Pieces of Your Soul: Part Four

by Kerri

The curtain fell for the last time, the house lights went up. Charlotte reached down for her shoes, not realizing she'd kicked them under her chair.

"Lotta." The Italian diminutive of her name caught her attention, rather appropriate as they had just seen an Italian opera. She looked up into Cable's eyes. He'd managed to manuever Hank into assisting Xavier now, the two had already exited the booth to a side entrance where the car waited.

"Lost my shoes," she admitted with a smile.

He knelt down beside her chair and pulled the offending articles from underneath. She reached for them, but he held them back. "Allow me."

He slid one warm hand around her ankle and lifted her foot, slipping the shoe on. He did the same for the other foot. She didn't wear stockings, his touch was smooth, disturbing.

His familiarity with her made her uneasy. "You know me. When?"

He took her hand in his, still kneeling by her. "A long time from now. When I was younger."

"I don't quite understand."

"I know. I used to think about seeing you when I grew older, wondering if you would be different, if I would perceive you differently. I never thought it would be in the past."

"Well, I can't comment on either condition. I haven't been there yet. You have an unfair advantage here."

"You had all the advantages the last time." One side of his mouth curled up. "Including all the underhanded chess moves. You made me earn my defeats."

She smiled and touched his face. "May I?"

He nodded and opened his shields a little, feeling the gentle presence he remembered from the years past. She didn't explore his mind, just 'absorbed' his essence. Her eyes closed as the emotions he held in check washed over her. Leaning forward, she touched his lips with hers in a brief caress.

She withdrew from his mind and his person. <You are my friend,> she stated simply.

<Always,> he answered. He moved to his feet and took her hand, drawing her against him. <I think I'm hungry. What do you say to some ice cream?>

<With hot fudge? Whipped cream?>

They exited the building and were in the car when he laughed at her eager acceptance of his suggestion. Hot fudge! Really laughed. It startled Xavier and Hank. That made him laugh even louder. He wasn't supposed to have humor.

Charlotte shook her head at him. There was nothing funny about hot fudge.

The apartment was dark when she and Hank entered. Due to the late hour, Xavier and Cable refused her offer of coffee and went directly to the roof. Bishop was already up there, the others had left hours before in the second runabout.

All but Logan. He waited in a dark corner of the library, still staring at the portrait over the mantle, mulling over what little information Thomas had been able give him. His friends hadn't cared to stay in the same house with him, not when he was so explosive. Thomas assured them everything was fine, he would take care of the situation. Bishop considered staying anyway, but had to concede to Thomas' wishes. She could take care of herself.

She flipped on a light and removed her wrap, drapping it over a chair. Thomas appeared at the top of the stairs. He had been waiting up, his hair was braided for sleep and he wore the exercise shorts he slept in. "Did you have a good time?"

"We did. You missed out."

"We had our own excitement around here. Saved some for you, it's in the library. Hank, you'll want to go to bed."

Henry looked up at him. The man's words were light, the look on his face wasn't. "Goodnight, dear lady," he kissed her hand. "Thank you for a wonderful evening."

"Goodnight Hank. See you in the morning." Thomas' odd words went right over her head. She felt old tonight. Dealing with the past was hard enough at times, every contact taking a piece of her soul, few ever giving any in return. The realities of Bishop and Nathan may well do her in, she was going to have to deal with them sooner or later. She wondered if there was any part of her left in the future, or if all she had were pieces of those she'd loved and cared for over the years. There were so few of them.

She slipped off her shoes again and dropped them by the library door. Moving over to the desk, she turned on the small light and sat down, shuffling through the papers Thomas had been editing earlier. She frowned at a few of his markings, one hand absently touching her medallion.

"It is you."

The raspy voice didn't scare her, though she thought briefly she should be scared. "Logan?"

He got up from his chair in the corner and walked to the edge of the light. "I thought ya were just a dream. A nightmare."

"I always knew you were real." Her mind hadn't been playing a trick on her. She had seen him. After all these years.

"I didn' know anythin'. Just felt like I needed to be here, like somethin' was pullin' me here. Didn' know it was this." He dropped the medallion on the desk in front of her.

The gesture sent a sharp pain through her, not wholly emotional. With trembling fingers she tried hard to still, she picked it up, holding the warm metal in her cold hands. Oh, please, not tonight. She'd give the rest of her soul to be free of this.

"For the last 50 years I've been dreamin' about a girl, about you. Dreamin' about a little shack in the middle of nowhere, an' a girl comin' out of a waterfall. Thought it was just somethin' they put in my head to mess me up."

"An' I still kept lookin' for that face, still kept wearin' that thing."

Charlotte sat frozen, letting his words, his hurt and anger flowing over her.

"Ya got nothin' to say?"

"You want to hear what I have to say? Do you, really?" She set the medallion down and reached for her own around her neck. She took it off and set it down next to the other one. The close proximity cause the two to glow with an eerie green light. Her rage began to build, loosening her control. She was going to do something foolish, all the signs were there.

Her words, took him back. Did he want to hear her side of this? He was the one the deception issues here, not her. This intimate stranger had no right to be angry at him. He looked at the two medallions on the desk.

"Or would you rather see what happened? I could show you. Invite you into my nightmares." Her eyes began to glow. She stood up and moved around the desk to stand in front of him, face to face. "You want to see?" Her words ground out, exposing more than her own pain to him. "Do you?!"

"Yeah," he growled at her, gouded into answering. "I want to know."

She took his face in both hands, sending tendrils of power into his mind, storming it, bringing his mouth to hers, taking rough possession of his mind, his body.

Then the icy sensation of falling took him over, droping him into the black bottomless void....

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