TITLE: Mercy

Author: m.jules

Summary: Logan finds an unexpected part of his past...or rather, it finds him.

Disclaimer:  Not mine.  Nuh-uh.  Marvel & Fox.  (Except Mercy, and I think she belongs to herself.)

Rating: R – for violence, language, and sexual references

Feedback/Email:  Yes, please.  [email protected].

 

xXxXxXx

MERCY

 

It was the claws that first tipped them off.  Afterwards, they all supposed they should have realized it earlier.  Logan wondered how he hadn't detected the scent; Jean wondered how she hadn't picked up on the woman's projections; Scott wondered why he hadn't identified the familiar animosity; and the Professor wondered why he hadn't known about her before.  Only Rogue had been prickled by the familiarity of the woman's mannerisms and fighting style, but had thought herself crazy or maybe just a little obsessed. 

 

After all, who would have ever thought that Logan had a twin sister?

The deceptively small woman with long black hair and snapping black eyes snarled less than Logan but fought twice as hard.  She cursed and spat and struggled, disabling half the X-Men team before Logan arrived on the scene and crouched low in front of her, releasing his claws with a wicked metallic slide.

When she saw his face, her eyes widened, her face paled, and she stumbled backwards, breathing his name with reverence.  Suspicious and typically untrusting, Logan ignored this and advanced anyway, growling softly.  Just as he was about to pounce, there was the sound of flesh ripping and the woman pointed three bone claws at him, pale pink in color and lightly edged with her own blood.

"I've been lookin' for you for a long time, baby," she growled.  "I wouldn't have bothered if I'd known I was gonna get this kind of reception."

"Who are you?" he snarled, not retracting his claws or relaxing his stance.

Her smile would have been sad if it hadn't been so cynical.  "What, you don't recognize your big sister?  Shame on you, baby."

"I don't have a sister," he sneered, but Rogue's heart twisted at the flicker of hope in his eyes.

This time the woman's _expression was filled with genuine regret, and she resheathed her claws and rolled her shoulders a bit, relaxing.  "Oh, Logan," she sighed.  "Yes you do."

She held out her hand in truce and Logan tackled her.  Instead of resisting, she went limp and let him pin her to the ground.  He was surprised at the tears that sprang to her eyes before she turned her face away from him and even more so at her whisper.

 

"Go ahead, kill me.  I deserve it.  God knows I know that."

Never one to trust quickly but also a man desperate to know his past, he stood up, yanking her roughly to her feet in front of him.  "What's your name?" he demanded.  She cringed and looked away.  "What's your name!" he ordered again, shaking her a little.

"Mercy," she ground out through clenched teeth.  "My name is Mercy."

She didn't say another word all the way back to the mansion.

***

Logan was torn.   Here was someone who knew about his past, but could he trust her?  She didn't smell bad -- she smelled like the open road; like hard lives and broken hearts and guilt; but she didn't smell like lying.

He almost wanted Jean or the Professor to do a mind scan on this woman-girl to verify his suspicion that she was telling the truth, despite her outrageous story.  She claimed to be his older sister, but she looked about 22 or 23 -- Rogue's age.  In the end, he settled for just asking the Professor if she was dangerous.

"Very," was his immediate answer.  "But in the way that you are dangerous, that Rogue is.  I don't believe she intends to harm you."

If Xavier hadn't compared her to Rogue, he would have never had another thing to do with her.  He knew himself, he didn't trust himself, and he knew he wouldn't trust anyone who resembled him too closely.  As it was, he headed for Mercy's room with a scowl on his face, going out of his way to knock on Rogue's door en route.  She didn't say anything when she opened it, just watched him.

"I'm goin' to talk to her," he said gruffly.  "The Professor says she's mostly okay."

Rogue nodded silently and he turned to go.  She reached out and caught his sleeve with her bare fingers.  "Logan--" she said softly, and he heard the warning in her voice: Be careful.  All she said, though, was simply, "Good luck."

He nodded his thanks and continued down the hall to Mercy's room.

***

He had a million questions and didn't know which one to start with.  She beat him to it.

"You been drinkin' again?"

He nodded and she groaned, closing her eyes and leaning her head back.  "Thought so.  You drink and I get the hangover.  It's probably the one thing I didn't miss."

"How long...?"  He trailed off, not sure what he was asking.

"How long have I been looking for you?  Ever since those -- *bastards* -- took you.  About twenty years."

"How--"  He stopped again, unable to choose from the questions surging through his mind.

"Why don't I just start at the beginning," she suggested.  He nodded and they both settled in for the story.

***

Bess Goodson had been a midwife for at least ten years and never once had she even vaguely thought about killing the child she delivered.  But as Patience Eastick panted and pushed a second head into view, Bess felt the shiver of a dark premonition pass over her and looked down at the silent, squirming girl-child in her arms.

There was something about the infant that made Bess decidedly uneasy; something in the eerie silence and the way she stretched her hand backwards towards her mother's body with unmistakable purpose.  Handing the baby over to her sister Mary for cleaning, Bess turned back to the second child being birthed into her hands.

The exact moment the child's mouth cleared the birth canal, he let out a piercing wail.  Mary and Bess both felt icy shivers run down their spines as the girl child echoed his cry and strained toward him.  When his hands were clear, he reached toward her with tiny, trembling arms and they cried out to each other until Mary brought the girl over close enough for their fingers to touch.

They curled around each other's hand with unnatural precision and both of them quieted instantly, shuddering sighs the only noise emanating from them.

Twins were not a good omen in rural 1692 Massachusetts anyway, but these two took the cake.  The jury was still out over whether a multiple birth meant that the mother was a witch or one of the twins was the embodiment of virtue while the other was the very incarnation of evil, but either way, the bloodthirsty superstition spelled death for somebody.

Because of the good standing Patience had in the community, mostly by virtue of the heroic deeds of her late husband, Bess knew that the city council would most likely decide that Patience and one of her twins were innocent.  Looking over at the girl-child, she shuddered imperceptibly and knew which of the twins she personally thought to be evil.

Only a couple of short hours after the birth, barely giving anyone any time to rest, Reverend Brandford and the hastily assembled councilmen conferred over the sleeping infants in hushed tones.  The twins put up such a fuss if they were separated that Bess and Mary had tucked them close together, wrapping them in the same blanket and placing them side by side in the hand-carved wooden crib.

Quickly, one of the councilmen reached into his black robes and pulled out a heavy

pewter amulet dangling from a black leather cord.  Muttering an incantation thinly disguised as a prayer for guidance, he swung the necklace over the crib.  The pendant stilled almost immediately, hanging heavily over the body of the girl-child.

