Disclaimer: I don't own x-men. Don't sue, I have no money.

Author's note: Ok. Yes. Technically, it will most likely be early Thursday morning when I update this as opposed to late Wednesday night. I have issues dealing with my laziness, but thank you so much for the reviews, guys lmao.

_____________________________________________________________________

Lightening struck, lighting up the room for a quick second. It went as quickly as it came. The thunder was difficult to sleep through as rain pounded onto the window, but Logan seemed to be doing just fine. The thing about thunderstorms that truly scared Marie was the fact that you were never exactly sure on when the thunder would hit. It was always some sort of sick surprise. Either that or Ro was having quite a bad night.

The rain pounded mercilessly against the window, never seaming to relax for a moment or give it a break. Every time thunder struck Marie couldn't help but jump at the sound, despite the fact that she was somewhat asleep.

Visions of herself in Logan's position when they were implanting the metal within him haunted her mind. They. No one knew who they were except for Marie at that time, in her own mind. In her dream, it was almost as if she felt everything Logan had been through. Every time thunder struck, she dreamt that it was actually Logan banging on the doors, trying to get to her while they tore away at her insides.

It was nights like these that Logan was really in her head, and all she could feel was his pain.

[beginning of her dream:

She heard them scribbling down on their notepads, taking down what they had observed of her suffering. Every time she opened her eyes all she could see was white. Perhaps she was dying. No. They weren't merciful enough to end her suffering. She still felt them tearing away at her. The white could have just been their jackets. That's what it was.

She saw a quick flash before quickly closing her eyes again. She shut her eyes tightly as if to hide somewhere within her mind -- somewhere close to insanity. The flash played over and over again in her mind. Oh God. The possibility of the flash being another knife simply shining against the blinding light crossed her mind. She couldn't scream. A scream couldn't possibly express all the pain she felt right now.

As soon as they finished tearing apart her arms, they'd move to her legs. Then her face, neck, fingers, toes, and everything you could possibly imagine. Before finishing tearing apart one part of her body, they'd move to the next. She didn't understand how she wasn't dead. She still knew she wasn't dead by the fact that she heard her heart beating in her ears. She was breathing deeply, as if she was running out of air.

There were more beatings against the door. Logan. She heard him screaming her name, searching for hope that she was alive. He knew she was trapped in that hell hole of a 'surgery' room, going through the same thing he'd been through.

At this point her entire body was bleeding. She was almost under the illusion that she felt some sort of cool metal rest against her open limbs and organs. No.

It wasn't an illusion. [ending of dream]

A piercing scream filled the room followed by tears and cries. Finally, she came to some sort of a realization that she was back into the real world again. She felt herself trembling uncontrollably.

Not even a second after her scream sounded, Logan was sitting up and leaning over her, looking her over nervously. He felt all the blood rush to his head due to his concern for her, especially because he heard her sobbing. He felt his heart speeding at an indescribable rate, but refused to acknowledge it until he was sure that Marie was fine.

This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened. By the sound of her scream, he knew what it was. He knew they were tearing at her insides and they would not leave her mind at peace long enough so that she could sleep. He didn't see the need to turn on the lights because he knew he would be enough to comfort her. She didn't need to see the room as some sort of relief from all the darkness. She only needed him, and he knew that.

"Everything's okay now," he whispered, bringing her into his arms. Despite the circumstances, they were both reminding themselves in the back of their minds that they can't make contact with each other. The fact that they still had to worry about that sickened him more then anything.

She tried to apologize through her sobbing. Although her sobbing was fairly quickly coming to an end, she was upset that she had to wake him over this. Jubes was at least used to this happening every once in a while. He was only around for this type of thing four or five times.

Despite the consistency of the same nightmare and the idea that she should be used to it by now, the thoughts from the nightmare made her upset all over again.

First, she was waking up Logan in the middle of the night, which she thought was a big inconvenience for him. Second, if she couldn't take the nightmare of having her skin torn apart, she wondered how could Logan have possibly dealt with that happening in real life. The thought of people doing that to Logan almost drove her to insanity.

"I'm really a... mess.. God, I can't believe I'm still not used to it," she said, seeming angry at herself. Her crying had finally come to a stop as she wiped away one of the final tears.

He seemed to stay quiet, putting all of his efforts into making her feel better as he rubbed her back. He couldn't think of anything to say. He wasn't sure if it was all his fault that she had these unthinkable nightmares. Should he have apologized?

"I didn't mean to wake you up. I promise I won't fall asleep here anymore. Jubes is more used to this sort of stuff happening. You know, you'd think those pricks would use new knives in my dreams every once in a while, not that it would make a difference. ." She just went on and on with her random rambling until his voice silenced her.

"Did I save you this time?" He asked, referring to the dream. He often wondered about that.

She shook her head 'no' tiredly. She knew that it would upset him. There was no use in saying 'Yes, my hero, you kicked the crap out of the bad guys, but hey, I was still screaming my brains out as they tore away at me.' Obviously she wouldn't have screamed so much if he had actually saved her.

"If I'm not saving you in your dreams, there's no way in hell I'm going to let anything happen to you in real life. You know that," he whispered in his usual hardass tone, hoping that she caught the idea that basically he was trying to say 'I care about you, and I'm sorry you're having beyond shitty nightmares.'

"I'd be dead without you," she whispered in a serious manner, looking straight into his eyes, despite the darkness. Her eyes could always find his through anything and no matter how thick the darkness was. No one could explain how.

"It's becoming a hobby for me to save you during the missions every once in a while. You all right and everything?" He would never stop being a hardass, would he?

