Marie didn’t need Xavier to tell her where Logan had gone. As soon as he had ran stumbling down the hallway, Marie had known where he was going. Oddly enough, it hadn’t upset her in the least.
The drugs that Magneto had given to Carol to use on Logan had worn off leaving Logan to shoulder the guilt of his actions. They had gotten a full confession from Carol. The drug had been an alteration of one found in Logan’s file from the Weapon X Project. The original had been designed to erase all of Logan’s memories. The one that Carol had stuck him with only seconds before the casino had exploded, restored the memories he had lost, but erased the ones he had gained since then.
So no matter how much it hurt, Marie couldn’t hold Logan’s actions against him. She hadn’t existed in his memory. Only Erinne. The wife he had once had.
Now that he had his past, Marie knew that Logan would go looking for Erinne. If only to close that chapter of his life. Marie wouldn’t begrudge Logan that. He knew about his past now. He knew what he had lost. It was only natural that Logan would seek to put it behind him. And if Marie knew him at all, Logan would have gladly remained in the frozen north of Canada, seeking penance for a crime he didn’t commit.
Marie would have none of that.
So that meant following Logan north. She gave him a few days head start. Time to get up there and face his past for himself before she followed him in one of Xavier’s jets. She brought Hunter and Chase with her, wanting them to see where their Daddy came from. Logan probably wouldn’t have approved, but he didn’t actually have a say in the matter.
Marie landed the jet on an airstrip about forty kilometers from the city where she knew Logan was. A rental car was waiting for her and the boys which Marie drove towards the small town that contained Logan’s past. It felt incredibly odd to be going to the place that Logan had spent the last years of his life before it had been turned upside down.
“Daddy really lived here?” Hunter asked, his voice filled with awe.
Marie glanced at her son through the rear view mirror and grinned. “He sure did, sweety. In fact, Ah met yer Daddy in a place not very far from here.”
“Where’d ya meet him?” Chase called up to the front.
“Not very far from here in a place called Laughlin City. Ah was headin’ up t’ Alaska an’ yer Daddy gave me a ride,” Marie told him, giving them the child edited version of her and Logan’s first meeting. They were still a little young for the version that involved the bar and Logan fighting in a cage. When they were a little older Marie would tell them the real version.
“How come Daddy came up here by himself?” Hunter wanted to know.
Marie was silent a moment as she tried to figure out the best way to answer that. They wouldn’t understand the truth so she would have to tell them something else.
“Well, yer Daddy an’ Ah thought that we could all use a vacation t’gether so he came up ahead to check the place out. He called me last night an’ told me t’ bring ya both up,” Marie told them.
That was about as far away from the truth as Marie could get, but it would have to do.
“Are we there yet, Mommy?” Hunter demanded, already bored with the car ride. He was like Logan that way. Could never stand to be still for very long.
“No, sweety. We’ve still got about fifteen minutes till we get to where Daddy is,” was Marie’s answer.
Hunter began to pout and crossed his tiny arms over his chest. Even when he was sulking he looked like Logan. And while he and Chase may have looked identical, it was only Hunter who had inherited Logan’s mannerisms. Chase was a lot more subdued than his twin, more content to watch than make himself known.
By the time they reached Fort Boskin, Logan’s hometown, Hunter had asked Marie if they were there yet fifteen more times. He was just about to ask the sixteenth time when Marie passed the city limits.
“Mommy--”
“We’re here, Hunter. See that sign over there? That says ‘Welcome to Fort Boskin.’ Wave hello to the sign,” Marie said, taking her left hand off the steering wheel to wave.
A quick check in the rear view mirror revealed that Hunter and Chase were waving at the sign.
As soon as they crossed the city limits, a slow smile crept over Marie’s features. She could envision Logan driving down those very streets in a beat up old pick-up truck, waving at friends. Smiling, laughing. Just generally being happy. This was the type of place that Logan was comfortable in. It was a shame that it had been taken away from him like that.
“Where’s Daddy at, Mommy?” Hunter asked. “Is he waitin’ for us at a hotel? Does it have a pool? How ‘bout a slide? Does it have Play Station?”
“Hunter, calm down, sweets,” Marie giggled. “We’re not gonna be stayin’ at a place like that. It’s just gonna be a plain old hotel. Nothin’ more. That okay with you?”
After a few moments of silence, Hunter gave his response. “I guess so.”