"She is the one," Reverend Brandford said solemnly, nodding to Bess, who stepped forward with intentions of picking up the infant.

Before she could reach into the crib, however, the boy-child set up a heart-breaking keen and Patience stirred in her bed across the room.

"Wha--what's going on?" she asked, exhaustion slurring her voice.  "My babies?"

Bess stepped back, clasping her hands and looking down, unwilling to meet the young mother's eyes.  Reverend Brandford took a step forward, taking Patience's hand gently between his and clearing his throat.

"Patience," he began in soothing tones.  "You know twins are an omen of evil.  The Lord has shown us that the girl-child is the one who is to be removed in order to cleanse the evil from our presence."

"No," she said immediately, tears springing to her eyes.  "No," she repeated in a voice choked and broken with emotion.  "Please, please let her live.  Let her grow and see if she might not be redeemed.  Please.  Please don't kill my baby."

Reverend Brandford opened his mouth to override her, but Bess could stand it no longer.  Despite her unease around the infant in question, she thought of her own bright-eyed daughter at home and couldn't stand to see Patience's tortured _expression.

"Reverend," she interrupted quietly.  "Do not turn a deaf ear to her pleas.  What harm could it do?  Let the child grow to the age of accountability and test her then to see if she has any virtue in her."

Unaccustomed to being defied by any of his parishioners, Reverend Brandford was speechless for a moment.  However, moved by pity for the young widowed mother weeping on the bed and by Bess Goodson's reasoning, he nodded slowly.  "All right," he said finally.  "We will let the child grow until she can answer for herself."

"Thank you," Patience sobbed, clutching his hand tightly.  "Oh, thank you."

The reverend nodded and stood, signaling to the other men to follow him, and took his leave.  Bess remained, watching Patience closely and wondering if she'd made the right decision.

"Bess?  Please bring me my babies," Patience said softly, wiping the tears from her face.

Bess did as she was asked, laying the girl child on one side and the boy on the other, turning away to give them privacy as the mother began nursing her infants.

"Mercy," she heard Patience breathe.  "Our Father which art in Heaven... have mercy on this child, on all of us."

When there was no other sound for long moments, Bess turned back, tears leaping to her eyes as she took in the other woman's motionless form, her loose grasp on both children, and the wide, unseeing eyes focused somewhere over the girl child's head, her lips parted in a last breathless prayer.

Covering her mouth with her hand, Bess let her eyes rest on the whimpering girl infant who had reached across her mother's slowly cooling body to grasp her brother's hand.  Horror building in her chest, Bess silently repeated Patience's last prayer for mercy.

***

Against her better judgment, Bess Goodson took the orphans into her home.  She told her objecting husband that it was "just until we can find a suitable place for them," and he grudgingly let her do it.

She named the boy Logan after his late father and prayed that he might grow into the honor of that namesake.  Remembering Patience's last words, she named the dark-eyed girl child Mercy and prayed without much faith that the name might mold the fate of the child to whom it was given.

Mercy, the older by all of two minutes, made Bess wonder every day if the amulet hadn't been right after all.  There was never a moment when she wasn't involved in mischief of some kind, whether it be turning the horses loose from the town livery stable, terrorizing the neighbor's chickens until they wouldn't even lay eggs, or sneaking insects or barn mice into the bed of her foster sister.

Bess's daughter Anne was three years older than Mercy but she lived in mortal fear of the younger girl.  Logan was the only person to whom Mercy showed anything resembling respect, and where he was concerned, she was more than protective -- she was downright jealous.

If Logan, who was a good-mannered child, gentle and polite, spent any time at all with Anne or anyone else in the household besides her, Mercy would immediately find some excuse to command his undivided attention.

Despite his native courtesy, Logan never seemed to find anything reproachable in this practice of his sister's.  In fact, in his eyes, Mercy was beyond any sort of rebuke; the only time he ever defied his foster parents was when they dared to punish Mercy for any of her reprehensible acts.

Bess silently wrung her hands and at night entreated an increasingly hard-of-hearing God for deliverance from the evil she was sure lived somewhere deep in the soul of Patience Eastick's oldest child.

Neither twin was ever told of the curse that hung over Mercy's head, so when they were summoned before the city council on their twelfth birthday they were told it was for a routine questioning that every child had to go through upon reaching the age of accountability.

Because Mercy was the oldest, she was to be questioned first.  Logan would have his questioning later in the day -- or so they were told.

Upon entering the church building that doubled as the township's courthouse during the week, Mercy was her typically irreverent self.  She whispered ribald jokes to her brother who followed quietly by her side, the only sign that he was anything less than perfectly angelic the soft snickers that escaped him periodically.

When Reverend Brandford called her to the front of the church and asked Logan to step outside, Mercy gave him a saucy wink over her shoulder and whispered reassuringly, "Don't worry, baby brother; it'll all be over before you know it, and we can go chase Mrs. Robinson's chickens."

Logan turned to leave, casting one last glance at his twin sister and his foster mother, a

steady feeling of uneasiness building in his chest.  He felt muscles in his arms twitching involuntarily and a deep, incurable itching took up residence in his knuckles.  Mercy wiggled her fingers at him in a goodbye, and he closed the church doors behind him, settling on the steps of the church and skipping small stones in the dust across Main Street.

Anne Goodson sat beside him, her chin in her hand, and watched him with interest.  "Do you have any idea what's going on in there?" she asked him in a conspiratorial tone.

"They're asking her stuff about God," he answered cautiously, a strange rippling of foreboding spreading through his skin.  "When they're done with her, they're gonna ask me the same stuff."

Anne shook her head, a wicked gleam in her eye.  If she thought about it and answered honestly, she really did like Logan.  What she didn't like was his terror of a sister and the way he stuck up for Mercy no matter what she did.  At fifteen years old, she knew she should have been less vindictive about the whole matter, but a scant week before, Mercy had slipped a small garden snake into Anne's bed and when Anne had sobbed about this injustice to Logan, he had simply shrugged and said, "It wasn't a poisonous snake.  He wouldn't have bitten you."

So now, still smarting from the snake incident, she couldn't resist telling Logan his sister's dirty little secret, which she had overheard from her mother that morning.  "Nuh-uh," she grinned.  "They're in there to decide whether or not she's still possessed by the devil."

Deeply offended by this accusation against his sister, Logan stood up.  "No they're not!"

Anne nodded emphatically.  "Yep.  And they're probably gonna burn her at the stake, 'cause everybody knows that's the only way to kill a witch."

