Written in the Stars April 13th, 1912. 6: 15pm by Adréa
Disclaimer: The song is from Aida, so credit to Disney. The Scarlet Pimpernel... I don't know who it belongs to now, but it was written by the Baroness Orczy. Well, everyone else seems to own the X-Men. Marvel, Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal, etc. etc. Why can't I? Look! They'll work for twinkies and beer! It's true! They did this fic for twinkies and beer. Although I had to throw in a few steaks and peeps somewhere...
Author's Notes: I tried to make it not exactly like Cameron's movie! But some things kinda snuck in there and stuck. Be prepared for suckiness! (that even a word?) Big shout out and thanks to my best friend JenN who unknowingly gave be ideas and knowingly gave me every ounce of support she could.
Author's Notes2: I don't even own Amy and Jenn for they are based on people I know. I'm currently working on another fic involving them that would go much farther into their personalities, so sorry if you don't understand things or what not because they aren't well developed in this one. Now, on with the show!
Logan watched calmly as Marie, Jennifer, and Amy went on about girl things, ignoring him completely. Not like he'd want to be included in their conversation anyways.
"You're kidding! Remy took you below to a third class party?" The one with the short bright red hair, Jennifer squealed.
"It's true. And it was fun! We danced and drank beer until we couldn't see straight. I had to get us back to our room. I should take you two down there tonight. They don't seem to mind the mingling of the classes," said the one with the sunglasses and the multicolored hair.
"Oh, I don't believe that I--"
"Come on, Marie, it'll be fun! Who has to know that's what you're doing anyway?" asked Jenn.
"Well... alright... Maybe... If I'm not grounded. Oh, I've been gone so long..."
Amy laughed. "Logan'll help us with sneaking you out. And I don't think you'd complain judging by the way you're blushing to a lobster red."
Marie glanced at a clock in the room and let out a light gasp. "Oh, no! I should be back by now to change... I am so grounded. Not that I wasn't before, but now I'll be under strict grounding. Jennifer, Amy, I thank you both."
Having already changed for supper, Logan was ready to escort Marie to her quarters and wait for her to change. Even though Marie walked fast, Logan just had to keep up with longer strides.
With a small smile, Marie disappeared behind the door to her quarters, closing it behind her.
"Marie! Where in God's name have you been!" Surprise, surprise, her mother knew it was her. "I've had people searching for you everywhere!" Irene held her arms out and Marie obliged by hugging her mother.
"I'm fine, Mother. I took a walk, got lost... then... I kind of fell asleep. I'm sorry." It would be far easier to tell a lie than the truth. What would the truth do besides add more fear to her paranoid parents?
"Please, do not frighten us like that again. Your father is still out looking for you. He should return shortly, and we should be ready for him. Go on, dearie, and get changed," her mother told her after placing a kiss on her daughter's cheek. "I love you, darling."
"I love you too, Mother. And I really am sorry about what happened." It wasn't her place to go off searching for some stranger that she should just forget. Not like anything that Marie wanted could possibly happen. She was engaged to another man, and she was going to marry that other man. That was the way of things, the way of her life, and nothing could change it.
But she couldn't help but feel like she was getting trapped in a poorly written, cheesy romance novel. Nothing like her favorite book. Engagements, forbidden lovers, evil identical twins. Okay, so the last one hadn't been used as far as she knew in a book
Without much thought, Marie allowed her servant to help dress her in the deep purple gown with the royal blue top and trimmings, giving the false illusion of depth to the gown. Her hair and makeup were done perfectly in record time. As she stared in the mirror, Marie could finally see that 'Little Lady' her mother always talked about. She had always thought herself rather homely compared to the other girls she saw, but seeing her reflection just now... perhaps she had been wrong.
Or maybe it was because she was imagining what Logan might think of her. It wasn't good to be thinking of a man other than her husband-to-be. Give her a break, she knew her fiancé even less than Logan. And he really was handsome, in his own way. And kind, unlike his brother.
