. I'll be grateful to her until the day I die." She said looking at him with tears in her eyes. "Life is to short and to precious to hang on to all the hate and pain." She whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks. She touched his arm with her bare hand. "I forgive you Victor."