TITLE: Logan Returns
AUTHOR: Sare Liz
EMAIL: TeknoVamp@yahoo.com

It was different from all my other dreams in that I knew it was a dream right from the start. That never happens. But I knew I didn´t have to be apart of anything that happened. I knew I could walk away if I wanted.

So I did.

The fear that had initially surrounded me like a fine mist stayed in place as I rose and took one step, then another. I looked around to see familiar faces pitched in a battle they might win if a tide turned in their favor, but somehow I knew I wasn´t it. I was only there to observe.

I wasn´t really alarmed to see these people fighting their loosing battle. They´d chosen to fight it, and they all knew ahead of time what the score was. That´s what happens when you fight the good fight. Sometimes you lose, or so I´ve been told.

Still walking, I turned a little, wondering what the point of this dream was, considering my near complete apathy for those involved.

Near complete, of course, because contrary to popular belief, I do have a heart. Every person out there fighting and dying thought they were doing the right thing. I knew them all and even admired one or two of them.

Okay, so there might have been one I wouldn´t mind a large boulder crushing. Unfortunately, he was currently married to a beautiful woman I once had a thing for who probably wouldn´t appreciate the joke, so that didn´t count.

But you see, I did care, a little. I would just as soon not see them die, but there they were, armed to the teeth in their spiffy leather commando outfits, being all responsible on their chosen side. And like I said before, there was nothing I could really do.

So I turned around.

If the dream didn´t stop entirely and wait for my heart to come back on up to its normal resting position, it sure as hell seemed like it.

Tied to the chair I´d just gotten out of, she was there, in what had to be pajamas, scared and crying as that blue bitch dragged an unconscious blonde closer and closer.

I´d promised to watch after her - protect her - and here I was, completely powerless to do anything. The bile rose in the back of my throat and the stinging pain in my hands told me I was more than ready to kill that shape-shifting reject.

All the same, I still knew there wasn´t a thing I could do, so I stood there rooted in place and watched.

I watched as she screamed for mercy, her red hair falling around the flannel clad shoulders. I watched as the creature from the black lagoon forced contact, holding the unconscious one´s hand to Marie´s neck until it was obvious the woman was dead, not sleeping.

The screaming stopped then. The bitch laughed and dropped the body, walking away unconcerned. She didn´t see Marie snap out of her daze, all trace of fear gone. She didn´t see her snap her bonds just as easily. She didn´t hear the footsteps because there weren´t any.

She did hear Marie land, however.

Only a few feet away, I was able to hear her voice, smooth and quiet a mid the din of forgotten battle around them.

“If I ever see you again,” Marie said, her eyes in a deadly calm, “I´ll be able to shape-shift.” The gloved backhand not only knocked the bitch out, but sent her sailing back a good ten feet.

So many amazing things, I´m not sure which was the most notable. I mean, I´d never seen anyone fly before, but to see Marie with that kind of incidental strength…

I knew in theory how powerful Marie´s mutation was - she´d taken the shit from me more than once and I´d been in a coma for days each time. But as I got stronger, my… I don´t know… presence in her got weaker. Whenever I came around, she´d be normal again. So I never actually got a chance to witness the aftermath.

I was now.

I don´t know how much of the spit and thorns that shown through was originally Marie - maybe more than I first thought, after all it had been three years since I left - but maybe I´d never know. I got the feeling that the borrowing was a permanent loan. The innocent Marie I´d taken to, and who if I cared to be honest with myself (and generally I´m not) I´d fantasized about more than once… She was dead, in her places a phoenix. Beautiful, strong, and very, very different from anything it had been before. But what, exactly? How much of Marie was still in there? How different would the dead blonde turn out to be?

Even as I thought about all of this, I watched the tide turn. Marie uprooted trees, ploughed mutants into the ground and snuck up behind the unwary who weren´t alert enough to look up, only to be slung into the next county, David and Goliath style.

I watched as she ferried the wounded one by one quickly and gently to that megalithic techno-wonder of a plane they had. A thought came over me as I watched the scene play out, as pure a thought as the one that told me I was only an observer. As pure as any realization I´d had in the dream thus far.

She didn´t need me any more.

When she first met me, when I first promised to protect her, I thought it would be the heavy chain that… I don´t know, hindered me in some unspeakable and unforgivable way. Not that I´ve actually been around the last few years, but instead it gave me something to look forward to, some connection to the world beyond the incoherent dreams and dead-ends I´ve followed up here, up North. And now that that´s gone…

I know how Magneto must feel on his little plastic island, completely cut off from anything familiar, completely without… What? Identity?

So what am I saying? I defined myself in the affections of a 16 year-old? Well, maybe not. But maybe I fell for the idea of something. The idea of being needed. The idea of someone believing you could and would do anything for them. The idea of being loved?

Maybe not.

But then again, maybe.

And you would think that the dream would end there. You have to admit, it´s a decent place for a nightmare to stop, right when your psyche is gasping and all worn out. But for me, torture is never a simple thing, and I should just accept that and get on with life. That´s the way Fate and paralyzed psychics like to set me up and play me out.

