Empathy
Chapter 3
by
NYC
"Finding Me" by Vertical Horizon
I didn't think you notice/ When you see my face
I guess you're waiting/ To spin me around again
Wheels I guess are turning/ Somewhere inside my head
I know that this is/ Deeper than you get
But you're coming back again/ You don't mean to waste my time
But you're coming back so
Chorus--
Don't tell me/ How to be/ 'Cause I like some suffering
Don't ask me/ What I need/ I'm just fine/ Here finding me
Me
I've already given/ up on getting through
I never question/ who I'm talking to
Oh so much for nothing/ But nothing means so much
I know it's been touching/ But I've been out of touch
And it's all that I can do/ I'm a sight for my sore eyes
But it's all I am so
(Chorus)
I don't think you notice/ when I can't reach out
I guess you're waiting/ On somebody else again
Oh so much for talking/ It's all been said before
I'm hearing something/ but I wish you'd just say more
But you're going off again/ When I try to just hold on
But you're going off so...
(Chorus)
He shook himself. It felt strange, seeing himself here and now, in this place with her. The memories were so fuzzy, yet they felt so fresh.
He did not remember much after they had escaped, except that they had inevitably been found and separated. The next thing he remembered was waking in the complex--the complex he had just visited, not incidentally--and then the procedure beginning.
The pain was something he was able to push aside now, in leu of remembering more important things.
He remembered seeing her again. She had something to do with his escape, but it was all jumbled, chaotic. Had she come and released him from the room where he lay, his body trying to recover? The trauma had been intense, so intense that his memory sought to purge it, but instead it got caught up, tangled in his mind so that it wound up jettesoning the wrong parts. He remembered how good her touch had felt, how he had been so happy to see her, so happy he had cried. Tenderly, she had kissed him and held him and rocked him, trying not to cling too hard but not having any choice, considering how hard he clung to her. She told him he had to get out while there was time.
They made it outside to the snow, but they were separated. He didn't want to leave her. He told her that he loved her, that he would always love her, that he wasn't going to ever lose her. She had looked away, her face contorted with her own pain even has she made him release the grip he had on her hand--an impossible feat for anyone else, but the panic in her eyes, her voice, made him let go. They were coming and she had to distract them while he got away. She told him that he couldn't go back, they would just keep doing more of the same things to him, over and over, and that the pain would never stop.
That had been his mistake--believing that escaping the pain was worth more than staying with her. He had reacted with fear, primal, animal fear. He had run, taken off into the woods, but his body was unable to sustain the intensity of the situation. It all overcame him and he passed out, only to wake up with no memory of what had happened, just the curious metal skeleton on his bones and the memories of pain.
And the picture of her.
"H...how?" he finally managed. He had long since let go of her chin and she was looking at him now with emotions he couldn't begin to discern--fear and guilt being only two of the group. "How did you...escape?"
She let her breath out through her nose and pushed back her hair. There were marks on her--old scars he knew weren't supposed to be there. There were a few on her neck, some that disappeared into the collar of her shirt, down her back, across her shoulders--
"I had help," she said shortly. It was the first time she had spoken. "The same help that got me in to get you out." She let out a quick, jaded laugh. "How ironic."
With those words, the features softened as she, too drifted down memory lane. She raised one hand and drew it through the thick hair on top of her head, letting her bangs slide through her fingers. It was not as he remembered it. It was even heavily specked with gray. But as the lines of her face relaxed, he had a flash--
She was talking to him, telling him about her life even though he could only understand half of what she was saying. But he could feel her emotions--the things that made her happy, sad, angry, the things that made her eyebrows wiggle mischeviously. He remembered realizing how much he liked her, how glad he was that she was with him, how lucky he felt that they had picked her of all people to be in that house with him during those days. She had been so patient, gentle, compassionate. And even thought she did not claim to be beautiful, she had a scent that he adored, and a touch that made him want to close his eyes and lose himself in it--
Impulsively, Logan reached across the table and grasped her hand. She abruptly came back to herself, her eyes sparking momentarily with surprise.
"Mel," he whispered, "I--" but there was nothing to say. How odd, all the years between them, and he didn't have a word to tell her. He didn't want to say anything, he realized. He just wanted to hold her hand and drink in her scent again and forget that the last fifteen years of his life had ever happened.
As the moments passed, she lifted her other hand and placed it on top of his--still with that same gentleness. Her fingers slipped into the groove of his knuckles, where his claws usually came out, and he felt a curious tingle at her touch. The corner of her mouth was curving upward, slowly, into a rueful smile.
"I guess I should have expected this," she finally said, a touch sardonically. "But," and she sighed, "it's a lot better than our first meeting. At least, the first five minutes of it."
He couldn't help but smile, remembering, as a blush creeped up on him. "I wasn't exactly a gentleman, was I?"
"Nope," she said, her whole mouth now picking up the smile, "but I could never blame you for that. So why start now?"
He leaned over the table, pulling her hand closer to him, wanting to lift it up to his face and kiss it, but holding himself back. "Mel," he said, his voice husky with feeling, "can we get out of here? I mean, do you have a place close by, or---?"
One of those eyebrows arched up just a touch, suggestively. "Well," she said, "it depends on what you mean. I have a small place, but it's not much better than this." She looked around, and while there was a hint of disgust in her eyes, nothing really seemed to bother her about the dive. "Just a room I rent. I'm pretty good at disappearing before rent comes due, and I've got a few days left before I have to go."
He nodded, curious as to what she meant, dying to know what her life was like now, what would bring her to this God-forsaken place, dressed possibly worse than him, living possibly worse than him, but squelching it for the sake of propriety. Not letting go of her hand, he stood up, and she grabbed her coat, sliding on one sleeve. He let go of her for the mere second it took to get her other arm into its sleeve, and then promptly returned to his grip on her fingers.
"I've got a ride," he said, pulling her close. He wanted to put his arm around her so much it hurt, but he just sensed it wasn't a good idea.
"Fine with me, but I've got to come back later and get my car," she said distractedly. As they exited the bar and Logan guided her to her bike, she took a hasty look around before sliding on behind him.
"Hold tight," he said, and relished the feel of her hands going around his waist as he tore off into the night.
Her place wasn't much better than the bar, he realized as they pulled up to a curve, with a bright orange neon sign lighting up the sidewalk. She slid off before he could fully get the bike into park mode and rushed up the curb to a door that looked like a simple flick of his claws would take off its hinges. She shoved a key into the lock and was inside, in the shadows, before he was even on the sidewalk after her.
"Hurry up," she hissed, but not meanly, as he stepped into the darkness. The stink was overwhelming, but he was able to hold his breath long enough to follow her to a stop of rickety stairs. She turned a corner and a few doors down she unlocked another door.
She reached inside the dark doorway and turned on a light. She paused there for a second, looking around carefully, before going inside. Logan followed, letting out his breath and daring another one. If she was worried about someone else being in the apartment, she was safe, but he didn't quite know how to tell her that.