“You guess so? Is that a yes or a no, sugah?”
“Hunter’s not your sugar. Daddy’s your sugar,” Chase informed her, speaking for the first time in eleven kilometers.
Marie had to smile at that. “Yer right, sweety. Daddy is mah sugah.... An’ look, there’s Daddy.”
“Daddy! Daddy!” Hunter and Chase began screaming at the same time. Unfortunately, Logan was too far away to hear it.
Pulling over at the side of the road, Marie brought the car to a stop. Unbuckling her seatbelt, Marie turned around to look at the two boys. “Now Ah need t’ go talk t’ Daddy by mahself right now. Can Ah trust the two o’ ya t’ go play in that park by yerselves?”
Hunter and Chase looked at each other then back at Marie, nodding their heads vigorously. Marie got out of the car and ran around to the other side to pull Chase’s door open. Both boys crawled out and stood waiting patiently on the sidewalk while Marie locked the car. Each one of them took hold of one of her hands and Marie led them over to the park. After checking to make sure that she would be able to see them from where Logan was, she jogged the short distance to where Logan sat on the grass, shaded by a large oak tree.
“She died about five months after I was taken,” Logan said as she approached, his eyes never leaving the worn tombstone in front of him. Erinne Rachel Hunters was buried in that grave. Logan’s first wife. “There was an accident and she died.... So did our baby.”
“Logan....” Marie whimpered, kneeling down next to him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
Something inside of Logan broke then and he burst into tears. “I didn’t even know that she was pregnant when they took me. I didn’t know....”
Glancing to her left, Marie caught sight of another tombstone, this one bearing the name Diedre Logan Hunters. What shocked Marie most of all was the next tombstone. Logan’s tombstone. As part of his abduction in 1977, they had faked Logan’s death. It made sense. There would be no questions that way.
“Erinne never knew that I wasn’t dead,” Logan moaned, lowering his head onto Marie’s shoulder. “As far as she knew, I was dead. There was no reason for her to fight. So she just gave up and died.”
Marie pressed a kiss to the top of Logan’s head and squeezed him tightly. “It’s not yer fault, sugah. Ya have nothin’ t’ feel guilty ‘bout. Fer all ya know, Erinne woulda died anyway. Yer not God, sugah, an’ ya can’t protect everyone.”
Pulling away from her suddenly, Logan scrubbed at his face, exhaling deeply. “How did you find me? Why did you bother looking?”
“Carol told us everythin’. Brought Hank inta the room an’ she caved immediately,” Marie said, a slight grin playing on her lips. “We got some files off her. They gave a brief rundown of Erinne’s past. Stuff she’d need t’ know t’ fool ya. That’s how Ah found out where ya were. As fer why Ah came.... Ah love ya, Logan, an’ it kills me t’ see ya hurtin’. What other reason do Ah need?”
“How can you love me after what I did to you?” Logan asked, cocking his head to the side. It was the first time he had met her eyes and Marie was floored by the amount of pain in his eyes.
Pulling him back into her arms, Marie began smoothing her fingers through his hair, knowing how well it soothed him. “Ah love ya ‘cause yer Logan. ‘Cause yer the most amazin’ person Ah’ve ever met. ‘Cause yer so open an’ honest. ‘Cause Ah know that ya’d do anythin’ t’ protect me an’ the boys. ‘Cause ya love us so much.”
“You should hate me for what I did to you,” Logan told her, sighing loudly.
Marie released Logan then and she could tell that he thought she was going away. Capturing his face in her hands, Marie forced him to meet her eyes and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Hold still fer a minute, sugah. Ah have somethin’ Ah need t’ give ya.”
The awe that she saw in Logan’s eyes as she removed his wedding ring from the chain about her neck brought a smile to Marie’s face. Picking up his left hand, Marie slid the ring back onto his finger. The last thing she did was curl Logan’s hand back into a fist and brought it to her lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
“Ah love ya, Logan,” Marie told him, her eyes never leaving his. “Ah love ya so much that it hurts t’ see ya in the slightest bit o’ pain. An’ Ah’m not gonna let ya leave me. Not without a fight. Ya hear me?”
Logan nodded his head, leaning forward to envelope Marie in his arms. He held her tightly, pressing his face against her shoulder. Marie could feel a dampness seeping through the shirt she was wearing and knew that Logan was crying. “I know it, darlin’. I know it.”