Which of course brings me back to that compound of his.

I´m sitting in some dark red leather room reading poetry when Storm walks in. She walks almost timidly, but I realize that she´s still healing from the battle a few months earlier.

I stand up and turn, ready to eavesdrop into the dream conversation and once again I stop and stare, just like last time, waiting for my swallowed heart to come back up.

Marie is beautiful.

Yea, I thought so before, but that was just pillow-talk. To me, any woman who kicks ass and takes names looks gorgeous in the heat of battle. But here she was, reading Tennyson and still managing to look beautiful.

A thick black velvet choker around her long neck with matching elbow length gloves were an obvious warning for the unwary to look but not touch. It was accented by her white shock falling by her face as she looked up. A slim finger flicked back the thick braid off her shoulder and my eyes wandered. Which brought me to the point of realizing that Marie wasn´t 16 anymore, and she really didn´t have a 16 year-old´s body. It was closer to 20 than 15 and that black velvet reminder must have been a physically painful thing to the little boys around her. It was to me.

Before my libido really got a chance to get off the ground, my moment of looking was over. I was jolted to awareness by the softness of Ororo´s voice.

“Hey,” was her quiet introduction.

“Hello.” There was no better way to describe Marie´s distant tone than something approximating aloofness, but maybe with more familiarity than that.

“I thought we might go shopping….” Storm´s voice trailed off, obviously hoping to coax a response. “My treat,” she added with a smile.

To look at Marie´s benevolent smile was to know the politics behind the offer.

“Come on, there must be something you want… Something you need.” Ororo´s smile was gentle, probing, and almost motherly.

Marie´s calm features hid a swell of emotion - how large I couldn´t tell. “Of course,” she replied, “But I don´t think I´ll find it at the mall.”

Storm´s look fell into concern as she crossed the room as quickly as she was able. Kneeling down next to the chair and next to me, she put a hand to Marie´s hair, stroking softly, apparently aware of what the redhead alluded to.

The younger woman relaxed with this bit of familiarity and I almost missed the sigh that twisted my heart.

“I hate life,” she said with her beautiful soft southern lilt that only now do I realize hadn´t been there before.

“Oh, now…” Storm seemed to will Marie to look at her. “You can´t put all your faith and fear into one man. He´s got a life out there he´s got live. And so do you.”

“I´ve got several,” was her caustic and confusing reply.

Storm sighed and looked down into her lap. Looking back up again, she seemed to try a new tactic.

“If it´s reassurances you´re looking for, then know this,” she said, her hand reaching up. “He´ll be back.”

She reached up and tapped the center of Marie´s chest through her shirt, getting a tiny metallic thud for her trouble. My dog tag.

And that´s when I woke up.

He hadn´t changed.

Not an entirely peculiar thing, considering all of Jean´s theories, but it was like Marie flying. Hearing about it was one thing, however seeing it was an entirely different matter.

In the end, it was all about Marie, not that she knew it, or even wanted it. Like so many others with difficult mutations, she just wanted to be normal. With the current trend of research, that wasn´t going to be happening, not with the quantity of lab animals dying every week. But then, if she couldn´t be normal with every one, perhaps she could be so with just one someone.

“Good morning, Logan,” Ororo said as the engine of Scott´s long lost motorcycle quieted, then died all together.

He gave a fleeting glance to the dark sky before shifting off the bike. He crossed the few steps before his assurance left him standing before her, to all outwardly appearances, socially inept. Adjusting the pack on his shoulder, he got directly to his point.

“How is she?”

She shouldn´t have been surprised. No pleasantries, no preamble, just Logan. For half a moment Storm wondered at the wisdom of the world around her - the not world that thought Logan and Marie would be a good match, for she was a part of that world. The one that thought doing dangerous experiments on mutants, even with their permission, was an acceptable thing.

“She is as well as she can be. And better than she was.” Storm watched Logan nod slowly.

“It´s early,” he said, testing waters.

“Most everyone is asleep, still,” Storm replied, beginning to soften as she stood before this uncertain creature. On impulse, she tried to warn him. “There are certain matters going on here, the depth of which even I do not know.”

An eyebrow shot up.

“Certain decisions will be required on your part, some of which may seem…,” she paused, searching for the word. “…Trivial. I ask that you consider all choices you make with care.”

“Right.” His look told her she´d trodden on shaky ground.

Trying to repair things a bit Ororo added, “I´m not opposed to you being here, only the circumstances that necessitated it.”

“I don´t think Marie´s too fond of what happened either.”

Ororo stood lost for a moment, until she finally realized what he was talking about. “No,” she agreed, “She is not. But that was not what I was talking about.”

Opening the front door and closing the rest of the conversation, Storm stepped through the portal, intent on showing Xavier´s guest his permanent room.

The smug bastard invited me to sit down and join him for breakfast like he hadn´t called me out to the garden himself, his voice echoing in my head like a swarm of ghosts.

Of course, that´s probably the only real reason I like the man. That, and that he takes care of Marie.

He was silent, as I guess he can be, until the moment I had a swallow of hot coffee in my mouth.