She made a hurrying guesture with her hand and then shut the door behind him, locking with a deadbolt and a chain. Then she walked past him, sliding her coat off and tossing it onto a nasty-looking couch.
The apartment wasn't any bigger than his room at the Professor's mutant school, Logan realized. It had one wall for a kitchen, a closet for a bathroom, a couch and a bed by one of the two windows. Both windows had heavy metal meshing across them, and on one side there was access to a fire escape.
Melody opened her small fridge and pulled out a brown bottle. She looked at Logan with her eyebrow raised questioningly, and he nodded. She handed it to him, grabbed one for herself and went to the bed, curling one knee up under her as she sat down.
There was a moment of silence and she snapped open her beer and took a heavy drag. Then she noticed he was still just standing there, looking at her, and she let out a small, girlish giggle.
"Just like old times," she said, wiping some moisture off her chin. "Please tell me you've gotten used to sitting in chairs."
He gave her a little shrug. "Not much use for 'em, I guess."
She patted the bed. "I give you permission. Come on, you've got a story to tell, too. I want to hear yours first. I'll bet it's more interesting."
He did as she asked, perching on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in that small place, even with her so close to him. Seeing her, even though she looked considerably different, took him back to a brief time in his life when he had been happy, even though the details of that time had failed yet to surface in his newfound memory. He was starting to slide back into that comfortable mode, but the mere fact of that was unlike everything he was now used to, and by a crazy paradox, it made him uncomfortable. Comfort caused him discomfort. It was too ironic to fully register.
She was looking at him, her head tilted down but her eyes up on him, expectantly. "Well?" she asked.
And slowly, it came out of him. Where he had gone after waking up, how he had the picture and how he'd been looking. He told her of the people he met, his various, smaller adventures, and then finally about Rogue and the X-Men.
She listened carefully, stopping him occasionally to make sure she knew who was who. She seemed to come alive as she listened, her face and her body and even her smell all active participants of the process. It was unlike him to talk so much, so when he realized that the sun was coming up, his shock was so overwhelming that he fell into a complete, dead silence.
Her brow scrunched with puzzlement, Melody glanced out the window. "Wow," she muttered, as if to herself. "It's so late, it's early." Then she gave a chuckle and leaned back, stretching. "I don't sleep much, but I do it a little just to keep myself from hallucinating." Her eyes closed, drowsy. "Well...maybe we could catch a few hours before I start my tale, eh?" She lifted her other leg onto the bed, kicking off her shoes, and the act made him stand up as she shifted her weight on the matress. He stood up and nodded.
'That's fine," he muttered.
She nodded, running her hand through her hair, straightening it out so it didn't get tangled on the pillow under her. "Feel free to use the couch. It's cleaner and more comfortable than it looks."
He nodded again, still staring at her. He remembered sleeping with her--not sex, just sleeping. He remembered holding her, just relishing her closeness, feeling safe and warm even though he knew perfectly well that he was the one protecting her. Being with her made him feel whole, content---loved. There was nothing else he wanted more at that moment than to feel that way again.
She caught him staring at her and frowned. "What?" she whispered.
He shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. It was so strange, these puppy-like emotions coming out of him. It was so uncharacteristic, at least of the person he was now.
She gave a little laugh. "What?" she said, again, rolling over a bit closer to where he stood. "Good grief, it's been fifteen years, Ferro," and the use of the name did something to him he truly did not understand. "I mean, we've both changed so much." She lowered her chin and gave him that look again. "I am so not the person you knew, you have to admit that. You can tell just by looking at me."
He nodded, but it was cut off by another shrug. "I don't know...you're still you, Mel. Then or now...I...." and the words caught in his throat, refusing to be let out. He would not expose himself to her like that, not so quickly. Feeling these things was one thing, but expressing them, putting them on the table to face rejection, was something completely different.
It was like she read his mind. Her face contorted, her lips began to quiver, and her chin trembled. She turned away from him, one arm coming up to cover her face as she buried the rest of it into the pillow beneath her. Then the sobs came, great, wracking sobs that shook her whole body and the bed. She took a gasp of air but it was choked underneath her clothing, underneath the weight of her own pain.
Slowly, gently, Logan pulled off his coat and his overshirt and slid down onto the bed, kicking his shoes off. He lay down beside her, the line of his body matching up to hers, and he put one arm across her, curving the other one up around the pillow. He pressed his face into her hair, whispering to her as he stroked her arm.
After several long minutes, the sobs subsided, and they both fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep.
When he woke up, he realized that his arms were now wrapped about his own chest, and that the bed in front of him was empty. But his panic was quickly dounced by the rich smell of sizzling butter, and he turned over to see her standing at her stove, a frying pan over an open flame as she stirred something in it with the other.
"I hope you like eggs," she said. "It's all I have, and some bread." She gestured to the nearby toaster. "White only. But I've got butter and jam."
Logan straightened himself out on the bed, stretching lazily. The sun was up, the window was cracked open just a bit, and there was a nice breeze coming into the room. When the stove came on, apparently, it heated up the whole apartment to a nearly unbearable pitch, for Logan found that the cold air, however biting, was hardly uncomfortable.
He tucked a pillow under his shoulders and pulled himself up a bit, watching her.
She had showered, changed her clothes. It was amazing that she hadn't woken him up sooner, especially when she got out of bed. That was a feat he was sure would never be repeated again in all of history. She was in a sleeveless, button-down shirt, exposing her arms, which seemed to be rather well-muscled, and a pair of jeans with the knees worn down to the point where they were ready to give way. Her hair was wet and hung down around her shoulders. It was an odd thing to realize how he had never taken much notice of her hair before. It was a color that could be mistaken for many others--red, brown, dark blonde. But damp, it was rich, almost auburn, and it fell in soft waves as the feathery ends began to dry and her long bangs floated against her cheeks.
She turned and brought the steaming pan over to the small table with two ratty chairs. The plates looked clean enough as she scooped out the scrambled eggs onto them, making the portions as even as possible. Then she stepped back to the stove and grabbed the plate of toast and set it down between the other two plates before shoving the pan into the sink where it sizzled against the cold water.
She gave him a quick look before going to the fridge. "What's your poison?" she asked, and she did all of this very casually, as if nothing had happened, as if the last fifteen years hadn't happened.
"Whaddya have?" he asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Water, milk...I've got a few more cans of beer, I usually don't crack one open until noon. What about you?"
"Beer's fine," he said, standing up. He had kicked his shoes off and the carpet was rough on his feet. He looked down, noting how worn it was. He looked up, around the apartment, at her.
He wanted so much to take her away from all of this, it was almost painful. No, it was painful. Painful in a sense he didn't quite understand, but knew would reveal itself in time.
As soon as he got some more answers, anyway.
She looked at him as she stepped away from the fridge, a beer in each hand as she used her foot to close the old white door. "Yeah," she said, half-smiling. "Stupid rule. Besides, I think noon passed us about a half hour ago, but my stupid clock isn't working." She set the cans down on the table with a loud clank and looked at him again. "What?"
