Empathy's Echo
Chapter 1
by
NYC
"Black & White People" by Matchbox Twenty
One more day down/ Everybody has those days
where one soft sweet song's/ just enough to clear my mind
fall on real life/ is anybody left there sane?
if we slide on over and accept fate/ then it's bound to be a powerful thing
if it's just that you're weak/ can we talk about it?
It's getting so damn creepy/ just nursing this ghost of a chance
the fiction, the romance, and the technicolor dream/ of black and white people
one boy head strong/ thinks that living here's just plain
He's pushed down so hard/ you can hear him start to sink
and it's one last round of petty conversation/ you hold on boy cuz
you won't go down like this?
just roll on over/ lay down till it's more than you can take
so one more day down/ and everybody's changin'
one more head down/ just enough to reach my head
yeah, if you're weak/ can we talk about it?
It's getting so damn creepy/ just nursing this ghost of a chance
the fiction, the romance, and the technicolor dream/ of black and white people
We are black and white people
Melody couldn't remember the last time she'd been to a mall. It had been years since she'd even had someone to go along with. And being with Rogue, who had just escaped the bonds of teenhood, made her feel young again. Like the last fifteen years of her life hadn't happened, and that she was twenty years old again, hanging out with her sister on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Of course, that wasn't the case, as it was so rudely made clear to her when she paused a bit too long in front of the mirror-like surfaces that lined the walls of one of the trendy clothing stores. As Rogue came up to her, holding some rather slinky looking dress in her hand, she noticed the look on Melody's face.
Melody started as she felt the hangar press against her chin. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Ah thought this would look good on you," Rogue replied. "Blue is really your color. It brings out your eyes."
The older woman looked down at the dress and chuckled. "Yeah, Rogue...what in the world would I do with a dress like that?"
Rogue shrugged. "Ah don't know...ask Logan."
Melody rolled her eyes. "Oh, please don't start. I was just enjoying myself."
"Yeah, you sure looked it," Rogue said. "Ah saw you before. What is it?"
Melody just wagged her head. "Don't worry about it. I need to stop whining and get on with my life."
"Oh, THAT again!" Rogue said, putting the dress down. "Look, there is only one thing to do. Ah've got some extra cash. We're going over to Guri's."
"Guri's?" Melody echoed. "What the heck is a Guri?"
"The plain truth is," Rogue said, her brown eyes meeting Melody's blue ones, "you're too young to have grey hair and wrinkles. So you're getting rid of them."
The other shook her head emphatically. "Forget it. I'm not going to play that game."
"Stubborn!" Rogue snarled, sounding for all the world like Logan. It startled her. "You're just being stubborn! Well, you haven't seen stubborn. Come on, we're going." She siezed her wrist and dragged her out of the store. "Then when we're done you're going to try on that dress."
The next thing Melody knew, Rogue was dragging her into a salon that looked like only the most rich and spoiled in the world would dare go. Melody shrunk next to her a bit and muttered something about what in the world Rogue could be thinking. It amazed her that the girl even knew about places like this, considering her condition that prohibited anyone touching her skin.
"Jubes pointed this place out to me," Rogue replied. "Ah know Ah could never have anything done here, but for you, it could do wonders."
"Oh, thanks," Melody said, but she did not resist as they were put on the list and shown a soft, padded seat in the waiting area. About twenty minutes later, a woman who looked a little too much like Jean came over to them and showed them to a corner chair. Rogue followed, and began chattering out very specific instructions.
The first thing they did was wash her hair and give it a good trim. While Melody balked when they took almost six inches off of her hair, she realized that those six inches were so full of thin, split ends that they would never be missed. Then they did a gray cover-up, but they couldn't decide what color to use. Melody's hair had such a variety of shades in it that the salonist seemed to genuinely hesitate to choose one.
"Maybe something with some red," Rogue suggested.
Melody glared at her. "I don't want Logan to think I'm trying to look like Jean," she hissed.
"Relax," Rogue said. "Do you think maybe some kind of ash blonde mingled with some auburn?"
"We could do a very specialized color treatment," the woman said to her, "but it will cost twice as much."
"Don't worry about it," Rogue said with a smile. "It'll be worth it."
After the hair, which turned out better than Melody would admit, they started working on her face. Melody waited patiently as they poured on the creams and did the masks and then rubbed her face with some sort of gel that they followed with a cold metal rod that supposedly shocked the wrinkles smooth. By the time it was all done, three hours had passed, and they barely had an hour or two of their shopping time left.
As Rogue paid for it--she would not let Melody see how much the damage was--Melody was given very specific instructions on what creams to use when, how often to do the facial masks, and asked for the thirtieth time if she wanted a make-up job. Once again, Melody refused. She had barely tolerated the treatments, she didn't want any face paint that she couldn't rub off right away.
Rogue beamed at her as they exited Guri's. "You look great," she said. "Ah swear, ten, fifteen years are totally gone."
Melody glanced at herself in another mirrored wall. "Don't worry, they'll be back," she said. "This sort of thing never lasts." Then she sighed, relieved that it was all done, and that she would never again have to be treated like such a girl, and said, "I thought we came here to do useful shopping for your trip."
"We did," Rogue said. "But one more thing." And she led Melody right back into the store where that slinky blue dress was. On a closer look, Melody realized that it wasn't so bad. It was short sleeved, but the skirt fell modestly to her knees, and the top was scooped but not too low. She tried it on and it didn't look half bad. So with Rogue's promise that this would be the last, absolutely the very last time today that they would focus at all on Melody's looks, she bought it.
