Easy Tonight
by
Donna Bevan



Disclaimer: They're not mine, and if anyone is giving me money, then Logan is embezzling it.

Dedication: This is for Dianna/DNC, who is inspiring like you wouldn't believe. D, consider this the anti-Lady Lazarus, okay? <snerk> Sorta. And for Bree, who understands my demons better than anyone. And for Gowdie, who will always believe in hope.

Author's Note: First off, this puppy is mostly unbeta'ed. I'm an impatient goober, what can I say? If it sucks, the fault is entirely mine. Secondly, this whole series deals with mature themes of the dark and psychologically damaging sort. Just...prepare yourself, okay?




you were wrong
you were right
you are gone
tonight
you were free
so alive
you were wrong
you were right

you were down
you could see
you wore hearts
for me
you were sharp
sharp as knives
you were wrong
you were right

~~x~~


Logan didn't bother flipping on the light as he trudged into the room, swinging the bar lock into place behind him. As motels went, this one was a lot classier - and cleaner - than a lot of establishments he'd visited in the past, but. . . Old habits die hard, and there was no reason for him to trust anyone. Anywhere. Not even in a tiny Alabama town populated mostly by aging farmers and surly diner waitresses.

He lowered himself to the bed and grimaced. That damn woman. . . She'd known. She'd known exactly who Marie was, and that she was running. From him. She knew that much, too.

Except Marie wasn't really running from *him*, not in the ways that mattered.

She was running from herself.

Damn, he really didn't want to have another bad night. Every day, he rose into the sunlight, hoping against all reality that before the day faded, he'd have her in his arms again.

That was all he wanted, contrary to what everyone thought. He didn't want to find her and throttle her, shake her by her shoulders until she told him why, why. . .

Why she'd try to end what he found so precious.

He also didn't want to screw up her head any more, complicating her emotions with his own. He didn't want to tell her why she was so important. He didn't know if he could find the words, anyway.

All he wanted was to make sure she was safe.

Alive.

That she hadn't been able to overcome the traces of him in her head and--

Groaning and shaking, he rolled over and let his face fall into a pillow. The only thing Doris the Misguided but Well-Meaning Waitress had told him was what he'd known the moment he'd walked into that diner. Marie was alive.

That was the most important thing.

Finding her was secondary.

For now, there was nothing more he could do. He needed a shower and he needed sleep. As long as she was all right for the moment, there was nothing more he could do.

Nothing but miss her.

~~x~~


The school's ballroom was dimly lit, with streamers hanging like vines from the ceiling and walls. Couples danced woodenly across the tile floor, moving slowly to the haunting melody drifting from an unseen source.

Marie.

It was the only thought in Logan's head, finding her. She was somewhere in the throng of chiffon-clad bodies, and he searched. Face after face, never hers. He was growing frantic, growling as he turned in every direction.

The dancers parted, and there she was, radiant in an old-fashioned dress, looking like she walked off the set of some nostalgic old movie. The frilled dress clung to her, strapless, leaving her shoulders and arms bare save for the satin opera gloves she wore.

Relief pounded through him as he crossed the floor, reaching for her.

She reached for him, too.

She raised her arms slowly, and Logan watched, terrified, as blood began to seep through the pristine satin that covered her wrists.

"No. . . " he choked. "I fixed that. . . I fixed it, Marie. . . "

She smiled sadly, and her pink lips darkened, then paled. Blue, they were blue, and she looked so cold. So ghostly. "You can't fix everything, Logan. It's not your place."

He shook his head, still reaching for her, only he was running now, and she never got any closer. Never nearer, always so far away. "Goddamn it, Marie. . . " he snarled, his arms outstretched in desperation. "Please. . . "

She lowered her eyes, looking at her hands, now soaked through and dark with blood. "We're more alike than I thought, Logan," she whispered, and her voice was in his ears, in his head. "Everything you touch dies, too."

Then he watched in horror as she fell to the tile at his feet, pale as death. He dropped to his knees and gathered her limp body in his arms, rocking her.