“Did you break Canadian land-speed records getting here?”

I was barely able to keep the gourmet blend from spewing all over the good professor´s silk tie. As it was I was choking on the scalding stuff. The burning sensation didn´t last of course. Never does.

“I take that as a yes.” Xavier took a sip of his tea and waited. For me, apparently.

I took my time smearing butter on a piece of toast before commenting on the non-standard features of Scott Summer´s personal motorcycle.

“Ah yes. Scott was sorely vexed when he realized you´d borrowed his favorite child. Took him quite some time to build a suitable replacement.”

I didn´t even try to surprise the grin. Why should I? He´s psychic, right? And does it really take a mind reader to figure out my opinion of the prick?

Nah. So I grinned.

plWe ate in silence with only the birds commenting on our meal, until finally he put his napkin aside and sat back in his wheel chair.

“She´s missed you, you know. Not a week´s gone by that she hasn´t thought, or spoken of you.”

Well, that´s not exactly what I expected. God knows I´ve been thinking about her, but with her brand new life here and all sorts of good, stable things happening, I didn´t really expect her to waste her time. But how was I supposed to respond to that? Was I supposed to? Why did it bother me so much?

I decided to stop asking myself questions. Let´s see… it´s 6:30, so we´ll see how long that lasts.

Xavier went on. “As you can imagine, she´s grown - matured - quite a bit. She was getting along quite nicely, preparing for her second year of college… and then Mystique returned.”

He´d had my full attention before, but now I was hanging on his every word.

“We had experience with Rogue taking on the life-force of others for discrete periods of time before, yourself chiefly included on the list. Sometimes, the change is imperceptible, if the life-force, the personality, is similar to her own. Sometimes,” he gave me a pointed look, “The change is great.”

Wait. So, does she become the person, or what? Being me, I interrupted and asked.

“Yes and no. Rogue has a set of personality traits that are all her own, but because she is young, they are still somewhat in a state of flux. Because of this, people she has absorbed up to now have changed her. Her temper and occasional rage, for example, I believe can be attributed to your presence inside. Her particular shade of wisdom, from Erik - Magneto,” he clarified off my confused look, or maybe my confused thoughts.

Well, shit. Magneto. Shit. Me and Magneto - it could get worse sure, but not by much.

“On the contrary, Logan. It has been very difficult for Marie but your presence in her, and Erik´s presence as well, have served her well. After the initial adjustment period, of course.”

“Initial adjustment period?” I really didn´t like the sound of that.

“After each touch, she´s flooded by feelings, memories, and thoughts. At first, it is difficult for her to discern which thoughts and impulses are her own and which should not be acted on. Once she can separate the personalities she is far more stable, and though the personalities remain within her indefinitely, she is once more in control.”

Wait, indefinitely? Like, forever? Like in the dream?

“Not always. David, the boy with whom her mutation first manifested, has been gone - out of her head for years now. Erik has recently faded away as well.”

His pause seemed to last just a little too long, and I knew what he was saying without having to hear it. But I still needed the confirmation. You don´t want to assume about these things.

“And me? Am I out of her head too?”

The ironic look on Xavier´s face might have been amusing if the situation hadn´t been so close to home. And it´s not that I mind the idea of Marie knowing that much about me - anyone but her I might have to skewer, but as anyone who had eyes could see, I had a soft spot for the kid, and I knew she was good for the secrecy. No, it was more that I hated the thought of her having to see me like that, forced on her, 24/7, or whatever the deal was. Which of course bothered me because I didn´t know what the deal was, but I´d find out soon enough.

The point was, all the bits of my life that I can remember don´t add up to an indian summer. I don´t mind Marie being privy to my life if that´s the case, but I just wish it was a prettier one she had to deal with.

“That is something you will need to discuss with Marie, but no Logan. You are not,” he said, but I couldn´t tell if he was answering my questions or commenting on my thoughts. “And neither is Ms. Marvel, but you knew that too.” Oh. Answering the question.

But yea I knew, and I´d been trying like hell not to think about it. Hoping that the Marie I´d come home to would be the same one I´d left. A stupid hope, but I hoped it anyway.

Xavier chuckled and gave me another look that might be amusing if I weren´t were I was. “You´re closer to the truth than you believe.”

What the hell was he talking about?

Xavier shifted in his chair slightly to lean forward. “Logan, you have just hit on one of the very reasons I have called you back.” He paused, I glared, he continued. “That initial period of confusion for Rogue I referred to can be anything from a few days to several weeks. This time, it has been three months and it is not yet over. I have been working very closely with her, trying to help her sort out her mind, but I fear we are not making the progress I had hoped.”

Xavier sighed and collected his thoughts as mine continued their downward spiral.

“And?” I demanded, waiting for his answer that would solve everything. A few years ago I would laugh at that, but I respected this man, and he was, as I saw it, Marie´s only real hope.

“Not her only hope, Logan.”

