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whiskeycoffeeTitle: In Your Own Blood
Author: m.jules
Rating: R for Mature Themes, drug use, violence, etc.
Summary: “I passed by and I saw you, squirming in your own blood, and I said to you, ‘Live!’”
Series: Time For Love
Disclaimer: For love, not money.
Archive: WRFA; anywhere else, please ask.
Continuity: Alternate Universe
Feedback: More than ever. I want to know if this is actually connecting with an audience, because it’s kind of unusual. Feel free to let me know if it isn’t.
Author’s Notes: This series is based on the allegorical story told in Ezekiel chapter sixteen, meant to have a story take place every three and a half years. If all goes according to plan, there will be seven stories to this series, of which this is the first. My thanks extend to Heather, Taryn, and Terri, who encouraged this first chapter back when I first started writing it; tinhutlady who gave it a chance despite her initial misgivings and offered suggestions; and Beth who beta'd.
Parts One and Two can be found in my LJ Memories.
“She weeps bitterly in the night and her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her among all her lovers. ...They have become her enemies. ...In the days of her affliction and homelessness, Jerusalem remembers all her precious things that were from the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the adversary and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her ruin. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; even she herself groans and turns away. She has no comforter.”
-- Lamentations 1
The haze was beginning to clear; slowly but surely, her mind was reaching one of its rare moments of coherence. She panicked, but was unable to break out of the deep slumber her body was in. She’d made a mistake, she realized -- she was exhausted (some part of her knew there was a good reason for that, but she couldn’t remember what it was) and her system had plunged itself to a deep level of unconsciousness to give itself time for repairs. The problem with that was that it had succeeded in reaching a level where it could begin to purge the drugs she’d been feeding it steadily. She didn’t want to think clearly; she didn’t want the drugs to wear off. She preferred things blurry.
Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton; her limbs were too heavy to move. Breathing was an effort in itself. She could feel her heartbeat against her ribcage, painfully light and erratic, like a frightened rabbit’s. Her intestines were cramping violently and her bladder and kidneys groaned with a heavy ache. Voices were swirling around her and there was a burn in her nostrils. She tried to open her eyes, but found her eyelids as unresponsive as the rest of her body. A deep, shuddering sigh wracked her frame, and she felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She hated this moment most of all and worked to avoid it, but every now and then it caught up with her -- when her body rebelled against her will and she was conscious enough to object to it.
Half-waking dreams sizzled and popped in her mind, sweeping her along in emotions that took her by storm and left no room for choices. Desire and regret were living creatures that inhabited her being and left her feeling dwarfed by their sheer magnitude. The voices of her parents slipped through the guards she’d bricked up around her memory, whispering like ghosts. She saw her father’s protégé, a dark, mysterious man who seemed at once older than time and in the prime of life, almost a brother to her, standing in an upper story window of her home, his keen eyes holding her in a challenge as she looked up at him from the window of Erik’s car the night she’d run away.
She wanted to blame them for her current condition but rationale crashed through her, and she berated herself: They always gave you room to make your own choices. You made this bed. You are sleeping in it.
She whimpered; the effort of forcing the sound from her throat was excruciating, but her success distracted her for a moment. Her body was beginning to come back under her authority. As she concentrated on trying to wiggle her fingers, another voice thundered in her mind as though it was the very source and center of all things and she was wobbling wildly out of orbit.
“Awake, awake O Sleeper; Arise, shine -- your light has come. O afflicted one, lashed by storms and not comforted, troubled and desolate! I will rebuild you on a foundation of sapphires and make the walls of your houses from precious jewels. I will make your towers of sparkling rubies and your gates and walls of shining gems. I will teach your children, and their prosperity will be great. You will live under a king who is just and fair. Your enemies will stay far away; you will live in peace. Terror will not come near you. Awake...”
Something inside her, something shiny that felt like truth, started to struggle toward the surface. For a moment, she felt as she had before Erik, before --
A sharp jab to her side made her catch her breath; another, like the tip of a pointy boot to her ribs, jostled her fully awake, and she pushed her hair away from her face with a groan as she tried to sit up, all memories of the safe, warm feeling she’d almost had in her grasp blown away like moisture on a desert wind.
“Yo, Sleepin’ Beauty, you plannin’ on joinin’ the fun anytime soon?” a voice taunted her, and another kick to the underside of her breast brought her anger boiling to the surface.
