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Kelly clenched her hand around the bigger one in hers. She was going to murder Wade for convincing her to be blindfolded. He had said it would make it a bigger surprise. Oh she was surprised, that was the honest to God truth, she was surprised because didn't exactly expect to walk through dense vegetation with heels. He had said dress nice. Dress nice would come down to a dress and heels, right? Dress nice did not imply a date in the middle of what felt like a forest. Of course it was the only place around for kilometres.
The forest was ok compared to being blindfolded in a helicopter she didn't even know he could fly. She had no idea when he learned any of that; she just assumed there was a pilot with them, until she asked who was flying. She wasn't sure, but she was certain she looked like James on a flight.
"You can stop scowling now." He said. She felt him move from next to her, to behind her. She wanted to catch the blindfold when it was untied, but he held on tightly to it, stuffing it into the belt of his black dress pants.
Right in front of her was something she never expected. The small clearing was lit up with various small and bright little lights. She recognized four of the people standing on the far end of the clearing, dressed in white and black, waiter's outfits. They each had a white towel draped over their arms. In the middle was a round table. A black tablecloth covered it with a smaller baby blue one. A vase with four red roses and four candles were the centrepiece of the table.
She couldn't help but be surprised.
A slow smile spread across her face as he led her to the table. He pulled out the chair. Silent all the way. He waited until she was comfortably seated and went to sit down himself. He grinned at her over the table, slouching down slightly, the soldier/waiters stood perfectly still. She studied them for a few moments. "So, how'd you convince them to do this?"
He grinned. "You women aren't the only ones with your secrets." He said, she couldn't help but smile.
"You really didn't need to do all of this." She said.
He shrugged. "But I wanted to." It was a rather deceptively simple answer. She couldn't figure why deceptive came to mind. Was it because nothing in life was simple, or because she knew that he knew something she wouldn't want him to know? She couldn't really pinpoint it.
But the fact that she was having dinner with the man who killed her brother, did come to mind. And oddly enough…she couldn't see something wrong with that. The forgive and forget story wouldn't work, she didn't think it was possible to forgive or forget anyone who killed someone you knew, who you loved with all your heart. But Wade made it hard to not forgive him. Maybe it was his stunned reaction after she got on the plane or the fact that after that night, he had tried his hardest to make it up to her. And she had done everything in her power to ignore him. Maybe that was why she was forgiving him.
She was silent for a while. Just watching him as he watched her. She could tell the soldiers were waiting for them to do something. They would shift and then one would sigh or so. "I'm sorry." She stared at him. He had said it right as she was about to open her mouth and speak. Talk about anything she could possibly think about.
She smiled. "About this? Come on, Wade. This is great. I love it."
He shook his head and looked up at the sky, just staring at the stars as if they'd give him an answer. "About your brother. Maybe if I knew back then that I'd meet you. Or knew that I'd actually get a chance to talk to you. Maybe if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it." He said.
She stared at him, she could feel her eyes burning, but she shook her head. "No." He said softly.
He looked at her then. "No?" He asked.
She smiled and looked off into the distance, just behind him into the dark trees beyond. "No. You would've still done it. You were already working for Stryker then. I don't know whom Carter was investigating. I don't really care. For the sake of the matter, if you didn't do it, he was going to send someone else. Carter would still have died. It…it was just harder to realize it was you." She knew it didn't really make sense. It didn't make sense to her.
"Harder to…? Kelly, you hated me since you started with us. I always thought it was because of the water. Because I threw you with water. But when you told me Africa it was all making sense." He said. His tone didn't change much and she knew this wasn't the only thing he wanted to talk about, but strangely she realized that he needed to say it.
She shook her head. "Maybe. But you told me to stop taking the painkillers. Maybe I didn't stop right away, my head was killing me, but I did stop. You told me soldiers were born not made. You proved to me that I couldn't just kill someone. That I couldn't do what Stryker would want me to do. That I couldn't even shoot a tree. You sat with me when the only thing I did was cry. You made it hard to hate you forever."
He was quiet for a very long time. She still couldn't really picture him as the quiet type, in any sort of situation. Whether he was speaking to soldiers of victims or whatever else there was, he was always talking. Never apologizing, but always talking. "Sometimes you have to get over things that just doesn't seem like you can. I can't say 'ok you murdered my brother, so what?' but I can at least try to forgive you."
He nodded slowly. "Are you forgiving me?"
She smiled softly. "Do you want me to forgive you?"
He grinned. "Of course."
