More Logan/Maia, more Hank, and a little more Professor X headed your way!
"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream
I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem But if I know you, I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream."
(Once Upon a Dream- Lana Del Rey)
This had to be another nightmare. He couldn't really be there, not when she'd long decided he had died. They were only ever nightmares when she woke up though, and she didn't want to wake up from this one. None of them had ever felt so real, but laying in his arms felt more real than anything she'd felt in a long time. Then she realized she was awake, and immediately started fighting the male. He grabbed her arms again, getting her wrists in one hand, and shook them, "Damnit, don't fucking bite me again!"
Maia let herself relax, memories sorting themselves between nightmare and reality. "Shit, I'm sorry."
He scoffed, "No need to apologize."
"Where's our baby?" She asked softly.
He took in a sharp breath, "I…uh…I don't know. I was hoping you would."
Maia rubbed her face with her hands, "I thought you were dead. They told me you were both dead, and I believed them. I'm such an idiot." She sat her hands on her lap, "It's morning."
"Uh…yeah." He mumbled in response.
Maia reached for the edge of the bed, pulling herself towards it. "I can see a little light." She felt the comforter under her hands, it was different than the last time she'd been awake, "Where are we?"
"Upstate New York." He told her shortly.
Maia reached out towards him, "Is there a bathroom here in 'Upstate New York' I could use?"
He chuckled shortly, "You're still feisty, that's good."
She sat in silence for a few beats, "No, seriously, I've got to pee."
He tried to help her stand, but as soon as she got her feet on the ground she was instantly dizzy. In trying to combat the dizziness and stand on her own, she ended up twisting away from him, and he couldn't catch her before she tumbled into a side table and then to the ground. He cursed, pulling her to her feet. Pain seared through her stomach, "Fuck!" Maia clutched her side, tears filling her eyes. "I forgot." She whispered, leaning into his chest, still bent over.
"What?" L hissed, "What's wrong?"
"I need someone to get this out of me before I pull it out myself." Maia growled out, pissed and in pain. She wanted nothing to do with her own problems, with the fact that he was probably still a hallucination, or that he didn't know where their daughter was. His panicked silence told her she needed to interact with the outside world again, so she pulled her hoodie up to just above her belly-button and twisted just enough for him to see. "Bathroom please." He mutely helped her into a bathroom and she shrugged him off once she felt the toilet, "I've got it."
Once she'd done her business she teetered out of the bathroom, but stopped in the doorway, not knowing where to go on her admittedly shaky legs. "What the hell was that thing?" He growled lowly from within the room.
Maia straightened her clothes and laughed shortly, leaning against the doorframe, "I decided to hell with it all, and stopped eating. Rice's solution was to put in a feeding tube. One of these days I'll kill the bastard."
"Already did." He said gruffly, sweeping her off her feet.
"Holy hell! You've got to warn a girl before you do shit like that!" Pain in her stomach kept her from staying rigid in his arms too long, and she rested her head against his shoulder, "He's dead?"
"Shish kabobbed." He said bluntly, and she tried not to shiver at feeling the words in his chest.
"He's dead?" Maia asked, barely breathing.
"Dead. Dead." L told her, "Bastard tried to touch you while we were getting out of that place."
"He's dead." Maia repeated softly, trying to figure out her emotions. She burst into tears.
"Am I hurting you?" He asked, voice tense as he scrambled to adjust his hold on her.
Maia shook her head, "He's tormented me for so long, and now he's gone. The longest year of my life is over. You're here and not lobotomized anymore, we'll be able to find our baby, and I'm just so happy!"
She felt his sharp intake of breath, "A year?"
Maia shrugged in his arms, wiping at her face, trying to get control of her emotions, "I mean, I'm not sure, but that sounds about right."
His cursing was immediate and primarily consisted of 'fuck' repeated over and over again.
"What?" Maia asked, panic rising.
L cursed again, "It's… it's been…"
"Spit it out!" She hissed. At least when he'd been mute she'd been able to read his mind. This was more than frustrating.
He sighed at her side, "It's been more like ten years, Maia."
She sunk her fingers into her own thighs, her heart hammering in her chest, "What?"
He didn't respond to her, "Hank, get this fucking thing out of her stomach."
Whoever L had brought her to, Hank, spluttered a bit, "Uh…what?"
Maia scrambled at L as he tried to put her down, "No, wait, no, ten years? You've got to…"
"Cut it out." L growled into her ear, pulling her off, "That needs to come out now."
She was disoriented for a moment, her damaged eyes more blinded by the bright light wherever they were. She reached out to where she could hear L's breathing, "Come back here and talk to me, asshole."
"Shut up and let him look at you." L growled.
She could feel hands on her, urging her to lay back, "How long has this been in? It looks irritated."
"I just bumped it on a table." Maia told the man, noting the odd texture of his hands. The weird feeling helped detract from all the other times she'd been touched though, so she let it pass. She wasn't one to talk about any one else's personal grooming, Lord knew she had been exceptionally gross for the better part of all those years, "I don't know how long it's been, apparently it hasn't been a year like I thought." She growled the last part in L's direction.
"We'll talk later. Let him help you." L growled.
Maia threw her head back, "For fucks sake, I don't even know your name!"
"Hank." Said Hank helpfully, "I'm Hank. I do almost everything here."
"Nice to meet you." She said, tossing a saccharin smile his direction before turning her head back to L.