“Back the fuck off, Mort,” she snarled, sitting up and scooting away from him. The sensation of a dirty, scuffed floor across her buttocks brought her up short and she looked down, realizing for the first time that she was naked, dried vomit crusted on her skin. Purple splotches stood out in dark contrast to pale ivory, and she shuddered at the sight. She hated those spots -- a memory flashed in her mind of hand-shaped bruises on her arms and her breasts, blue and black marks the size of fingers on the tops of her outer thighs, a cruel thumbprint on the inside. She closed her eyes and concentrated until shiny blue scales shimmered to the surface, disguising the injuries.
“Ugh, Myst, that’s nasty,” Mort cringed, leaning away from her. “Why’d you have to do that?”
“Cause you’re a toad, Mort, and I don’t want your gross, slimy hands all over me,” she tossed back at him. “Gimme some.” She reached for the opium pipe he was holding, but he kept it away from her, sucking deeply as he did.
She swiped at it again, but stopped as a deep, rough voice from behind her chuckled, “I got somethin’ you’ll want more than that, slut.”
She turned toward the voice, her golden eyes glittering as an expectant smile spread across her lips. “What’d you bring me, beast?” she purred.
Thick claws combed through her shoulder-length red hair and scraped teasingly across the scales on her shoulders. “You’ll have to pay me for it,” he warned in a low whisper by her ear.
“Anything you want, Creed, anything at all,” she promised, licking her lips. “What is it?”
“Glory,” he rumbled, nipping her neck and drawing her blood to the surface. “I brought you a horse with angel’s wings.”
“Make me fly, lover,” she begged, stretching her arm out to him. “Make me fly.” The blue scales gave way to pale, soft skin and the needle plunged deep into the crook of her elbow, forming yet another bruise -- but this one, she didn’t mind. The light brown liquid inside the syringe stung as it entered her veins, but the intense pleasure soon overrode the slight pain as well as all the other discomfort in her body. She moaned deeply as she felt the warm, liquid haze envelope her and waft through her mind like a golden mist. She barely heard the plastic syringe clatter to the floor as she melted down the wall, awash in pleasure.
Her body was limp, her movements sluggish, and she was so drenched in a glorious drunken, floating feeling that she barely registered Creed’s looming bulk moving over her as he roughly shifted her legs into a position that would better accommodate him. She closed her eyes and smiled fuzzily as the heroin-based cocktail filtered through her veins, rendering all else irrelevant. A dark voice muttered mingled curses and promises in her ear, but it wasn’t Creed’s. Cracking one of her eyes open confirmed that his lips weren’t even moving, though a growl was rising up in his throat.
Thoroughly unconcerned, she let her eyes slip closed again and just leaned back into the sensation as the smoky, black voice repeated over and over in her head, “You’re mine. Now and always. You’re mine. You’ll never escape me, never. You’re mine. Mine. Mine.”
***
“What is it, Hank?”
The blue, furry doctor was standing perfectly still, staring at his flip chart with a horrified expression that made Logan’s veins chill. “Hank?” he prodded again, and McCoy shook his head slightly, coming out of his trance-like state.
“It will be necessary to consult the results of the diagnostic tests currently being performed on the blood, feces, and urine, of course, before any conclusive statements may be made, but...” He trailed off, his eyes focused on some far-off point above Marie’s head. The child was sleeping soundly, Hank having administered a small dose of pain medication a little while earlier.
“But what?” Logan prompted.
Hank turned haunted yellow eyes toward his friend and whispered, “Raven—how…how was she?”
McCoy’s soft, plain-spoken question caught Logan somewhat off-balance and he frowned with worry and remembrance. “Messed up,” he finally answered. “Really messed up.”
“What would you estimate to be her body weight?”
“Ninety, a hundred pounds.” Hank flinched at the words. “Why, what’s wrong?”
Hank sighed, the expulsion of air lifting his broad shoulders and dropping them again with a slight silken rustle of fur. “The potential effects of various legal and illegal drugs on a fetus are mostly similar — miscarriage, neonatal abstinence syndrome, physical deformities, underdeveloped organs, mental retardation, irritability, difficulties feeding--”
“Hank, what’s your point?”