About an hour and fifteen minutes later, with two shopping bags full of stuff Rogue said they might need, (which was just a euphamism for Rogue's new clothes and accessories) and Melody's bag with all her forced loot from the day, they returned to the mansion. It was past dinnertime and they had to scrounge up some sandwiches in the kitchen. The leftovers of cold chicken and some Italian bread were actually quite good in that cool, quiet, well-lit kitchen, compared to the hustle and bustle of the outside world.
Rogue asked her all kinds of questions about where she had been over the years, but Melody was afraid that her stories weren't all that entertaining. Of course, Rogue loved hearing about her time with the bikers; even as Melody winced at some of those memories, she had appreciated learning how to ride.
Then they started talking about the trip, and suddenly Melody felt very strange. She started to think more and more about her own home, about her family. Rogue, sensing the mood shift and appreciating it, in light of her circumstances, began to pull it out of her.
Melody hadn't talked about her family in years. Not even to Andrew. And the loss of him just made her feel that much more empty, even though she knew she hadn't really lost him, she had just parted ways from him for a bit. For how long, she didn't know.
Rogue seemed extremely interested in hearing about where Melody had grown up, about what her parents had looked like and how they had spent their vacations, their evenings, their dinnertimes. The long Saturday afternoons at local libraries, just absorbing book after book--her father had never been one to push her nose away from the book and out into the playground. He had seemed to understand, perhaps better than the rest, her need for solitude.
But those days were over. She wasn't going to fight with her powers anymore. She was going to learn to use them. Still...she wished she could see them again.
"Do you?" Rogue said, and only then did Melody realize she had spoken that wish out loud.
She shrugged. "I don't know...they're better off without me. The last time I saw them," and she paused, the memory a bit too painful. "Well, I didn't really see them. More like heard them as the men were dragging me and Fe...Logan away."
"There's that name again," Rogue said. "What is it? Fer--"
"Ferro," Melody said, wincing slightly, like it was a curse. "They called him that. It was short for Ferocious, I think."
"Oh, you don't mean Pharoh, like an Egyptian king."
Melody's cup stopped half way to her lips. She had never even considered it before. "I never thought so, but you know...it's possible." Andrew, back in his days as the mad scientist Dr. Logan, would not have been above something like that. But it made little sense...she filed it away in the back of her mind for later.
"Well," Rogue said, perking up a bit. "Ah think you need to go try that dress on again."
Melody's brow fell into a frown of puzzled amusement. "What?" she laughed.
"Go try the dress on. Bring it back down here. You have to see it in real-world light before you can decide if you want to keep it."
She considered putting up a fight. But the truth was, she was curious to put the dress on again. "Why don't we just go do it upstairs after we finish eating?" Melody said warily. "I don't want to get it messy."
"Ah'll clean up," Rogue said. "You go change and come down here. If you just change in your room, no one's gonna see ya."
Melody gave her a rather dirty look. "You just think you're sooooo sneaky."
"Ah am sneaky," Rogue declared. "Now go change."
Melody let out an exaggerated sigh and did as she was told.
Looking in the mirror, Melody hated to admit that Rogue was right.
She had never considered herself pretty, but she knew she wasn't ugly. And those beauty treatments had at least smothered the wrinkles a great deal. They grey was gone, and while her hair did look considerably less interesting than it had before, the cover-up job didn't look all that off from reality. Melody ran her brush through it, smoothing over the waves, glad to be rid of the stringiness, the split ends, and the dryness for at least a time. Her hair had never been able to choose between being flat and being wavy, but her constant braids to keep it out of her face had helped it along a bit. She hadn't had it out of a braid for this long in quite a while.
It actually felt rather good.
She slipped the dress on, relishing its slinky feel. It was made of some sort of rayon that shone a bit like spandex, but the dark color of midnight blue gave it a velvety look. She didn't put any shoes on, simply slipped back down the hallway and toward the kitchen, feeling very shy and vulnerable, and at the sight and sound of people she had the overwhelming urge to hide herself.
Finally, she made it back to the kitchen and stepped inside. To her complete and utter shock, Rogue was gone, and Logan was standing there. He seemed surprised to see her.
"Where's Rogue?" Melody asked, suddenly feeling ridiculous.
Logan's jaw worked wordlessly for a few seconds, his eyes drifting over her, and then he said, "She told me that you had something to show me and then went to catch up with some of the other kids."
Melody's cheeks flamed red. The next time she saw that girl, she was going to strangle her with that damn scarf she always wore. She swore it.
He gave her a smile that made the core of her stomach tingle. "You look...nice."
Melody made her shoulders untense. Well, at least he hadn't laughed at her. "Yeah, well..." but no other words would come, except, "thanks."
He nodded, stepping closer. "I take it you're not still mad at me?" she said, the words coming out rushed.
"You knew I wasn't when you left," he said, rather lightly. "But if I was, I'm not anymore."
A bit nervously, Melody backed away. "Look, I think you should know you've been set up."
"Oh?" He still kept coming, one foot lightly falling in front of the other.
"Yeah, Rogue told me to go put on this thing she made me buy today and then she pulled the old bait and switch."
"Well, she picked lovely bait," he said, still closer. Melody felt her feet turning to rubber and they wouldn't move fast enough. Her heart had started to pound. She knew he could hear it. It seemed to exhilirate him.
"I just want you to know, though," she said, her words rushed again, her breathing uneven, "that it's just not me to do something like this. I mean, I would never...not after..." and she stopped, her feet now glued to the ground. The very thought that she would pull something like this on purpose after all the angst she'd been through the last several days was insulting. She looked at him, hard, making him pause. "Not after everything. I would never do that."