"You're a liar!" he shouted at Anne, but at that precise moment, the doors to the church opened and Reverend Brandford marched out, dragging Mercy by the hair and declaring her condemnation to the town as she spat and screamed filthy curses Logan knew she had learned from the men at the livery stable.

Bess followed close behind with a blanched face and a hand to her throat.  Logan let out a cry of terror and rage and lunged for the man holding his sister, but Bess caught him and held him back.  He struggled against her, trying to get loose without really hurting her, but when Brandford dragged Mercy to the pyre in the town square, he gave up trying to be gentle and broke out of her grasp.

Mercy was snarling and spitting like a cornered wildcat as they lashed her to the mast in the center of the kindling wood and Logan roared with fury as he barreled into the men who were pouring oil onto the wood around his sister's feet.  They threw him back with little effort but he was up again almost before he touched the ground.  The muscles in his forearms tightened without conscious thought, and he almost didn't feel the momentary sharp pain in his knuckles until he heard the gathering crowd scream and gasp in horror.

The men holding the torches that would begin his sister's death fell back in horror, pointing to him and shouting their terror.  Mercy's eyes were wide with shock and her mouth open in surprise as she regarded him from her position atop the pyre.

He paused, looking down at his hands, and nearly screamed in shock himself when he saw three sharp bones protruding from each hand.  He was so stunned that he didn't even react when several men of the town tackled him, dragged him to the pyre, and tied him back-to-back with his sister.

"BURN THEM BOTH!"

The condemning cry rang out from the back of the crowd and everyone else shouted their horrified agreement.  "They're possessed!" some shouted while others went a step further, insisting, “It’s the devil himself and one o’ his angels!”

The torches were touched to the oil-soaked wood and the flames roared up with instant ravenous hunger.  The heat licked at their faces and Mercy screamed his name between curses aimed at the townsfolk, the minister, and sometimes God.

Eventually the fire was directly under their feet, licking up to consume their clothing and the ropes that bound them, and although the pain was nearly unbearable and their hair was being singed off, they realized that their skin was showing no signs of being burnt.

As soon as the ropes fell from their wrists in flaming chunks, Mercy grabbed her brother's arm and screamed for him to run.  They both took off, jumping through the fire and heading for the forest beyond the edges of the town.  Although several people shouted "GRAB THEM!", no one made a move to do so, instead falling back and letting them through.

Only after they were safely past and well into the forest did anyone seriously consider going after the two naked, hairless children running through the forest, both untouched by the fire and one with six bone claws still protruding from his hands.  Though it was talked about and debated and generally agreed upon that <I>someone</I> should go after them, no one ever stepped forward to volunteer and it was eventually decided that, should they ever come back, they would be taken care of then.

For years afterward, however, the two Demon Children were invoked by desperate mothers hoping to scare their children into righteousness until it became the stuff of legend and then of myth.

Eventually, even Anne Goodson convinced herself that Mercy and Logan had simply run away one night and that The Incident with the claws and burning had never happened.  Only her mother, Bess, lay awake some nights, offering up shaky prayers and wondering if the whole ordeal hadn't been her fault from the beginning.

***

 

If there was one thing Logan could admit to himself that he really liked about his newly rediscovered sister, it was her driving.  He was sure she scared the shit out of the other drivers on the road and he wasn't too keen on being in the passenger's seat, but Mercy had an eye for distance and timing like no one he'd ever seen.  Excluding himself, of course.  What he wasn't sure he liked was her taste in music.

 

"You cannot tell me I used to listen to this," he growled good-naturedly as she pulled out dangerously close to an eighteen-wheeler. 

 

Grinning at him, she turned off the raucous hard-rock music and tucked her hair behind her ear.  "It's a recent acquisition," she admitted.  "Last two years or so."

 

They were silent for a long time until Logan asked abruptly, "What *did* I used to listen to?"

Mercy's smile broke over her face with a fondness he thought seemed oddly alien on her features.  "Nothin' at all, baby."  She dodged through traffic with an unsettling disconcern, and he grinned as horns honked around them everywhere.  "You loved silence more than anything.  After... after they took you, though, it was the one thing I couldn't stand.  I’d been livin’ nearly three hundred years with silence…and with you gone, it suddenly seemed too much."

 

A shadow passed over his countenance and Mercy sighed, knowing full well what it was.  She also knew he'd never admit it aloud.  She snorted.  Some things never changed.  "Promise me one thing, baby brother," she demanded.  He grunted in response.  "Please get over your age a little quicker this time than you did last time."

 

"What do you mean, 'last time'?" he growled.

 

"I mean, on your eleventy-first birthday.  One hundred and eleven years old, and you dumped your girlfriend and sulked for three weeks because you'd suddenly realized that, technically, she was eighty-one years younger than you were."

 

He snorted, half in amusement and half in sympathy with his younger self.

 

"Took me ten bloody years to convince you that you're only as old as you feel -- or as old as they object to."  He glared at her, but she continued unfazed.  "I mean, c'mon, if you're only goin' for girls your age, you're not gonna get laid at all."  She looked over at him, mischief shining in her eyes.  "Well, there's me, but incest just ain't my scene, no matter how much I like ya."

 

He crossed his arms and settled back into the passenger's seat of Mercy's borrowed midnight blue sports car, the stress of the past few days adding up to a major headache.  She looked over at him with bemused compassion and patted his hand.

 

"You'll get over it," she promised.  He snorted.  She'd been at Xavier's for a little over a week, and he was still getting over the fact that he had a sister, much less that they'd been nearly burned at the stake... and he wasn't going near the fact that he was over three hundred years old.

 

"Are you over it?" he asked, knowing she'd take it as reference to their age.

 

She echoed his earlier snort as she whipped the little convertible into Xavier's driveway and leaned out the window to punch in the access code they'd so graciously given her.  "Baby, if you knew the cradles I've robbed..."  She dropped back into her seat and flashed him a rueful grin. 

 

He shook his head slightly, tucking his arms in a little more closely to himself.  She zipped up the drive and pulled Xavier's car into the garage, turning the ignition off and jangling the keys in her hand.  "Nice car," she commented.  "Might have to just borrow it permanently."

 

Logan raised his eyebrows at her and she just laughed.  "C'mon, baby brother, let's go inside."  He growled a little at her term of endearment and her grin widened wickedly.  "You always did hate that nickname," she told him.  "'S mostly why I use it."

 

He rolled his eyes as he followed her into the mansion.  Just what he needed: a sadistic twin sister.  They strolled into the kitchen, Mercy taking a moment to hang the convertible's keys back on their hook.  Passing her, Logan went to the fridge to get out a beer.  From the doorway on the other side of the room, Mercy watched quietly as Rogue approached him.