“My point, as you put it, is that the infant — Marie — displays several of the symptoms of a fetus exposed to drugs in the womb. However, until the tests are complete, I am unable to specifically identify the substances and develop a treatment plan.” He looked at Marie again, taking special notice of the way her tiny body shuddered and trembled in her sleep. “Also, I am not certain if she was delivered prematurely or if her development was stunted. Neither is uncommon, considering...” He paused, working his jaw a moment before blurting, “There are also indications of attempts at crude forced abortive procedures –”
Logan’s eyes flashed at that. “You mean, Raven might’ve been to some butcher...?”
Hank shrugged helplessly. “There is no way to be certain of how the procedures were attempted -- she might have done it herself with a wire clothes hanger or some such instrument, but it was certainly not a sterile operation.”
Logan growled. Hank continued unnecessarily, “I believe it is fairly obvious that Raven is at an increased risk of septicemia, communicable diseases, autoimmune deficiency, and any other number of afflictions. Miraculously, I see no signs of those in Marie; she was very fortunate, I believe.” Catching Logan’s eye, he stated in a low, emphatic tone, “The child will live; the mother may be dying. I don’t think she has much time left, Logan.”
Logan was silent, swallowing for a moment and studying the tile floor with dedicated intensity. His loyalties were torn, but he knew Marie would be in good hands with her grandparents and Hank; Raven didn’t have anyone except enemies, and her worst enemy was herself. Logan had made a promise to himself and to Charles that he would bring her back — after all, it had been an argument with him that had been the catalyst for her escape with Lensherr, and he felt responsible. He met Hank’s eyes.
“Marie...?”
“I do not believe there will be any serious health complications, once the drugs are out of her system and the withdrawal symptoms abate. Any mental and behavioral difficulties will not manifest until later in life, and she will likely always be extraordinarily petite, but I foresee nothing fatal.”
Logan nodded, and finally whispered in a strained voice, “I think... I think I need to get Raven.”
Hank’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly, and Logan clapped him on his shoulder. The doctor had always had an extremely soft spot for Charles and Ororo’s daughter. The evidence of the girl’s state of living, presented to them in the form of her foundling child, was hard for McCoy to take.
“I promise, Hank,” he said softly. “I promise I’ll bring her back.”
Hank nodded. “God go with you,” he said solemnly, resting one huge, clawed and furry hand on Logan’s shoulder, completing the manly embrace. They held each other’s eyes in challenge and understanding for a moment, then stepped away. “When you find her, tell her I said hello,” Hank requested, and Logan nodded.
Whirling on his booted heel, Logan strode to the door of the lab, pausing to look back over his shoulder at Hank. “Take care of Marie,” he half-begged, half-ordered. Hank nodded silently and Logan disappeared down the hall, as silent and menacing as a wolf.
***
“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?
“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
--Matthew 18, Luke 15, 19
“You wanted to see me?”
Logan spoke softly from the doorway of Xavier’s office where he stood with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, his white tee-shirt straining slightly across his broad shoulders. The bright, clean cotton stood out in contrast to his skin and the dark hair that fell damply around his face. It appeared he was fresh from the shower.
“Logan. Good to see you.” Charles looked the man over from his seat behind the desk and quirked a smile. “So you think you can come home just long enough to change clothes before you set out again?”
Logan shrugged, smirking a little. “Can I help it if I like to wear clothes that don’t smell like the sewer?”
“Believe me, I wasn’t objecting to your penchant for hygiene,” Charles laughed. Turning serious, he said, “Hank tells me you’re heading out after the prodigals again.”
Logan nodded solemnly. “There’s a lot of ‘em. And they’re all dyin’ in some way or another. And Raven...” he looked away for a moment. “Wish I’d had better news, Chuck,” he sighed.
“You’ve brought me excellent news,” Charles countered. “I was just on my way down to see my granddaughter.” Logan nodded. “Ororo tells me you named her Marie.”
“I didn’t name her,” Logan protested weakly. “Just what I was callin’ her.”
“It’s a good name. Did you know what it means?” Charles’ eyebrow arched curiously.
“Nope. That’s your field.” Logan didn’t really care about what names meant, though Charles made a hobby of it. The older man nodded, but remained silent, and eventually Logan prodded, “So what does it mean?”
“Well, either ‘bitterness’ or ‘long-desired daughter’.” He gave Logan a significant look, and the dark man crossed his arms over his chest, chuckling softly.
“Sometimes, Chuck,” he grinned, “I’m so good I scare myself.”