He sighed. "Mel," he began.
Immediately, she waved her hand. "No, not yet," she said. "Just...let's just play this out, okay? Besides, I'm starving. A night of crying always gives me a hearty appetite." She plopped down into her seat and dove into her eggs. In a few seconds, Logan joined her, at first just to please her, but after a few bites of the warm eggs he realized that he was hungry. Very hungry.
And she was, if he remembered correctly, a good cook.
To his surprise, she laughed. For no reason, it seemed. Or maybe she had read his mind. It made him uncomfortable to think that she had developed some sort of mutant power, and even more uncomfortable to think that hers was like Jean's.
The thought of the beautiful red-headed doctor was like a stab in the side. Unexpected and painful, not because his pining for her was so overwhelming, but that he should think of her now, in this place, with Mel of all people...it felt wrong.
Mel looked down, her hair covering her face for a moment, and then she pushed it back, taking the beer up with her to her lips, sipping it thoughtfully and then raising her eyes to him again, a mask carefully set in place. She took a mouthful of the beer, sighed, and set it down.
"Okay," she said, licking her lips. "I guess I do owe you a few words of explanation, but to be honest, I don't remember any more about getting you out of that place than you do. They caught me...that's why I never met up with you. Dr. Logan, he's the reason I was able to get in, and then out again, but it took him some time the second time I got caught. He wasn't too happy with me."
Dr. Logan...it explained why he had thought, all these years, that his name was Logan. It made perfect sense, and yet none at all. "Why would he help ya? I mean...I just remember..."
"I know what you remember," she said, a touch testily. "He isn't the nicest guy, but he didn't like what they were doing to you any more than I did. He wanted to get you out of there for his own reasons, I'm sure...I'll never understand that man."
Logan frowned. "What do ya mean?"
She frowned back at him. "What do you mean, what do I mean?"
"Well, you're talkin' in this way like he's still around, like ya know him." He watched her carefully. "Not like he's dead an' buried in the past or somethin'."
A shadow fell across her face. "You didn't kill him. He had a healing factor, too, maybe not like yours, but...since then, I've seen him...once or twice."
"Once or twice?" he echoed.
Her frown twisted in a full-blown scowl. "Yeah, once or twice," she snapped. She raised her head, a flash of anger on her face. "I don't have to explain myself to you...*Logan.*" She hurled the name at him like an insult. "I've had it just as rough as you have."
"Oh, I doubt that," he growled back, feeling his own anger beginning to rise, wondering where it had been all this time.
"I don't!" She slammed her fist on the table and stood up. "Do you know where I've been for the last fifteen years? I've been running, running away from everything. Running from my home, from my parents who can't even look at me since I ruined their lives, running from the people I owe money to, people I've stolen from to keep myself on running, and most of all, I've been running from the people who are pretty damn pissed at me for helping you escape from their nasty little lab!" She paused, breathing deeply, her adreneline screaming through her body as her fury struggled to check itself. "I have no life! All I have is this!" She swung her arm around herself. "And I don't even get to keep it. No job, no friends, no nothing. So don't start getting all cockeyed and self-righteous with me. I do what I have to. I'm sure you've been doing the same. Only the thing is, I don't have a special power that makes me strong enough to go out and have fancy adventures with a bunch of mutants."
He stood up at that last word. She seemed to flinch as he approached her, as if expecting him to lay into her.
"The thing I always loved most about you, darlin'," he said, taking a deep breath, "was your spirit. But," and he raised a hand, "don't ever talk about them again like they're beneath you."
Them, meaning his friends. But he wasn't about to go throwing words like that around. And he wasn't going to use the expression X-Men, either. It made them sound like a bunch of superheroes, and they were just trying to do what they did best.
Just like him.
She nodded, her eyes lowered repentantly, but her body still tightly coiled in defiance. "I accept that." Then, she straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye again. "But there is something you and I gotta be clear on."
"And what would that be?"
In an instant, all the fight seemed to go out of her. "What do you want me to call you?" she whispered.
He blinked, confused. "What?"
"Well," and she sighed, "I just have a very hard time with Logan, because, well, for obvious reasons. But I just don't feel right calling you Ferro, either."
Logan sighed and rubbed his neck. "Well...Logan's been what I've been goin' by for the last fifteen years," he said. "But I can see where that'd be a problem..."
She gave him a small smile. "Yeah, but I don't want to call you Ferro...not if you don't like it..." Her grin widened a bit. "What's wrong, don't you like it?"
He gave her a distinctly uncomfortable shrug.
She was smiling now, almost laughing. "Yeah, it isn't the name I would pick for you, no." She paused, her eyes sparkling. "I could always call you Wolvie." And then she laughed, a bright, golden laugh that made him smile.
"Maybe in private," he said, coming closer to her. "In more...intimate settings." He was only a few feet from her now. "Maybe you could try'n call me Logan...in front of other people."
She sobered, but was still smiling, and nodded. "Okay, I can live with that."
He reached out for her, wanting to feel her close to him, and he got both of his arms around her before he felt her stiffen, resisting his embrace. She didn't push him away, but she tensed in such a way that he suddenly felt like he was doing something wrong.
"What?" he asked her.
She sighed. "That seems to be the word for the day, doesn't it?" she muttered, trying to relax. "Look, Fe...Logan...there's something we gotta talk about."
"And that would be?" He did not let her go. He had his hands on her waist, pressing their abdomens together lightly. She had such a wonderful, fresh smell, especially as her wet hair was beginning to dry.
"You and me." She stepped away, sitting down on the arm of the nearby couch. "You know, I never finished college, but that doesn't mean I didn't finish my education." She pushed back her hair, began braiding it. "There's a library in every town, and I visted them. And I had other sources...I know a thing or two about psychology. I've been trying to figure myself out for a long time, and I know I've got problems." She let out her breath. "Boy, have I got problems," she muttered, "and none of them have to do with people being after me. I've been screwed up since I was six years old, I know I have been, and I never knew why. And then when you and I...happened...it really screwed me up even worse. So I've been trying to deal with it. And I've come to a few conclusions."
"And?" he prodded, one hand on his hip, expectant.
"And," she said, "I think that it would be a mistake for you and me to try and be like...how we were."
There was a heavy silence. Finally, Logan said, "But there never was any you and me, not like a couple, not like other people. Not like a real...I dunno, a relationship. How we 'were' was really screwed up. We never got a chance to just...be together."
She nodded. "My point. You and I were thrown together into extreme circumstances. You had been rejected by women--or at least the only woman you'd ever known--and I was nice to you. I taught you things. And you, in turn...well, you showed me attentions I'd never gotten before. We weren't in love. We were in dependency. We needed each other. But it's not like that now."
"The hell it's not," he said, his face starting to get warm. "I need you, Mel. I'm not the kinda guy who just drops a sentence like that down on the table and puts it up for grabs, y'know. I never say that to anyone, but I'm sayin' it to you. I need you. You can't leave, not after we've found each other."
