Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel or Fox, but if I did, I would be given out little Wolvies like there ain't no tomorrow...sadly, I can't...but we can pretend. Please enjoy!
Logan and I found some ice packs in the infirmary, and after about thirty minutes, the swelling had gone down almost completely, leaving only a few bruises littered across my hands.
"Thank you," I said. I was sitting on one of the exam tables and he had pulled Jean's stool from her desk over to beside me and was sitting on it.
"Don't worry about it," he said. That was our routine; I would say 'thank you' and he would say 'don't worry about it'. It may have seemed odd to anyone else, perhaps the words may not have registered much emotion to other people, but to me, it was all I needed to hear. He truly didn't want me to worry about it because he didn't care to help me, it was something that didn't bother him to do, and so when he said it, he meant it. As he did with everything. He looked up at me from where he was examining my hands and gave me a small smile. "You wanna' watch the fireworks?"
"There's no way we can make it into town in time to see them. And even if we could, I thought you said you hated those things?"
"I do. That's why we're not goin' to watch them in town."
"Then where are we going to watch them from?" I asked, confused.
"Follow me," he said, standing.
I did as he said and he led me from the infirmary, down the hall lined with the X-Men uniforms, up the elevator to the student hall, down into the teacher's hall, into his room and out onto his balcony. He pulled himself up onto the banister railing and stood on it. He then reached out his hand for me to take.
"You've got to be joking."
"I'm not, now come on."
"What if I fall? I'll break my neck!"
He gave me a smirk. "I didn't think you could?" he said, quirking an eyebrow at me.
I rolled my eyes at him. "All right, so I can't technically break my neck, but if I fall, that's going to hurt really badly."
"I'm not gonna' let you fall, darlin'." I let out a sight and looked over the side of the balcony. I looked back up at him and it was more than being about whether I could force myself to climb up onto the roof of a mansion. It was about trusting someone completely enough to believe that if I did manage to fall, though he already said he wouldn't let me, that he would catch me. "Come on, I got you."
I let out another sigh. "Okay," I said, giving him my hand. He took it and then being mindful of its still painful state, grabbed my wrist and pulled me up onto the banister beside him. "This is crazy. It's no wonder Uncle Scott didn't want me hanging around with you."
He laughed. "I could be wrong, but I don't think he was talkin' 'bout me pullin' you up onto a roof when he told you that."
I placed a hand on his shoulder to balance myself. "And what do you think he was talking about?" I asked, swaying. His hands instinctively went down to my hips as I fell against his chest. I looked up at him and smiled, a blush pinching my cheeks. "Oh." I laughed. "He was talking about this."
He stared down at me for a long, silent minute before clearing his throat. "Just, uh, stand here. I'm gonna' climb up and then I'll, uh, help you up."
I nodded at him and balancing myself, took a couple of steps back so that he could turn around.
The banister railing was about two and a half feet or so wide, so I felt relatively stable on my own as I watched him use the ivy fence to place his foot in and climb up onto the roof. He then turned around and reached out his hand to me once again. I took it and followed his lead by pushing myself up with my foot on the siding of the school. Once I brought my feet up to touch the roof, he took hold of my arm with one hand and my waist with the other in order to help me stand.
That particular part of the roof wasn't as severally slanted as most of it was and I found that I could walk on it fairly easy. I followed him as he walked about ten feet over and four feet back, then he stopped and sat down.
The sky looked beautiful that night. It was a deep indigo color with the moon to our backs and the stars dotting it above us. There was a light wind and it carried the smells of the festival, up to us on top of the mansion, where we could see it going on down below. There was a mixture of cotton candy, popcorn and various forms of fried food smells wafting through the air. It was a warm night, and despite my hands hurting slightly still, it felt quite nice and oddly comfortable out on the roof.
After a few minutes with the only sound that of the still active festival, the fireworks began. We both lay back and watched the beautiful display of colors and lights above us and I lay my head on his shoulder. It had been years since I had seen fireworks and I enjoyed watching them with Logan.