Charles shared in his quiet laughter, then put his hands palm-flat on his desk and began slowly pushing himself out of the chair. Logan’s muscles tensed, ready for action, but he remained where he was. “Need any help?” he offered nonchalantly.
“No, no, I’ll be all right,” Charles assured him with a wry smile. “Dr. McCoy’s treatments have been very helpful, although I can’t say I enjoy physical therapy very much.”
Logan watched sharply for any sign that Charles could not manage the short trip from his desk chair to his wheelchair by himself, appreciating again Hank’s genius. The doctor had researched and experimented tirelessly until he came upon a combination of surgery, neurotherapy, and mechanical implants that bypassed the damaged part of Charles’s spinal cord and allowed him to control his legs once again. The muscles were weak from long years of disuse, so Hank had gradually started him on a physical therapy program and had even gone so far as to design a new wheelchair that could be operated by foot-pedals as well as electronically so that Charles could do some light exercise even when he didn’t have time to make his therapy appointments.
Charles sighed as he lowered himself into the wheelchair, grimacing slightly as he did. He fiddled with the chair’s controls and set it to electric rather than manual, then steered toward the door. “Are you taking anyone with you?” he asked Logan as he whirred past him to the elevator.
“Just my comm device and my cell phone,” Logan answered as he turned and walked beside Charles down the hall toward the elevator. “I do better working with the locals than trying to bring anyone from here. I’ll call for pickups, though; I probably won’t come home every time I find one. How’s the Blackbird doin’, by the way?”
“I believe Hank finally repaired it. Young Mr. Summers assisted him. Have you met Scott?”
Logan shook his head and Charles continued, “He shows promise; he’s a bright young man. I’m watching him closely. Perhaps someday you might take him with you on one of your trips.”
Logan’s eyebrow arched in skepticism, and Charles chuckled, letting the matter go easily and making Logan suspect that the subject was far from forgotten.
“Be careful, my friend,” Charles said with a smile. “And thank you. I’ll be with you in spirit.”
“I know,” Logan grinned as the elevator opened and Charles wheeled into it. “See ya, Chuck.” The doors closed behind his mentor and he stood for a moment in the silence of the hall, soaking in the scent and sensation of home before he left it behind again.
***
Author: m.jules
Rating: R for Mature Themes, drug use, violence, etc.
Summary: “I passed by and I saw you, squirming in your own blood, and I said to you, ‘Live!’”
Series: Time For Love
Disclaimer: For love, not money.
Archive: WRFA; anywhere else, please ask.
Continuity: Alternate Universe
Feedback: More than ever. I want to know if this is actually connecting with an audience, because it’s kind of unusual. Feel free to let me know if it isn’t.
Author’s Notes: This series is based on the allegorical story told in Ezekiel chapter sixteen, meant to have a story take place every three and a half years. If all goes according to plan, there will be seven stories to this series, of which this is the first. My thanks extend to Heather, Taryn, and Terri, who encouraged this first chapter back when I first started writing it; tinhutlady who gave it a chance despite her initial misgivings and offered suggestions; and Beth who beta'd.
Parts One and Two can be found in my LJ Memories.
“She weeps bitterly in the night and her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her among all her lovers. ...They have become her enemies. ...In the days of her affliction and homelessness, Jerusalem remembers all her precious things that were from the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the adversary and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her ruin. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; even she herself groans and turns away. She has no comforter.”
-- Lamentations 1
The haze was beginning to clear; slowly but surely, her mind was reaching one of its rare moments of coherence. She panicked, but was unable to break out of the deep slumber her body was in. She’d made a mistake, she realized -- she was exhausted (some part of her knew there was a good reason for that, but she couldn’t remember what it was) and her system had plunged itself to a deep level of unconsciousness to give itself time for repairs. The problem with that was that it had succeeded in reaching a level where it could begin to purge the drugs she’d been feeding it steadily. She didn’t want to think clearly; she didn’t want the drugs to wear off. She preferred things blurry.
Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton; her limbs were too heavy to move. Breathing was an effort in itself. She could feel her heartbeat against her ribcage, painfully light and erratic, like a frightened rabbit’s. Her intestines were cramping violently and her bladder and kidneys groaned with a heavy ache. Voices were swirling around her and there was a burn in her nostrils. She tried to open her eyes, but found her eyelids as unresponsive as the rest of her body. A deep, shuddering sigh wracked her frame, and she felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She hated this moment most of all and worked to avoid it, but every now and then it caught up with her -- when her body rebelled against her will and she was conscious enough to object to it.
