A series by November
A series by November
Chapter 80: Comfort
“Morning smiles,
Two weeks after she lost the baby, Marie got a visitor. Judy Pileggi dropped Billy off for class, then came up to their suite.
Marie had been eating and bathing, but she had lost weight nonetheless. She had been doing a lot of walking around the grounds, only so Logan wouldn’t nag her about holing up in bed. She was sitting in front of the TV when the knock came.
“Come in,” she said, expecting Jubie or Jean or Carter.
It was Judy Pileggi. “Hi.” she said, surprised to see her.
“Hi Marie. We’ve missed you on campus.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Judy didn’t like that nasty sarcasm. "What had happened to you upset a lot of students."
Judy sat opposite her on the couch without being invited.
“I’m not coming back,” Rogue said. “Not this semester, anyway.”
“I know. And I don’t give a shit about that. I’m here as your friend, not your teacher.”
Rogue just looked at her. She waited for the lecture, that she needed to get up and do things, to stop moping. She had heard it in one form or another from everyone.
“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s my fault.”
“Bullshit.”
“How the hell would you know?“ Rogue lashed out. “You weren’t there. You don’t know everything!” She felt a sudden horrible disbelief that she was screaming at her thesis advisor, probably burning the biggest bridge of her academic career, and at that moment she didn't care. But Judy was calm.
“I know that baby was everything to you and that you’d sooner die than let anything happen to him.”
“I didn’t though, did I?”
“No you didn’t, and it’s a good thing too, because you dying would help no one.”
“I’m trained to deal with situations like that. I’m the best fighter this school has ever had. I should have taken him without...”
“Bullshit.”
“Will you stop saying that?” Rogue yelled.
“I’ll stop saying it if you stop slinging it.”
This filled Rogue with rage. She bolted up from the couch and paced. She felt for one terrifying second as if she would deck Dr. Pileggi and it scared her.
“What do you want me to say, huh? What the hell does everyone want from me?” Rogue said. “What is it that you came here for?”
“Just to be here for you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Rogue said, tears coming to her eyes. “I don’t know what to do or to say. It’s this...emptiness inside me. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, you know, but it just never ends.” She sank down on the couch. Judy scooted closer and wrapped her arms around Rogue who just sobbed. It was one of the rare times that Judy shut up. She just held her.
Rogue’s own mother was at the back of her thoughts as she cried. Her own mother, who should have been there for her, who instead was rattling around the old house on twenty-fifth street, waiting for her husband to get out of jail.
Finally she stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. A little rage never hurt anyone.”
“Still.”
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Not really?”
“Come on. I’m taking you to lunch.”
“But Maggie-”
“Don’t worry about it. I saw Logan on my way up here. He knows I‘m taking you out.”
So she let Judy take her out to lunch. They went to Lou’s and ate fajitas and Judy told her about the students and faculty who had come to her office to inquire about Rogue. She told her that she was a role model for other students.
Rogue snorted, but Judy told her about a freshman girl with a mutation who had spoken to her about Rogue. When she had been taunted in her dorm she had wanted to pack up and go home, but then she read Marie’s rebuttal in the WCC Times, and felt that if Marie could do it, she could do it. So she stayed, and was now a sophmore.
“No way,” Rogue said.
“Yes way. I don’t think you have any idea how many people look up to you. When I told Dean Jeffries about the little ‘study’ you did on Dr. Khan’s grading system he was delighted. He’s liked you from the start, and he’s never been known to be a mutant sympathizer.”
“I just feel... that day, everything felt so hostile.”
“Tell me about it,” she said gently, the shrink in her beginning to assert itself.
“It was... I haven’t felt right all semester. First Maggie got meningitis and all I could think of was her dying. The exact same day I had morning sickness and... we were thrilled about the baby, but I just felt sick and tired all the time, you know.”
“Oh, I do.”
“And then this, and I just feel like, why bother?”
“I can understand that.”
“And then, after that guy... he was laying there dead on the floor and I was there in the corner. And I just felt so... cold. I was there curled up all fetal and all the good things, Logan and all of it, they seemed so far away. I felt so alone, even though I’m not. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Pregnancy hormones are a bitch. I’ve been there. When you’re puking every five minutes, it’s hard to not be depressed.”
“I guess that’s what I am. What I was. I still am. I force myself to do things. I don’t enjoy anything. I sleep all day.”
“And you’ve lost weight. You’re clinically depressed, Marie. You have all the symptoms.”
“I know." She snorted. “I remember having this same discussion with Logan.”
“Really?”
“Logan’s got really bad PTSD. They experimented on him in a lab.”
“Oh my god. Is he feeling any better?”
“The meds helped with the flashbacks a little. I can’t see me talking to a shrink. No offense.”
“None taken. I’m not your shrink.” Judy grinned.
Judy dropped Rogue off back at the mansion, and she felt a bit better. She wandered down to the medlab to see Jeannie, Rakim, and Hank. They were working on their latest batch of electrophoresis films and they looked up, surprised to see her.
“Everything okay?”
“Just getting a little stir crazy up there. What are you guys doin’?”
When Logan and Maggie came upstairs she said “Hey, let’s go get dinner and a movie tonight.” Logan and Maggie looked at each other and quickly agreed.
It wasn’t a total turnaround. At bedtime Marie still felt like crying, and did. But it was an improvement.
After, she recounted her visit with Dr. Pileggi to Logan. He gently wiped away her tears and stroked her hair and said “did it help you to talk to her?”
“Yeah. She told me that a lot of people were upset about my being attacked. She said that a lot of people looked up to me.”
“I could have told you that, Marie.”
“I just felt so… cold, you know.”
“I know.” He idly stroked her hair. “If you wanna finish up in the summer, I’ll go with you.”
“That’s okay, love. You’ve got classes.”
“I can drop them. Chuck can get someone else. You’re more important.”
“No, I’m gonna go back and give them the message that they can’t intimidate me. That I can hold my own... Although, I guess I couldn’t.”
Logan sighed in frustration, with a hint of growl. “Not this again, Marie.”
“I know, I know. I was physically incapacitated. And I know I can’t blame myself, I just...”
“Remember that day you were in the medlab with Cody and you were telling him that you’d make him a deal, that you’d drop your guilt for hurting him if he’d drop his for not knowing that’d attack him and Kayla?” He threaded his fingers through hers.
“Yeah.”
“Why are you the only one that doesn’t take your own advice?”
“That’s harsh.”
“No, darlin’, it’s true.”
She was silent and he knew he had her.
After a few minutes she said “I want him back. It just hurts so damn much.” She crumpled up into tears. He held her and rubbed her back.
“I know, darlin’. I want him back too. I was so ready for him.”
She pulled back and looked at him. “Really?”
“Yes, really. But I don’t care if it means you’re okay. I’d have flipped the switch myself, to save you.”
“Really?”
“It would have killed me to do it, but I would have, to save you.”
She was quiet for a few long minutes, feeling his hand moving on her back. This was a revelation. It had been her decision and hers alone, but knowing that he'd make the same choice helped. It was if she were crushed under a huge weight and now he was helping her hold it up. She didn't feel so alone.
“I just think... when it will stop hurting?”
“I don’t know either, baby.”
“You’re crying.”
“Of course I am. I almost lost you.” He kissed her gently on her lips, lingering. “And Jeannie says there’s no reason we can’t try again. You and I are gonna have lots of little stubborn hellraising rugrats.”
She laughed through her tears. “Logan...”
“What?”
“I love you so much.”
like the face of a newborn child
innocent, unknowing.
Winter's end,
promises of a long lost friend
speaks to me of comfort...”
--Sarah McLachlan