 

"Hey, Sugar," the young woman greeted him, stretching over his shoulder to snatch a can of beer out of his hands.  He grunted in mock disapproval and reached for another one, straightening up to quirk an eyebrow at her.  She popped the tab and took a long swig, watching him from under lowered lashes. 

 

Accepting the challenge with only a mildly disapproving grunt, he popped the top on his own beer and threw it back.  Mercy grinned as she watched the two compete to see who could finish their Molson first.  She shook her head as Rogue triumphantly crushed the can in her fist and tossed it to the nearest trashcan only moments before Logan did the same.

 

"Hey, Kid," he responded belatedly, reaching into the fridge for another beer.  Rogue laughed softly at him and leaned against the refrigerator, obviously putting off leaving the kitchen although Mercy could see no reason for her to be there.  Well, none besides the obvious.

 

"How was training?" Logan asked her, noticing her sweaty ponytail and workout uniform.

 

Rogue rolled her eyes and snatched Logan's beer out of his hand, taking a drink before handing it back.  "Kicked Scott's ass, as usual.  Kurt kicked mine, though."

 

Logan chuckled.  "Got the jump on ya?"

 

She nodded.  "That teleportin' is just getting annoyin'."

 

He gave her a tight smile and took a sip of his beer.  "You'll get the hang of it, and when ya do, the kid won't know what hit him."

 

She returned his smile with a little more warmth and moved past him to jog up the stairs, pulling her hair out of the ponytail as she went and calling back over her shoulder to him.  "I'm goin' to go get cleaned up and rest a while.  You wanna talk about anythin', you know where to find me."

 

"Sure, kid," he yelled up after her, taking another pull on the beer.  The look on his face was one of deep contemplation, and Mercy leaned against the doorframe thoughtfully.

 

"You're not too old for her, y'know," she said quietly. 

 

His eyes snapped up to meet hers with a deep frown of annoyance.  "I'm older than her great-grandfather," he reminded her bitterly.

 

She sighed and rolled her eyes.  "God, I knew this was gonna happen," she muttered to herself.  "All right," she said a little louder, addressing her brother with only a hint of frustration.  "So you're seriously not gonna go after her because you were born in 1692 and she was born in 1982?"

 

Logan growled low in his chest and turned to leave the kitchen.  "I don't need this," he muttered.

"She won't wait for you forever, Logan," Mercy said sharply.  "She'll find someone else.  And how are you gonna handle that?"

 

"I'll deal with it," he snapped.

 

"Could you deal with it if it was your own sister?" she challenged.  Something in her voice told him it wasn't a rhetorical question.

 

"You wouldn't," he snarled, turning to face her.  Her eyebrow arched sharply and she crossed her arms across her chest as she adjusted her weight against the doorframe.

 

"I don't think you remember me well enough to make that assumption," she told him coolly.  Taking advantage of his slack-jawed silence, she straightened up and breezed past him to her room without another word.

 

***

 

Mercy was up to her shoulders in a trunk that she was cleaning out for Xavier when she heard muffled footsteps approaching.  Their weight as they stopped next to the trunk made her think it was Logan, but with her head down among entirely too many mothballs, she couldn't discern the smell.  Grumbling, she snapped, "Go away.  I'm not talking to you right now."

 

"Excuse me," a cultured voice apologized, and she jerked up out of the trunk so fast she nearly hit her head on the lid.  The blue furry doctor in front of her backed away, continuing, "I did not mean to disturb you; I will return at another time."

 

"No, Hank, wait!" she sputtered, reaching out a hand to him and brushing back strands of black hair that had escaped from her ever-present braid.  "I thought you were Logan," she said sheepishly.

 

Hank raised his eyebrows slightly and stepped back closer to her.  "You and Logan are not on speaking terms at the moment, I gather."

 

Smiling ruefully, Mercy averted her gaze to the heavy costumes in the trunk.  "You might say that," she agreed.  "He's mad at me for interfering in his life."

 

Nodding thoughtfully, Hank settled himself on a nearby chair and put on his best listening face.  Not one to trust easily, Mercy had found herself opening up to Hank McCoy's steady gentility.  While everyone in the mansion was rightfully concerned about Logan's reaction to discovering a twin sister, Hank was the only one who had ever taken time to inquire as to how said sister was handling the reunion.

 

At first, she'd brushed him off sharply, irritable to the extreme as a result of the tumultuous mess her emotions were in.  He'd taken no offense at her rebuffs and had continued his polite inquiries.  Finally, one day, she'd looked up at him with defeated, haunted eyes and confessed that she wondered if finding Logan hadn't been a mistake.  Hank had nodded, put an arm around her shoulder, and comforted her.

 

Since then, she had accepted his attempts at conversation gratefully and had even begun shyly seeking him out when things inside her head got too painful to deal with by herself.  This, she realized as she blew wisps of hair out of her face, was one of those times.

 

"I... I can't seem to break the habit, though.  I always told him what I thought he should do, and while he never really liked it, he was at least used to it then.  He hasn't had anyone telling him what to do for twenty years now..."  She trailed off, sitting back on her haunches and folding her hands in her lap, uncharacteristic uncertainty emanating from her in waves.

 

Hank leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder.  "It is a good thing you found him," he told her quietly.  The dark eyes she turned up to him were filled with doubt and pain.  "Logan is a complicated man, but he values family above everything else.  I know he does not regret that you found him."

 

"He wants answers, Hank," she told him, her voice rough.  "He wants to know what happened to him, with the experiments... he hasn't said so, but I know he hopes I'll tell him."

 

"Do you know what happened?"

 

She closed her eyes and turned her face away, grimacing in pain.  "Yeah.  I know.  A lot better than I want to."  She opened her eyes again and looked back to Hank, and the other mutant shivered at the agony he saw in her expression.  "I just don't know if I can tell him."

 

Beast considered this silently for a moment before bringing his hand up as if to touch her face.  She didn't flinch, but at the last moment, he dropped it to his leg.  He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment in her eyes, but he cleared his throat and asked softly, "Do you think you can tell me?"

 

Her lips parted in shock, but she rolled the idea around in her mind and finally turned, closing the lid to the trunk.  Hank thought she was going to leave it at that, but she settled cross-legged on the trunk lid and started recounting to him the story of how she'd lost her brother.