She didn't say anything else on it. As far as she was concerned, it was over with. He wanted her to forgive him. Whatever his reasons, it didn't matter, because she's been trying to forgive him for a long time. And that's all that mattered. All that mattered was that he was trying to apologize.
And that's how dinner started. For most of it they talked about everything. She told him stories about her whole family, everyone but Carter. If he noticed, he didn't look like he was too hurt or confused about it. He probably understood why she didn't want to talk about Carter.
He told her stories of everything he's done since the last time she saw his life. Stories about the prisoners kept on that nuclear plant island. Three-mile Island. Mostly he talked about the powers those mutants had. She knew that many of them were young, and it was rather clear to understand that he didn't feel that guilty about it, but she didn't think about that too long.
By the time it was one in the morning, they were still in that clearing, still talking about random things. Wade had pulled a picnic blanket from somewhere and spread it out on the grass. The soldiers he had used as waiters had left maybe an hour or two ago. She was wearing his jacket now; it left about two hands length of the dress.
As they had lay there, she had pointed out each star she knew. And then the moon was gone. He was looking down over her. He had both hands pressed against the ground next to her head on either side and was leaning over her. On all fours. She studied him. "You helped LeBeau get away."
He pressed her down by her shoulders when she tried to get up. So after about five minutes of struggling against him, she just lay there and stared at him. Was it really too much to ask for this not to happen? For him not to ruin a good night? He was waiting, studying her, expectantly. He wasn't going to say anything until she agrees with him. "Yes." She finally says and turns her head away.
He makes her look back. "There. That's what I know. But I figured something else out today. That man, he had met LeBeau."
She smirked at him. Whatever he wanted, he wasn't going to get it. And she was going to murder him in his sleep for ruining a good evening. She had forgotten that he knew something. If he just shut up about it, she wouldn't have felt like she needed to crush him right now. "No. He hadn't met LeBeau, ever." She snapped and pushed her hands against his chest. "He's never met anyone known as Remy LeBeau. You can get up now." She snapped and pushed a little harder.
"He has and you know it, probably not as LeBeau himself, but he's met him." He continued, apparently not even really concerned about her shoving.
"Oh would you come of…" Her eyes widened as his mouth pressed against hers and she still completely. The rest of her sentence flew out of the window along with her good conscience telling her she was in a rather bad position. After all, hadn't he said before that he liked a woman under him?
The base was busy when they got back. The ant in an anthill kind of busy. Everyone was scrambling to do something. So far she couldn't find that too much of a bad thing. If the bunch of soldiers didn't notice her and Wade sneaking back after being out all night, then cool. Then she was happy. That was the reason she was now, again, wearing Wade's jacket and had taken off her shoes. The heels would've announced their presence far too loudly.
She grinned up at him, feeling exceptionally short against him, and pulled him down by the front of his shirt. She couldn't believe she was this happy with the guy. Really. And she was going to kill him later. She hadn't exactly thought the first time she slept with someone would be in the middle of a clearing. "You owe me a repeat of last night." She told him.
He grinned and kissed her again. She really couldn't get enough of kissing him. He half lifted her off her feet as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Hey!" She opened her eyes and looked sideways. Wade was just ignoring whoever it was. Emily glared at them and Kelly slowly and reluctantly pulled away from Wade. She smiled nervously at the girl. "Where the hell have you been?" She snapped and grabbed Kelly's arm.
She waved to Wade as she was dragged to her room and shoved inside. "Are you alright?" She asked as she dropped the shoes onto her bed and started towards the bathroom.
Emily glared at her. "No, I am not alright!" She snapped. Kelly slowly turned away from where she was turning the taps in the shower. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't snap at you."
"What's going on, Emily?" She asked carefully. Something in the girl's attitude told her she didn't want to know. She didn't want her good night with Wade ruined by something happening at base.
She sighed and dropped onto the bed, out of Kelly's view. "Stryker's moving us all to Three-mile Island." She said after a small pause.
Kelly froze. She knew that Three-mile Island was the holding place for the mutants Wade and the others had to go and get. She's only been to the island a couple of times. The last being to help Remy escape. And all she really did then was distract the guards by yelling at them. She didn't exactly think living beneath a nuclear plant was the best idea Stryker's ever had. "And that's bad, why?" She asked. The plant wasn't really that bad.
"My ex works there as a doctor." She said huffily.
Kelly stuck her head around the door and grinned. "And that's it. That's why you're in such a bad mood?"
The girl threw a pillow her way. She left the door open and quickly got out of the dress and into the shower. "So are you and Wade a thing now?" She asked. Kelly stilled under the water for a moment.