An involuntary shudder ran through her at thinking about that man. Even afterwards, Logan had offered to bring him to justice. His own brother. Given what he'd done, she didn't blame him.
"Marie? Are you in there?"
Plastering on her fake smile, Marie opened the door to greet her father. The smile withered away when her dark eyes traveled up to her father's face. He was wearing a medical patch on the side of his face. The same side that Marie had injured Logan's twin with. How ironic.
"I'm here, and I'm fine, Father. Forgive me, I took a walk, got lost, then fell asleep."
"Fell asleep? I was attacked by some maniac in the third class looking for you. Now I have to go around with this thing on and come up with a better tale than a drunken man hitting me with a lucky shot."
"I'm sorry," she replied, head hanging. She really was sorry, if she had known this much trouble would have been caused, she would have returned right away.
"Never mind that now. The important thing is that you are safe and back where you belong. I shall be ready in a few minutes, then we can leave."
Marie watched her father retreat to her parents room to get changed. In return, she went back into her own to gather her accessories.
Earrings... check. Necklace... check. Bracelet... check. Gloves... check. Gloves... "Oh, no..." came out as a distressed whisper.
Frantic, the small girl bolted to the front door and opened it, desperately searching for a specific person.
"Easy, darlin. Where's the fire?"
Careful to leave her foot in the door so it didn't close, yet careful to not have it opened all the way, Marie grabbed Logan's jacket and pulled him closer so she could whisper, "I know this isn't why you agreed to help protect me, but I need your help with something else..."
"Name it."
Entranced by those hazel eyes of his, it took a good shaking of her head to get back to the present dilemma. "Logan, I had a ring. It must have come off when your brother attacked me. It's very important that I have the ring before supper, but I can't go and find it. Can you go?"
If he refused, then she could proclaim it was a matter of life or death. That if she appeared without the ring, she'd be executed in public by her family, which may or may not had been a lie. "No, but I can get some of my friends to do it and meet us at the Reception."
Good enough. With a smile and a quick kiss on his cheek, her lips were stabbed by his outrageous sideburns, she doubted she even touched the skin, she returned to her quarters, praying to whatever Gods might hear that the ring be returned before someone noticed it was no longer on her finger.
Using the mental technique Xavier taught him, Logan called for help on that matter.
By the time he'd finished with the mental conversation, it was time to head out to dinner. Naturally, Logan walked a ways down the corridor and waited, acting as normal as could be. Within a few minutes, the family exited their quarters. Husband and wife, arm in arm to help guide her, with little, precious Marie trailing behind, looking so much like that of a lamb about to be slaughtered.
Taking caution to follow and not get caught, yet not lose sight of her, he followed them to the grand staircase.
Yet stopped dead in his tracks when the family turned to head down the stairs.
Marie's father had a bandage over one cheek. Fuck.
His job was going to be a lot harder than he thought.
The family stopped and chatted along the way, with Marie acting even shyer than usual, keeping her hands firmly clasped behind her back.
"Ah, Mr. Logan, what a delight to get to speak with you alone."
Logan glared at the man who dared to interrupt his tracking and his shock over the new revelation. Any normal man would have been made into a blubbering idiot with the only thought that of pure survival instinct to get away from this man. But Bruce Ismay was far from a normal man, and felt the need to speak to each and every first class passenger about the Titanic.
"I trust that you are enjoying your stay here onboard White Star Line's finest?"
Well, up to the point that he got the shit beat out of him below decks and Marie was attacked, everything had been rather peachy. "I'd do a frickin' little tap dance if I could, this ship is so great."
Apparently, Ismay was also immune to Logan's sarcasm. "Odd, I honestly wouldn't take you for the dancing type. What is it that you do, Mr. Logan?"
Logan had to bite his tongue to keep from saying 'I'm just a man who gets really pissed off by guys like you. Just a man who has these claws that are just itchin' to put you out of our misery'. "I'm a guard," he answered with a half-lie.