"I know," he said, nodding slightly, his eyes drifting down and then up again, wistful, to meet with hers. He sighed, shrugging a bit. "I guess I just hoped that maybe this was a sign that you and I could, well, start over."
She almost laughed. "Start over?" she said, shaking her head. "Start over from where? You and I are way too connected to just start over."
He took a final step closer to her, effectively pinning her between the counter and his arm, which rested against the table. He smiled down at her, his eyes amused, his nostrils flairing as he drank in her scent. She wasn't wearing any perfume---it was all natural.
Just as he had always liked it.
"I know," he said. "I can still hope, though."
She rested back against the cold metal of the counter. She didn't know if her goosebumps were coming from that or the intensity of his eyes. "I guess we could try," she whispered.
His smile softened. She sensed that he really, really, really wanted to kiss her. Instead, he said, "You know, it'd be a shame for you to get all this dressed up and have nowhere to go."
She almost laughed. "Well, I've already had dinner," she said.
"And you're too pretty to hide in a dark movie theater," he agreed. "Too bad." He paused, considering her. "You're not wearing any make-up, are you?"
She shook her head, smiling embarrassedly. "After all the other crap they put on my face to make the wrinkles go away I just couldn't take it."
He blinked. "You had wrinkles?" he said.
She punched him lightly in the ribs, straightening her posture. "Don't push it, Wolvie."
"Oh," he said, rubbing where her knuckles had grazed him, "yes Ma'am." He couldn't take his eyes off her mouth, which was now grinning wickedly.
"And watch the ma'am crap."
He shrugged. "Well, considering what I've remembered about my past, if we met when I was six or so and it's been fifteen years, that would only make me 21. So you're technically older than me."
"Oh, really?" she said archily, one eyebrow raised. She put her hand on her hip. "Well, you're barely old enough to drink, squirt, so I guess that rules out a bar."
"Oh, they'd never card me," he said arrogantly. "We men only get more distinguished with age."
She snorted, giving him a poke in the ribs. He stepped back at bit at her force as she got an arm between them and pushed him away. "You're too much, bub," she said dramatically, and turned to walk away.
She didn't get two feet before he had his arm around her waist and was pulling her back into him. He rested his chin lightly against the smooth curve of her neck, the scruffiness of his hair scratching her gently. She shivered at the contact, but didn't miss a beat as she reached up and rubbed his rough cheek.
"You need to shave," she admonished.
He growled low, in the back of his throat. "I try, but it just pops right back up again." He pressed her more tightly to him as his double meaning hit home.
She wanted to laugh, but it died in her throat as she looked up at him and his lips gently grazed hers. He pulled back for just a millisecond before descending upon her again, his mouth covering hers hungrily, his other hand snaking up and sliding across her neck, holding her lips to his. He tried not to push it too hard, tried not to pull her all the way into his insane need for her with the kiss, but he could barely control himself.
To his surprise, he felt her hand snake up and entwine itself into his hair, pulling him closer. He loosened his grip on her a bit, wanting her to turn into him, but she pulled back, her face flushed, her whole body trembling.
"I'm sorry," he said, reaching out, his hand gripping her forearm in fear that she would try to run away. Instead, she just stood there, shaking her head.
"No, it's okay," she said, stepping close to him this time, her hands firmly gripping the lapels of his shirt. She looked up into his eyes, and he could feel something in his head---
Her feelings.
"Look, it's obvious that there's something here," she said, catching her breath. "It would be stupid of me to keep trying to push it down. But we gotta be straight with each other. I have to know if this is real or if it's just some sort of reaction after all these years of being apart, and your amnesia."
He slid his arms around her. "Mel," he whispered huskily, "do whatever you have to do."
She nodded. "Logan," she whispered, and he felt her in his mind, like soft, caressing fingers.
Then he shut his eyes, relishing the sensation. It was a full ten seconds before he realized that it was his own emotions that he was feeling, too, and not just hers. They circled about, and he felt her searching, felt her reaching--
He opened to her, as far as he could. He guided her to places deep inside of him that no one had ever seen, things he would never even have wanted Jean to see, if they had ever gotten together. He knew he should have been surprised when she revealed her deep understanding of his pain and his rage, but he wasn't.
She had been there. Through all of it. The one thing keeping him together. And then she had left and it had all fallen apart.
"It wasn't my fault," she said, the tears running down her cheeks as the intensity scorched her. "I never wanted to---"
"Shhh," he whispered, his thumbs running along her skin, wiping the tears away. He leaned closer to her, wanting to kiss her again.
"No, Logan," she practically sobbed. His eyes flew open and met hers. Her blue stare was like fire and she reached into him again, not afraid of what she was searching for, feeling dizzy with the urgency to see it.
In his mind, he saw Jean Grey. He saw how he had flirted with her, the obvious attraction he still had to her. Melody was in a different part of his mind, a different part of his emotions now, he realized with a bit of a start. Before she had been in his drives, in his pain, but now she was reaching for the core, for the heart of who he was.
She wanted to know, he realized, if what he felt for her was real. She wanted to know how far it went.
He considered stopping her. It almost felt like cheating. The thought that she didn't trust him hurt, and hurt badly, but he understood it. In fact, he was a little afraid himself that she would see something she didn't like, something even he didn't know was there. Maybe she was right the whole time and he just hadn't wanted to admit it.