She wasn't sure. At least not about what it meant to Wade. "I don't know." She answered.
Something thudded. "You don't know? How can you not know?" Emily asked. Kelly studied the glass door of the shower.
She sighed and worked the shampoo into her hair. "I just don't. It's not like we actually talked about it."
She heard Emily bubble with laughter and smiled. So maybe she needed to talk to Wade about that. But if the girl could laugh like that, how bad could it be right? "Well I think you're something." Emily informed her. Probably not as politely as she had hoped, but close to it.
"Really, and why is that?" She asked, she knew she should probably have been paying better attention to Emily, but really. Blame it on Wade if that makes anything better. It's his fault he is suddenly the only thing she can think about.
She stilled after a moment. She watched as Emily moved around behind the steamed up glass. "Because, no matter what anyone thinks of him, Wade Wilson doesn't just sleep with anyone."
Kelly dropped the soap she was playing with and stuck her head out of the glass door and glared at the girl. "Who says I slept with Wade?" She asked.
The other grinned. "You're late, you seem like you glow, miss prim and proper is in a disarray and you haven't stopped smiling – I know this, I'm very good at knowing this – since I dragged you away from him."
Kelly pulled her head back into the shower and closed the door. She did sleep with Wade. And because of that she assumed they'd be something. Emily knew Wade. If she said that he didn't sleep with just anyone, then she figured he didn't. She smiled. So maybe they were something.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the bedroom door banged open. She heard Emily become quiet. The girl must've been going through the mirror case's things. It was pointless to shut the water off now. Whoever was in the room probably knew it was running. They'd be daft not to know daft and deaf. She ignored it and continued finishing her shower. She ran some more product through her hair and rinsed it off. She turned the shower off and got a two towels, the one she wrapped around her body and the other she wrapped around her head.
"What are you doing?" Emily hissed when she walked to the bathroom door, which was now shut. "That's not Wade!"
Kelly waved her off. "I know." She said simply and walked out. A soldier, younger than her and Emily, probably around eighteen or nineteen, didn't really matter which, was opening her closet and starting to pack things in boxes. "Excuse me." He turned to her and immediately spun around, turning his back to her. "Exactly what are you doing?" She asked while grabbing a black shirt, the camouflaged jacket and pants and her black boots and underwear. The same uniform she's been wearing for the last four years.
He cleared his throat. "I'm packing your room, ma'am. Colonel Stryker ordered me to have it done by the end of the morning. We're moving out to Three-mile Island."
She nodded to his back. "I know that. And I know that Stryker scares people, but can you wait outside?" He nodded and quickly marched out of the room.
Emily came back as she was pulling on her pants. She had the decency to at least wait until Kelly had dressed in her underwear. The blond gazed intently at the door and then glanced at Kelly. "How do you do that?"
Kelly pulled the shirt over her head and tucked into in the pants. She hated doing that, she felt like she was restricting her movement, but if Stryker (who seems to have a radar for things like that) ever noticed it not being tucked in; he'll have a field day and fire her. "Do what?" She asked as she pulled the jacket on and stuffed her socked feet into the boots.
Emily shook her head. "If it was me, I'd have yelled at him. Seriously yelled at him. But you stand there, ask him what he's doing and smile politely while asking him, just as politely, to leave." She explained.
She shrugged. "I just learned you can't solve things with violence. Yelling just makes people shut down and dislike you." She said while tying the laces of her boots.
Emily snorted. "For someone who doesn't want people to pay attention to her or even know she exist, you are awfully nice."
Kelly stopped what she's doing. "Who says I don't want people to know I exist?" She asked.
Emily smiled. "You. It's rather easy to see that you don't mind people, but your afraid of getting close to them. I'm a little surprised you even allowed Wade to get as far as he did." She said after a moment.
Kelly stared at her. She had never expected someone to figure it out. At least not someone who didn't know the whole story. "What if I just figured I need to trust people?" She asked.
This time the blonde did laugh. "You already trust people. You just don't trust them not to do something you'll regret." She said and started for the door.
Kelly sat on the bed for a while and thought about it. It was only when the soldier came back to ask if he could pack now that she remembered he still had a job to do. She smiled at him and nodded, told him that if he needed help he just had to ask and she'll come back.
She went to the kitchen and got herself a coffee before going to stand outside and watch as soldiers packed planes. She wasn't sure if she wanted to leave. She'd forever have the memory of her first date with Wade in the forests around her.
She smiled.
Maybe forgiving him wasn't going to be as hard as she first thought.