I didn't know what it was about him, I still couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he made me think, he made me see the world in a different way than I always had and he made me feel things I had never felt. It hadn't been an hour yet since we had been arguing and yelling and I had proceeded to beat my fists against his chest, and yet there we were, lying outside on the roof of the mansion watching colors exploding into the night sky. I had thought that I meant nothing to him; I was just someone to occupy his time until he could find something better to do, but I had been wrong. I didn't know what it was exactly that he saw that drew him to me, but I was glad that he had indeed seen it. Being with him made me feel more like myself. Not only that, but I actually felt comfortable enough to be me, and that was something I hadn't felt in a long time.
"Would you rather; be attacked by vicious bears or sharks?" I asked as the last of the sparks from the finale fluttered and fell to the ground.
"Bears."
"Really? Why?"
"'Cause I should kill it and get away. You kill a shark and the blood's only gonna' attract more. That and I can run faster than I can swim. When you got metal on your bones, you ain't no freakin' fish." I laughed. "What about you?"
"I was going to say shark, but since you brought up the point of attracting other sharks if I killed it, I would probably have to agree with you and say bears as well," I said then we lay quietly for a few minutes more, thinking and enjoying the other's company. "Logan?"
"Hm?" he grunted.
"I was watching the news today."
"Yeah," he said, sounded confused as to why I would think he cared about the news.
"Well, they were talking about us, mutants. They say they're working on a cure-"
"You shouldn't watch that crap. We ain't sick, we ain't a disease, kid, we're people and you can't cure that."
"I know, but I was thinking something like that could actually…" I let out a deep breath, "help people."
"Like who?" he nearly growled.
"Like Rogue."
He swore and sat up, looking at me over his shoulder. "There ain't nothing wrong with Marie."
I followed his lead and sat up beside him. "Logan, she can't even touch people. She can't have a real relationship; she can't have kids. It was almost eighty degrees out today and she was wearing gloves and a scarf."
"She always does."
"But don't you see how ludicrous it is for her to have to cover herself constantly? Maybe it isn't about being sick or not. Maybe it isn't about whether it's right or wrong. Maybe Logan, it's about being able to help some of us."
He looked over at me. "You wanna' take it, then take it. I don't care, that's your decision. But don't let them make you think that they wanna' help us, 'cause they don't. They're scared and wanna' get rid of us. That's all it is. If they ever do make something, I ain't gonna' be waitin' in line to get it."
I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. I looked down at my feet. "I know that they don't want to help us, but it might be able to. I know that they're scared of us, too, but some times…I'm scared of them." I looked up at him, a tear breaking free from my eye and running down my cheek. "Aren't you?"
He shook his head. "No," he said, "'cause they got more reasons to be scared of me." He wiped away the tear that had streaked its way to my jaw. "Let 'em be scared of you, too. You give 'em a good enough reason and they'll leave you alone. We got as much right to be here as they do and if they wanna' try and do something about it then they're gonna' have one heck of a fight on their hands."
Generally, hearing about fighting back against the humans was something I tended to tune out. I didn't want to think of the possibility of it. But looking into Logan's eyes, I knew that it would happen eventually and like he said; it would be one heck of a fight. That night I decided that I wasn't going to be ashamed of who I was anymore. I decided that when that fight came, it would be one of which I would be a part. If only I had known.
"Logan, get you suit on, we've got to go," Uncle Scott said. We had heard the vans pull up and had climbed off the roof. Scott met us half way downstairs as he was heading up, going towards his room.
"Where to?" Logan asked.
"Pennsylvania," he said, continuing up the stairs.
Logan turned and began following him. "Who's goin'?"
"Us, Jean and Rogue. Get your stuff together; we're meeting by the Blackbird in ten minutes."
There was a swell of anxiety in my chest as I watched them walk up the stairs together. This was serious; it wasn't a game or a chance to play superhero, it was something real. This was how we defended ourselves, and everyone else. My family, my friends, they put their own lives on the line in order to save humans. They very same humans that wanted to 'cure' us. It was the third mission that they had gone out on while I had been there. They had been sent out on the other one while I was asleep. I woke up when I felt the school shake and watched as they flew off into the night inside the jet.
