Framed in the doorway, Wolverine had frozen. Inside that little room lay Marie, a girl who had been stolen from him, from the world, a year previously. It was as if this slumbering figure where a ghost, an apparition. But the rise and fall of her chest, the sweet aroma that surrounded her, told him she was real. Flesh and blood. Alive.
After the shock of seeing her, slumbering softly after a year of deathly sleep he had almost turned and ran. And Logan didn't run. He stayed his ground, he got angry, he fought. But she was different. Marie. A name he hadn't allowed himself to even think since…
He wondered what life was like for this Marie. If she was the same. If she felt the same way about… He swallowed hoarsely. His mind had been full of questions from the moment the Professor had greeted him at the front door of the mansion. He knew then that something was wrong. The professor was a man to whom you were summoned, not someone who sought you out. He must really have pissed the old man off this time.
"Logan, we need to speak." Those few words had heralded a revelation so shocking, so unbelievable, that Logan thought he must be imagining the whole thing. That he had finally lost his mind, after twelve months of feeling his sanity slipping away, ebbing further from reality with each passing day.
Scott, well, the other Scott, had told Xavier all about their other world. And what Scott didn't say, Xavier sensed. In their reality, Logan had taken off after Ellis Island. He had been driven by an intense desire to discover his past. And he had returned two years later, evidently satisfied that he had done all he could. Wolverine had pottered around the school. Peripheral, lineal. And always watching.
How different life would have been if that had been his destiny.
And now here she was, wrapped in the arms of Scott Summers. But that was immaterial. The man may as well have been invisible. All he cared about was the girl lying there on the bed.
And then, as if she sensed him, her eyes opened.
It was as if she knew that he'd be there, waiting for her. From the moment this whole mess began, all her soul had cried out for was him. Not to hold her, or kiss her or even to love her, but to just be. His presence in the mansion calmed her, a soothing reminder of her past life.
So when Logan appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, his figure silhouetted against the bright lights of the corridor, she felt her heart skip a beat. He avoided her gaze though, as if he was afraid to look at her. Taking long, slow strides he came close to her and she lay frozen, the distance between them narrowing with every moment. He came to a stop beside her and was silent, his eyes still fixed on anything but her.
Marie watched as his chest rose and fell with each deep breath, and longed to feel it on her skin. They stayed like that for what seemed forever to Marie, not speaking, not moving, until Logan lifted his eyes from the floor and stared straight at her. There was something in his expression that she had never seen before, never known. He dropped to his knees beside her, and when he spoke, his voice trembled, and she felt the longing and wanting of years of waiting in the pit of her stomach lilt with each syllable.
"Marie…" he whispered, shaking his head as if trying to convince himself that this was real, that it was actually happening.
"Sometimes I think I can hear her… hear you."
He was silent for a moment, staring into her with his deep dark eyes and Marie thought she would just melt and fall into his arms, into him.
"And then I realise, it's not your voice that I'm hearing, not your footsteps, your laugh… it's in my head. Because you're gone and that's the only place I can see you now."
Marie watched in shock as Logan's eyes grew moist and welled with tears. As they rolled down his face he didn't wipe them away. He didn't do anything but stare. Never had she seen him so full of emotion, never had she dreamed he could feel so powerfully about her.
"And I miss you every day. I curse myself, hate myself, for not being there. For letting you die."
"It wasn't your fault!"
"That doesn't matter. I wasn't there."
"Logan…"
He gasped for air, as if her words wounded him.
"To hear you say my name again…"
He looked down to her hand, encased in his.
"To feel your touch."
She stared at him. He clasped his hands around hers, the heat radiating through the thin leather.
"Did they tell you? About what happened to me, to us?"
"No…." Her heart was racing.
He was rubbing her hand now, massaging her.
"When we touched that second time, it almost killed me."
"It was the same with me, 'Ah mean, in my world."
"Well, it was different here. Very different. They think that my skin, well, when it healed itself it changed, it regenerated different."
"I don't understand?"
"It mutated. It became… resistant."
He began to slip off her glove, pulling the soft material slowly, almost sensuously. She could barely breathe, anticipation, and fear engulfed her. Marie hoped, prayed, that it could be true. That he was saying…
"After I woke up, I was different. I was immune to your touch. You couldn't absorb my powers and I didn't get sick. We could touch."
He moved closer so that he was almost on top of her. So close she could feel his breath on her cheek. Her glove was off and she shuddered as Logan wound his fingers about hers, feeling the first real human contact in over three years. She felt faint, dizzy. It must be a dream, she would wake up and it would be over. It couldn't be real…
"I could touch you," he whispered as he lowered his head down to hers. His tearstained face was so close now, touching hers. She was crying now, too. And as he leaned in to kiss her, Marie felt his strong arms around her back and pulling her close as he had in her dreams.