I didn´t want to understand what was in his eyes. I think he knew that, because the next thing I knew, his voice was echoing through my head. ‘Marie adores you and Ms. Marvel doesn´t know you exist. Draw her out, show her why life is worth living. Bring Marie back to us.´

My overwhelming thought included the phrase ‘how in the hell do I do that?´

My underlying thoughts were wondering if Charles had skipped through my brain and seen how much I adore Marie right back, or whether he thought I´d do whatever it is he wanted me to do just for the hell of it.

“I believe the first step,” he continued out loud, “Is finding her. Most mornings she awakes before dawn, and is probably in the library at this hour.”

Well, surprise, surprise, the library just happens to be the red leather room from my dream. I stood in the doorframe and took a good look at her sitting in the chair reading, half expecting her to look up at any moment. The amount of disappointment that set in because she didn´t was the real thing that floored me.

From the moment I woke up from that dream, every minute that has passed has brought me closer and closer to wanting the kid as more than just a friend. Not that it´s a completely foreign concept, cause it ain´t, but it´s more difficult to push aside when she´s right there for you to look at.

And what a sight. Beautiful, but I think I´ve said that before. But I´m really beyond caring, cause it´s true, she´s beautiful. So I stand here and I stare like a lovesick puppy, just waiting to be kicked but never really thinking it´s coming.

Until it does.

Without even looking up she tells me that she doesn´t want any company, and would I please leave.

If I didn´t know what to say to Xavier earlier when he said she missed me all the time, I sure as hell didn´t have a good response for this one. I think I might have a been in a minor state of shock.

When I finally recover, I realize something odd. It didn´t really sound like Marie. I sniff the air, testing it. It´s her, even if her scent has changed slightly, the base is still the same. Then I get it. There was no southern twang. If anything, it was a midwestern accent, though where she would have gotten that on the eastern seaboard is beyond me.

This was certainly not the Marie I left. I wondered for a moment if the blonde had been from the midwest. Whatever her problem, Marvel-whatever-Xavier-called-her, certainly had attitude to spare, that was for sure.

Thankfully, so did I.

“I didn´t travel a thousand miles to give Scott his bike back, I came to talk to you.” There. Complete honesty. I´m good for another ten years before I have to do that again. “So get your nose outta that book and come give me a hug.”

It was like she didn´t hear me at first, but then she looked over my way and her eyes widened.

“Logan?” she asked tentatively and I had to smile at that soft southern lilt I´d dreamed about. She looked me up and down for a moment, as if to reassure herself that it was really me.

A brief flicker of disappointment crossed her face before I couldn´t read it anymore it was so blank. She went back to her book and told me to go away again, and to stop fucking with her head. And the accent was gone.

This really wasn´t going well.

I wandered over to the chair across from her and sat down, my legs sprawling out as I attempted to achieve maximum comfort.

“I thought I told you to leave,” came her not entirely steady drawl.

“Yea, but I don´t want to. It was a long ride. Didn´t get much sleep.”

“I´m not listening to you.”

I listened to her body for a moment and smirked. “Yea, your heart´s not racing, either. Tell me another one, Marie.”

Her voice was midwestern steel as she got up and in my face. “Whoever you are, this is a cruel, sick joke. I´m leaving now, but if I ever see you again like this - as him - I will kill you. I will pull your arms out from their sockets and twist your legs off at the knees. Before you die you will see what the inside of your body really looks like, from the intestines up, and I´ll get to see if your heart beats blood or acid through your brain to make you think that this would be a wise thing to do. Do I make myself clear, stranger?”

What the holy hell was that? She´s spun me in some tight circles here, but I keep it off my face.

“You got some wicked imagery going there, Marie. What the hell they been teaching you here?” She walked away in silence and I realized I was losing my chance. I got up and followed. “What do I have to do to make you realize it´s me?” That stopped her, but it didn´t turn her around. I got closer, close enough to touch her without really trying.

“Logan wouldn´t have to ask.”

Well shit. Here I was, Logan and asking.

Then I thought of it. The one true and perfect way for a skeptical Marie to know it was really me. As I reached my hand out her head turned slightly, making my job easier. I brushed the back of my fingers against the determined line of her jaw that went slack with the contact. For a heartbeat it was just a touch - soft, gentle, maybe even loving - then for another heartbeat the pain, not nearly as bad as I remembered, but enough. More than enough to prove my point and knock me out in the very same instant.

I woke up and my senses screamed joyfully that wherever the hell I was, Marie was right near me. Off to my right, to be exact. I stayed still for a moment, relishing the feeling, and letting other facts flood in.

We were still in the library.

The scent of fear was thin in the air, but then there was also a trace of desire and that wasn´t me.

No one else was in the room, so not a hell of a lot of time must have passed.

And a gloved finger was mimicking the reminder I´d given her earlier, brushing by my face.

“Quit yer faking, Logan. Open your eyes.”

I opened them to find her sitting on the floor next to the couch I was on. “How´d you know I was awake?” My voice was gruff and my throat was dry, but I was happy as hell to see her raise an eyebrow and cock her head sideways.

