Together we have made it to chapter six of this little bit of fiction. Thank you everyone who have added Masochist to their favorites and alerts, as well as those of you who sent in your encouraging reviews. They have helped me more than you know, and thank you to my darling Beta for once again saving us all from saying "What the heck?" lol. Enjoy.

Chapter Six

Darkness, it's all I can see here.

It's so thick that it dominates every corner of my vision, the only thing I feel certain of is that I am alone here in this wonderful place where there's no pain, unlike my tank at the lab where my pain is only seen but never heard or felt.

Slowly my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and I can see coming into shape before my eyes various shades of green in a kaleidoscope of colors everywhere from evergreen to jade. It's so beautiful here that I never want to leave.

I move forward, and I feel dead leaves and twigs crackle under my bare feet, it tickles and I laugh. When I open my mouth I can hear my laughter echo and for a second it's a frightening thought.

What if I'm lost, someone has to be looking for me, and what if that someone is from the lab and they've come to take me back.

Shh.

Whose there? I can't really hear anyone near me, it's almost like the voice came from my own head. Like there is some comforting presence here watching over me, protecting me from the dangers beyond it's boarders.

A pleasant sigh of contentment moves with the breeze, curling my hair around my shoulders and urging me forward, toward some destination that I know nothing about, but I can't even force myself to be afraid because I feel so safe here, like when I was a child wrapped in my mothers arms after a bad dream and I know that her arms will keep me safe and protected from all the bad things in the world. Closing my eyes I let myself be carried away, my feet moving, taking me to where I am needed. When I break through the trees I am met by one of the most serene sights that I have ever seen, a lake, not too big but big enough to remind me of when I used to go swimming in the lake not far from where I lived. Is that were I am now? It doesn't look like -.

"There you are."

A familiar voice interrupts my thoughts and I turn around to look at the man that has been haunting my dreams for the past month.

"Logan?"

He smiles a smile that I've only seen on rare occasion, it looks good on him, but he almost never uses that smile. The one that shows a row of beautiful straight teeth that are surprisingly white compared to how much he smokes and drinks.

"Beautiful." he murmurs.

"It really is ain't it?" I say smiling turning my eyes back to the lake, seeing the way the moon is reflected off of it's calm surface.

"I was talking about you."

Blushing I turn my head to look at him, but he's behind me now, his strong arms encircling my waist and for the first time I become aware of what I am wearing, a white satin dress, maybe a night gown or one of those spring or summer dresses that you see more sophisticated women than myself wearing. Logan's in white too, white cotton pants, loose and comfy.

His hand brushes mine and I jump pulling away from him as quickly as I can before the pull of my mutation can run it's coarse.

"What's wrong baby?"

"Mah skin, are you hurt?"

There's a sad look in his eyes for a second as he takes a step closer to me, taking my shaking hand in his and laying it against his chest, right over his heart, showing me that I'm not hurting him, I can't feel a life time of memories flooding my mind, seeing things through his eyes.

"It's a lot to get used to, but you're not going to hurt me darlin'. It's alright."

I'm not hurting him, my chest heaves with newly forming tears that cloud my vision as I turn my hand over the satin tickling hairs of his chest to his neck and over the more coarse hairs of his beard and laugh slightly. I don't know how it's possible, but right now I can't seem to make myself care because all I want in the world right now is to feel his arms around me again.

Swallowing away the tears I smile, as brightly as I can, and turn around snuggling myself into his embrace again and lay my head back against his chest staring up at the stars.

"There's the north star...and over there, that's the big dipper." He points, his lips next to my ear, gently kissing down my neck

"So I'll always know how to get home." I muse lightly.

After a second, he turns me around, the most intense look in his hazel eyes and in the moons rays I can detect the most subtle of golden flicks near his irises.

"I'm always going to take care of you, Marie."

"Ya promise?"

"I vowed, from death do us part that I will love you for better or worse, in sickness and in health."

Bringing my hand up to his lips, for the first time I can see a golden band around his finger, the same as the one around mine.

Gathering me into his arms, his lips are upon mine, and the contact between us begins to burn, scorching my insides and giving birth to butterflies in my stomach.

"Ah love you."

For a second I'm confused, I don't know where I am or where Logan is. I can so clearly remember feeling his arms wrapped securely around me and now they are gone, just gone and it's almost as if I can still feel them there, but they're only a ghost, a cruel joke of my subconscious.

I used to think that dreams were the best part of life because you could see what you wanted and then make you're plans to gain it, but this...it was far to harsh, to mean of a trick to play on myself. I can hardly catch my breathe the tears come so fast and I have to bury my face in my pillow to keep from waking the whole mansion.