"Marie? Marie! Answer me, baby. . . Talk to me!"

She didn't move.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, ignoring the frightening chill of her smooth skin, willing his life to flood into her cold, still form.

Nothing happened.

Agonizing minutes passed, and still Marie lay dead in his helpless arms. His worst fears had been realized, borne out on waves of her blood. . . and the agony he hadn't seen.

He couldn't protect her.

He couldn't save her.

Logan jerked awake, lungs burning as he gasped, fighting for peace, refuge from the images that haunted him. Marie's icy white skin. Her brown eyes, wide and fixed, glassy, staring death and condemnation. Damning him to hell.

In his nightmares, she lost her life.

In reality, he'd saved it. . . but at the price of her soul.

He'd dragged her back from the edge of the darkness, and she despised him for it.

"I'm sorry, Marie," he whispered aloud into the dimness. "I had to make you live. I didn't know... Didn't know that I couldn't..."

Didn't know that he couldn't save her.

His chest heaved and he rolled onto his side, grasping a pillow tightly to his shaking body. His sobs were silent until the need for oxygen drove him to gasp and cough.

~~x~~


"What the fuck do you mean, she hasn't used the card?"

Scott flinched away from the phone as Logan's angry voice surged over the line. "Exactly what I said, Logan. She hasn't used the credit card since. . . Riverside. Little town off the interstate, not far from--"

"I know where it is," Logan growled, staring at the map in front of him. "Fuck."

Since leaving Westchester, Marie had been using one of the school's credit cards to sustain herself and refuel the small economy car she'd taken from the garage fleet. So far, it was the only thing that had gone right; it had enabled Logan to track her through seven states. Now, she'd stopped using it.

Logan didn't want to think about what that could mean.

"Did you check the news reports and the hospitals?" he asked tersely, and Scott sighed.

"Of course we did. There was nothing." He paused. "Logan. . . It doesn't mean anything. She wised up, is all, and figured out how you've been tailing her."

Logan's eyes squeezed shut. He knew what was coming next.

"Why don't you come back to New York, Logan? The Professor's worried about you."

He scoffed. "Yeah, well. . . Can anybody there be bothered to fucking worry about Marie?"

All reason left Scott's tone. "Don't be an asshole, Logan. You know we're worried about Rogue. But she decided to leave, and we have to respect her wishes."

Fury coursed through Logan. He struggled to contain it, because none of this had been Scott's fault. It had been his. Only his. But his anger broke through. "Jesus, Summers. Respect her wishes? If I'd done that, she wouldn't even--"

"Don't, Logan," and the words held a definite warning. "You'll only regret it."

An uneasy silence fell between the two men, one that was only amplified by the slight buzzing of the long-distance telephone connection.

Finally, Scott spoke. "All right, look. What happened. . . It wasn't easy for anyone, Logan, least of all you. I know that. But think about Rogue."

"I *am* thinking about Marie, Summers," Logan ground through clenched teeth. "She needs me."

"She needs time, Logan, and probably distance." He didn't add that the distance she needed was from Logan himself, but the meaning was clear. "She'll be fine. She just needs to get herself straightened out."

Logan hurled the receiver into the bed, running both hands through his hair. Was he the only fucking person who realized that time along was the *last* thing Marie should have? She'd spent too much time alone already, and it had almost killed her. If he didn't find her. . .

Scott waited patiently for Logan to pick the phone up again. It had become almost a ritual during Logan's regular call-ins - they would exchange information then argue, and Logan would get frustrated and throw the telephone. He always came back on the line when he'd brought himself under control.

Long minutes passed before his voice sounded over the line. "Xavier's still refusing to use Cerebro, isn't he?"

"Rogue asked him not to in the note she left. He's not going to dishonor that."

"Shit!"

Scott half-expected Logan to throw the phone again, but he could still hear the other man's breathing, so he continued. "If you just came back and gave her time to think instead of chasing her like a damn electric rabbit at a greyhound track, Logan--"

"Fuck you, Summers. Why don't any of you dickheads get it?" he demanded. "The longer she's out there, the more likely she is to. . . " He couldn't bring himself to finish the statement.