Half-waking dreams sizzled and popped in her mind, sweeping her along in emotions that took her by storm and left no room for choices. Desire and regret were living creatures that inhabited her being and left her feeling dwarfed by their sheer magnitude. The voices of her parents slipped through the guards she’d bricked up around her memory, whispering like ghosts. She saw her father’s protégé, a dark, mysterious man who seemed at once older than time and in the prime of life, almost a brother to her, standing in an upper story window of her home, his keen eyes holding her in a challenge as she looked up at him from the window of Erik’s car the night she’d run away.
She wanted to blame them for her current condition but rationale crashed through her, and she berated herself: They always gave you room to make your own choices. You made this bed. You are sleeping in it.
She whimpered; the effort of forcing the sound from her throat was excruciating, but her success distracted her for a moment. Her body was beginning to come back under her authority. As she concentrated on trying to wiggle her fingers, another voice thundered in her mind as though it was the very source and center of all things and she was wobbling wildly out of orbit.
“Awake, awake O Sleeper; Arise, shine -- your light has come. O afflicted one, lashed by storms and not comforted, troubled and desolate! I will rebuild you on a foundation of sapphires and make the walls of your houses from precious jewels. I will make your towers of sparkling rubies and your gates and walls of shining gems. I will teach your children, and their prosperity will be great. You will live under a king who is just and fair. Your enemies will stay far away; you will live in peace. Terror will not come near you. Awake...”
Something inside her, something shiny that felt like truth, started to struggle toward the surface. For a moment, she felt as she had before Erik, before --
A sharp jab to her side made her catch her breath; another, like the tip of a pointy boot to her ribs, jostled her fully awake, and she pushed her hair away from her face with a groan as she tried to sit up, all memories of the safe, warm feeling she’d almost had in her grasp blown away like moisture on a desert wind.
“Yo, Sleepin’ Beauty, you plannin’ on joinin’ the fun anytime soon?” a voice taunted her, and another kick to the underside of her breast brought her anger boiling to the surface.
“Back the fuck off, Mort,” she snarled, sitting up and scooting away from him. The sensation of a dirty, scuffed floor across her buttocks brought her up short and she looked down, realizing for the first time that she was naked, dried vomit crusted on her skin. Purple splotches stood out in dark contrast to pale ivory, and she shuddered at the sight. She hated those spots -- a memory flashed in her mind of hand-shaped bruises on her arms and her breasts, blue and black marks the size of fingers on the tops of her outer thighs, a cruel thumbprint on the inside. She closed her eyes and concentrated until shiny blue scales shimmered to the surface, disguising the injuries.
“Ugh, Myst, that’s nasty,” Mort cringed, leaning away from her. “Why’d you have to do that?”
“Cause you’re a toad, Mort, and I don’t want your gross, slimy hands all over me,” she tossed back at him. “Gimme some.” She reached for the opium pipe he was holding, but he kept it away from her, sucking deeply as he did.
She swiped at it again, but stopped as a deep, rough voice from behind her chuckled, “I got somethin’ you’ll want more than that, slut.”
She turned toward the voice, her golden eyes glittering as an expectant smile spread across her lips. “What’d you bring me, beast?” she purred.
Thick claws combed through her shoulder-length red hair and scraped teasingly across the scales on her shoulders. “You’ll have to pay me for it,” he warned in a low whisper by her ear.
“Anything you want, Creed, anything at all,” she promised, licking her lips. “What is it?”
“Glory,” he rumbled, nipping her neck and drawing her blood to the surface. “I brought you a horse with angel’s wings.”
“Make me fly, lover,” she begged, stretching her arm out to him. “Make me fly.” The blue scales gave way to pale, soft skin and the needle plunged deep into the crook of her elbow, forming yet another bruise -- but this one, she didn’t mind. The light brown liquid inside the syringe stung as it entered her veins, but the intense pleasure soon overrode the slight pain as well as all the other discomfort in her body. She moaned deeply as she felt the warm, liquid haze envelope her and waft through her mind like a golden mist. She barely heard the plastic syringe clatter to the floor as she melted down the wall, awash in pleasure.
