#writingarchive

 “Marie,” he said, turning the girl gently onto her back, brushing flakes of gentle white from her hair. “Marie, hey… hey there,” he said with a smile as her eyes fluttered open again. “Hey, kid, c’mon. We’re almost there.” 

 “Logan…” She croaked, her throat parched and most likely stripped dry from the subzero temperatures. The wind had easily pierced through her thick parka by now, and by the way she was shivering the coat was just as effective being on her body as if it were on the ground. “Logan, I can’t, I can’t,” she whimpered. The man shushed her gently, reaching up to wipe away her tears before they fell down her cheeks and became frozen to her skin. 

“It’s just ahead, we’re nearly there, alright?” He said. “We’ve faced worse. Much worse, yeah?” He asked, waiting to see her nod. “There’s a good girl. Come on, up you go again,” He said, reaching under her arms and standing her upright. Logan watched as the girl swayed on her own two feet, despite the fact his body was still supporting hers. “Gloves on?” 

“N-Nice and t-t-tight,” Marie stuttered. Logan nodded, pressing his lips briefly to her forehead before helping her back up onto his back. He himself could feel the chill biting viciously at his exposed cheeks and fingers, but that was not his first concern. Logan knew his body would heal. While they both knew Marie could draw on his energy to heal herself if necessary, it wasn’t a risk they could take. The amount of time he would need to recover was far longer than the amount of time she could survive out here in this cold. So, he pressed on. 

“Just another mile or two,” he called back to her over the sound of the whipping wind. Marie nestled herself between Logan’s shoulders, resting her head on the taut leather of his jacket.  

“W-w-why are they doing this t-t-t-to us-s-s?” She asked in that hoarse voice of hers. Logan had to physically suppress the urge to growl out his response.  

“They don’t trust us, kid. That’s… That’s just how these things go.” 

“B-but why don’t t-they j-just kill us-s-s?” She whispered.  

“I think that’s the goal,” The man replied. When there was no response, he figured that the young woman was either too tired or too disheartened to continue her line of questioning. Or both. 

It was almost dark by the time the two of them arrived at the lodge. Taking care to keep Marie from slipping off his back, Logan shifted his weight to support her with one arm. He raised the other to knock a specific rhythm out against the heavy oak door, but before he even finished it was wrenched open. A gust of light and warmth rushed out to greet him, and Logan nearly fell to his knees in relief. Had he not been so concerned for the well-being of woman on his back, he might have done just that. 

“Erik, take Marie,” said an accented voice, as British and well educated as it ever was. “Careful, gently now, make sure not to touch her,” he said. Logan watched as the edges of his vision became tinged with black, the exhaustion he had been fighting off for the better part of forty-eight hours finally coming back to bite him. He quickly became disoriented as he felt the weight being literally lifted from his back, and felt his claws break through his frostbitten skin on instinct. “Logan, calm down, it’s alright. You’re safe, both of you. Erik, take Marie to the last guestroom, and help me…” 

But Logan didn’t hear anything else. Marie was safe, that was all he needed to know, as was evident by the fact that ten seconds later he crashed to the floor, and the room went black. 

Waking up wasn’t nearly as easy as falling asleep. He groaned with the effort of peeling his eyes open, finding himself facing the white pained ceiling. It was still dark out when he woke, though the snow was coming down so hard it lit up the outside world like the early morning. He sighed softly, thinking over the past three days.  

The passing of the Mutant Registration Act had come as quite a shock, especially seeing as how congress wasn’t supposed to even vote on the bill for another two years at least. As a result, no one was ready. Not the school, not the X-Men, not even the Brotherhood. In the heat of the moment, the desperate need to survive overwhelmed and past grudges or petty disagreements. Disowned siblings became family once more, friendships were rekindled, and differences were settled within the course of two hours as evacuation became the only focus of everyone’s shared attention. 

The young ones had been first. Hank had flown all of the children out of the school in the jet, or at least as many as he could take. The X-Men were left behind to battle the United States ground forces, who quickly caught on to the Xavier School’s little escape regime, while the other faculty members sneaked out the remaining students to a safe location way up in northern Canada. Once everyone was evacuated, Charles and Erik led the way to the safe house for the others, taking a role call once they arrived.  