Scott's voice was low, subdued. "The Professor doesn't think so, Logan."

"Then fuck all of you," he spat. "I'm finding her. I don't care if I have to go door-to-door like a goddamn Girl Scout selling Thin Mints, all right? I'm bringing her back."

"What if she doesn't want to come back, Logan? What then?"

"At least I'll know she's still breathing, that's what," Logan snarled, then slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

He wanted to destroy something, anything. His hands throbbed, claws aching to be released, but he reined in his temper.

He had to think.

He glanced at the oversized atlas lying on the faded bedspread. After a few moments, he dropped to his knees on the carpet and dragged the sheaf of maps closer.

With a shaking finger, he traced the route Marie had taken in fleeing from the school. From Westchester to Philadelphia. . . Baltimore. . . Richmond, Virginia. . . Through the Carolinas, then into Georgia. Over to Augusta, and Atlanta.

She had stayed in Atlanta for a week or so, but that hadn't helped Logan much. It was too large a city for him to canvass, and he hadn't even known where to start. It wasn't until she left, heading east that time, that he started to wonder exactly where she was going.

Where was she going?

The question pulsed in his brain, his heart, and he sat in his tiny motel room in Oxford, Alabama, and stared at the atlas until the numbers and lines and colors began to swim together, looking for a pattern.

Then he saw it, stretching across a foot of paper, across Alabama.

A line of blue, an interstate, that ran from Atlanta to Oxford and Riverside and beyond. It cut straight across the page and into. . .

Mississippi.

It ended at the edge of the page, where Meridian hovered in a sea of flat yellow ink.

She was going home.

~~x~~


Logan hadn't had much experience with idyllic lifestyles. His hadn't exactly been of the Brady Bunch variety, and the mansion. . . Well, life there always seemed a little over-the-top, even surreal. It wasn't the stuff reality was really made of, sixty rooms full of expensive artwork and antiques on top of lower levels full of technology that would made the CIA envious.

He'd gone from one extreme to the other, and he hadn't seen a lot of the in-between stuff, the middle-class dream most people lived.

He found it in Meridian, on the quiet street where Marie once lived.

It must have been hell for her on the road, scared and alone and light-years away from the world she'd always known, the one where kids played stickball in the street and chased fireflies until dinnertime.

It must have been sheer hell.

That thought was foremost in his mind as he trudged slowly up the sidewalk to the well-kept, clean-looking house where John and Patricia Gordon lived.

There were ferns on the wide porch, and a wooden-slat swing hung from the ceiling on one end. He pressed the doorbell and watched the swing sway gently in the late-afternoon breeze as he waited for the door to open.

He heard the footsteps, heard the way they slowed as they approached.

A woman with threads of grey in her long brown hair answered the door, pushing the screen open as well, and Logan could see Marie in the lines of her face, in her brown eyes. "May I help you?"

"Mrs. Gordon?"

"Yes?" A frown deepened the creases in her forehead, and a man joined her, his hand going instinctively to rest at the small of her back.

"My name is Logan," he began. He hadn't thought of what he'd say, not really, and he realized just then that it was because he had half-expected Marie to answer the door. "I'm here from Westchester, New York. . . I'm looking for your daughter, Marie."

Marie's mother seemed to shrink a little, and her father looked. . . angry. "Is this some sort of joke?" he asked coldly.

"No, sir. It's not. I--"

"Our daughter ran away from home three years ago," he interrupted, "and we haven't seen or heard from her since."

"Sir, I know. . . " Logan took a deep breath, steadying himself. "I have. Marie's been living in Westchester--"

"You've seen her?" Patricia Gordon asked, her voice tight with tears but hopeful. "Oh my God, you've seen Marie?" She took a step over the threshold, reaching a hand out to Logan. "Is she-- Is she okay?"

Logan froze.