She shrugged. "Why stay? You've got the answers you were looking for, didn't you? You know where you came from, why you were made, what happened to you. Now you can get your life started. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Yeah, but..." and he struggled for words, not knowing how to make her see that she just couldn't leave him. "Look, you can't leave yet. There's just no reason. You said you were runnin'. Well, you've helped me, let me help you. I can take you to a place where you'd be protected. And there's so much I wanna show ya." He felt like a little kid, thinking about how she'd react to the Professor's fancy-shmancy house.
She sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. "I don't know if it's a good idea," she said. "I don't want you getting all caught up--"
"Well, why don'tcha let me worry about me?" he said, coming closer to her, wanting to touch her again, but now afraid to. "If you don't wanna have this dependency thing again, then don't. Let's have you be you, and me be me."
She chuckled slightly at that. "I guess it wouldn't kill me," she conceeded, then looked at him again, shy. "Logan," she said, as if testing the name, "you haven't even asked me yet what I know you're dying to ask me."
He cocked an eyebrow. "And that would be?"
"What my problem is."
"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready," he said, more softly. Then, he paused, and said, "But you're wrong. That isn't the question I wanna ask."
She seemed surprised. "What is it, then?"
He gazed down at her, at how smooth her skin was, in spite of her grubby living conditions. He wanted to bend over and kiss her on her neck, feel how soft she was under his lips, but blinked away the vision, hell-bent on not scaring her. "I don't know...isn't that wierd?"
For a long time, the two just looked at each other. He asked himself what that question was, the question he was dying to know. She had talked about dependency, how their relationship hadn't been real, but instead some temporary thing to get them through a crisis. It wasn't the first time he'd heard of it. He'd seen a few nasty things in his life, even in his brief adventures. He saw how scared people could get, how they would cling to any lifeline. He knew he and Rogue had come together under dire circumstances and that he felt responsible for her, but later on he'd come to realize it was because he did care, not because he felt guilty about almost killing her. She had stuck with him, even though she could have very easily said, "Hey, thanks for the ride, Bub, but I'm moving on," and that was it. But no, he'd had nightmares and she had come to help him, even at the cost of her own physical safety. And when she'd touched him, even though it had almost killed him, for a brief moment, he'd been able to see into her, and see how much she cared about him, how she looked to him to be a guide in this world where she felt so lost, so alone, where not even her own parents could show her the way. That day in the train station when he'd talked her into coming back, she had agreed only when he'd promised to take care of her.
It wasn't about fitting in. It was about having someone in your life who cared. It felt good to him, to have someone to care about. It felt good to him, knowing that she had his dogtags and that she'd be waiting to greet him when he got back to the school.
And this woman, no matter how much she tried to push him away now and hurl a bunch of psychobabble into his face to keep him back, was a part of him. She'd been there during the worst time of his life and had stayed there, and was now paying the cost. He didn't want to help her because he felt responsible. If that was the case, he would have been glad to hear her say, "Thanks but no thanks," and he would have left. He cared about her, he wanted to give something back to her that she had given him. Because she would never know how much she had given him, especially at this moment, when he'd been lost and searching once again, and she was there to point out the way.
Love or not, she wasn't going to run away from him. He wouldn't let her.
The silence, apparently, was too long for her. "Your food is getting cold," she said, her voice low.
He glanced back at the table. "I was almost done, anyway."
Perhaps it was that he'd been standing to close to the problem to see it clearly. He knew, as she pulled away and headed for the table to clean up, what his question had been.
He wanted to know if, in any small way, she wanted to stay with him as badly as he wanted her to, and it was just pride that was pushing her away, or if she meant what she said, and was trying to let him down easy. The thought that she didn't feel anything for him, that she honestly believed that all those emotions all those years ago had simply been some kind of psychological form of self-preservation, was absolutely devistating.
As she began to clean up, Logan realized that he had a big fight ahead for him. He would have rather been in a cage in the middle of a bar again than fight it, because at least he could understand hitting things with his fist. This fight was going to be much more deadly, because its weapons were much more lethal.
Yet, he wouldn't have traded finding her for anything else in the world.
They stayed in the apartment for the remainder of the day. They talked some more, and she helped him put more of his jumbled memories in order. He told her more about the places he'd been, the things he had seen, and realized he remembered much more than he ever recalled actually doing at the time.
Then, as the night fell and she changed into a pair of flannel pajamas and finally shut the window a few hours after making them a nice dinner of fried salami on more white toast with some processed cheese slices, the conversation shifted.
He had never been able to understand her much before when she talked about herself because his frame of reference had been so severely stunted. Now was not the case. He got her talking about herself and found himself remembering things he had forgotten that he knew about her. Her love of math, her fascination with art, particularly Van Gogh, and how she had wanted to be an astronomer when she grew up. She told him how she used to sneak out onto her roof in the middle of the night and watch the stars, and as she got older she would drag books out there and search out constellations, even using a telescope to locate ones harder to see with the naked eye.
She told him about how she had lived her life in sort of a cage, a cage she had made in an attempt to keep out the paranoia, the fear of being abandoned, the obsessive-compulsive tendencies that wouldn't let her sleep sometimes. She lived in a fantasy world made out of those stars she watched every night, and she prayed to be stolen away by aliens so that she wouldn't have to face another day in the real world.
She babbled on and on, as if unable to help herself, until she finally drifted off to sleep, half-way through a sentence. Logan watched her sleep, watched her chest rise and fall gently, peacefully. He studied her face--in sleep, its wrinkles were softened. She hadn't been too much more than twenty when he'd first met her--now she couldn't be more than thirty-five, definitely less than forty. Stress had aged her--it had made her hair turn grey in certain spots, it had lined her cheeks and her forehead with worry marks, and caused wrinkles around the corner of her mouth. She was not pretty in the traditional sense--not pretty like Jean, who oozed sensuality. She was pretty in a way that he found much more endearing, for reasons he wasn't sure he understood. It was that he knew her inside, that he saw how her face lit up when she smiled and how her laugh rang like bells, and how her smell intoxicated him--they made her beautiful.
And as he gazed at her sleeping face, he realized that she was beautiful.
He managed to doze a bit on the couch before dawn came, and she was awake promptly, getting up and stumbling into the small bathroom to take her shower. Her warm, sleepy scent woke him up, and he half expected her to ask him why he was sleeping on the couch, but she didn't. Instead, she did her morning business and emerged in a t-shirt and the same worn jeans. She looked down at him with one eyebrow arched.
"You want to shower?" she asked. "There's still hot water left...and you've been...uh..."
He gave her a mischevious grin. "You can tell me I stink if ya want. I promise I won't be offended."
She grinned back. "You stink. Please shower."
He stood up. "See, that wasn't hard, now was it?"
She even giggled a bit as he passed by her, and he gave her a playful swat on the behind before going into the room.
Mel glanced over her shoulder as he disappeared into the bathroom. Then she went to the phone and dialed a number. It rang three times before it was answered.