Her body was limp, her movements sluggish, and she was so drenched in a glorious drunken, floating feeling that she barely registered Creed’s looming bulk moving over her as he roughly shifted her legs into a position that would better accommodate him. She closed her eyes and smiled fuzzily as the heroin-based cocktail filtered through her veins, rendering all else irrelevant. A dark voice muttered mingled curses and promises in her ear, but it wasn’t Creed’s. Cracking one of her eyes open confirmed that his lips weren’t even moving, though a growl was rising up in his throat.
Thoroughly unconcerned, she let her eyes slip closed again and just leaned back into the sensation as the smoky, black voice repeated over and over in her head, “You’re mine. Now and always. You’re mine. You’ll never escape me, never. You’re mine. Mine. Mine.”
***
“What is it, Hank?”
The blue, furry doctor was standing perfectly still, staring at his flip chart with a horrified expression that made Logan’s veins chill. “Hank?” he prodded again, and McCoy shook his head slightly, coming out of his trance-like state.
“It will be necessary to consult the results of the diagnostic tests currently being performed on the blood, feces, and urine, of course, before any conclusive statements may be made, but...” He trailed off, his eyes focused on some far-off point above Marie’s head. The child was sleeping soundly, Hank having administered a small dose of pain medication a little while earlier.
“But what?” Logan prompted.
Hank turned haunted yellow eyes toward his friend and whispered, “Raven—how…how was she?”
McCoy’s soft, plain-spoken question caught Logan somewhat off-balance and he frowned with worry and remembrance. “Messed up,” he finally answered. “Really messed up.”
“What would you estimate to be her body weight?”
“Ninety, a hundred pounds.” Hank flinched at the words. “Why, what’s wrong?”
Hank sighed, the expulsion of air lifting his broad shoulders and dropping them again with a slight silken rustle of fur. “The potential effects of various legal and illegal drugs on a fetus are mostly similar — miscarriage, neonatal abstinence syndrome, physical deformities, underdeveloped organs, mental retardation, irritability, difficulties feeding--”
“Hank, what’s your point?”
“My point, as you put it, is that the infant — Marie — displays several of the symptoms of a fetus exposed to drugs in the womb. However, until the tests are complete, I am unable to specifically identify the substances and develop a treatment plan.” He looked at Marie again, taking special notice of the way her tiny body shuddered and trembled in her sleep. “Also, I am not certain if she was delivered prematurely or if her development was stunted. Neither is uncommon, considering...” He paused, working his jaw a moment before blurting, “There are also indications of attempts at crude forced abortive procedures –”
Logan’s eyes flashed at that. “You mean, Raven might’ve been to some butcher...?”
Hank shrugged helplessly. “There is no way to be certain of how the procedures were attempted -- she might have done it herself with a wire clothes hanger or some such instrument, but it was certainly not a sterile operation.”
Logan growled. Hank continued unnecessarily, “I believe it is fairly obvious that Raven is at an increased risk of septicemia, communicable diseases, autoimmune deficiency, and any other number of afflictions. Miraculously, I see no signs of those in Marie; she was very fortunate, I believe.” Catching Logan’s eye, he stated in a low, emphatic tone, “The child will live; the mother may be dying. I don’t think she has much time left, Logan.”
Logan was silent, swallowing for a moment and studying the tile floor with dedicated intensity. His loyalties were torn, but he knew Marie would be in good hands with her grandparents and Hank; Raven didn’t have anyone except enemies, and her worst enemy was herself. Logan had made a promise to himself and to Charles that he would bring her back — after all, it had been an argument with him that had been the catalyst for her escape with Lensherr, and he felt responsible. He met Hank’s eyes.
“Marie...?”
“I do not believe there will be any serious health complications, once the drugs are out of her system and the withdrawal symptoms abate. Any mental and behavioral difficulties will not manifest until later in life, and she will likely always be extraordinarily petite, but I foresee nothing fatal.”
Logan nodded, and finally whispered in a strained voice, “I think... I think I need to get Raven.”
Hank’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly, and Logan clapped him on his shoulder. The doctor had always had an extremely soft spot for Charles and Ororo’s daughter. The evidence of the girl’s state of living, presented to them in the form of her foundling child, was hard for McCoy to take.
“I promise, Hank,” he said softly. “I promise I’ll bring her back.”