She felt the fear, and it gave her pause. He could feel new deetermination rising up in her -if that was the case, she had to know. Once again his own emotions were rounding on him as she searched them, testing their genuineness. She felt his fear again, and hesitated.
"No," he whispered, gripping her wrists and bringing her hands up to his face, pressing her palms against his temples. "Look at it...see it...if there's no other way for you to believe me, then so be it."
So she plunged in and she looked, and what she saw terrified her. She withdrew, yanking herself out of his grip and going nearly half-way across the kitchen floor, panting heavily.
He blinked and watched her in wonderment. "What did you see?" he whispered. "Did you see it?"
She looked at him, her eyes wide. She made herself step closer to him. "I saw... something," she admitted.
"What did you see?" he asked again. "You didn't see Jean."
"I saw Jean," she corrected, "but not there."
"No, not there," he agreed. He reached for her. "Mel--"
"No," Melody said, staying out of his grip. She wrapped her arms around herself, and Logan realized that she was quivering. "No, Logan...please. What I did...it wasn't right. I shouldn't have."
"But I wanted you to," he insisted, his anger starting to creep up on him. "If after that you don't understand, then what else is there?"
She shook her head, wincing as if in pain, as if she were hearing very loud bells and they were hurting her ears. "No, that's not what I mean," she said, waving her hand. Then she calmed and looked at him, and said, "But I do think we should go back to taking to slow again. Really."
He sighed. "All right," he said, glad that at least whatever she had seen had taken most of the resistance out of her. "So what do you want to do now?"
She shrugged. "I don't know...I'd like to change."
He dared a flirtatious smile. "No, you don't want to do that. How about we go get a drink?"
"Dressed like this?" she asked. "Are you nuts? I'd rather have a nice evening."
"Well, as much as I know we both love seedy bars," he said, taking her hand gently, and she didn't fight him, "let's go somewhere I can show you off."
She smiled at that. "I still think you're nuts," she said.
"I thought you already knew that," he teased gently as he led her out to the garage. "We'll take the car you and Rogue used earlier."
"All right," Melody said, and they spent a perfectly nice evening together, hanging out in a nice lounge where no one bothered them. They talked about things that Melody couldn't remember later, but when they got back and she got ready for bed, she realized that she couldn't sleep.
She had seen inside Logan's heart, and she had seen herself there. And she was more terrified than ever before. Because she knew that inside of her own, he was there, too.
When she woke up the next morning, she knew something was wrong.
She lifted her head up and looked around the room, as if somehow the danger might be there, visible. But no such luck. She had to sit there for several moments, shaking the sleep out of her head and focusing her mind. Her empathic powers were picking up something, a danger of some sort, but she could not, for the life of her, pinpoint it. It was elusive, a jittering, butterfly- like feeling, only its wings sizzled like a low burning fire.
It was long past eight, going on nine. Breakfast was over, the kids were in school already. She hadn't been here long enough to settle into any kind of schedule, make herself useful. Her agreement with the Professor was going to take a bit to kick in. She'd spoken to him briefly about it--he'd told her to just relax, get settled, get accustomed to being a part of a group again.
He didn't want her to rush. He knew she was in a terrible transition, one she had to manage carefully. So she let herself sleep in like this. But she couldn't get lazy. She had to do something to keep herself on her toes.
Changing into a sweatsuit, Melody headed out into the hallway. There was a low murmur, and she realized that the television was on.
"What are we going to do?" Ororo said, turning from where she perched on the couch to face the Professor.
"Nothing," Xavier replied, and from his tone, Melody could feel how troubled he was. She hurried her pace down the stairs and landed in the middle of the living room. "There's not much we can do."
"Mel?" came a soft voice from behind her. She turned her head to see Scott coming in. "G'moring," he said, giving her a warm smile, but she could sense the jitteriness coming from him, too. All these people had been shaken by something on the television. Some sort of news report.
"What's going on?" Melody asked him.
Scott looked very uneasy. "You missed breakfast," he said. "There's some donuts in the kitchen, help yourself."
"Thanks," Melody said, and not missing a beat, she continued, "You know, if you don't tell me, you're going to give me a nervous breakdown with all this tension I'm feeling."
"It's all right, Scott," the Professor said, his eyes still on the television. Melody scanned the screen, but the woman who was reporting the story had obviously moved on to something more important. "You may as well tell her, because it's going to affect her, too."
"Great," Melody said dryly. "Now tell me."
"Did Logan tell you about Magneto?" Scott asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, but I'm not sure...what's a Magneto?"
Scott almost chuckled. "That's what he said, and then he found out. Magneto was responsible for the destruction of the Statue of Liberty early this year."
She paled. "Wow," she whispered. "Yeah, I remember now. Controls magnetic fields, a real problem when metal's around, right?" She shook her head, pondering it. "Where's Logan?"
"He's with Rogue," Scott said. "You see, Magneto kidnapped her--"
"I know the story," Melody said quietly, shaking a bit. "Logan nearly died."
"Yeah. Well, he's got a metal skeleton and all, it made him an easy target, but I don't know what it would take to actually kill Logan. After what he did for Rogue and what it did to him, I'm inclined to think he can withstand anything." He gave her a look through that ruby visor. "But don't tell him I said that."
She half-smiled. "Okay," she said, amused.
Scott nodded. "Well, Magneto escaped. We figured it was coming, just not so soon."
Melody nodded again, taking it in. "How?"
"There was a shape-shifter named Mystique. We figure it was her, disguised herself as a guard or a doctor or something, and got him out. Worse than that, Sabertooth was never captured, so we're pretty sure he's with them. The only one we can officially account for is Toad, who's still detained, and he's being watched rather closely right now."