“Wait a minute,” Bobby had said, “where’s Rogue?” 

Logan closed his eyes again, fighting the onslaught of memories. Marie had stayed behind as a sort of insurance, refusing to leave until she was sure all of her friends had gotten away. It worked-until she herself was left behind. Logan had to travel by foot to go and find her, seeing as traveling by jet or any other method would be easily detected. For two days he had walked through the snow, only to find the girl herself crumpled into a ball under a tree along the pathway they had taken, already half-frozen.  

“I-I was t-t-trying to follow” 

“You were trying to die! …Get on my back, I’ll carry you.” 

“B-but-“ 

“No buts.” 

It was unsettling to think what would have happened to the girl had Logan not happened to stumble upon her. Had she been out there alone any longer… He shuddered, and beside him he felt something move. 

“Hey,” he heard the voice of the woman herself croak, then fall into a coughing fit. 

“Easy, easy…” Logan said, rubbing her back through the parka that was still bundled tightly around Marie’s shoulders. “What were you thinking, kid? Don’t answer, just… Of all the stupid things…” 

The two of them fell into silence. Logan never did stop rubbing Marie’s back, and she never said anything in opposition to it. Instead, she curled up further into his side, making sure that her gloves were still securely over her fingers before she hesitantly wrapped an arm around the man’s torso. After what felt like ages, just when Logan believed the girl might have fallen back asleep, she spoke again. 

“Nothing’s ever going to be the same.” 

“Yeah…” Logan agreed. 

“We’ll always be running.” 

“Probably.” 

“What will they do to us, when they catch us?” 

“Hey, hey, that’s enough-“ 

“What will they do to me?” 

“It won’t come to that, it won’t… I won’t let it come to that,” Logan said. “I didn’t let them hurt you then, did I?” 

“No, but-“ 

“So I’m sure as hell not gonna let them hurt you now, okay?” 

“You could die.”

“It’s kind of a habit,” he grumbled. He smirked when he felt her shoulders shake with faint laughter. “Besides, what you really have to look out for is metal brain.” 

“Do you think he’s actually changed?” 

“Not a bit.” 

Silence again. Then, Logan spoke once more.  

“But Charles-the professor… he does. And that’s what matters because those two… They’re our best hope. They’re the world’s best hope.” 

Marie nodded silently beside him, snuggling ever so slightly closer to his side. 

She was muttering to herself again, back hunched over and turned resolutely towards the encampment. Even from this distance Scott could see the way that her breath frosted through the nighttime chill, little white crystals of ice swirling up towards the night sky before dispersing into nothingness. Scott came to a halt for a moment, still a dozen or so paces away, and sighed. He glanced up at the darkness above. Every now and again he could see the faint glimmer of starlight through the thick canopy of the trees.  

There was a faint crackling sound that originated seemingly from where the girl was sitting. Curiosity having now caught hold of him entirely, Scott walked forward. Out of instinct he kept his footfalls quiet, stepping so lightly that the snow on the ground below refused to crunch under his boots. As he finally drew close enough to peer over the young woman's shoulder, he watched as flickers of flame and sparks of electricity popped into life a few inches from her knees, levitating a good foot and a half or so off the ground as she continued to amuse herself. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Scott suddenly snapped, his temper having already spiraled out of control before he ever even had a hope of gripping onto it. He grabbed onto her shoulder as he spoke, turning her to face him. Terror mingled with surprise caused the witch to seize up beneath his touch, but when the girl turned and saw who had snuck up behind her Scott could physically feel the tension melt away beneath his fingertips. The witch snapped a couple of words from an unknown language at him in a nasty tone, and Scott had the feeling he was going to be tripping over his own shoelaces for the next day or two. Still, his fury did not subside. "Do you have any idea what would have happened if anyone else had seen you but me? Don't put too much thought into it, I'll spare you the effort: you would already be dead!" 