"Hello?"
"It's me," she said. "I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving. But you can't follow me this time. You have to stay put."
"Huh?" Mild outrage. She should have expected it. She should have just gone, told Ferro, or Logan, or whatever he was, that they had to be careful so that they weren't followed. He would have bought it, considering she told him that people were after her. They were, but they weren't going to be stupid enough to follow her into a hive of mutants that could easily take them out. They had more brains than that.
This one, however, didn't.
"Where are you going, Mel?"
"If I told you, you'd be too tempted to follow," she said. "I'm disappearing, maybe for a week or two. I promise, though, that I'll contact you soon."
There was a pause. "All right," he said, and she felt a tremendous victory that after all these years, she was finally getting him to trust in her. "Just don't stay silent too long."
"I won't." And she hung up the phone exactly one minute before the bathroom door reopened and Logan stepped out.
"We can leave whenever you're ready," he said.
"Just let me get my bag packed," she said, going about that particular business. "We'd better leave quiet, though."
"Yeah," Logan said, "but who did you call?"
She froze. She should have known better. He had excellent hearing. He could have heard the whole conversation. "What?"
"The word of the day," he reminded her, teasing. He wasn't worried or upset or suspicious. He respected her space. "I was just curious. Did'ja call the landlord to tell 'em that you were leaving?"
"Yeah," she lied. "Asked him to hold the place for me, in case I decide to come back."
Logan nodded. Disappointed. "I see."
She tried to disuade him. "Just in case, you know, doesn't mean absolutely."
"Yeah, but it means usually." He paused. "I thought for sure you were gonna try and rent hop this place like all the rest of 'em."
Now a touch of suspicion. She gave him a disarming smile. "Well, I figured that if you felt like you owed me something, you'd be willing to front me a few bucks...you know, to keep me honest?"
He chuckled. "Did you?" he said. "Well, yer lucky t'night that I have a few bucks saved up. C'mon, we can pay it out on the way."
* * * * *
They'd stolen a car--somehow, she'd figured out how to do it. Somehow, they had gotten all the way down the block to a busy street, and had followed it all the way to a supermarket. She'd waited and watched for someone to pull up and leave their keys, and finally someone, a young woman dressed in a uniform that smelled like grease, had done so. She went to the deposit box at the side wall of the store, leaving her car vulnerable. The two had ran for it as fast as they could, ignoring the tremendous pain in Melody's back. She'd told Ferro to get in the back set on the driver's side, and he'd obeyed as she climbed behind the wheel. They tore off in seconds, leaving the woman behind them, screaming in outrage.
Melody felt sorry. She wouldn't have done it under other circumstances. She drove and drove and drove, following any road she could find, heading out to the woods, to the back roads, and pulling off down a path that looked pretty much deserted. She stopped the car after what felt like hours and nearly passed out against the wheel. She shut her eyes, feeling so sleepy she could barely lift her head. The next thing she knew, Ferro was gently carrying her to a nearby stream of fresh water. He laid her down by the bank and helped her pull off her ripped, blood soaked shirt.
Melody pressed her cheek to the cool, damp earth and shut her eyes. It felt so good to be here, outside in the open, free, even if the world was ganging up on them, trying to track them down. Even now, she could feel the dark forces gathering against them. But she didn't care.
Here, she was safe, with him.
He cupped the cool water from the stream and ran it over her back, trying to clean off the wounds. For a moment, it felt wonderful, the icy feeling against the hot, aching flesh, but she knew perfectly well that this was not the proper sort of medical treatment she needed. Eventually, she was going to have to get some real help.
She wanted to stand up, at least sit up, but she was too tired. She shut her eyes and felt sleep overtake her, then opened her eyes a while later to see that the sun was high in the sky--she didn't know what time of day it was, she had lost track after she and Ferro had escaped last night, they'd come to the stream sometime in the morning, she wished she had a watch but it had gotten left behind, along with all her other things. She turned her head slightly to see a small pile of fruit waiting for her. It looked like wild strawberries--was it the season?--and some apples that were small and green, but looked perfectly good. She reached out and pulled a strawberry from the pile, putting it in her mouth.
It was the best thing she had ever tasted.
She got her arms under her and pushed herself up, realizing that her back felt stiff and sort, but was hardly on fire like it had been yesterday. She turned a bit to realize that there was some sort of wrapping around her over the worst of the cuts, roughly placed but looking like first aid bandages. Her shirt was gone--she was in her bra and jeans in the middle of nowhere. And Ferro, she knew he was shirtless. The most clothing they allowed him was a pair of jeans.
What a sight they were going to be when they got into town.
That was when she realized that Ferro wasn't there. She looked around, having to move carefully because of her back, and then heard a rustling in the bushes. She looked straight ahead to see him come into the small clearing where the stream was, bearing a brown paper back in his arms.
She almost laughed. The thought that he had gone shopping amazed her. He knelt down beside her and put the bag in front of her.
"This was in the car," Ferro said, and then Melody noticed that something was draped over his arm. "And this as well," he said, a bit uneasily. He pulled it off his arm and revealed it to be a simple, white, button-down shirt. Melody took it and put it on, surprised to realize that it just fit. It held the rugged bandages to her back a bit more securely, at any rate.
"How did you...?" She patted her shoulder, indicating her wounds. "Where did the bandages come from?"
"From the car," Ferro answered, peering into the bag with open curiosity. "They were in a small white box that said 'First Aid.' What does that mean?"
Wow...of all the luck. "It means for emergencies," Melody said, distracted.
Ferro shot her a grin. "It counted then." He frowned at the bag. "What's in here? Some of it smells like food, but I didn't want to..." He made a nervous gesture at the fruit. "I figured you didn't eat raw meat like me."
Melody shook her head, reaching out to pat Ferro on the shoulder. "No, you did good." She managed to get to her knees over the bag and began pulling items out. To her luck, there was some bread and a bottle of water. There were some other odds and ends, nothing of much use to her--a few lightbulbs, some packages of cool-aid power, and some paper towels. There were a few candy bars, and a package of cheese and another package of lunchmeat.
She looked around her, at their makeshift camp--she didn't know how to start a fire, she certainly didn't know how to make a shelter, and her back was going to start hurting again because only God-knew what was in that stream water. She sighed, considering her options. After several long moments, she said, "Ferro, was there anything else in the car?"
He was sniffing the lightbulbs when he tilted his head. "There was a bag in there, but it looked like someone's stuff...like your stuff."
A purse...had to be. "Could you be a dear and bring it to me?" she asked, smiling at him sweetly.
His reply was a frown. "But it isn't yours," he said softly.
"Neither was the car," she pointed out.
He shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, that too."
She sighed. So he knew about stealing. Apparently, it rated higher on the list of bad things than fornication and murder. She resisted the urge to yell at him, took a deep breath, and said, "Look, we have to have some money if we're going to check into a hotel. If we don't get back to town soon, these scratches on my back are going to get infected, I'll get sick, and I don't want to think about what will happen then. So we're not doing it to be mean or bad, we're doing it because we have to." And she bit her tongue, afraid the next words out of her mouth would be a reminder to him that it was his fault that they were now running, considering he'd killed Dr. Logan.
