Title: Clockworks and Cold Steel
Author: Sare Liz Gordy
EMAIL: TeknoVamp@yahoo.com

Rating: R for mature themes, character death
Archive: list, teknovamp.
Disclaimers: Marie is not mine. The lyrics belong to U2. 'Love is Blindness'. Long live Bono, King of Angst.

Author's Note: Hmm…. Haven't written in a while. This could suck. And, I've been OD'ing on U2, but maybe that's not so bad. Jenn pointed out that the self same lyrics I've quoted here could also be Marie reaching orgasm, so when you hit the end, think of that and I'm sure it'll be cheering.

*****

Love is clockworks and cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel
Squeeze the handle
Blow out the candle
Love is blindness

He was coming home. There was a letter to her and a phone call to Xavier and it was all understood. He was coming home, honestly home, not that this had ever been a home to him, but he obviously thought it could be. He was going to join the team, no great shock, and the Professor had even alluded to him teaching as well. Jubes and Kitty scoffed at that - the only thing they thought he'd be able to teach was phys-ed, but she knew different. There was so much in his mind, so damn much. But it didn't matter much to her now.

Xavier had looked at her then, when he'd called her into his office. Explained what had gone on. She told him about the letter. He didn't look surprised but she could tell he was. How, she didn't like to think about. But she could. And Xavier had looked at her as she sat composed as she usually was these days, mind quiet, body more quiet still, and he had that odd look. He wasn't quite sure if he should say whatever it was he was thinking, but he wanted to, she could tell. She didn't like to think how she knew that either.

"Do you know why Logan is returning?"

"He found something I guess."

"Well, that is for him to tell, but I don't believe he's come to any conclusions. No, he's returning for you."

And something quaked inside of her then, because she honestly couldn't fathom why. She knew him, and she honestly didn't think he'd changed all that much. It takes a hell of a lot to change Logan, you see, big change has to occur. Capital b, capital c. And the letter hadn't said anything about any kind of change. If anything, there was big lack of change, which is just par for the course as far as Logan was concerned.

She thought about it more, but it didn't much matter anyway. Xavier didn't say anything of use and he'd be home in a week and then that would just be that, wouldn't it?

The days slipped by, too. Softly, silently, like silken bits of nothingness that didn't really exist anyway, so why bother even thinking about them?

Metal was like silk. So soft and smooth, so pliable in her fingers. She didn't think people knew about that, but then no one really asked these days. She couldn't do it from afar. She had to touch it, but when she did, it was like butter. No, not like butter. Like silk. Like her days that just slipped past.

She'd made little things at first. Recreating a necklace into a ring. The stolen spoon into a bracelet. One day she'd heard of sailors at sea spending hours and hours turning huge files into knives. Scott had a lovely collection of files in his workshop, but she'd only needed one.

It was simple really. She didn't have much imagination when it came to knives so it was simple, functional, but she liked to think of it as elegant in a way. Long, slim, and very, very sharp. The hilt was just another kind of metal wrapped around it because she didn't think she could work leather the same way she could work the metal when her gloves were off.

It wasn't the form so much as the memories that brought him up. One might think that a blade - any blade - would recall the memories and tendencies of the feral personality inside of her but it was metal before it was a blade and she'd used that gift so very often, called upon the memories for so long that if any one personality were ingrained it wasn't that of the feral one.

He'd used a blade once, before the long talons had manifested. He probably couldn't remember that, but maybe if he got a knife in his hands one day he'd remember the grip, how easily it becomes an extension, how good it feels. Maybe he'd remember. She'd leave the knife for him, when she was done with it. For him, so he could remember.

She didn't remember him very often. People around her thought she did, but in truth their talking about it reminded her more often than not that she supposed she should be pining. He did save her, after all. But she'd felt something and he hadn't and that had hurt, so she'd locked it away with a little help. After all, metal man in a metal cage and metal was her specialty. But sometimes, only sometimes, the metal didn't remind her of who it should. It reminded her of him. And that hurt, so most of the time she would put him back in his metal cage in her mind and seal it up so she couldn't hear him call her name. That hurt the most because it always seemed to her that he sounded like he loved her when he called after her, but she knew it was only in her mind, even if there was a grain of truth to it.

Closer to the day, as its silken friends slipped by, she found herself contemplating herself and her knife and her metal man in his metal cage more often. She rather liked the way it slipped across her skin. It was so natural. With her touch, the metal bent to her will, and with its touch, her skin bent to its. It was so beautiful an irony she enjoyed it. This was the only thing her skin respected, the only thing it bowed down before, something it could still control.

But she did so like not letting her skin control things. She liked to feel the cut. He didn't, though, and she couldn't fathom why. Couldn't he be happy that she'd found this? And usually she just made the metal thicker in his cage, or the other did, and she wouldn't hear him for weeks, but he was coming home, so she decided to let it go.

As he ranted and fought for control she felt the tears slipping down her cheeks. It wasn't that she was upset per se, it was just so difficult maintaining control sometimes, when he said the things he said. Thing she knew could only be true inside of her head, and never on the outside. And that's what hurt, of course. She did like what he was saying, but it wasn't true. It couldn't be. And on the off chance that it was and he wasn't just saying the words to further the argument he was finally having the chance to say, it was always, always, always only in her head.

It really wasn't fair to any of them. She should have sealed him up in the cage again, but she'd felt something. She didn't know what, but it wasn't important now. What was important was this… this… whatever it was she was and had been doing with herself the last few years. It just wasn't important in the grand scheme of things and it wasn't fair to all involved. She clearly - she saw that now, thank you Logan - wasn't living up to her potential, but she couldn't live their lives either, it just wasn't in her. And he was coming home. And he would expect so much. So very much. She realized that now too.

It just wasn't in her to do.

Of course, not much was in her, not anymore. The bath water was nice and warm and it would be hours before anyone would think to bother her. So calm now, so relaxed now that she'd sealed him up in his cage again.

He would have been expecting something when he came home. She'd realized that now, having thought about Xavier's comments, and what he'd left unsaid. She didn't like to think of what, there were conflicting theories about that, but there would be some sort of expectation, most likely of her being a little girl and she wasn't. She was more metallurgist than little girl but that was neither here nor there.

She smiled. Would Logan know the knife was for him? Probably not. She picked it up slowly, almost lacking the energy to do so, and held it below the water, on her stomach. Brushing her fingers over the hilt and concentrating she shifted the metal, forming his name, just his name.

And it was hard, to concentrate like that. She slumped slightly into the cloudy water, sighing at the coppery smell, every sense she'd never had straining at it. It wouldn´t be long now. He'd be home soon.

Her eyes fluttered shut, finally, and a trace of a smile played on her lips. Not long at all.

Love is blindness
I don't wanna see
Won't you wrap the night around me
Oh my love, blindness