 

***

 

"I don't like him," Logan growled, looking up at his sister as she came breezing into their house with a wicked grin on her red-smeared lips.  Her lipstick was actually on every part of her face and throat except her lips, and the smell that followed her in made Logan's nostrils flare with disgust.

 

"Well I ain't plannin' on marryin' him," Mercy tossed at him, glancing into the mirror to wipe at some of the red streaks on her face.  "He's just a temporary amusement."  She paused, her lips curling upwards mischievously.  "And he is definitely amusing."

 

She stopped and turned, looking down at Logan where he sat in a recliner with his feet kicked up, reading.  "You worry too much, baby brother."

 

"You don't worry enough," he growled.

 

Mercy slung her jacket onto a nearby chair and stalked into the kitchen, swinging open the freezer and pulling out a carton of ice cream.  Slamming it down on the counter, she grabbed a spoon and dug in.  "Logan, I'm nearly three hundred years old.  I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself, so fuck off!"

Logan threw his book down and kicked the foot rest out of the way, standing up so quickly he overturned the recliner.  "I think you're doing enough of that for both of us," he snarled.  "Does this pretty boy of yours know about your claws?  Does he?  And what about the healing factor?"

 

"No!  Does it matter?  I'm only using him for sex, Logan - this isn't a lifetime commitment!"

 

"I'm not talking about marriage!" he roared.  "I'm talking about the fact that he smells bad!  That if he ever DOES find out, he'll probably sell you to a traveling circus or a science lab!"  He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her roughly and making the spoon clatter across the kitchen floor.  "THINK, Mercy!  I don't want to see you dead!"

 

She jerked out of his grip sharply and threw an angry punch that caught him in the chin.  He glared at her and worked his jaw for a second before touching it gingerly with one of his fingers.  For a moment, fear and regret flickered into her eyes, but they were gone instantly.

 

"You're being a goddamn fucking idiot, Mercy," he said in a low voice before he stalked out of the room.

 

She watched him leave and drew in a shaky breath before leaning down to pick up the spoon.  She rinsed it off in the sink and went back to her ice cream, taking slow, thoughtful bites of the creamy chocolate.  What bothered her the most was the thought that Logan was probably right -- and she hated to admit it.

 

***

 

"When's your birthday?"

 

Mercy paused only slightly as she snapped her bra and tugged her shirt back on over her head.  "I don't know; I never pay attention to my birthday," she said smoothly, turning to give her lover an enigmatic smile.

 

She'd been screwing this one -- what was his name?  Michael? -- for a couple of weeks now, and he'd been good so far.  No personal talk, just heated flesh and energy that helped distract her from her life, particularly the length of it.  There was something deeply frightening about realizing one would probably never die, and she found the thought intruding on her mind more and more often lately.  Thus the need for Michael.  Or whoever else was handy to keep her mind off the matter.

 

"Oh, c'mon, everybody pays attention to their birthday," he persisted, lounging naked on the bed, a lit cigarette dangling lazily from his hand.  When she only smiled tightly at him and didn't respond, he continued, "I'll bet your brother knows when it is."

 

"I don't have a brother," she lied quickly, but she knew the flash of panic in her eyes had given her away.

 

"Huh," he murmured, taking a slow drag on his cigarette.  "I could've sworn you did."

 

"Nope, no parents either."  Snatching her car keys off his dresser, she headed toward the door, trying not to appear to be in a hurry. 

 

"See you tomorrow," he called after her.

 

"Don't bet on it," she muttered under her breath as the door swung closed behind her and she bolted down the hallway to the stairs and the exit door.

 

Speeding her way home, she prayed to a God who had abandoned her when she was twelve that Logan was home... safe.  She squealed into their driveway, throwing the car into park and killing the engine.  She burst through the front door, tearing the lock loose from the wood, shouting his name hoarsely.

 

There was no answer and she panicked, finally taking in the state of disarray the living room was in: the furniture was destroyed and the book Logan had been reading was flung against the far wall, looking like it had been through a shredder.  She went limp in shock and felt the door slip out of her hand and slam shut.  Startled, she turned to glance at it.

 

There, melodramatically pinned to the wooden surface with a letter opener, was a scrawling note -- "Happy Birthday."

 

***

Tracking them took longer than she would have liked because she had to do it on foot rather than in a car, and the heavy smells of the city at times nearly covered the trail.  But always she could smell Logan's fear and pain, and the red haze in her brain grew thicker with each passing mile.  Eventually it led her to an apparently abandoned warehouse near the railroad tracks, down a well-hidden service elevator shaft, and straight into something out of a bad conspiracy theory movie.  Quickly ducking into the shadows behind a stack of crates, she watched as Michael -- dressed in a white lab coat -- conferred with a four-star general, clinking champagne glasses with him. 

 

"It truly is astounding, what we've accomplished," the general said smugly.  "Is the tracking device secure, then?"

 

"Oh of course," Michael nodded.  A malicious smirk crossed his lips and he joked, "Our experiment has been tagged and released."

 

"And what of his sister?"

 

"We'll have her soon enough," Michael answered confidently.  "From our surveillance we've learned that she is fiercely protective of her brother.  She'll most likely find him as soon as possible... and since we're tracking him, we'll know immediately.  Capturing her should be no problem once we find her.  I have no doubt that, with a few adjustments, she will make an amazingly efficient weapon."

"And if she finds us first?"

Arrogantly, Michael took a long swig of his champagne and assured the general, "She won't."

***

The only problem Mercy could foresee was time management.  However, she decided the general could be tracked easily, as he was leaving a rather clumsy trail even from the warehouse.  That left her plenty of time to deal with Michael.  She'd show him who needed "adjustments."

 

She tracked him to his new apartment -- he was at least smart enough to leave the old one immediately -- and staked it out for a few days, stalking him, learning everything about his routine, waiting for an opening.  She was patient and she didn't need sleep.  If she found herself bordering on exhaustion in the early morning hours, she would sit cross-legged on the ground and quietly meditate for a few hours until she was refreshed.

 

Finally, on the fourth day, it happened.  He was alone in his garden, talking on his cell phone, apparently checking on the status and location of his "experiment."  He was distracted, off his guard, and most of all, overconfident that he couldn't be found.

 

Soundlessly, Mercy crept up behind him and wrapped her arm around his midsection.  His shout of fear gurgled to an abrupt end when she released her claws into the left side of his abdomen and pulled them straight across.

 

His entrails fell out into her hand and she caught them, slipping around front so he could see her eyes as she sliced them off neatly and began looping them around her hand.  His eyes were beginning to dull quickly so she stepped up the pace, slipping the loop over his head and pulling the intestines tight around his neck.  She lifted him up and hanged him from a nearby rose trellis.  His eyes were still barely focused on her, so she leaned in and whispered triumphantly, "Happy Birthday to you too, dear."