"A guard? Oh... how... splendid. Well, cheerio."
There was no hiding the disappointment in his voice, nor the surprised yet happy look on Logan's face as Ismay attacked another young man with the same initial question. Hobnobbing with the rich and famous wasn't his idea of a good time. And he put making conversation with them that required something more than the occasional grunt at the bottom of his 'to-do' list.
Turning around just in time, Logan caught a young man taking Marie's hand and kissing the back of it. The man then smiled and kissed her cheek, to which she blushed lightly.
Things were just getting worse as he recognized the man whom Marie was with. But Logan felt it all had a connection. That pieces of the puzzle could be put into place if he simply chose to.
Going down the next flight of stairs, although it was impolite to do so, Logan wasn't a polite man, and he eavesdropped on the conversation.
"Come, my dear. Let me show you off to the other guests," Graydon said with a huge smile on his face, proud of having the gorgeous woman by his side.
They talked for a while with other rich people, until one of them asked to see Marie's engagement ring. Turning deathly pale, yet the makeup covered for some of it, she shrank back some, gripping her hands even tighter behind her back.
"Marie, darling, show them the wonderful ring Graydon gave you," her 'father' ordered in a relatively gentle voice.
"Uh, well... Ah... uh..." The poor girl looked as if she was about to faint on the spot, and Logan could do nothing about it but swear in his mind for whoever Xavier had sent to hurry it up.
"Oh, Maaaarieeeeeeee!" came the two highest pitched squeals Logan had ever heard in his entire life. The sound made him cringe in pain as two girls went zooming by him down the stairs and assaulted Marie with instant pointless conversation and physical admiring of her dress.
The only reason why Logan was going to let the girls live, was because it was all a ruse. He could tell that Amy had been running quite some distance, and must have used one of her powers to have gotten the ring so fast. Without anyone noticing, Jenn slipped it into Marie's hand and she placed it on her finger. He had never seen Marie so relieved.
Yet Logan couldn't help but notice what finger she put the ring on, and the way the young man was acting around her. Xavier hadn't mentioned her being married or engaged or anything, but that looked to him like that was the case. It pained him to think thoughts like those, so he pushed them aside for now to be brought up later.
As soon as they had come, Amy and Jenn ran off to where Amy couldn't be seen almost completely out of breath and exhausted. Using one of her powers of altering time to appear to move faster put a great deal of strain on the girl. If she used them the entire way to the Scotland Road, found the ring, and ran back, she wasn't going to be able to sleep that night with the horrendous migraines she was due for.
Certain voices drew his attention back to Marie. The couple that had been there before were gone, replaced by another group of people. The young girl that made it a point to wear only the color red no matter what was currently swooning over Marie's ring. Her brother, along with the eldest of the group, Erik... something or other, Xavier had said -- were staring at Amy and Jenn. Jenn had just returned with a glass of water for her friend, and the two men found the girls fairly interesting. It was easy to tell what was going through the young one's head, but Erik... Erik was a different matter.
The moment that the rest of his gang showed up, Logan had to tear his observations away from Marie in order to relay the new information to Xavier. They were in a brightly lit public place where no one could really get alone. Marie should be fine here, even in the clutches of the enemy.
"Bad news, Chuck," Logan stated as soon as the Professor was within earshot.
"How so?" Xavier hobbled over to stand beside Logan, acting as if they were talking about something as normal as the stock market.
"The shapeshifter is Marie's father."
"Indeed... that is bad news... For it will make things that much harder for us. Now I know how Erik always manages to sit with them." Xavier pondered over the news before addressing everyone. "Let us go sit down to dinner. There we can discuss these important matters more."
Without complaint, the large group moved as one to do so.
All references to characters belonging to the X-Men Universe are (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. No money is being made from this archive. All images are also (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities; they are not mine. This website, its operators and any content used on this site relating to the X-Men are not authorized by Marvel, Fox, etc. I am not, nor do I claim to be affiliated with any of these entities in any way.