“I know you,” she said taking off a glove and balling her bare fist and bringing it up against her chest. I thought it was an endearing gesture, putting her fist over her heart - just like my little Marie. Until I realized her intention as a single bone claw popped out of her fist with a slice of skin, right between the first and second knuckles.

My eyes bulged. I thought they´d been surgically added when the bastards had done everything else. I never dreamed that they too belonged to me. I stared - I couldn´t help it. I reached out to touch it, not hesitating in the least.

The bleach white bone was as smooth as it looked, patchily coated with blood. That was never a problem I seemed to have, but then no one´s blood really clung to the adamantium, least of all mine.

They were sharp at the end, and down the underside, just like mine. I ran a finger along the edge, drawing blood and mixing it with hers. Eventually, I took my finger away, licking away the blood. The claw disappeared right after, and her fist healed up. She too licked the blood away before putting her glove back on.

I grabbed up the hand before she could do anything else with it and massaged the recently wounded area. “That looked like it hurt, a lot.” The adamantium looked a hell of a lot smoother coming out than that bone. Then again, maybe the lack of blood added to the illusion.

She grinned impishly. “Yea, but it makes one hell of a point, doesn´t it?”

I couldn´t help but to laugh. Yes, it really did. “How long you gonna be able to do that?” I asked, my roving fingers moving up her arm to where I knew the claws now were. While she thought about it, my other hand grabbed up the piece of her I´d left and entwined fingers. I knew it was kinda personal, and she might just pull away, but fuck it, I had to start somewhere now that she was talking to me and acting vaguely normal.

She smiled and sighed, leaning back and enjoying the impromptu attention, leaving her arm to drape over my stomach as I lie.

“Maybe a week. Maybe more, as you´ve been in here for a while,” she said, tapping her head with her other hand, “And that was just a refresher.”

Shit. I didn´t even think about that. Oh fuck, sometimes I really need to think before I act.

“Hey,” she said, squeezing my hand to get my attention. I turned what had to be guilty eyes her way, only to find understanding. Of course.

“I know you, I like you, and I can handle you in my head,” she said smiling. “It´s other people I don´t want to touch.”

I couldn´t help but to think of the implications of that statement. Her not wanting to touch other people. Her wanting to touch me. She must have had similar thoughts flashing around in her head, cause all the sudden she started to blush. It was absolutely adorable. I brought her gloved hand to my lips and kissed the valley between her knuckles. “Thanks, kid.”

I was gonna say something else, but the door opened and a slim, delectable finger rested across my lips. I couldn´t see who it was and they didn´t smell familiar, but unless they had x-ray vision, they couldn´t see me either.

A grating voice called out to my Marie, “Hey dere, chere- why you on de floor?”

She smiled, her eyes darting down to me, willing me to stay silent. “I dropped something.”

Yea, me. One touch and I was down for the count. Gotta love my Marie´s sense of humor.

“Well, you planning on picking it up and coming to breakfast?”

Again, her eyes darted down and her infectious grin got wider. “I was having thoughts along that line, yes.”

“You coming, maybe today? Or maybe you thinking sometime next week?”

“I´ll be along in a little bit, Remy. You go on ahead.”

Remy? What the hell kind of a name is Remy? And why wouldn´t he leave her the hell alone? Justified that I didn´t feel threatened in the least by Remy, a single claw slipped out slowly from my fist, a silent warning, even if he couldn´t see it.

Marie caught me out of the corner of her eye and slapped her free hand down on my arm, pinning me quite strongly.

“What de hell you drop over dere?”

“Nothing of import, Remy. I´ll see you this afternoon.”

“It´s a date, ma petit.”

Asshole gone, door closed, Marie turned to me, shocked but not really.

“You, Logan, have got the self control of a raging rhino. I know we both know this, but it needs to be said.”

I grinned and looked up at her. “It´s part of my charm,” I said, daring her to contradict me.

She snorted and got up, hauling me to my feet as well. As it happened, we ended up very, very close to one another. Either she´d grown, or she had heels on, but I wasn´t about to let my eyes leave her face to find out.

We stood there for a couple of heart beats, staring at each other´s eyes like a couple of dazed fools before she broke the silence.

“Ah'm sorry about before, Logan. Ah'm glad your back, and …Ah missed you.” Her beautiful lips curled into a little smile at the admission. I had to mentally hold myself back from kissing them. It was tough, so I concentrated on trying to respond to her words.

She´d missed me. Assuming she hadn´t just said it to say it, and she really did mean it, my little obsessive fantasy has missed me while I was gone. I pulled her into an embrace and breathed in her scent. It was just as beautiful as she´d become, with a little bit of me thrown in the mix.

“I missed you, too,” I managed to growl out, holding her long lithe body as close to mine as I could with clothes on.

We stayed like that for a hell of a long time. Me, breathing her in, branding her scent in my mind so hard that even if it got swiss cheesed again, I´d remember her scent before my own name. Her, sighing those deep, full body sighs that seem to make the tension just drain right out of her and onto the floor.