"This comes at a very bad time," the Professor sighed, turning in his automated chair and coming over to them. He gave Melody an earnest look. "Rogue was very excited about going home to her parents, but in these circumstances I don't want her to leave the estate."
"You think that Magneto would be a threat to her?" Melody asked. She shook her head.
"From what I understood, she was just a pawn. It was you guys who wound up taking him down."
"More specifically, Wolverine," Ororo said, rising from the couch.
"You think that Magneto would come after Wolverine for revenge," Melody mused aloud.
"Quite possibly, although Erik is more inclined to moving on to his new scheme than to harp on an old one," Xavier pondered.
"But if he was," Ororo pointed out, "everyone Logan cared about might be in danger."
"Especially Rogue, considering the part she played," Scott murmured.
Then, quite abruptly, all eyes turned onto Melody. "And you," Xavier said quietly.
"Yeah," Melody said, straightening her posture, "if he knew about me. Which he doesn't."
The Professor cocked an eyebrow. "He knew about Rogue before any of us did," he said. "About her absorbant powers."
"Well, from what Rogue told me," Melody pointed out reasonably, "there was a nasty problem in her hometown that was the main reason for her running away. They would have lynched her if they'd been able to touch her long enough. Magneto's attention could easily have been called to it from the news. But with me," she added, "I have no profile, no record of being connected to any mutant gift. They don't even know I'm here. And they certainly don't know about my connection to Logan." She said this last part in a very hard voice.
"What makes you so sure?" Xavier asked gently.
"Because they never touched me, the whole time I was locked up in that same place that gave Logan his metal skeleton," Melody said. "They wanted to do tests on me, but Andrew--Dr. Logan--wouldn't let them. He protected me. I had no contact with anyone, save him." She paused, turning slightly pale, looking away from them. "No, there is no possible way."
The Professor, in his usual fashion, read her mind. "Well," he said, brightening, "perhaps you and I should continue this conversation later. In the meanwhile, we have to decide a few things."
"Like what?" Scott asked.
"On whether to let Rogue and Melody go on their planned road trip."
"You can't do that to Rogue," Melody said. "You have to let her go."
"Not without protection," Scott declared.
"Then let Logan come with us," Melody said, wanting to slap her hand over her mouth the second the words were out.
If Scott's eyes hadn't been covered by his red sunglasses he might have given her a very scathing look that would have hurt--quite possibly burned her to bits, literally. "Oh, that's brilliant," he said sarcastically. "Wonderfully brilliant."
"Actually," Xavier said, "that is quite brilliant."
"Huh?" both said, looking down at him.
He smiled up at them. "If we want to lure Magneto out, it's the best way I can think to do it."
"That's not fair to Rogue!" Melody protested. "She's had enough trouble in the mutant department--she deserves some peace!"
Ororo nodded. "I agree, Professor. That's incredibly risky, considering the importance of Rogue seeing her parents again."
"That's why you and Scott and Jean are also going along--and you're going to be watching every single second. If you see any one of Magneto's agents around anywhere, you're ordered to pounce as soon as you believe it's not a rouse to lure you away." He sighed. "I'm sorry, it's either that, or Rogue must postpone her trip."
They considered the alternative for several long minutes. "Well," Melody pointed out, "maybe we'd better let Rogue decide."
Melody found Logan and Rogue coming in from the outside, where doubtless he'd been talking to her on her favorite bench on all of the property. Logan had already broken the bad news to her, and she looked rather shaken, and was twirling her thick lock of white hair nervously, but all in all she seemed to be taking it well.
Delicately, Melody explained the situation, and was surprised--and yet not surprised--to find that Logan had already proposed a plan to help. Only his plan was a bit more well thought out. They would take Rogue to her parents in the X-Jet, and he and the others would wait and watch while Rogue went about her business. At first, his plan did not include Melody, whom he wanted to stay safe and sound back at the school, but both Melody and Rogue wouldn't stand for that. More than ever, Melody felt the girl needed her.
Or better yet, the girl needed her mother.
After finding Xavier and the others again, they gave it a quick talk-over and decided that it was the best plan. Logan balked a bit at the thought of having to suit up into one of those leather suits again, but Scott made a valid point.
"A mission is a mission. And if we have to go into action, we need to be prepared."
Logan would have argued, but Melody nudged him in the ribs.
"Leather suits?" she whispered. "You wore a leather suit?"
"Uh," and Logan blushed, just the slightest bit. "Yeah, but--"
"And you weren't gonna show me?" she whispered, mildly outraged. She turned away from him. "Really, Logan, and after all your talk, too."
"Heh," he said, "I forget some women are into wierd things."
She shrugged, getting farther away from him. The group had dispersed at this point. "Well, if you think it's wierd, then I guess you don't wanna show me..." she let her voice trial off and gave him a mischevious look over her shoulder.
He laughed. "All right, bub, you win." Then he sighed. "I suppose you want me to put it on for you, too."
She shrugged again, just barely lifting her shoulders and not looking at him as she walked on ahead of him. "No fun in being an empath when you can't share the kinkier feelings," she said, almost to herself. Then she felt his hand around her forearm, pulling her along a bit more quickly.
"Well, since you put it that way," he almost purred, and they headed off for the basement.
Actually, Melody felt like a perfect ass a bit later on when Logan showed her the place where the uniforms were hung. His old one was just a bit too small for him, and it had gotten the beating of its short life. He had requested that one be made for him, but hadn't had any reason to put it on since that day, and little desired to try it, even for fun. But it wasn't this that made her feel silly.