But no...he hadn't killed him. Somehow, Melody knew that. The thought came to her easily, with no surprise or horror, only a vague sense of relief. He was a healing mutant, she reminded herself. He might have survived his wounds, even if their seriousness had kept him down a bit.
She was sure he had. Absolutely positive.
Melody looked at Ferro again. "Please, Ferro," she said. "I promise not to take anything that's going to hurt her later." So much for the use of a credit card. But that would be just making matters worse, legally--if the girl had enough cash on her, they could check into a hotel after a quick run by a hospital. After she got some strength back to drive to the next town, where they might not be looking for her.
With a sigh, he stood up and disappeared down the path again. It took him some twenty minutes to return, bearing the purse in his hand, outstretched, as if he were afraid it might bite him. She had made herself a sandwich from the cheese and cheap processed lunchmeat and was munching away happily when he came back. She took it, going right for the compartment where she was sure the wallet was kept, and pulled out three twenty dollar bills.
It may be enough for one night, at least. It certainly wasn't enough to make her honor her promise.
She glanced over at him. He was crouching down by the stream, but she could sense that things were seriously amiss with him, in spite of his nonchalant attempt to get a drink of water.
This was insane. They had jumped out of a boiling cauldron and into the flames of hell. She was trapped out in the woods with this man, she had just been beaten with a cat-o-nine-tails, if there was anything in the world more cliche than that, and she was the only chance they had at getting back to civilization.
But, she realized, as this was the kicker, there was no way back for him. He was completely and utterly trapped. If he went back, there was no chance at a normal life for him. He was born a captive, and those who had created him would probably be willing to do anything to get him back. He had to be taught things like sitting in a chair and drinking from a glass. How was he going to get a job, support himself, pay rent, drive a car? He had no concept of these things! Without her, he was helpless.
At least, back there, in the real world. But out here, it was different.
She noticed that he had gotten perfectly still on the bank of the stream, perched on the balls of his toes and leaning over the moving water. Then his muscles rippled with perfect coordination, his hand darting into the water and emerging clutching a very long, shiny-scaled fish. He looked at her over his shoulder, smiling proudly. It was adorable.
"Do you have to burn fish, too?" he asked.
For a moment, she didn't remember what he was talking about, and then she remembered her lesson in the kitchen with the chicken. "Oh...well, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes you don't, but I never liked it much."
"Oh." His face fell. Instantly. She felt a horrid pang of guilt and turned herself around, ignoring the lashes and the pain of movement. "But I can start a fire out here, I'm sure. We can cook some of it."
Bright again. "Okay." He turned around and gripped the fish with both hands. It tried to wiggle from his grip but he held fast.
"Um," she said, looking around and realizing that if she wanted firewood, she was going to have to go get some. "Ferro...is there some way you can...you know, kill it? So it doesn't move?"
His expression did not change and he pinned the thrashing fish to the ground by its tail, extended one claw, and lopped off the fish's head. It instantly lay still.
There was uncomfortable silence. Finally, Ferro's reflective eyes raised to meet hers. She could feel his emotions rolling over him, tangling amongst themselves, a confusion of guilt and pride, fear and protectiveness.
"I did that to the doctor, didn't I?" he whispered.
Melody came closer to him, ignoring the stench of the fish, the gore on the ground. She crouched down beside him, putting one hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," he said soothingly, touching his neck the way she would caress a pet. "You were only trying to protect me."
He lowered his head, nodding, then brought it back up again, looking at her. Their eyes met for a very long time, and Melody could feel his emotions growing so powerful they were almost at a fever pitch. Apprehension, anxiety, a terrible emptiness. Finally, she asked the inevitable.
"What is it?"
He did not answer right away, as if afraid to open his mouth and let the terrible words come out. "We're free," he said, his voice whisper low.
"Yeah."
He gave a nervous half-shrug. "Are you...going to leave me now?"
She hated that he had to ask that question just then. She needed time to think, to assess their situation and find the best solution. She knew her old self would have run screaming from the clearing, throwing herself into the arms of the cops before accepting this final and irrevocable burden of him, which she could sense settling across her shoulders like an ancient yolk.
Yet, the thought of spending her life with him was not so unpleasant. He was the best company she had ever had. Truthfully.
"No," she heard herself saying, "I'm not going to leave you now."
Instantly, the tension left him. He almost smiled. "Okay."
And that seemed to be enough for him.
After a while, she got a fire started--thank God the woman had some matches buried in the bottom of her purse, along with a whole bunch of time-worn kleenex and an old roll of breathmints. Ferro put a long stick through the fish the long way, creating a spit, at her request (thank God again that she hadn't had to do it herself), and they cooked it. The less done parts Ferro ate happily, while Melody burned her fingers into numbness on the more well-done parts as she pulled out the bones. She hadn't known that fish had so many bones, and such fine, small ones as well. So much for seven years of Girl Scouts, she thought wryly.
The sun went down. Melody wondered if she would be able to sleep in this place tonight. The noises of the woods around her weren't so loud--after all, they weren't that far from the city-- but they were loud enough. She felt safe with Ferro around, but he was pacing their little camp, looking to the woods here and there, as if fighting the urge to go running off. Every few minutes Melody could sense him looking at her, as if waiting for some signal that it was okay for him to go scampering off.
The worst of it was, she had nothing to sleep on and her back ached like a bitch. She'd found some aspirin in the life-saving purse but it wasn't helping too much. She needed ointment for her wounds, a soft bed to sleep on, clean, well-arranged bandages. She wasn't going to get it out here.
"Ferro," she called, sometime around midnight, "can you get me back to the car?"
He seemed startled by her request. "Why?" he asked. "Are we going somewhere?"
"I just want to sleep in the back seat," she said, rising. She began kicking dirt onto the fire, making it go out with long, loud sizzles. She used one of the long sticks they'd used for dinner as a torch, but the clearing seemed to get a whole lot darker. "I can't sleep here on the ground."
"Oh." She sensed his confusion, but he led her back to the car without another question. She crawled into the back seat, thankful that it was one of the old cars with the wide, flat seats. It wasn't quite big enough for her, but she managed to stretch out comfortably enough.
Ferro watched her. "You're going to sleep there?" he asked.
She had settled her head on her arm, and said sleepily, "Mmm hmmm."
"Oh."
She raised her head, giving him a rather sharp look. She was getting cranky. "What?" she asked, her voice rough.
He started a bit at her tone. "Well...if you're going to sleep in there, where am I--"
His unfinished question was cut off by a terrible sound from behind them. Melody's relief that she hadn't been made to look like a callous asshole was quickly destroyed by the realization that there was a very large animal in their territory. Without missing a beat, Ferro whirled around and slammed the car door shut, effectively closing her in and ensuring her protection.