Eventually, I pulled back a little, but didn´t let her out of my arms. Not just yet. She smiled at me and I traced the shock of white from her scalp down to her shoulder, where it touched… a metal chain. My metal chain. I continued tracing that, feather light as it sat on her exposed skin - way too much exposed skin when guys like Remy are walking around, if you ask me - and traced it right down to where it disappeared in her cleavage, right before the shirt began. My hand sort of paused there of it´s own will before I had control of it again and moved it down to her waist, another nice place for it to rest.

“Ah saved it for you,” she whispered to me softly, her accent sweetening the words. “You want it back now?”

“Keep it. I like the way it looks on you.” I sunk into her eyes and stayed there for a minute, half wondering if I was pushing her too far with my maybe-not-so-subtle attempts at flirting, if maybe she didn´t really want this. After all, Xavier said ‘adore´. A daughter can adore a father, there ain´t nothing wrong with that. So maybe I shouldn´t have pushed it. But then, I really wanted to know. I didn´t want to spook her, but I wanted to know.

Her expression changed to one of mild disappointment and my heart fell. She couldn´t even look at me now. “You planning on running again?”

I breathed once more.

“Nope.” No qualifiers, no explanations, just flat out denial. I could see the spark in her eye.

“Then, you staying for awhile?”

“Yep.” As long as it takes, babe. I had the strong urge to tell her that if I left again, she´d be on the back of the bike, but I squelched it.

She sighed and smiled. “You wanna get some breakfast with me, Logan?”

I paused, like I was considering it. “I could eat.”

I had to let go of her to be able to walk, but before we were out the door, her arm was in mine and we were talking like I´d never left. Of course, maybe to her - in her head - I never did. But as that´s too confusing to think about right now, now when it´s all I can do to keep myself from smiling the entire way to the dining room, I just think, ‘Remy, whoever the hell you are, eat your heart out.´

I never really was privy to her schedule back before. I mean, there wasn´t much time for that sort of thing, what with the shit hitting the fan the night after I woke up the first time. After everything blew over, after I woke up the second time, I was gone the day after. No, I´m not really a stay for tea type of guy, and I don´t really think I am now, but something has changed.

First of all, Marie needs me. It´s really hard to keep scowling at Scott like I know I really want to and still think that thought. I´m officially her caretaker and it´s my new mission in life to make her happy. And no, that thought doesn´t phase me at all. Since Xavier´s no where near by I think it´s safe to admit why, as if it isn´t obvious enough every time I look at her.

I do love that child. Child, hell. Woman. I´m in love with a woman, and her name is Marie. I don´t even have the heart to tease Scott about Jean, which of course shocked the shit out of him. A part of my manly pride wanted to know how Jean took it, but the rest of me couldn´t be bothered to pay attention long enough to find out.

Of course, that would be the other thing that has changed. Before, it was just fantasies about a little piece of jail-bait. Granted, remarkably intricate fantasies, but I wasn´t here and she wasn´t there and before Xavier´s SOS I had no idea if she even remembered me. And now, here I am, jail-bait she´s not, and I give it six weeks tops before we find out if those fantasies of mine were creative enough.

The scary thing is, I couldn´t be happier. I still manage to scowl at Scott though. But I gotta say in his defense, he makes it easier when he opens his mouth and dumb-ass comments come out. Like this morning at breakfast. I take a moment to glibly congratulate him on his ability to hoodwink a psychic long enough to get her to say ‘I do´, and what does he do? Say something stupid about my ability to stay in one place long enough to spell commitment, and right in front of Marie. I was almost ready to do just that, right there at the oversized kitchen table and make one hell of a scene cause maybe I wouldn´t just spell it out, maybe I´d carve it into his forehead, when my little firecracker did it for me.

Looking up from her omelet she gave him one hell of an impressive stare, at the same time putting her hand on my thigh. I figure she did it to calm me down, make sure I didn´t start a war, but that thought was before she opened her mouth.

“C. O. M-M. I. T. M... E… N,” then she paused, waiting, staring. I was trying my best not to laugh at the look on Scott´s face. After what seemed to be a full minute but probably wasn´t, she said the last letter.

“Still here,” I chimed in.

Scott look at us, back and forth a couple of times, like we were freaks of nature for our little display of whatever it was. He finally shoved back from his empty plate and walked away.

A little while after all attention in the room faded away from the two of us, Marie groaned and I looked over to see her forehead resting on my shoulder. I cocked an eyebrow and craned my head down so I could see her a little better.

“What´s eating you, babe?” Obviously, Scott, but I needed to know for sure before I went on a murderous rampage. By the time she responded I was already thinking of new ways to kill the shit and make it look like an accident.

“Now I´m gonna have to go apologize to Scott. This sucks.”

“What?” Hell, why would she want to do that?

She sighed and straightened up, but inched closer to me, both hands back on my thigh. I leaned back so I could put an arm around her and draw her as close as I could considering that we were still at the kitchen table and were probably gathering stares again.

“Contrary to the majority vote,” she drawled quietly, “I think Scott is a nice guy and generally avoid trying to put him into uncomfortable situations.”