 

***

 

The general lived, but only long enough to wake up to find his wife lying lifeless beside him in a pool of warm, sticky blood.  His terrified scream was cut short as three bone claws raked across his throat, severing the windpipe along with the jugular in one clean swipe.  Names and addresses of others involved in the Weapon X project were found and the owners similarly disposed of.

 

In one single winter, the Canadian snow bore the bloodstains of twenty different men and some of their families.  A Demon Killer was on the loose, but they never caught her and she was relegated to the Canadian equivalent of the X-files.  She smirked.  Of course they couldn’t find her; as always, they were looking for a white male, aged 30-35, in prime physical condition with above-average intelligence.  It never crossed their minds to search for a petite female, closing in on her 300^th birthday, with blood to avenge.

 

Finding her brother was harder than she had anticipated.  He had always been the better of the two at tracking, and when he didn’t want to be found, he could almost literally disappear; not to mention the fact that she hadn't been able to find the receiving end of their tracking equipment and had no idea how they kept tabs on him.  It didn’t matter; she was determined to find him, and most of all, she knew him.  She was counting on the possibility that the experiments hadn’t changed the core Logan…otherwise, she was fucked. 

 

When she started hearing stories about an unbeatable cage fighter making the Canadian circuit who went by the handle “Wolverine,” Mercy knew she’d found her man.  Over the years, the Logan she'd known had grown into someone who, when pushed, was a terror to face off against.  Add that to the fact that he'd been recreated as the ultimate weapon...well, there was nobody else it could be.

 

He never followed the same path twice, though, and anticipating his next move turned out to be nearly impossible.  Finally, after nearly fifteen years on his trail, she got a concrete lead.  As luck would have it, she was in Vancouver when her contacts informed her that the Wolverine was fighting in Laughlin City, all the way across the continent, and would probably be there for a couple more days.

 

She made it in record time, but it wasn’t fast enough.  The bar owner didn’t want to talk about it, said something about the man she was looking for being nothing but trouble.  Everything in her wanted to pop the claws and gut the man for talking about her brother that way, but she figured they didn’t need a repeat performance.  Instead, she nodded, gave him the number to the cellphone she’d taken to carrying around, a couple of hundred Canadian dollars and said she was a secret agent on the Wolverine’s trail, and if he heard anything more concerning his whereabouts, could he please give her a ring?

 

The owner nodded and said he’d be more than happy to do just that—and by the way, was she aware that he’d taken a young girl from the bar with him when he’d left?  Her bein’ a secret agent and all, maybe she’d like to know in case it fit with any missing persons alert.  A pretty young thing like that was most definitely bein’ missed back home.

 

With an arched eyebrow and an extra fifty bucks, Mercy told him no, she hadn’t been aware, but thanks for the tip.  Inwardly, she couldn’t help but wonder what they’d done to her brother.

 

***

 

“He just dropped off the radar after that,” she sighed.  “I followed the X-Men a little ‘cause there tended to be suspicious descriptions of some of the damage left in their wake…y’know, marks that sounded a little claw-like.  But joinin’ a cause didn’t seem like his thing; we’d always laid low, you know, tryin’ not to draw too much attention to ourselves.”

 

Hank nodded thoughtfully.  “I can see how that would be one’s tendency in your situation,” he agreed.

 

“Anyway, I kept hangin’ around here, hopin’ he’d just settled down somewhere close by and thinkin’ that word would eventually get around if he had that young girl living with him.  Every year that went by I knew I had less of a chance, as she’d be getting older, but I lucked out one day.  I stopped in at a custom glove-makers to have my leather gloves repaired, and there were two girls in there.”

 

“Rogue and a friend, I would venture to assume.”

 

“You would be correct.  Rogue was buying a new pair of gloves, and her friend, that Jubilee girl, was rambling on and on about how ‘Wolvie’ would just ‘go postal’ over her new gloves when she showed him.”  Mercy smiled wryly.  “Of course my ears perked up, but I knew I’d struck gold when Rogue blushed and said, ‘Logan probably won’t even notice my gloves, Jubes; he’s got his eyes glued to Jean’s ass.’”

 

Hank managed to muffle his snort of laughter in an impromptu cough, and Mercy grinned wickedly.  “Aside from the name thing, I knew that sounded like my brother.  So I followed them back here.”  She shrugged eloquently.  “I underestimated the security, tripped the alarms, and started the fight that led me to my brother.  The rest is history.”

 

“Indeed,” Dr. McCoy said thoughtfully.  He stroked his chin and regarded her carefully.  “So you

have already … disposed of … all the men involved in Logan’s … operation?”

 

“Yeah.  He probably won’t be happy to hear that either.  Knowing Logan, he was probably looking forward to doing it himself.”

 

“I imagine your assessment is correct.  He might view it as having been robbed of his revenge… but on the other hand, as they say, he could see it as a blessing.  Now his obligations to avenge his past are fulfilled.”

 

“I hope he doesn’t want the details of the procedure,” she whispered.  “I found them, in the files that the general had in his office… they were awful, Hank.  I nearly cried reading them.  I don’t want to have to tell him…I don’t want to have to remember.”

 

This time, Hank went through with his gesture and stroked her face gently with one blue furry paw before brushing wayward strands of hair behind her ear.  “I am afraid I have no advice for you on that matter, Mercy,” he said softly.

 

“It’s all right, Hank,” she answered, her nose turning slightly red as she fought to keep back tears.  “You don’t have to.  Just listening has helped a lot.  I might be able to tell him now.”  She smiled weakly, and Hank pressed a kiss to her forehead as he got up to leave.

 

“If you need anything at all, you always know where to find me,” he told her as he walked out the door.  Mercy sat open-mouthed on the lid of the trunk, watching the empty doorway long after he’d disappeared.

 

***

 

“Are you staying?” Logan wanted to know after he’d given them both time to collect themselves.  Mercy opened her eyes in surprised and regarded him suspiciously from across the room.  “What?”

 

“You’re just going to sit there and calmly ask me if I’m staying after everything I just told you?” she asked incredulously.  “You’re not going to…I don’t know, march around and break things and yell for a little while?”

 

”Nah, I’ll do that later,” he said with a slight smile.  “I think I’m in shock right now.  Hasn’t quite hit me yet.”

 

She snorted.  “You’re mental, Logan.  Absolutely mental.”

 

“So, are you staying?”