"If you hadn't snuck up on me-" 

"You're damn lucky it was me and not anyone else from the camp! And I wasn't even 'sneaking', that's just how quiet we are. I've told you that how many times? Jesus, Jean," Scott breathed, finally releasing the witch's shoulder and taking a few steps away to cool himself down. "What if it had been Hank, huh? Or worse yet, Logan. He likes you and all but he doesn't trust you yet, either. He would have torn you to shreds before either of you could even realize what happened. It's all-" 

"Instinct, yes, I know," Jean scowled, her voice mocking as she watched Scott pace back and forth in front of her. She huffed and turned away from him, drawing her knees up beside her on the log and wrapping her arms securely around them.  

Scott rolled his eyes. Jean was going to her herself killed if she kept this up. Each and every member of his team was trained to impulsively attack the moment they were in the presence of magic. Charles was by far the most effectual at restraining his abilities in such situations, as was the result of having spent so much time around Erik and Raven, both powerful witches in their own right. He also had his telepathy to act as a sort of warning as to whether or not there was a witch within close proximity and their intentions, which allowed him to respond accordingly. The others, however, were nowhere near as experienced. Hank struggled with keeping himself human half the time, Logan had tendencies to descend into murderous rampages, Kurt accidentally kidnapped a senator from Montana twice in a week, Bobby once turned Lake Michigan into an iceberg, and Rogue was simply deadly. She was just a baby, hardly even older than Jean, but one of the most powerful and dangerous Hunters Scott had ever encountered.  

The fact was that Jean knew all of this, and yet here she was out in the woods at night by herself casting energy spells. Scott exhaled slowly, walking over to sit beside the young woman. Why did this always have to be a battle between them? He was just trying to keep her safe.  

"We had a deal," he reminded her. "No magic. Remember?" Scott heard the girl scoff in response, curling in tighter on herself. At least she wasn't openly displaying hostility anymore. She didn't make any effort to move away or spit at him in strange tongues the way she had when he had first rescued her. Scott still wasn't sure what had compelled him to embark on this suicidal path. All he knew was that when they had raided that den and Scott found this young witch shivering in a pool of her own blood he hadn't been able to stand by and just let her die. Yes, there were probably countless other ways to have helped Jean aside from lying to his team and saying she was a human survivor from the raid, but it was a little late for that now.  

Jean blended in rather well with the others, though. Her own telepathic abilities made it possible to guard her mind and keep any subconscious thoughts about witchcraft or her origins from pinging on Charles' radar. She and Kurt seemed to get along well, though usually they simply sat together in utter silence. Scott had to wonder if the silence was both physical and mental or not, however, seeing as how he would catch Kurt looking up at him every now and then trying to cover a smile while Jean pretended to be picking at lose threads on her shirt. Rogue... well, Rogue liked everybody who would give her the time of day, but she seemed to find a certain connection with Jean in the tragic "surviving a witch attack" backstory Scott had helped her create. Hank was happy with anyone who would listen to him chatter about science for hours on end, and seeing as Jean didn't talk much he found her to be quite the listener. Bobby and the others didn't interact with her much, tended to keep more to themselves, evidently not sure whether or not the outsider could be trusted. Then there was Logan, the most suspicious out of them all. He was nice to Jean's face, and that was all Scott needed to see in order to know that something was wrong. Logan wasn't nice to anyone outside of Rogue. Even Charles had to put him in his place on an almost daily basis, and one time it had gotten physical when Logan had brought Erik's name into the picture. So for Logan to be all buddy-buddy with Jean meant he wanted to keep an eye on her. 

Despite all of that, most of the time the girl was with Scott. They shared a tent, did patrols together, and ate together. What little talking they did was usually working out the kink of their little plan, such as her cover story or how she could fit in to life at the camp better. Jean was tainted now, she couldn't just go running back to her world. Not only had her own kind left her for dead, but if Jean returned as the sole survivor of a raid as deadly as the one Scott and his team had launched on her old den, she would fall under suspicion of her own people and be dead by the following sunrise. They were in this for the long haul, and Jean finally seemed to be accepting that. The first weeks had been rough, but she was adapting to a life of no magic or rituals now. Really, the only issue they seemed to be having anymore was... 