<Is she okay?>

"I. . . I don't. . . know where she is right now." It seemed like the safest thing to say. "I thought she might have. . . "

"She's not here." Logan looked to Marie's father, who still stood inside the door. He looked older than he had only a few minutes before, and there was no mistaking the sad dismissal in his words.

"Thank you." Logan nodded before turning to go.

A hand on his arm stopped him, and he turned to face the tearful eyes that belonged to Marie's mother, eyes that could have been Marie's, and something in Logan's heart tore. "Please," she whispered. "Please come in."

And Logan knew.

She wanted to hear everything he knew, wanted to know how her daughter had been since she'd last seen her.

It was a desperate plea, and one he couldn't walk away from.

"All right."

Her father frowned and mumbled something about being in his office. Her mother just nodded, smiled, and walked back inside, motioning for Logan to follow.

~~x~~


"How did you meet Marie?"

Logan held a glass of iced tea between both hands and fidgeted on the parlor sofa. Patricia Gordon had been hovering nervously for long minutes, no doubt wondering where to start questioning him about her daughter.

He figured how they met was as good a place as any, considering the fact that what followed was less than picture-perfect.

"We met in Alberta, Canada, Mrs. Gordon. Two years ago."

"Canada?" Shock radiated from her. "How did she. . . "

"She was hitchhiking," Logan said softly. "She was fine, though. She was doing just fine."

She looked like she wanted to cry, but she merely nodded. "You said she was living in New York?"

"Westchester. At Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters." Logan paused, staring at his iced tea. "It's. . . It's a school for people like Marie and me. For mutants."

He waited for the inevitable rush of disbelief then disgust to wash over her face, but it never came. Instead, she smiled a little. "Is she your. . . I mean, are you two--"

"No." His denial was immediate and firm. "No, it wasn't like that, Mrs. Gordon."

She stared at him for a long time, and he looked away from her scrutiny. He felt like a teenager who had come to pick up his first date. . . Only he was no teenager, this sure as shit wasn't a date, and Marie was nowhere to be found.

But when she spoke again, there was no accusation. "Would you like to see Marie's room?"

It came as only a small shock when Logan realized that he did.

~~x~~


It looked like she'd only stepped out, and was due back any minute.

Logan wandered, his boots heavy on the carpet, studying the bits of her life that were strewn about the room. There were pictures and posters, stuffed animals and trophies. . . Everything that showed who she was, and how she'd grown up.

It made him ache, being in that room. It was familiar, even though he'd never seen it, because it was Marie.

And he ached because it was the closest he'd been to her in weeks, this room she hadn't seen in three years.

"How long has it been since you saw her?"

The soft question echoing his thoughts startled Logan, and he spun around. He'd almost forgotten that her mother was there.

Then he saw the map on the wall, not unlike the one he had rolled up outside in the SUV, except that Marie's was littered with marks and circles and postcards. Places she wanted to go, adventures she wanted to have.

He saw Laughlin City, so far away from the route she'd obviously marked.

"Almost three weeks."

The woman nodded, crossing her arms over herself.

It was another gesture Logan found terrifyingly familiar, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to just get the hell out of there.

Instead, he focused on the pictures around him.

There were dozens taped around the edges of a dressing table mirror, and Logan trembled at the sight of them. She looked so young, so carefree. . . He'd seen the smile she wore in most of them, but he hadn't seen it often enough.

Not nearly enough.

"Who's this?" he asked, pointing to a girl who appeared in quite a few of the photographs, usually with her arm slung around Marie's shoulders and a wide, confident grin on her face.

"Natalie Richards. She and Marie were best friends. Ever since they were tiny little girls. . . " Her eyes misted over, and she swallowed. "Nat lived right down the street."

"They were close?"

"Like sisters." A tiny smile curved her lips, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "It almost killed Nat when Marie left."

What she didn't add, and didn't have to, was that it had almost killed her, too.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Gordon." It wasn't enough, but it was all Logan had.

"For what?" she asked simply, moving to pick up a ragged-looking stuffed panda from a shelf. "It's not your fault Marie left."