She got to her knees, ignoring the pain the sudden movement caused, and looked out the back window. There was barely enough light for her to see the creature as it came into view, looking at Logan with cat-like viciousness.
It had to be a bob-cat. It couldn't be anything else. There were no wolves around here, and the noise sounded like a feline.
She heard another growl. This one sounded vaguely human. She hadn't known that humans could make such noises. But then again, not many humans were like Ferro.
She heard another noise. *Snikt!* *Snikt!*
The bob-cat howled in outrage as it hurled itself at Ferro. He caught the creature easily, his claws going up and flashing briefly in the moonlight before they both disappeared from her view.
She heard the shuffling, the noises, the bob-cat's howl of pain and Ferro's furious groans as the bob-cat got in a few good swipes of his own. Minutes passed, and she strained her eyes in the darkness, desperate to see. Then, slowly, one of them came into her view. It didn't take much to figure out that it was Ferro.
She opened the car door, and he stumbled to his knees in front of her. There were long scratches along his shoulders, but they were closing. She got her hands on his shoulders, checking for more wounds, threading her fingers through his dark hair, trying to get him to look at her. On his face was another scratch, but it was also healing.
But no, it wasn't the wounds. It was his eyes. Dark, furious, feral. He looked at her, and she could feel shame coming off of him in waves.
Shame? "What happened?" she asked, not realizing that he hadn't said anything out loud.
"I killed it," he said, his voice low, moaning.
"You didn't have a choice," she said.
He almost laughed. It was short, bitter. "I don't seem to get many of them, do I?"
Impulsively, she pulled him to her, holding him close. She could feel how terrible was for him, being trapped between two worlds. She wanted to sob for him, but found that she was simply too tired.
"Get into the car," she said, her voice shaking. "We're going into town."
She drove them to a hotel, the seediest, cheapest place she could find. The bed was lumpy and the bathroom was filthy, but there was a convenience store nearby where she bought some first-aid ointment, some more bandages, cotton balls and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide with some of the cash.
He was very good at following her instructions, as she found out later on, about three in the morning, as she lay across the lumpy bed, her back exposed to the cool air of the room. She had him use the hydrogen peroxide to clean off the scratches and then apply the ointment. She didn't want to cover up the wounds again, instead wanting them to air out as much as possible, but that required her to keep her bra off. And Ferro, innocently enough, kept oogling her. So she managed to get herself settled down with her chest burried in one of the pillows, and the tension eased in the room, but it left something peculiar in its wake.
She had never been oggled before. She found she hadn't really minded that much that it was by him.
She finally fell asleep at about 4 in the morning, as the sun was rising, and he curled up beside her, but unable to get as close as he liked because of her wounds. She reached up and held his hand as he had it lying arched over her head, looping his fingers through hers comfortingly. This seemed to satisfy him a bit, and she slept like a rock until there was a pounding on the door at 11. Melody sat up, reminded bluntly that she was shirtless, and she grabbed the pillow, clutching to her chest hard as she went to answer the insistent knock.
"Check out," the grumpy man on the other side said.
"But we just got here!" Melody snarled at him, her usual morning grouchiness accented by the soreness of her back and the lack of real sleep.
"Another thirty bucks, or get out," the man said, glancing at Ferro, who was watching the exchange from the bed.
"I don't have thirty," she said, "I've only got about fifteen."
The man shook his head. "Not enough. You guys gotta leave."
Melody sighed and slammed the door into his face, turning to Ferro. "Get up," she ordered.
"Where are we going?" he asked, swinging his legs over the side, yawning so widely she could see his tonsils.
"I don't know," she replied, irritable. "Just get dressed. We'll go eat somewhere and we can figure it out."
He obeyed, pulling on the pants that he had discarded. She drove them to a diner that was open 24 hours, and faced bar across the street. She spent a lot of time thinking about going over there, wanting a drink, something to help sooth her frazzled nerves, maybe take the edge out of her bite, make the stupid sting in her back go away.
Ferro was thoroughly awed by the restaurant. He had never been in a place like this in his life, she realized. He stared at the menu, his mouth working over some of the words, but not understanding what they meant. He hadn't even known what it meant to cook food. Such a display of helplessness made her feel all protective again, and she spent at least two hours explaining to him the various things on the menu. She let herself go on and on, thankful for a more immediate task to occupy her attention, rather than having to think about where they were going to hole up next. They barely had the money for this meal, and only when the smell of fried eggs and pancakes hit her did her stomach begin to growl louder than anything Ferro could have produced.
Eventually, he declared that he wanted to try the bacon and eggs, and she watching with a terrible, aching affection as he carefully began to eat the fried food with his fork, and when that failed to fill him up she got him a second order. This time he used the toast he ordered as a scoop for the runny yolk before finally picking up the plate in the end to lick up every last drop of the excess grease. She reached over and wiped his whiskers with his napkin when he was done, and as he was about to pull away, he caught her hand and kissed it, gently.
"Thank you, Melody," he said, his lips vibrating lightly against her skin.
"For what?" she asked, then knew. "Oh...don't--"
He shook his head, cutting her off. "This world you've shown me...no one ever cared before. No one." His eyes filled with such emotion that it seemed to overcome him. Then he shut them, and when he opened them again he looked outside toward the bar. "You want to go over there? You keep looking at it."
She shrugged. She wasn't sure if she was ready to show him a bar. "Maybe we could just...go walk past it."
"What is it?"
"It's a place where people drink."
"You mean, water?"
"No, I mean alcohol," she said. She looked at her watch. It was just now noon. Maybe it was open now. She could at least walk past it, see how busy it was, maybe it would be pretty empty and she could get a beer, just one beer...
"Alcohol?" he asked, frowning. "Why would people want to drink that?"
"You know what alcohol is?" she asked. "It's not just the stuff they rub on you before shots."
His face darkened. "Then what is it?"
"Some people make it differently and it tastes really good," she pointed out. "Come on, I think I have enough for a few cheap beers."
They walked over to the bar and to her pleasure it was nearly empty. They took a few stools by the bartender and Melody asked him for two of the cheapest beers he had. He gave them a couple of glasses of the local brew, and Melody tasted hers first.
"Mmmmm," she sighed, wiping the foam away. "Locals are always the best. Here, sip yours."
Ferro looked at the beer, and it was as if there was something familiar about it to him. She couldn't imagine what. He reached out and took the glass and brought it to his lips. Then, to her amazement, he tipped back his head and threw back the entire glass, letting it slide down his throat like molasses. When he brought his head forward again, he had a dizzy and yet extremely pleased look on his face.
"Good?" she asked, gawking a bit.
"Yeah," he said. "More?"
She looked at her beer. She took one final swallow and then handed it to him. "What the hell," she said. "I'm driving anyway. You like beer, huh? No wait!" she said as he proceeded to do the same thing with the second. He looked at her in confusion, almost fearful, as if he suspected he was doing something horribly wrong. "You need to drink this one more slowly," she explained. "Otherwise you're going to throw up all that food you just ate."