Hank nodded. “God go with you,” he said solemnly, resting one huge, clawed and furry hand on Logan’s shoulder, completing the manly embrace. They held each other’s eyes in challenge and understanding for a moment, then stepped away. “When you find her, tell her I said hello,” Hank requested, and Logan nodded.
Whirling on his booted heel, Logan strode to the door of the lab, pausing to look back over his shoulder at Hank. “Take care of Marie,” he half-begged, half-ordered. Hank nodded silently and Logan disappeared down the hall, as silent and menacing as a wolf.
***
“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?
“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
--Matthew 18, Luke 15, 19
“You wanted to see me?”
Logan spoke softly from the doorway of Xavier’s office where he stood with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, his white tee-shirt straining slightly across his broad shoulders. The bright, clean cotton stood out in contrast to his skin and the dark hair that fell damply around his face. It appeared he was fresh from the shower.
“Logan. Good to see you.” Charles looked the man over from his seat behind the desk and quirked a smile. “So you think you can come home just long enough to change clothes before you set out again?”
Logan shrugged, smirking a little. “Can I help it if I like to wear clothes that don’t smell like the sewer?”
“Believe me, I wasn’t objecting to your penchant for hygiene,” Charles laughed. Turning serious, he said, “Hank tells me you’re heading out after the prodigals again.”
Logan nodded solemnly. “There’s a lot of ‘em. And they’re all dyin’ in some way or another. And Raven...” he looked away for a moment. “Wish I’d had better news, Chuck,” he sighed.
“You’ve brought me excellent news,” Charles countered. “I was just on my way down to see my granddaughter.” Logan nodded. “Ororo tells me you named her Marie.”
“I didn’t name her,” Logan protested weakly. “Just what I was callin’ her.”
“It’s a good name. Did you know what it means?” Charles’ eyebrow arched curiously.
“Nope. That’s your field.” Logan didn’t really care about what names meant, though Charles made a hobby of it. The older man nodded, but remained silent, and eventually Logan prodded, “So what does it mean?”
“Well, either ‘bitterness’ or ‘long-desired daughter’.” He gave Logan a significant look, and the dark man crossed his arms over his chest, chuckling softly.
“Sometimes, Chuck,” he grinned, “I’m so good I scare myself.”
Charles shared in his quiet laughter, then put his hands palm-flat on his desk and began slowly pushing himself out of the chair. Logan’s muscles tensed, ready for action, but he remained where he was. “Need any help?” he offered nonchalantly.
“No, no, I’ll be all right,” Charles assured him with a wry smile. “Dr. McCoy’s treatments have been very helpful, although I can’t say I enjoy physical therapy very much.”
Logan watched sharply for any sign that Charles could not manage the short trip from his desk chair to his wheelchair by himself, appreciating again Hank’s genius. The doctor had researched and experimented tirelessly until he came upon a combination of surgery, neurotherapy, and mechanical implants that bypassed the damaged part of Charles’s spinal cord and allowed him to control his legs once again. The muscles were weak from long years of disuse, so Hank had gradually started him on a physical therapy program and had even gone so far as to design a new wheelchair that could be operated by foot-pedals as well as electronically so that Charles could do some light exercise even when he didn’t have time to make his therapy appointments.
Charles sighed as he lowered himself into the wheelchair, grimacing slightly as he did. He fiddled with the chair’s controls and set it to electric rather than manual, then steered toward the door. “Are you taking anyone with you?” he asked Logan as he whirred past him to the elevator.
“Just my comm device and my cell phone,” Logan answered as he turned and walked beside Charles down the hall toward the elevator. “I do better working with the locals than trying to bring anyone from here. I’ll call for pickups, though; I probably won’t come home every time I find one. How’s the Blackbird doin’, by the way?”
“I believe Hank finally repaired it. Young Mr. Summers assisted him. Have you met Scott?”
Logan shook his head and Charles continued, “He shows promise; he’s a bright young man. I’m watching him closely. Perhaps someday you might take him with you on one of your trips.”
Logan’s eyebrow arched in skepticism, and Charles chuckled, letting the matter go easily and making Logan suspect that the subject was far from forgotten.
“Be careful, my friend,” Charles said with a smile. “And thank you. I’ll be with you in spirit.”
“I know,” Logan grinned as the elevator opened and Charles wheeled into it. “See ya, Chuck.” The doors closed behind his mentor and he stood for a moment in the silence of the hall, soaking in the scent and sensation of home before he left it behind again.
***
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