It was when she came across Jean's uniform. It was sleek and beautiful and obviously made for her. In the glass, Melody could see her reflection, and even in the glory of a black, inanimate object, Jean's beauty overshadowed her.
Melody sighed. There was no escaping this woman's ghost, and she was in love with someone else!
"Maybe we could talk to someone about getting you a uniform," Logan said, breaking in her thoughts. She had pressed her hand against the glass, and when she did a quick inventory of her body language, she realized that Logan might have thought that her feelings of low self confidence were actually ones of longing to wear the team colors.
"No," she laughed, startled. "No, no way."
"What?" he asked coming closer to her. She turned, resting her shoulder against the glass, watching him approach, prowling like an animal on the hunt. He turned his head to the side, but his eyes didn't leave her. "Don't you want to be an X-Man, too?"
"No," she said flatly.
"Oh, I'm sorry...you want to be an X-Woman." He put one arm, palm against the glass, on one side of her, and pulled a soft curling tendril of her hair through the fingers of his other hand.
"No," she giggled. Dammit if he didn't know how to look at her just right. "I'd settle for just being a woman, really."
He chuckled, low in the back of his throat. "Oh, you are, darlin'," he said throatily, coming nearer to her, so near the soft, warm breath from his nostrils caressed her cheek. "You certainly are."
He lowered his lips to kiss her, but the words broke from her mouth before she could stop them."What about Jean?" she asked softly.
He pulled back, as if struck. "What about her?"
Melody looked at the uniform. "She's pretty," she murmured.
"Yeah, so?" Soft this time, like a caress.
"You like her."
"I did. I do. But not like I like you."
She looked back at him. She was being stupid now, she knew. She'd looked into his heart and soul and she was still questioning his feelings? But love and lust...they were different. He may have given her all of his self, but the wandering urge could destroy the happiest o relationships. "I know that," she said. "But do you still...think about Jean?"
He seemed confused. "What do you mean? Of course I think about her...I mean, she lives here, she's a friend." He snorted a bit. "I never thought I'd call her that, but she is."
Melody nodded, feeling unsettled. "Yeah, I know. I heard you before."
He frowned. "You...you what?"
"When I came back, when you were still mad at me, a few days ago," Melody said, flapping her hand as if to guesture it was behind her. "I heard you and Jean talking. Sounded like you were flirting with her."
He stared down at her, and she could feel his mind wirling. Then, unexpectedly, a question came flying out of his mouth. "That isn't why you left without telling me, was it?" he demanded, a touch of anger in his voice.
"What?"
"Because you thought I was interested in Jean," he continued, pressing. "You didn't do it out of some stupid jealousy thing, did you?"
"Stupid jealousy thing?" she echoed, straightening. She threw her hand toward the uniform. "My God, Logan, she isn't even in that stupid thing and it's got her figure, I can see what a knockout she is. Why in the world wouldn't I be jealous?"
He sighed. It came out raspy, frustrated. "Jean is with Scott."
"That's not the point," Melody moaned, pressing her hand to her eyes. "The point is, if she was free, would I have a chance? Or do I get your attention by default?"
Wrong words. They hurt him. She felt it as keenly as if she had just rammed a knife into her own ribs. She threw up her hands, as if she could pull the words back with mere physical force. "No, no...I didn't mean that. I don't mean that. I know it's not a default thing--"
He seemed to recoil from her reaching hands, as if afraid of her touch. "You...you were a part of me before I even knew who she was." His voice was shaking slightly, still raspy, as if he might start crying. That would have been a sight. She hadn't imagined he was capable of showing such emotion, and she knew him better than anyone. The vulnerability he had in her presence was staggering. "How could you even...*think* that I'd...." He took another step away, and it was unsteady. He drew several deep breaths, trying to pull himself together. She felt the anger brimming underneath the surface. She was damn lucky he didn't just tell her to go to hell, right then and there.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should never have said that. I didn't mean it."
"But you said it," he shot back, accusation in his voice. He gave her a nearly stricken look, his frustration at boiling level. "My God, Mel...what do you want from me? I can't think of anything else to make you trust me." He paused, winced, as if the words in his mouth physically hurt him. "Maybe....we should...maybe I should...." he was scattered now, disoriented. She had yanked the rug out from under him and no amount of fumbling on her part was going to get it back under his footing again. But finally, finally, he found his grip. "If you want me to," he said, his voice low, velvet soft, "I can leave here."
They didn't sink in, those words. "What?"
"Leave. You can stay. But I can't stay here with you and not--" he shook his head, unable to even finish the thought, let alone the sentence. "But if that's what you think, what you really think of me..." He was backing away again, getting farther with every step. "I don't want to do this anymore. I won't do it. Even if it kills me otherwise, I'd rather be dead than--"
"No, Logan!" she cried, stepping forward, closing the distance. She had hesitated last night, hadn't let him see, afraid of what it meant. It felt cheap, showing him now, like some sort of consolation prize, like she was trying to buy back his trust. She had her hands on his shoulders and he winced as if her touch was made of fire.
So long ago...so long it staggered her...that face he made, it was like he was here again, her Ferro, reacting to her touch, the contact of her skin, as if it were the most powerful weapon in the world she could possibly use on him--or the one thing that could affect him like nothing else could ever dream. It was the same man, changed so much, but in his core, the same one who loved her.
Who would always love her.
"I'm sorry," she said, her own voice shaking now. "I proomise you, I promise, Logan, swear it on my life, I won't ever, ever say anything horrible like that again."
