do you ever think about how jarring it must be for laura to see logan healthy?
well, ok, maybe not Healthy healthy, man’s still an alcoholic, but he’s sturdy. he’s not constantly nursing wounds that won’t heal, not wincing with every step like he’s in agony, his eyes are clear (were they always so green? she’d forgotten over the years, in the void, only remembered the bloody starburst that blotted out the white in one of them vividly), and he’s Strong.
she’d only ever seen that strength once, when Her Logan ran to her in north dakota, temporarily unburdened from anguish and injury and sprinting toward her like she was the only thing that mattered, and now this logan is just…like that? he can keep going and going and going, for hours, just like in her comic books
but she still finds herself waiting for the other shoe to drop. she still braces herself when logan coughs, just to clear his throat, and he either doesn’t notice that it makes her go stiff as board or chooses not to comment on it. she’s waiting for the splash of blood on his lips, the heaving, hacking fit that’ll double him over, the wet, asthmatic gasping that sounds like he’s going to drown in his own phlegm. but it doesn’t come
she can smell he isn’t sick, takes deep breaths in through the mouth and scents the air around him — whiskey, cigar smoke, something woody, and something sweet, like a confection (she thinks that’s wade, because he stinks like sick-sweet cancer and sugary body wash). but there’s no bitterness underneath it, not like Her Logan. he reeked of rot, of poison — like death.
so she Knows this new logan isn’t dying. he’s fine, he’s totally fine, and maybe she’s a little resentful of that because why does he get to be fine, why does he get to reside comfortably in his prime when Her Logan was disintegrating before her very eyes? why couldn’t Her dad Logan have kept that strength, that resilience, for just a little bit longer? maybe He would’ve lived, maybe He would’ve crossed the canadian border with her?
maybe He would’ve stayed?
perhaps the TVA wouldn’t have portaled her away if she was firmly attached to an anchor being.
she tries not to think such things. really, she does. especially when this logan, this new one, as broken and mean as he may be sometimes — well, he tries. he’ll never be Her Logan, and they both know that, and maybe that’s ok. maybe she doesn’t need a replacement.
maybe Her Logan would just be happy that she’s got a father at all. two if you count wade (and she does).
and maybe that’s enough.
