A/N: promptfic: ache, warm

The opposite point of view.

Marie stretched slowly, only half-awake, just aware enough to notice the weight-shift of movement beside her. In the back of her mind something twitched, the remnants of years of fear-of-touch, settled now within an instant by the soothing weight of trust. Of never-fear-here. Of an instinct deeper than the human mind often dared pay tribute to, but that one wary feral had begun to teach her from the first day she'd known him. An instinct far stronger now, with maturity and intimacy, than she had been able to comprehend then, years ago. She murmured quiet question in her throat, breathing still deep-slow-sleepy, and was answered with a low-soft rumble of a purr, close. She felt her lips curve slightly without her conscious command, and ducked her chin against her chest for a yawn, body stretching out again, farther, now becoming aware of a quiet, deep ache in her body - a good one though. A welcomed one.

She felt no regrets. She could not, now, imagine having regrets. She didn't really know what her team-mates, or their superiors, would say when this became public - for public, she knew, it would be. Her new mate would see no reason to hide their shifted relationship; it wasn't in his nature, his instinct. But let the chaos fall around them as it may; here, in this nest of tangled blankets, in the dimly lit, spice-musk-scented den of her best and oldest friend's private quarters, she could not imagine being anyplace else ever again. Age difference, personal histories, outside opinions all meant nothing now. They were connected by something beyond the ken of normal humans and of even most mutants, by a bond as ancient as Logan's wolf ancestors' blood. With his body, his scent, and the inhuman, exultant howl he had raised to the sky he had finally claimed her, a thing long in coming, and nothing short of death would sever that hold.

Smiling more, uncurling to the gentle stroke of a strong hand and tilting her neck contentedly open to the puff of warm breath that preceded a gentle nuzzle and a smile-curve of lips against her skin, Marie D'Ancanto decided that sounded just about right.