He nodded. "Okay." He obeyed her, but not by much. By twelve thirty his glass had long since been empty and Melody had made a decision.
"My house," she muttered. "Mom and Dad are at work, my sister is away at school. We'll be fine until about 4 or so."
This startled him, but he obeyed. They headed out of the bar, but as they were going for the car, a lovely elderly couple stopped them.
"There they are, Hank," the woman said. "Oh, you two are just too cute for words. I saw you inside," she gushed, "and I saw how you showed your handsome boyfriend here how to drink a beer." She giggled. "Oh, that was too precious!"
Melody blushed a bit, but Ferro's eyes lit up with pleasure. He reached out and pulled Melody a bit closer to him, as if he'd been trained to do it.
"Can we get your picture?" the woman asked. "Oh, Hank, give me your instant!"
She got the camera from her husband and had Melody and Ferro stand underneath the nearby sign, that read "The Lion's Den." "Oh, honey," the woman chirped to Melody, "put your arms around him!" She turned a put her arms up and around his shoulders, and he leaned into her, naturally, as if he'd been doing it all his life. She smiled, feeling a terrible moment of fantasy-laded happiness, as if she could shut her eyes and suddenly she'd be normal again, posing with a really cute boyfriend and that her parents were expecting her home at any time, he'd better get her there soon--
The flash came and went a few times, and it was over. The woman handed Melody one of the pictures and it was still foggy. "Oh, thank you honey," she said, patting Melody's cheek and then Ferro's. "Oh, you two are just too cute!" And then, just like that, she was gone.
"Well," Melody said, handing the picture to Ferro, "just hang onto that until it clears. I'll drive."
Melody was pleased to find that her back did feel a lot better, but it was awfully stiff as she tried to drive. Thankfully, traffic was flowing in their favor and the ride to her house only took about twenty minutes.
How odd it felt being back here, she pondered, even though she had only left a week ago. It felt longer. Much longer, like years had passed. She was glad to find that her guess had been right and everyone was gone, and she got Ferro up to her room, where he quickly nestled onto her bed, still very sleepy.
Melody found herself overjoyed to have access to her familiar bathroom and her closet of clothes. She pulled on a black T-shirt that allowed her enough room to keep herself from smothering her back, and changed into a clean pair of jeans. In the bathroom, she brushed her hair and used some hairspray on it, considering another shower. But exhaustion won out, and she curled up on the bed with Ferro, keeping the bedroom door locked just in case her parents surprised her.
It turned out that he wasn't as asleep as he seemed. For a few hours, Melody had blessed quiet, but she was awoken by the sensation that she was being explored. With the shirt in place, Ferro had felt free to pull her closer to him, and he tenderly kissed the bared skin of her neck, where one of the whip cuts had nicked some of the soft skin. His arm snaked down over hers, sliding into the warmth of her stomach, reaching under the shirt and caressing her naked belly.
Melody wanted to push him away, but found that she couldn't. She was completely worn down by the events of the last several days. Being here, in her own room, made her feel extremely vulnerable, and yet safe and secure. Here, nothing could touch her. How many hours she had spent here, hiding from everything and everyone. She had put locks on the doors, heavy drapes over the windows, and even built a nest in one corner, made of thick pillows where she could just sink in and hide.
She realized with a dull feeling of self-reproach that she should have slept there.
Ferro pulled himself up on his arm, looking down into her face. He brushed her hair away, bringing it to his nose and taking in its scent. Then he lowered his head and kissed her cheek.
Melody turned her head when he pulled back, hovering over her face, a few inches of air separating them. She realized that they had been so intimate, and yet they had never really kissed. She found herself unable to remember if he'd kissed her during their first meeting. She was sure they had, but she couldn't remember it.
As if reading her mind, he brought his mouth to hers.
It was soft and slow, his lips playing over hers, tasting her lips, her tongue, the skin of her cheeks and chin. Melody lost herself in it, overwhelmed by its tenderness, shaking under the intensity of the emotions that bombarded her. She had avoided this sort of thing for so long, and was now realizing why--her empathic powers magnified everything so that it was all raw, unfiltered, and pounding against her fragile psyche with the force of an atomic bomb.
She realized that his hands were exploring her as well, but over the toughness of her jeans she could hardly feel more than the pressure of his fingers. When his hands came up to slide under her shirt she gasped, pulling away from his mouth and getting a good look at his face.
She didn't know what she saw there. She saw so many things, but there was one thing, one thing alone, that he wanted her to see. He was pushing it forward, into his eyes, even as his mouth came down on hers again.
Melody moaned as his hands began to move. She wanted to pull them away, but she was beginning to feel helpess. It felt so good, to be touched like this. She cared about him so much...no, not just cared...it was insanity to even think it, she knew better than to fall into such stupid traps of confusing lust with love.
Love...if that was a word at the moment. She felt like she did love him. But somewhere, amidst the whirlwind, she knew it was her hormones talking.
He pulled her shirt up over her head, causing a sting as it scraped the skin of her back, but as she came back down, quickly, against the soft blankets of her bed, and he was all over her, his body covering hers, their chests touching, his hands at her waist, his mouth against her neck, growling into her hair.
Melody groaned as she felt his teeth. She could hardly breathe. This was too much--she couldn't let this go any farther. Remembering, deseprately, how she had pushed him off last time, she struggled to gather herself together.
He sensed it. He pulled himself up, bracing himself with one arm on either side of her head, staring intensely into her eyes. She saw it again, what he wanted her to see. She got her arms up somehow and covered her breasts, trying to shrink from that gaze, from what he was trying to tell her.
Somehow, he loved her.
His face darkened as she resisted. He got one hand around her wrist and pulled her arm away, bringing it to his face, kissing the inside of her wrist tenderly before putting it around his neck. "You're mine," he whispered. "You can't be anything else."
He kissed her again, killing her protest. *Mine. Mine. Mine.* Like the marking of territory. He didn't know her well enough to love her, she told herself. What he was feeling was all animal, every bit of it. She'd told him she wasn't his mate before and it had devistated him, but apparently it had not defeated him. Did wolves mate for life? She'd heard somewhere they did. And she was stuck with him. How easy it would be to just shut her eyes, let him have his way, enjoy the feelings while they lasted, let him get it out of his system and just tell herself not to be too disappointed when it all ended.
She felt her jeans clear her hips. It was enough to bring the fear of God into her, even as he sat up to yank them off her legs. She kicked one leg, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to get his attention. She got her elbows under her, forgetting that this exposed her chest for him to see, and sat bolt upright.
"FERRO!" she shouted.
In that terrible second, she realized he wasn't about to be persuaded off his course. But also in that terrible second, Melody realized that they were no longer alone.
Someone was coming up the stairs. Several someones, and they were all moving quickly, heavily.
Sounded like a freaking swat team.
Melody looked to the window, grabbing her shirt and getting it over her chest mere seconds before the glass shattered.
All hell broke loose.
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