He looked down at her, his eyes wary, guarded. His face, which was used to scowling on some level, was doing it now, and the Logan she had met in that bar a week ago was back here again, his defenses rising. She had hit hard, really hard. She had shaken him. He wasn't going to let it happen again, even if he did forgive her.
"All right," he said, huskily. He reached up and rubbed her wrists, which rested against his chest. "All right, I accept that."
She nodded. She wanted to kiss him, and she leaned forward. He let her, accepting her peace offering hungrily, pulling her close to him. But then he whispered into her ear;
"You've gotta stop doing this to me, Mel. I may be indestructable, but even I don't know how much more of this I can take."
She nodded against his shoulder, and shut her eyes, willing the tears not to fall. Whatever was wrong with her, she had to fix it soon. Too much depended on it.
The next day, the Professor had arranged for her and Logan to come down to the lab to attempt to organize some of Logan's memories. It had been suggested that they hold off, in light of the current, rather chaotic circumstances, but Melody had realized that the offering was for her comfort, not for the sake of Logan's strength, which was not at all affected by recent emotional events. He was set on business as usual, and wasn't about to let the threat of Magneto's revenge interfere with his life. So Jean prepared both lab tables, padding them with some sheets to make them more comfortable, and Melody laid down on one while Logan took the other. He cast her a quick glance, and she smiled at him reassuringly.
But the second the Professor came between them, and his hand gently resting against her face, his fingertips grazing her temple, she felt her smile falter.
*Are you sure about this?* Xavier asked, his mental voice gentle. It wasn't her desire to help Logan that he was questioning. It was the intimacy of the things he was about to see--things he knew she didn't want him to see, things that weren't for him to see, ever. But if this was going to work, he had to see it. And since she was psychic on an emotional level, he knew that she could quite possibly stop him from seeing these things in a sudden fit of panic, and as a result wind up keeping them from Logan.
The thought of anyone else doing it, though, repulsed her. She trusted the Professor, although she was sure he'd never look at her same way again.
*Let's do it,* she sent back, and settled her mind into a deep, calm state before calling up the memories. She felt him activate the mental bridge between her mind and Logan's, felt his warm presence inside her head, and let herself go.
He wasn't sure what he expected to gain from this, but Logan was more than willing to try it. His recovered memories from that day in the bar, triggered by Melody's scent, were rather choppy, and while he knew that Melody more than likely remembered things differently than him, at least it was something solid against which he could measure up his own recollections.
He knew he hadn't expected to feel things this vividly.
With embarrassment, he saw their first encounter, his reaction to her, her discovering his healing ability at the least convenient time...their time together, the warmth she had shown him, the patience, the stability...but anger as Dr. Logan--a man with his clean-shaven face--came between them. Tremendous anger as Dr. Logan attacked Melody with the same cat-o-nine-tails he had used on Logan--Ferro--time and again...the snikt of his claws as he used them for the first time to take a human life...his later regret and fear, her reassurance that he had done nothing wrong, only what he believed was right, what he had to do...her stealing the car, taking the money, breaking the promise but knowing she had no other choice...her sting of anger at herself as she lay on the lab table, recalling how stupid she'd been, how she had practically led their pursuers right into her home--if only they'd kept going!
*No sense in that,* the Professor chastised gently.
The memories had come in clearer than expected. Stirred up by recent events, the Professor knew. But they had holes, large ones. Or maybe she was holding back.
Then his cheeks turned scarlet red as he watched their nearly complete intimate encounter be interrupted by a team of men who looked more like navy seals than a team of scientists. Darkness as her memories failed her...then bleak brightness as the time alone in her room, her cell, had nearly driven her insane--
*Move on,* she gently prodded, shifting her memories forward. More memories with Dr. Logan whirled past them, and then froze again.
Logan almost gasped. It was the night she'd freed him. He could feel it in her head, the tension, the desperation. Dr. Logan----had survived Logan's-- attack on his person and was now going to help him escape from the doctors who had cut into him.
Melody gasped as Logan's memories bubbled to the surface, memories present only in dreams to him, but frighteningly vivid and real, and then backlashed into her head. The Professor tried to stop them, but she wouldn't let him. No, she wanted to know, wanted to feel it, because she had felt it as well, sensed what they were doing to them even though she had not even a single glimpse of him in that whole time.
*You knew,* Logan said. She did not hear his voice, but she felt him speak.
*Yes.*
He searched her, looking for scars, wondering what insanity they had inflicted on her as well, but he already knew the answer--they hadn't touched her.
*Why?*
*Andrew wouldn't let them.* Out of sequence, she called to mind their conversation in the car, in the hotel--it blurred together, the memories running like watercolors. But he caught it, the explanation, and sensed her feelings, and felt a dangerous green flicker of jealous fire. She shrunk away at first, afraid, and then decided to just hit him with it.
He saw those years...her time with Andrew...it all came into him at once, a landslide of jumbled memories. He gasped, feeling as she did the emptiness, the lonlienss of life without him, taking refuge in a man who only looked like him, but was not him. Andrew changed, even Logan could see it. The self-consumed doctor was gone. What remained was an empty vessel waiting to be filled. If it had been filled, he did not see, for the Professor gently prodded them back to their task.
*Your memories, Logan, not hers.*
He reeled a bit, trying to come back into himself, but he felt like he was stuck inside of her, like a piece of him just wouldn't dislodge and return to its rightful place. He didn't want to let go--
The Professor blinked, losing his concentration for just a moment. He let the two of them drift in their little limbo as he recovered himself, for he had been so close to their memories, their emotions, magified by Melody's gift, that he had gotten lost a bit, forgetting himself. And as his head cleared, he realized what the two of them were too close to see.