Scott glanced over the witch's shoulder. "What's the matter?" He asked, noticing the way her hands would ball themselves into tight fists, clenching around nothing before relaxing and spreading out her fingers. They did this again and again, as if Jean were grabbing at something and squeezing the life out of it before releasing it to fall to the floor. It was a long time before Scott heard her speak. 

"I want to kill them," she murmured, so quietly that if the two of them weren't in the middle of the forest during the dead of night the Hunter would have never heard her. "All of them. I want them dead." 

Ah, yes. That was still a problem.  

"Jean...." Scott sighed. 

"I'm not going to, okay?" The witch snarled, turning her head halfway so that she could see him out of the corner of her eye over her shoulder. "I just... want to. I really, really want to," she said. Jean turned toward the faint glow of the camp in the distance, her lip curling back in disgust. "Listen to them, chanting and cheering, celebrating murder like it's a holiday. Like they're not drinking and dancing over blood that's been spilt and lives that have been taken by their own hand." 

"Jean," the Hunter tried again. "You're levitating." 

He watched as the girl looked over and down at the log underneath her, as if she didn't believe Scott. Dark clouds of energy had gathered underneath and were swirling under Jean's body, whipping themselves into a frenzy beneath her weight and causing her to float about six inches or so in the air. She turned around to face Scott when she spoke to him again, immediately backing away into a defensive position. The Hunter watched her with amusement. 

"You're not attacking." 

"Nope," Scott said simply. Jean furrowed her brow at him, and he smirked. Truth was, he had lived with Jean and her little private outbursts of magic long enough to at least restrain himself from attacking her on the spot. "You know, you're actually kind of cute when you get all hot and flustered about not having the answer to everything," he teased. Normally this was when he ended up knocking out cold from a sleeping curse and waking up the next morning naked in the middle of the snow with his arms taped together behind his back. Instead, however, Jean merely rolled her eyes and dropped her guard, evidently not in the mood to do battle. She looked back over toward the camp again, and Scott could see there was a sort of longing in her eyes. Not in the way that she would want to be included or anything, but when that sort of expression was coupled with the lounge clothes she was wearing and the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, it wasn't hard to put two and two together: Jean was tired. Exhausted, probably. She looked like she had just crawled out of bed, despite the fact that she must have been out here for an hour at least.  

"Go to sleep," Scott told her. Jean looked back at him, eyeing him up and down, trying to figure out what his angle was. She was going to be sorely disappointed.  

"I'm not tired," she lied. 

"I didn't ask," was the Hunter's callous reply, softened by the slight curve of his lips. "Come on, what do you think I'm going to do, kill you? It's a little late for that," he reasoned. "Go to sleep, and I'll carry you back inside when the noise settles down. I won't even smack your head off a tree when I carry you, promise." 

He heard the girl mutter something under her breath in an unfamiliar language before wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. She walked back over to the log and laid herself down over the wood, curling herself up under the blanket she brought with her. After a few minutes more, Scott heard her breathing even out. He leaned his head back and looked back up toward the stars. They certainly were bright out here, without all the light pollution from the cities.  

Scott whipped his head down when he heard movement and felt something touch him. His eyes focused on the shape of Jean, having stretched out more comfortably on the log they shared. In her sleep, she had also take it upon herself to seek out his body heat and lay her head down in Scott's lap. He hesitated, unsure of what to do. If he woke her up now, she'd be obstinate and ornery, not to mention most likely homicidal. If she woke up and found herself like this, she'd be suspicious and distrusting, as well as most likely homicidal. Seeing as how it was unlikely Jean was going to be waking up anytime soon, the Hunter decided to take his chances with the latter. He found himself watching her peaceful expression as she rested, and found it curious that she could look so ferocious and off-putting when awake yet so gentle in slumber. He also couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had she simply not been a witch. She was young, very young, which made such thoughts of romantic entanglement entirely wrong. But Scott couldn't help wondering if they would have ever met, possibly become friends and, when she came of age, then maybe something more. Would they enjoy evenings of laughter instead of their current evenings of arguing? Would they talk while they ate rather than sit in stony silence? Would they be close to each other, even call each other friend rather than having the word "enemy" branded on their relationship simply because of their very nature? Would they be happy together? 

Could they still be?