 

She glanced at him with haunted eyes.  “I don’t know,” she told him honestly.

 

“Hm.”  He seemed to consider that for a few minutes, then switched gears so quickly Mercy was almost completely thrown.  “You weren’t serious about pursuing Rogue, were you.”

 

It wasn’t a question, but Mercy shook her head anyway.  “No, no I wasn’t.”  She smiled a little.  “Not that I haven’t occasionally…well, nevermind.  What clued you in?”

The look he gave her was pure impish affection, and she felt her heart quicken as the face he’d grown into for twenty years, the haggard Wolverine face, split to reveal Logan, the brother she’d loved for so long.  “I have my ways,” he teased.  “I know your favorite color.”

 

”What?  I completely lost you there, baby brother.”

 

He just grinned at her as he rose from his seat.  “Your favorite color.  Blue.”  He winked.  “If you decide to leave, tell me before you go.  I’ll be in the woods out back…breaking things.  And yelling.”

 

She waited until his back was turned to her and stuck out her tongue childishly.  Then a thought hit her and she called out just before he completely disappeared through the door.  “Hey Logan!”

”Yeah?”

 

“I know your favorite color too.  And I was> serious about that.”

He just growled at her softly and left her alone in the library.  She watched him leave and tried hard not to burst into laughter.  He was so gone.

 

***

 

“How’s Logan doing?”

 

Rogue’s head snapped up from the book she was reading.  “Hi, Mercy,” she said.  “He’s doin’ all right, as far as I can tell.  He’s been spendin’ a lot of time by himself, in the woods and stuff.  I think that’s a good sign, though; means he’s dealin’ with it.”

 

“You know my brother pretty well, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Rogue admitted.  “Sometimes I don’t know what the hell he’s thinkin’.”  She tapped the side of her head and grinned.  “Even havin’ him in my head don’t help much; he won’t tell me nothin’.”

 

Mercy grinned.  “I probably won’t be staying here long, but I wanted to talk to you before I leave.”

 

Rogue tilted her head curiously.  “But we’d be more than happy to have ya stay,” she protested.  “I’m sure Logan especially would.”

 

Mercy shook her head.  “I don’t think I can do that, Rogue, as much as I appreciate it.  I’m used to

livin’ on my own now…this whole… team thing isn’t my scene.”

 

Rogue smirked.  “That’s what Logan said the second time he left.  And the third.  And the fourth.”

 

Mercy chuckled softly.  “And who knows; maybe I’ll be back.  After all, my brother is here, and I have a feeling I could find some friends here…”  Her eyes grew distant for a moment before she focused on Rogue again.  “But I wanted to have a talk with you anyway.”

 

Rogue nodded gamely.  “Shoot.  What’s it about?”

 

“Well, Logan.  I don’t know how you feel about him—“ she grinned as Rogue’s cheeks brightened, “although I have my suspicions—but I know my baby brother, and I know how he feels about you.”

 

Rogue’s eyes were at once hopeful and fearful, and looking at her, Mercy knew that in the young woman lay one of the friends she thought she could find at the mansion.  It was almost enough to make her want to stay…but she needed time on her own, out on the road, to adjust to the idea of giving up her solitary lifestyle.  The time would come, she was sure, when she would come back here and try to find a place within the halls of the mansion.  Until then, she had a little woman-to-woman advice to give.

 

“I know he gives off a womanizing image,” Mercy began, “but he’s a closet romantic.  Always has been.  I even caught him reading Byron once, although he’d gut both of us if he ever knew I told you.”  She winked.  “My point is, he’s had it in his head for a long time that he would one day find the perfect mate.  It’s probably still a goal of his, although he may or may not be consciously aware of it, depending on how much of what they left in his brain.”  She growled softly at the thought before continuing.  “If I know my brother at all…something inside of him thinks you’re that perfect mate.”

 

She held up a hand to forestall Rogue’s protest.  “I know he doesn’t act like it, and it’s only because he’s a prude.”  She laughed.  “Well, in some ways, anyway.  He’s got this hang-up about his age…especially now that he has a number to attach to it…and he’ll probably never get around to getting over it without a little…help.”

 

Mercy had to give Rogue points for the wickedness of her grin and the non-hesitation with which she jumped on the tidbit.  “You got any advice?”

 

“Do I ever.”

The one thought in Mercy’s mind was that, could Logan have seen the gleam in Rogue’s eyes, he probably would have stayed hidden in the woods for the rest of his life.  “Let’s have it.”

 

***

Several Months Later…

 

“I promise you’ll like it.  C’mon, please?  Just try one?”

 

”I do not see the necessity in sampling this confection, Mercy.”

”Oh, you big baby.  You’re just scared you’ll like it better than you do Twinkies.  Now c’mon, for me.  Take a bite.”

 

Logan grinned as he walked into the kitchen to see his sister holding a sno-ball to Hank’s mouth, pink-dyed coconut flakes already clinging to her lips.  She’d discovered the treat herself a few weeks ago and had promptly fallen in love with the cream-filled chocolate cake coated with marshmallow and coconut dyed such a bright pink Logan knew it had to be toxic.  She’d been trying unsuccessfully to get Hank to taste her new obsession ever since her first bite…and from the look on the good doctor’s face, Logan thought she might just be winning today.

 

Rogue, who had been sitting on the counter and watching the proceedings for a good fifteen minutes, giving Hank and Mercy an audience to play to (which they were, quite shamelessly), caught Logan’s eye across the room and winked.  He winked back, and her heart swelled at the affection on his face.  Affection for his sister…and for her.  It turned out Hank had been right all along – it was a very, very good thing that Mercy had found her brother again.  She’d never seen Logan so centered, so… content. 

According to Mercy, this was what he’d been like Before.  He’d been the steady one, the romantic, the still water.  (Still waters ran deep, didn’t they.  And slightly dark…)  He’d been the strong one, the one Mercy counted on to keep her grounded when she went off into her unpredictable rages.  Not that he couldn’t rage himself – in fact, when he finally got around to getting mad, he was worse than Mercy was on the worst days of PMS.  Mercy had said that jokingly, but Rogue had seen the look in her eyes and had her own experiences to back it up – Logan truly pissed was Logan coldly and calculatingly homicidal.  In other words, Dangerous.

 

Their theory was that, deprived of the unpredictability that was Mercy, Logan had unconsciously compensated…much the same way Mercy had settled her temper into grooves of cold calculation.  They’d always complimented each other…and apart, they’d been forced to turn into each other for survival.  But together again, they were free to be themselves…and it suited them.  It suited them very well.