<It's not your fault.>

If only that were true.

Logan shook his head.

"Mr. Logan--"

"Just Logan," he interrupted.

She nodded, then began again. "Logan. . . She's not okay, is she?"

The question took him by surprise, as did the tears that suddenly welled in the woman's eyes. He watched, horrified, as her face crumpled into tears.

"What happened?" she sobbed. "What happened to my baby?"

"I. . . " Logan's throat worked, and his eyes began to sting. "I don't. . . "

She clutched the bear to her chest and made a visible effort to control herself, breathing in long, shaky inhales and exhales. "Please. . . "

Logan clenched his hands into fists to hide their shaking.

What could he say?

Could he tell her how, three weeks ago, the scent of blood had drawn him from his bed and into Marie's room, into her bathroom?

Could he tell her how he found her in a heap on the cold tile floor, blood coursing sluggishly from her lacerated wrists, a single, wickedly-sharp razor blade still clutched in one tiny hand?

Could he tell her about the note in the sink? "I'm so tired of being alone," it had read, "and I'm so scared that it's all I'll ever be."

Could he tell her that it had all been his fault? His own stupid, goddamned, motherfucking fault? That Marie, his sweet, cherished Marie, had almost killed herself, and all because she thought she was alone, that no one cared? Because he'd had his head so far up his ass that he hadn't thought of anything but hiding the way he felt?

It *was* his fault.

Could he tell her that?

He was still trembling and unconsciously shaking his head when Marie's father loomed in the doorway, murderous rage splashed across his face at the look of unmistakable guilt Logan wore.

"You bastard!" he bellowed, shoving past his wife and winding his fists into Logan's shirtfront, slamming him back against Marie's dresser. "What the hell did you do to her? What the hell did you do, you son of a bitch??"

Logan didn't resist the attack, merely continued to shake his head. "I didn't--"

"What did you to my baby girl?" he demanded again, smashing Logan back into the mirror again. Photographs went flying, raining down around the two men like oversized confetti.

"I didn't. . . I wouldn't hurt her!" Logan said shakily. "I would *die* before I hurt Marie. . . I didn't mean. . . " His voice cracked, and he felt wetness on his cheeks. "I swear. . . "

There were tears in the taller man's eyes now, too, but he didn't release Logan. He just stood there, his hands still clutching Logan's shirts, his face contorted with pain. "What did you do to her?" he asked again, softly, sadly.

"No. . . " Logan looked down, away from the blame in her father's eyes, blame he knew he deserved. His eyes fell to the table, to a picture of Marie that had fallen to rest next to his hand. "I love. . . her. . . "

He reached for the bent, creased photograph.

The fists fell away from Logan as he slumped against the mirror, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. "I love you, Marie. . . " He slid from the dressing table to the floor, hands scrambling blindly for the photographs that littered the carpet around him. "I'm sorry, baby," he whispered thickly. "I couldn't let you die, Marie, I couldn't. . . "

John and Patricia Gordon watched in tearful silence as the large man named Logan cried, rocking slightly as he clasped every picture he could find to his chest. Tears dripped from his face as he continued to whisper brokenly.

". . . couldn't let you die, Marie. . . I'm sorry, baby. . . I'm so sorry, baby, but I couldn't let you do it. . . "

Patricia moved into the circle of her husband's arms, burying her face against his shoulder as she sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Marie." Logan's murmurs subsided as his tears choked him. He covered his face, shoulders shaking, and continued to silently plead forgiveness from the girl he'd almost lost.

After a long while, John Gordon cleared his throat. "If Marie is anywhere around here, she's with Natalie. She was her best friend. . . She'd go to Natalie before she came back here." The admission pained him, but it was true.

Logan lifted his ravaged face to meet the other man's. "Thank you."

"Find her," was all he said in answer. "Please."

~~x~~


she's in over my head
and it's not easy
she's in over my head
and it's not easy tonight

you were free
now you're not
you were free. . .



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