They were bonded, somehow. Something had decided to tie their hearts together, make them whole and one, as if they had been married for hundreds and hundreds of years. It explained the emptiness of their lives apart, their trauma coming back together, as any springs yanked so widely apart would have trouble recovering their elasticity. But it was coming back together, like a healing wound--painful but healthy.
He had to smile. Once they got themselves straightened out, there would never be any separating them again. Then, supressing this wisdom for later, he reached back inside.
Melody seemed to be resisting the knowledge of the bond, he realized as he came back into their world. She knew it was there, but it brought about such a fear in her--
Shifting carefully, the Professor looked inside of her, asking her silently to show him why. Then he caught sight of it--that terrible trek through the snow, dragging him the whole way, burying him, trying to protect him, that horrible epiphany she had had at his side, as if it were a grave. Later on, the memory would turn her tears into burning cinders as she realized that he was gone, and the cinders would fall, continuing to fall, too dry to do anything but simply float and wander helplessly across the currents of life--those cinders were her, her emotions, her feelings, her life. Feeling was to painful and it was the only thing she could do right. Emotions were her power, she fed off of them, she used them, controlled them, healed them and healed with them. Emotion was her everything, and in one single turn, because of one single being, it had been turned against her forever.
*No,* he told her, *not forever.*
Tears were streaking down her face and soaking her hair as she lay there. The Professor did not ask her. She simply answered him.
*Show him.*
So he did--across the bridge of his mind, he let her memories pour into Logan's head. The moment she stood by him, and he had heard her, shouting into the cold emptiness of the woods--
"BECAUSE I LOVE HIM, DAMMIT!"
It had hurt so much for her to say that, because she knew, at that second, that it was doomed. She lost him...it staggered him, for he had never realized before how much the loss had hurt her. He had spent his life in clouds of amnesia, only feeling the emptiness but never imagining that it was because she wasn't where she was supposed to be, with him. He had mistaken it for the drive to find the truth, his past. Every woman he had ever turned to had been her substitute, even Jean. Every one of them he had tried to fit into her place, but they had all failed because they were not her, they could never be. So they had all left him, leaving him to continue his wandering, still thinking the drive was to discover who had done what they had done to him, thinking that was all and there wasn't anything else to know, that they had stolen his past, when what they had really done was separated a part of his soul.
He opened his eyes. "Enough," he whispered, his voice raspy with her tears. The Professor pulled away, and Logan turned his head to see her curl up, her back to him, her face in her arms, sobbing so hard her whole body shook. Neither one of them noticed when the room became empty, save for them.
It made sense now. It made perfect sense--her resistance, her fear, her comments, her jabs, the things that had hurt him beyond belief--she was trying to protect herself. She was afraid that the second she let herself be happy again, it was going to be ripped away, like it had before. It was irrational and stupid, but it wouldn't go away, it wouldn't leave her in peace, let her rest, let her enjoy being with him again.
He got off the lab table and came up to her from behind. She had calmed, the sudden fury eased somehow by his nearness. "This has got to stop," she said.
"I know."
"No, I mean this stupid self-pity trip," she corrected, sitting up, wiping her face. "Over and over again we keep coming back here. It's getting old. It's going to wear us both down."
He put his arm around her, pulling her closer to him, letting her rest against his chest, but not smothering her. "We can stop it," he whispered.
She laughed a bit--it sounded more like a gargle or a burp. "Yeah, can't we?" she sighed. "I seem to recall we already tried."
"Then we try again," he said, stroking her hair. "Melody, I'm not going anywhere. No one, ever again, is gonna take me away. Or you." His free hand found hers and squeezed it fiercely, protectively. He wanted to pull her into himself, fuse them into one being, but he kept the distance, knowing now what she needed. He let her pull away from his chest, the air between them cool against his skin.
"I wish I could be so sure," she sighed.
He shook his head. "Don't you get it?" She looked into his face, finally, and he knew she was listening this time, really listening. "It's not anyone else we gotta worry about. It's us. The only thing that can separate us is you and me. And I'm not going to do it. Are you?"
She looked incredulous. "You're so melodramatic," she admonished. "I'd promise forever in a heartbeat if I knew it was for real, and that's even more melodramatic. But the truth is, they got us once. What happens when they do it again?"
"It's not the same as it was back then," he reminded her. "You and me gotta lot more goin' for us this time."
"Yeah?" she challenged. "Like what?"
He looked around. "We're here, aren't we? We got friends, we got...well, almost as much protection as we'll ever need. And back then, we didn't know our heads from our asses."
She almost giggled. "You're so friggin' chaming, you know that?"
"Yeah, I know." He leaned in closer to her, his mouth hovering inches away from her face. "And you know, too. We got that goin' for us. We're adults now, not stupid, scared children. If there's one thing I've learned in fifteen years, darlin', knowledge is power. I've been searching for it for too damn long not to believe that. I know myself better than I ever did, and you do too. They can't take that away from us, either."
"So now's the part where we say that no matter what happens to us, even if we get separated again, we'll never be apart, and we'll always find each other eventually?"
"Yep, that's it," he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. "You told me to always return to you, Mel," he whispered huskily. "I'm here...are you?"
He waited for her to answer. Held his breath waiting for it. It was a short wait.
"I'm here, Logan," she breathed. It was so warm against his face. "I'm here."
He kissed her. It was the first time that she really kissed him back.
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