 

Many of the lines of stress and worry had disappeared from both their faces as Logan had become more at ease and Mercy had happily slipped back into her native whimsy with such enthusiasm she was giving Jubilee a run for her money.

 

And Hank and Rogue were reaping some serious benefits.  She smiled as Logan crossed the kitchen, beer in hand, and settled between her thighs, leaning back against her, his back to her chest, absently caressing the thin metal band on her left hand as they watched Hank sigh and give in to Mercy’s pleading…but back out before actually taking a bite.  The day Mercy had left – and she had indeed gone, just as she’d said she would – was one Rogue would always remember.

 

Mercy had said her private goodbyes to Logan first, and then to Rogue…and Rogue suspected she’d had a private goodbye with Hank as well.  While the entire team was lining up to say their goodbyes to Mercy by the driveway (a sight which made the twins cringe, because even Before, they’d never been big on crowds…mighta had somethin’ to do with that lynch mob back in Massachusetts) Rogue had gone off in search of Logan armed with her new Wolverine-catching hints, gleaned from his oh-so-accommodating sister.

 

She’d found him, in the woods, burning off some steam by harmlessly stalking a few wild animals.  He wasn’t in the mood to kill…just seeing if he could catch them.  She’d leaned against a tree a few yards away, watching the play of his muscles under the skin of his back, and recited calmly, quietly, “Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high…It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. …It was very quiet there…  The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start.”

 

He’d started, and stared at her for a moment.  “Conrad.”

Mercy had told her a little secret – Logan had read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness probably a million times.  Literally.  He had it memorized.  Knew it by heart, forward and backward.  It was what he’d been reading the day they’d taken him…

 

She nodded.   Yes, Conrad.

 

His mouth had gaped open for a full five seconds before he managed to say softly, “Joseph Conrad.  Heart of Darkness.  I…I loved that book…I…remember.”  His eyes had grown wide with wonder and he’d looked at her like she was a goddess.  She remembered the way her heart had broken, wondering if she’d somehow cheated, if maybe, just maybe, she’d done the wrong thing.  That thought had been erased as he strode toward her, his legs moving in such long, quick strides he was almost running, and crushed her to his chest.

 

“I remember,” he’d whispered into her hair.  “Oh God…I remember.  Thank you…thank you.”  He’d pulled back and looked at her, his eyes suddenly serious.  “I don’t suppose girls like you come along all the time, do they?” he’d whispered. 

 

Overwhelmed by his emotion, she had only been able to shake her head and whisper back, “Only ‘bout once every three hundred years or so.”

 

He’d barked out a short laugh and clutched her to him again.  “I don’t think I have the patience to wait for the next one to come along, darlin’,” he’d told her, still chuckling.  “So would you mind if I just sorta stuck around with you?”

 

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” she’d told him, smiling brilliantly.  “In fact, I think I’d kinda like it.”

 

“Would you…would you like it enough to marry me?”  Her jaw had literally dropped, and he’d hurried to reassure her.  “I mean… you wouldn’t have to right now, or anytime soon, or at all for that matter… but … I was just thinkin’, I’d kinda like to stick around forever.  If that’s okay with you, that is.”

 

His name had escaped her in a gasp – a prayer – and she’d thrown her arms around him.  “Of course.  Of course it’s okay with me.”

 

They’d spent a few moments reveling in this new feeling before rejoining the others.  They walked up just in time to hear the faint roar of a motorcycle, and Logan – firmly grasping Rogue’s hand in his own – had questioned, “Mercy’s gone?”  Jean had nodded, and Rogue had squeezed his hand as a flash of disappointment flickered in his eyes.

 

They’d all turned to go back inside, but Logan stopped, by default stopping Rogue as well, and cocked his head.  “It’s getting louder.”

”Huh?”

 

He turned around and faced the road again.  “She’s coming back.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure she’s planning on coming back someday,” Scott had begun, but Rogue shook her head at him as Logan shushed him.

 

”No, she’s coming back now,” he insisted, and they had all stopped and turned as Mercy’s motorcyle had come roaring up the driveway.  She’d skidded to a stop and thrown off her helmet, leaping from the bike.  Her eyes were fixed on one goal as she practically flew over the asphalt, and Logan had grinned broadly as he watched his sister practically tackle Dr. Henry McCoy.

“I knew blue was her favorite color,” he’d chuckled to himself, pulling Rogue closer and tucking her under his arm.  “I knew it.”

 

Since then, he’d begun re-reading Heart of Darkness, interrupting himself every few pages – sometimes every few sentences – to tell his new fiancée the memories that the words triggered.  “I read this for the first time when I was two hundred and eighteen years old,” he would laugh.  Then a few minutes later – “I remember this part – ‘he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man’ – it reminded me of Mercy.  She said it reminded her of me.”  Then one night –“Rogue—Marie—come here.  I want you to read this.”

 

She’d come, of course, to see what he wanted.  He was reading, yet again, and was near the end of the book.  “Here,” he said, pointing.  It was a passage much-marked and obviously well-loved, and she sat down on the arm of his chair, determined to get comfortable.  He was sharing a part of himself, and she wanted to be sure she got it all.  “Read it out loud,” he requested softly.

 

She couldn’t say no.  “’His last word – to live with,’ she insisted.  ‘Don’t you understand I loved him—I loved him—I loved him!’

 

“I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.

 

“’The last word he pronounced was—your name.’”

 

 

She’d looked up and met his eyes then, blazing bright hot hazel.  She hadn’t gotten that far in the book yet.  She didn’t know who the “she” was; she had only a marginal guess at the “he,” and was relieved to know that the “I” was Marlow.  But she didn’t need to know anything at all to get that passage, or why he’d wanted her to read it.

 

“It’ll be your name,” he said slowly.  “God help me, however long it takes me to die…it will be your name.”  She hadn’t been able to say anything and had mentally cursed her mutation then more hotly than she ever had because she couldn’t just lean down and kiss him furiously.  But he’d continued.  “Marry me tonight.  Please.  We could go down to—“

 

“Yes.”

 

And so they had.

 

And now, watching as Hank finally took a bite out of the sno-ball that Mercy held before him, humming appreciatively (to Mercy's unending satisfaction), Rogue smiled and ran her fingers through her husband’s hair, thinking to herself that it probably wouldn’t be much longer before Hank and Mercy had rings to match, as well.

 

Remembering the story Logan had told her of how they’d come to have their names, Rogue fought back tears as a prayer of thanks formed itself in her heart:  You did have mercy, Father.  On her…on him…on all of us.  Thank you.

 

 xXxXxXx

 

 THE END