None of it was real and it never would be and that was what hurt the most, I could deal with that. Logan doesn't have any romantic feelings towards me at all and I can live with that, but my skin, my stupid freaking skin has to ruin even the best of dreams. I begin to shake, my whole body ravaged by my sobs and I feel like if it hurt anymore I might fall apart and die, and I wish that I would or that it was even medically possible for that to happen.

It's not fair, it's just so not fair.

As soon as the first sob left her lips I heard it, bolting out of bed and out the door.

I made it into the hall when the faint scent of arousal hit my nostrils and clung thickly in the air around me. At first, I wanted to believe that it was coming from anyone of the other rooms down the hall, but I could never mistake Marie's scent for someone else.

Stepping up to the door, it was definitely coming from her bedroom, the scent of her tears mixed salty with the musk of her desire. Her sobs become muffled as if she were hiding her face in her pillow and I knew that there was only one person, no matter how egotistical it is of me, that could make her cry like that – me.

Every nightmare she had, it was my fault, and now, she had to sleep with a rapist. The things I've done I've never been proud of, the drinking, all the fighting and killing, the woman willing to go to bed with the last name standing – which was always me, and now she knew.

Now, I'd never once had to force a woman into bed with me, but the things I did could hardly be called love making. That was a side of myself that I never wanted Marie to see.

Ever since the night she came to my room I had fooled myself into believing that she would always look at me with compassion and trust in her eyes, but after tonight, after knowing what kind of monster I really am, there's no hope at all left to me.

A mournful groan fell from my lips, I guess in a way I always knew that eventually she would figure things out, Marie's a smart girl I just wanted to believe so goddamned badly that that side of myself had been off limits to her.

Like everything else in my wasted existence I have ruined her, she came so sweet and pure on a mission of mercy and there I was, fate as it were, and in once single touch I had fucked it all up.

Heaving myself up from the door, which I had come to rest against, I took a few steps away from the door. There was no way I could face her now, and she wouldn't want me to, why would she? I was nothing but a monster. Good for only one purpose.

I am the best at what I do, but what I do ain't very good.

I can't remember when I fell back to sleep, but when I woke up it was morning and everything from last night didn't seem so bad. Momma always said that things look better in the light of day, and I was pretty upset last night, I'm just glad that Logan didn't hear me. I would have been wholly to embarrassed to try and explain to him why I was crying over a good dream.

Problem was, the dream was just too good.

Scrubbing my hands over my face, I can't believe I made such a big deal about it. Sometimes dreams can come true, right? I mean what's to stop me from gaining control of my powers? Nothing that's what...and who knows maybe one day I can live a completely normal life. The dream was just an awakening to that, it hurt but sometimes don't we need to hurt as human beings so that we can have compassion for others who are going through similar things?

Logan might not ever have romantic feelings towards me and that's not a problem, I'd rather have him as my best friend than not in my life at all and it would be nice to be able to give him a hug without worrying about whether or not I am completely covered up and safe to touch.

Down stairs life seem to continue onward just like it always did with no real notice to my petty little problems, not that I would have had it where everyone hung on me with pity.

There seemed to be a certain amount of tension between Mr. Summers and Dr. Grey though, come to think of it almost all the teachers seemed to be on edge around Mr. Summers this morning. He even snapped at Storm, and Ms. Monroe was one of the nicest people at the mansion.

By noon I knew I had to be out of the loop because almost everyone was avoiding conversation with Scott.

"What's with Scooter today?" I asked Jubilee using Logan's nickname for Scott during out basic training class.

"Logan stole Scott's motorcycle. Took off sometime in the middle of the night with it, no one knows were he went but Scott looks like he'll blast Logan straight into outer space when he see's him again."

"You mean he just left, he didn't even say anything to anyone?" I could hear my voice faltering even as I asked the question because I already knew the answer.

"You're still pretty new here Roguey Pooh, but I'll tell ya, this isn't out of the norm for Logan."

"It's normal Logan behavior." I said lifelessly, Jubilee never seemed to catch on to the fact that even thought I was fighting a loosing battle to stop myself from becoming too attached to Logan, I was still heart broken that Logan was gone and even more so that he didn't even tell me about it.

A/N: OK, from the beginning I have been trying to seperate sections of the story with horizontal rulers on my writing program, but it hasn't worked. However, this chapter and following chapters will indeed have seperation rulers in them from now on. I had to edit on the site. Why I didn't think of this to begin with, I have no idea. Anyway, enjoy! And review, review, review!