"Hey," I called out. They both stopped and turned around to see me. "Be carefully guys, okay?"
They both nodded their heads.
"Yeah," Logan said.
"We will, sweetheart. I love you," Scott told me.
"I love you, too," I said with a sad, weak smile. "Sorry, you both still have to get ready, so go on."
They left to fight their battle and it was time for me to fight mine.
I entered the Professor's office after I saw the team off. He had allowed me to use it so that I might be able to use the phone in private. With bruised fingers, I dialed Officer Johnson's cell phone number. After four rings, he answered.
"Hello?"
"Hey Bobby, this is Delia. Were you trying to get in touch with me earlier?"
"Yeah, about an hour or so ago, I guess."
"Sorry, I was out watching fireworks and couldn't hear the phone," I lied.
"It's fine. Katie wanted to talk to you. She signed herself out of the clinic and she's staying at my house for now. But, uh…she asked me where you were and I told her that you were in Westchester with your uncle. I didn't realize it would be a problem, but she started yelling and screaming at me. She tried to hit me with the phone book."
"Yeah, sorry, she doesn't much like her brother."
"Apparently. But anyway, she wanted to speak with you…if you want?"
"Yeah, let me talk to her."
"All right, hold on and I'll get her," he said and I heard him walking. After a minute there was the sound of him knocking on a door, and then I assumed he covered the mouthpiece with his hand as it went a bit quiet and I could only hear muffled speaking.
"Yeah, what?" I heard my mother's voice say other end of the line.
"Hello mother."
"Delia, where are you?"
"I'm in New York."
"You put me in some clinic and you're staying in New York?"
"Yes," I said, sitting on the edge of Xavier's desk and rubbing my brow. "Officer Johnson said that you wanted to speak to me."
"Well I was wondering why my own daughter hadn't come to visit me once while I was stuck in the stupid clinic. Then he told me that you were with that…mutant in Westchester."
"I did come to visit you once, you told me to leave."
"Don't change the subject; are you with that freak or not?"
"Yes, I am. Bobby also mentioned that you hit him with a phone book."
"I tried to hit him with one and I said don't change the subject while I'm talking. What are you doing there?"
"I'm talking on the phone with you," I said, smiling to myself for the very Logan-ish comment.
"Don't try to be cute with me, because it doesn't work."
"I'm not trying to be cute, you asked me what I was doing here and I told you."
"Why are you there?"
"Because the rent money for our apartment curiously went missing and I didn't have anywhere else to go."
"That's not my fault; you should be more responsible with your money."
"I was responsible with it. I gave it to you, remember?"
"Don't blame me for your mistakes."
"Well I didn't take my money and go buy liquor and coke. And seriously, why coke? Crack is so much cheaper."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bobby said that when they arrested you, you were drunk and had three ounces of coke on you. Now something tells me that he wasn't talking about a soft drink."
"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about."
"I know what he told me."
"I know want to hear about it, so just shut up."
"No, I'm not going to shut up. We need to have a talk, a serious one, mother."
"About what?"
"About everything. I…I can't live how I am anymore. I can't waste my life taking care of you."
"Oh, poor Delia," she said bitter and sarcastically. "I never asked you to take care of me, I'm not a child. And what do you mean, waste your life? What else are you going to do? You're useless and dumb and the only thing you've ever done with your life is work at a diner that fired you over some stupid broken chairs."
"Merv didn't fire me because you broke the chair. He fired me because you broke it by throwing it through a window." I was both amazed and annoyed by the way she managed to make things always seem so much smaller and less important that what they really were. "And while we're at it, don't call me dumb and useless anymore, okay? Because I'm not and I'm not going to let you tell me that I am."
She let out a horridly amused laugh. "Who's filling your head with that nonsense, some silly little boy you met up there?"
"He's not a boy and it's not nonsense. He just made me realize that I'm wasting some of the most important years of my life on someone who doesn't even care about me."