“Where´s the fun in that?” I turned around to look at the snicker behind me. Well, look, glare, same thing. One of Marie´s friends turned beet red and stammered out an apology, but Marie had my attention quick enough. And it had nothing to do with all ten of her fingers pressing down on my leg, the last few damn close to my hip. No, nothing at all.

She sighed my name in frustration. When she stood up I nearly whined. Apparently I looked the part of the neglected puppy, cause she put her hand against the side of my face and smiled at me. Told me she´d catch up with me at the Professor´s office in a little bit, and off she went in a soft rustle of denim and satin, leaving me to think about how much she´s affected me in such a little time.

I was staring into the dregs of my coffee, already beginning to feel the effects of the caffeine wearing off when that damn grating voice sounded again. I´d managed to ignore it before, I didn´t know how well that was going to work now.

“Rogue - she seem pretty taken w´ you, Wolverine,” he said, emphasizing that name like it carried disease.

“Remy, stop it.” That was the girl next to me, the one in yellow who´d blushed earlier. She wasn´t blushing now.

“Butt out, Jubilee, dis ain´t none of yo' business.”

“No, Remy, you´re wrong.” There was fire in this child´s eyes, so I just sat back with my arms crossed and watched the display. She continued on without pausing to let him speak. “All of us - everyone of us here - loves Rogue, but apparently some of us care more about her happiness than others. I mean, God, Gambit! Did you even pay attention here or were you too busy being pissed off that it was him not you? Look at her plate.” When the twit stared defiantly at her, she repeated the order, yelling it.

“Look at it, dammit!” I glanced over to it myself. There wasn´t a damn thing on it. What was the point?

“Do you remember the last time she ate that much during an entire day, much less at one sitting? Cause I do.”

Whoa, whoa… She wasn´t eating? I guess I never really thought of all the ramifications of that last transfer. I mean, flying, that´s a given, but…

“…And my God, Remy, she laughed,” the girl called Jubilee said, and had my attention again. “Rogue has been the North American Posterchild for Anhedonia for the last two months and you don´t think it´s a remarkable thing when she laughs? Can´t you be happy that she´s finally taking an interest in something - someone - even if it´s not you? Or are you so selfish that if you can´t make her happy, she should be miserable forever?”

“It´s not like dat,” the put-in-his-place shit ground out quietly.

“Then how is it?”

“He don´t deserve her. We been here, standing by her all throughout everything, and where he been?”

“You mean other than in her head the entire time?”

“I mean he left her. Au revior, ma chere. And now he back, and no one know why, or for how long. But dat don´t matter, cause all he got to do is growl and everybody is all ‘Wolverine dis,´ and ‘Wolverine dat.´”

I was thinking about growling, just for the hell of it, see what would happen, but the girl moved and the moment was gone…

Jubilee got up from her chair and leaned over the table, hands flat on the surface of the wood. “You know what? This is stupid. I don´t even care. I´m her friend, but it´s her life. If it makes her happy to be all googly-eyed with the meanest motherfucker on our side, I say put another steak on the grill and offer him a beer.” She stared at him for a while before leaving, maybe waiting for a response. She didn´t get one.

Meanest motherfucker? I never claimed to be Mr. Congeniality, but I never really thought of myself as the worst either.

I gotta say, I think like it.

“Marie coming?” I said, looking around Xavier´s office and not seeing her.

“In a short while. In the meantime, do tell me how things went.”

I looked at him in disbelief before shutting the door and helping myself to a seat. “You mean you don´t know yet?”

He smiled. “I´ve been waiting.”

I shrugged and sat down. “She´s fine. I mean, she was a little paranoid when I first showed up, but then she was completely fine. I don´t know why you called me back.” Then I stopped to think about how that sounded, and maybe wondered about her not eating. “Don´t get me wrong-”

“No, no,” Xavier assured me quickly. After a minute of looking a little confused, he asked to rake my brain. Whatever, like I could stop him.

He sat in thought long enough to make me squirm but finally he snapped out of it.

“Oh,” he said, like I was psychic too.

“What?”

“Well, you should know that every time Rogue has absorbed someone, we work together she and I, to try and separate the personalities. It is easier for her if I assist her, easier and quicker. I can say, therefore, that I know her state of mind fairly well.”

“Okay…” It was all nice to know, but where the hell was he going?

“The last episode, with Ms. Marvel - there was more than a small amount of difficulty. Imagine if you will, a room full of people surrounding one person. The room is Marie´s mind and the woman at the center is Marie herself. The people surrounding her are all in various states of decay - that is, they are all fading away albeit some more slowly than others. The strongest ones have the loudest voices, but they are distinct and they don´t come from Marie. Now imagine a fog in the room, a fine mist coating everything. Indistinct and everywhere, impossible to tell what thoughts come from what direction, or if they´ve come from you. Are you following me?”

“Yea.” And I really wasn´t liking where I was being led, either.

“Over the past month the confusion had gotten so convoluted that the other personalities had began to fade much more quickly than what I believe to be normal. It seemed that as the mist coalesced, Marie herself began to fade. Combined with the loss of you inside her head, Marie had begun to think of suicide as an alternative to giving up her body to a stranger.”