"She meant me you furry ape." L growled. She felt his hand on her shoulder, "The name's Logan."
Maia felt a tension ease in her chest, "Logan. It suits you."
"We call him the Wolverine." Hank said before tugging the tube out of her stomach.
The burn of the tube leaving her body was better than the feeling of being stabbed by a knife that her repeated injuries had elicited, but it still hurt. "Shit!"
Hank laughed awkwardly, putting a bandage over the hole in her side, "Yeah, sorry. Um… wait a few hours before you eat anything, and when you do, make sure you dye it so you can tell if you're leaking food. There should be some food dye in the kitchen."
"She can't see, idiot." Logan growled.
Hank stuttered, "Uh…I forgot. Someone else will have to check then. I can look at your eyes if you want."
Maia shook her head, "Obviously my sense of time passing is shit, but…after a little while my eyes get better. Rice kept having to put more acid in to keep me from snagging people. It's been a bit since the last dose. I really should be fine in…a little while."
"May I ask why he wanted to blind you?" Hank asked, checking the bandage again.
Maia shifted uncomfortably, "I can read the minds of people I make eye contact with, and…" She took a deep breath, heartened by L…Logan's presence at her side, "If I have eye contact with someone and tell them to do something…they do it. No eye contact, no mind control. I'm just lucky Rice liked my eyes. There was talk about pulling them out of my head."
Logan growled, and it sounded like his fist made contact with the wall. Maia was aware of a door closing.
Hank chuckled tightly, "I'm going to take him leaving you with me as a compliment. He's been worse than usual since he brought you back here."
"How long ago was that?" Maia asked softly, grimacing when he poked at a bruise on her arm.
Hank hummed a bit, "Just over three days. None of us have actually seen you since the Blackbird landed. Logan took you straight to the boathouse, and has only shown up here to get food and beer." He hesitated for a second as he touched around her eyes, "So you have no sense of time?"
Maia shrugged, "Apparently not. I would have put money on it having been a year…but ten? Shit, my daughter's halfway grown already. If she's even still alive."
"She was five years ago." Hank rushed. "Your sister was taking care of her." He picked up her arm, "You're a little dehydrated, but you shouldn't drink anything for a bit. Mind if I give you a bag of IV fluids?"
"That's fine." Maia whispered, trying to imagine her sister taking care of a baby. There was hope at least.
Hank put a tourniquet around her upper arm and pat her shoulder, "You good?"
"Yeah." Maia said absently, "Where'd L-Logan go?"
He hummed a little, "No telling. I'm sure he'll be back soon. He's kind of obsessed with you. Kept asking me how to take care of you while you were coming in and out." He answered her unvoiced question, "As far as I know, you've been awake off and on. This is the first time Logan's brought you out of the boasted though." Hank chuckled, "Logan playing nursemaid is new for all of us."
Maia felt a blush spread across her cheeks, "There's a lot of layers to him." She stifled a yawn, "Why am I so tired?"
"You've been through a lot. Rest, I'll wait here until Logan gets back." Hank covered her with a blanket when sleep overtook her again. She dreamed of Sarah and Laura.
Sometime later she startled awake to a pinching in her arm and an antiseptic scent up her nose. She was back in Dr. Rice's clutches. Her first instinct was to fight, and she pulled a needle out of her arm and lunged out with it in the direction of the man who'd had his hands on her. "Don't touch me!" She cried.
"Maia, no!" The man screamed as the needle sunk into him, where she couldn't tell. She didn't care.
She pulled herself to her feet, looking around trying to discern an exit in the unfamiliar room with her nearly useless eyes. A door opened, and she moved towards the noise. Hands grabbed at her and she fought the people trying to restrain her with teeth and nails.
Arms finally locked around her, "Shit, I thought you were okay." It was L's voice, but L was dead. She flung her head back, making contact with a jaw. The man holding her held her tighter, hissing, "Kid, cut it out!" She kept fighting, fingers scrambling over flesh, her head flailing even though it was throbbing, but it all stopped when he growled, "Maia, enough", and sunk his own teeth in her neck. She froze instantly, the tiny animal remnant in her brain telling her that she wasn't the one in charge anymore.
"Careful Logan." An older male voice cautioned. Not Dr. Rice. "No, Miss Kinney, Dr. Rice is dead. I am Professor Charles Xavier, and you're at my school for the gifted. You've been here for several days."
"Days?" What was happening with her? Why couldn't she remember? She struggled to focus, sinking back into L. No, he was Logan, she had to remember that. Memories of her last awake time flooded back in as her body was able to focus on the sharp pain at her neck. She shook, wrapping her arm around his but otherwise going limp as she panted, "I'm so sorry. Hank, are you okay?"
"He's fine." Charles whispered to her, "Hank is almost as sturdy as our Logan. Logan, I believe you can let her go now, Miss Kinney seems to have recovered her senses. She was disoriented upon waking."
Logan released her neck, but held her as he murmured in her ear, "It's Logan. I've got you. You're safe."
Maia pressed herself back against him, relaxing into the feeling of his arms around her, "Only with you."
He made a short noise that might have been a laugh, "We need to work on that. Hank's not a pincushion, and I'm not always going to be around."
He had to be though, she couldn't be human without him, and she couldn't find Laura on her own.
Next chapter is with Logan! Let me know what you think!
-Jenn