"And he does?" she said coldly.
"More than you ever will."
"You really think that? You think that people could actually love you, Delia? You know as well as I do that it's not true, so tell me; do you really think that?"
"No…I know it. He loves me, he takes care of me and he doesn't have to tell me I'm stupid in order for him to feel better about himself."
"So he lies to you?"
"They're not lies, mother, it's the truth."
"You whine and complain to him, you tell him about your poor, sad little childhood where you never went without a place to sleep, food to eat or a roof over your head. You tell him all of that so he can tell you that you're wasting your life on me, but have you told him that I've wasted mine on you? I was twenty years old when I had you; I gave up everything and came back to this stupid town so that I could raise you. And what do you have to say for it? That I've ruined your life. You're an ungrateful person, you always have been."
"You're hurting me, mother, you have been since daddy died."
"Do not bring Bill into this!" she snapped.
"Well he's part of it. You hated me before I was born, but when daddy died, you blamed me."
"You didn't listen to the stars; you never have, even when you were younger. You defied their rules and what they had set for you and because of that, your consequence was for him to die. You chose that and because of you, my soul's partner died."
"Because of me? Because of me?" I yelled into the receiver. "Are you serious? What happened wasn't my fault, and I have never deserved that sort of blame and guilt forced on me, yet you've done it since I was eight. What happen was your fault; not mine."
"My fault? How was it mine? I've always listened to the stars and have done what they've said."
"They're stars, they don't talk!" I yelled. "We are people, with our own minds and we decide what to do with our lives, not some flaming balls of gas stuck in the sky. We do."
"Do not say that. You start defying them again and they'll take more away from me as your punishment."
"And what could they take away from you? Your drugs, your alcohol? What's the dearest thing you own right now, because daddy's gone and it's never been me. Why won't you just stop hiding behind your stupid beliefs and just be accountable for your own mistakes?"
"What mistakes?"
"I'm not a stupid child. Did you really think I wouldn't find out what happened? You were having an affair with that fighter that daddy was up against that night. He killed him on purpose because he thought that if he did, you would marry him. It was your fault. You killed him, not me. So whatever stupid theory you have about stars a million miles away from us being to blame for taking away the only person who loved me, then you can just get over yourself, because that's what it is; a stupid theory. You took him away from me and you blamed me for it. You had no right to make me feel that way. Ever. Because of you, I'm afraid of getting close to people. Because of you, I can't be me. You said that because I don't believe in your stupid faith, you lost your soul's partner. There's no such thing, and if there was, he wasn't yours because you didn't even know him."
"How dare you say that to me? I knew everything about him; we knew everything about each other."
"No you didn't. You didn't know he was a mutant." There was a sickening silence on the other end of the line that almost made me feel satisfied. "Daddy was a mutant and you hate them, don't you? How could a faith that you believe in so strongly link your soul to that of a mans that you would've hated if you had known who he truly was? How could the same stars that you believe to know everything have been cruel enough to do that to you? But do you know what might be even worse? Daddy was a mutant and so am I. You can hate me even more for that if you want, I don't care. I don't even care why you hate me. Whether it's for telling you what he was, for having something from him that you'll never have or if it's just because it's me, and you always have. I don't care anymore; I'm tired. I'm tired of you not loving me, of you blaming me for your own mistakes, of you making me feel worthless and I'm done with your game. You want to be free, then do it. I didn't take away your freedom; you did that to yourself. I found out that there are people who can actually care about me. There are people who don't think I'm dumb, and ugly, and worthless. There are people who actually love me and that I can trust. So I'm sorry, but…I'm through," I told her and hung up the phone.
I was tired and worn out and ready to give up. But Logan had given me enough courage to get back up and deliver the last blow. I just wish that he had been there to hear it for himself.
Breakfast the next day was sad for me without Logan and Uncle Scott. Professor Xavier tired to keep a conversation going with me, but I was just too busy worrying about the team and my situation with mother to pay much attention to him.