"Peachy. Thank you, Logan. I needed to get out the crying a bit I guess," she tried to quietly explain. Sometimes she didn't understand why she got so worked up over the nightmare. She usually wasn't scared of things easily, but this was horrifying to her.

He nodded in response.

He understood how she felt completely. After all, he did have the same nightmares as she did. Even worse, he had already been through the experience she dreamed about. At this point, the raging thunderstorm outside was completely forgotten.

A short moment of silence began to kick in. It wasn't an awkward silence. It was more of a peaceful silence. All they could hear were the slow and calm breaths that each of them took. Suddenly, an important thought came to Marie.

"How loud did I scream?" She tilted her head slightly towards him.

"Loud."

"..Scott and Jean didn't rush in along with the Professor asking if we were dead this time? Are they really that used to me having these nightmares?"

He shrugged before speaking, "Well, Chuck probably already knows that we're fine one way or another, and since the guy is a telepath, he could just send the information right along to Jean. This way no one has to haul their ass out of bed."

"Do you get smarter at night?" It wasn't one of her most intelligent questions, but it was worth a shot.

"Either that or you get stupid. You ready to go back to sleep?", he glanced at the small digital clock before continuing, "it's almost four in the morning."

"Do you want me to go back into Jubes' room? I understand, Logan. I swear. I'm getting used to Jubes threatening to cover my mouth with duck tape so I could shut the hell up occasionally."

He didn't want her to leave. If he could prevent her from leaving tomorrow morning, he'd probably try that too.

"Just go back to sleep. I doubt the nightmares will come back for a second time in the same night. Don't worry about it," he said quietly as he gently released her from his hold under his muscular arms. The more she seemed to be out of his grasp, the more he hated himself. But can he show that he truly cares for her? Of course not. That would be too sensitive to be coming from the hardass Logan. Definitely.

"Thanks. Night, Logan," she whispered as she got herself settled. She thought in a somewhat upset manner, 'That's just great. I'm not in his arms anymore. No. God forbid I stay there for more then ten minutes. There's practically time limits with this guy.'

"Night, Marie." They both sighed unknowingly, making themselves comfortable on the bed, hoping for at least five more hours of peaceful and undisturbed sleep.

---

The next morning was probably one of the strangest Marie ever had to deal with in the nineteen years that she'd been living.

First, Jubilee busted into Logan's room at 7:00AM. She apparently wasn't surprised to find Marie there. It was one of her first guesses to figuring out where Marie was. She teased her, bringing up the idea of children or "little wolvies" running around. Logan restrained himself from giving her the finger, despite how tempting it actually was. He was too tired to actually tell her off.

No one knew about Marie's chance to have human contact except her, the Professor, Logan, and Jubes. Of course she told Jubes everything about an hour after the "little wolvies" incident over breakfast. Jubes seemed to have taken her more seriously then Logan, which seemed unlikely, but it was happily welcomed.

Jubes responded with a series of excited yells and hugs toward Marie. The sudden excited yells won them a couple of confused glances in the cafeteria, but they were easily ignored.

"It's not for sure, Jubes, but it's definitely likely."

"It better be likely. It's not like the Professor is the next Miss Cleo. He knows the facts. Then, it must be likely. It has to work. You have to admit, it's a clever theory," Jubes stated right before hugging Marie yet again out of her building excitement.

Through the excitement, the two girls weren't aware that they were being listened in on.

A devastated look crossed over Brooke's facial expression. She nearly choked on her orange juice. She overheard everything Marie said. Every single word. She almost regretted sitting at a table a bit too close to Marie.

'My.. God.. That's such bullshit.. She needs to forget on getting her hopes high over this, even if it does make sense.' She rolled her eyes at the thought.

She heard all the stories about Marie and Logan and they made her sick. The way Logan always saved Marie as if he was her personal Superman was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard of. Brooke considered Logan to be hers. She was convinced that Logan's perfection was made for no one else but for her.

She overflowed with jealousy whenever Logan would simply ask around to find Marie. Brooke saw the way they looked at each other with those 'loving' eyes. Of course Brooke despised Marie out of pure jealousy. Brooke blamed Marie for taking away time from Logan that Logan could have used to spend with Brooke. Logan seemed to be oblivious to Brooke's obsession with him.

Brooke's obsession was definitely not a healthy one.

The idea to suck the life out of Brooke crossed Marie many times, but she let it go. She hated the mature part of her telling her that killing someone wasn't the way to settle things. The amount of times that Marie received dirty glares and bad vibes from Brooke are innumerable. She didn't understand why Brooke despised her, but only responded by casually taking off her glove whenever Brooke threatened to beat her. Seconds later, Brooke would be far and out of her way.

Brooke overall kept to herself, and would never do anything to harm 'her' Logan. Continuously she failed at her plans to have Logan all for herself. Many times she purposely risked her life, just to wait for Logan to come save her. Brooke was convinced that one day Logan would realize how worthless Marie was. Marie couldn't touch or pleasure him in ways that Brooke only dreamed of doing for him.

Now, the idea that Marie might finally be able to control her mutant abilities threatened Brooke more then anything else in the world. Marie would be able to touch Logan -- her Logan.

Brooke was completely focused on having Logan for herself.

She had to eliminate the chances of Marie's dream from coming true.

'I'll do whatever it takes, bitch,' Brooke glared at Marie, firing up with anger.

_____________________________________________________________________

Author's note: Heyy it's done for the fourth chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed. I love reviews like how a penguin loves coldness lmao. See you guys in Chapter five, hopefully soon. I can't think of anything else to say lmao later.

- Escense