"I'm sorry sir, I'm just not all here today," I said with a weak smile.
"Don't apologize, I understand, my thoughts are with the team as well," he said, wheeling away from the empty table, save me. "I should tell you that when I find I need a place to think, I go out to the garden by myself. It helps to clear your head if you have more than a wall to look at."
"Thank you," I said with a more genuine smile before following his advice.
I went out to the garden and sat down on the same bench I had run into when Logan and I had first met. It was slightly odd for me to think back and remember that there was a time when I hadn't known him. How had we gotten so close so fast? Never had I ever been as close to anyone as I had been him, and yet I hadn't known him for more than three months. He was somehow everything I didn't have a needed. He felt familiar and yet he was something I had never known.
I was sitting outside, lost in my thoughts, when I felt it start raining. I looked to the sky and saw a storm coming towards the school. The sky opened up and the rain began to pour from it as I ran back into the house. As I was passing by the Professor's door on my way up to my room, I heard him calling me. I entered his office timidly, not wanting to get his carpet wet.
"Delia, you have a phone call, it's Officer Johnson. I have to go to classes so you may have my office to yourself for your own privacy," he said and then wheeled past me in his chair.
I stared at the phone sitting off its hook and my heart jumped. What if mother had decided to change? What if what I had told her had actually gotten through to her and she wanted to apologize? I knew it was highly unlikely, but my head got carried away with me anyway.
I walked over and picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Delia, this is Bobby."
"Hey Bob." There was a clash of thunder and I jumped some.
"I'm afraid that I have some bad news, honey. I'm really sorry." His voice sounded hoarse and shaky. My heart sank. This wasn't about her apologizing. "Delia, uh…this morning…this morning I uh…I found Katie in her room. I'm afraid she…she, uh, she passed away."
My heart not only sank, it stopped beating completely. "What?" I heard myself croak. "W-what happened?"
"She…hung herself."
I fell to the floor of Xavier's office and landed on my weak knees. "Oh my word." That was all I could think of to say. Everything else was gone. My mind was blank. Never before had I been speechless.
"I'm sorry, I really am. This is terrible and I hate it for you."
I couldn't breathe. Everything inside of me felt dead and I didn't know what to do. I was numb. "Why? Did she say why?"
"She left a note, but I didn't really understand it. I thought you might."
"What did it say?" I asked, going through the motions, but not feeling them.
"It just said that her life had not been what it was meant to be here and that her soul needed to leave to find its partner among the stars, or something. Does that mean anything to you?"
I nodded my head, though he couldn't see me. "Yeah, it does."
"I'm just really sorry Delia. I know that this is hard. And I hate it with the weather like it is; it reminds me of when I came to tell you about Bill. I think the storm was worse that night, though," he said and continued to talk, but I didn't hear the rest of it, my mind had stopped at that.
It was storming the night daddy got hurt; that's why I was scared of storms.
"I, uh, I have to go Bobby, I have to go," I said numbly, hanging up the phone.
I had to get out. I couldn't breathe in the school and I had to get out. I stood to my feet and ran from the mansion. My feet carried me without my mind knowing where they were taking me. The rain poured down on me as I ran through the gates of the school where I had pulled up only weeks before for the first time.
A small pile of leaves was blown into the wind, a rogue one sticking to my left pant leg and I couldn't help but think that that was my life. I was a pile of leaves that would settle until the next big gush of wind came along to blow me to another place. It continued to do so, losing a little of myself on each move, until I was nearly all gone.
I was used to hard situations, but never before had I caused anyone to kill themselves. I never should have told my mother about my father. Or me.
I was crying, running and the rain continued still to fall down on me like a cold sheet of ice. I had never hurt so much and felt so numb at the same time in all of my life. Although I was running as fast as I could, everything felt as if it were in slow motion. I stopped and looked around, my mind not registering where I was. My chest heaved as I attempted to catch my breath. I stood out in the middle of a street as the storm raged around me, then I felt a blow to the back of my head and everything went black.
Hell found me. It never lacked ways; only time.