I couldn´t breathe. The thought of Marie killing herself swirling in my head, the thought of me finding her lifeless body, again. Knowing that this time, I would be too late.

But then I thought of her giggling in the hall on the way to breakfast. Her hand touching my cheek, my chest, my thigh. The smiles that went all the way to her eyes and how those eyes shone, for me maybe. How disappointed she was when she thought I was leaving again and how relieved she was when she knew I wasn´t.

Suicide? “She´s not still… I mean, she wouldn´t… I…” I couldn´t say it, and because I don´t think Xavier is cruel at heart, he didn´t make me.

“No, I don´t believe so, and I think I know why.”

His pause was just a little too long, so I glared.

“You touched her, didn´t you?”

Shit, I still felt bad about that. I take back what I said about Xavier and cruelty.

“Logan,” he said almost laughing, “Your presence in her was diminishing at an astonishing rate. Now I daresay it´s not. You are giving her strength to fight off the mist, keep it at bay until she has the strength to deal with it permanently.”

Oh. That actually made me feel a little better about the touch, then. “She mentioned she didn´t mind so much when I touched her,” I muttered, wishing I could touch her every day, consequences bedamned.

“I don´t see why you shouldn´t.”

“Huh?”

“Touch her. A few moments every day would strengthen her, I think. That is, if you don´t mind being unconscious ten minutes out of every day.”

Life´s tough. I think I can manage.

“Excellent. I will keep you informed on the progress Rogue and I make in session.” Xavier´s attention went to the door just before it opened. “Good morning, Rogue. Won´t you join us?”

“G' morning, Charles,” she said, drawling out the name affectionately.

Charles? She calls him Charles? Before my thoughts spiraled out of control I remembered I was in the room with a mind reader. I remembered this cause he started talking in my head, telling me that Magneto called him Charles, and now, so does Rogue, when they're alone.

Oh. Okay.

Completely oblivious to the mental exchange, Marie came over to me and perched on the arm of my chair, resting a hand on my shoulder. I acted on the only one of my thoughts that was acceptable in mixed company, moving my arm around her so she was in the crook of it, with my hand resting on the outside of her thigh, just below her hip.

I gotta say, for not seeing each other for four years, we *were* getting awfully cozy, awfully quick. I'm back not twenty-four hours and she's curled up like a kitten in my arm. Not that I minded, it was just a weird feeling, cause it felt so right. Like we´d been doing it for the last four years instead of just dreaming about it. Or maybe that was just me dreaming about it. Maybe not. Either way it would be an interesting topic of conversation the next time we were running low.

But there we were, practically imitating snuggle-bunnies in the middle of Xavier´s office. Ironically, he was the only one in the school with whom it wouldn't be awkward in some way. Go figure. "So what's going on, Charles? Why'd ya need the both of us here?" I glanced up and looked at Marie - really looked. She seemed so calm, so at peace. Could she really have been that low? She must have been - Charles wouldn't have said it if it hadn't been true. I sighed inwardly and wondered what on earth I could possibly do that would make a difference. I wasn't so convinced that just touching her every now and then was gonna do a hell of a lot of good.

"Oh, right," Marie responded, but I hadn't heard Xavier say anything. Damn that pisses me off. Before I could say anything though, she looked down at me and smiled.

It's really hard to be angry when she smiles at me. Call it going soft and I'll gut you. So says the meanest motherfucker.

But she did smile, and she murmured down to me, "Now Logan, when the good doctor comes in, you be nice and shake his hand." I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I wouldn't want to offend him, now would I?"

She slugged me in the arm. Anyone else trying to hit a man with metal bones mighta had a painful hand, but not my Marie.

"You'll like him, Logan."

I looked doubtful. She laughed at me ruefully and rolled her eyes. Marie tapped her temple with her finger and gave me a meaningful look. "I know you, Logan. You and Hank will get along just fine."

"Hank?" I asked, hearing the door open. Xavier just smiled and welcomed the guest. Marie stood and went to greet him as well, so I figured I might as well play nice too.

I don't know which was weirder. The fact that Marie kissed both sides of his furry face in greeting, or the fact that there was fur, and it was blue, and it covered the entirety of his damn big body.

After their brief hello, Marie came back to me, taking my arm and hugging it to her side. Something in me glowed because of that, and I'm not sure what, but it felt good.

"Hank, I'd like you to meet Logan. Logan, this is Dr. Hank McCoy. He's doing research here with Jean and the Professor."

So now it was the Professor?

Big Blue stuck out a massive monkey-like hand with claws out, presumably to shake mine. I hesitated for a moment, but remembered what Marie had said. It all boiled down to whether or not I trusted her. Did I?

Yea, I guess I did.

"Nice to meet you," I think I growled.

"It is indeed," he said, bowing slightly over our hands, his speech precise and controlled. Proper, I couldn't help but think. "I've heard so very much about you, Logan."

I think I snorted. But I'd been polite and shaken the guy's hand - I even 'exchanged pleasantries'. I don't know why Marie felt the need to scowl at me. When she didn't sit back down with me I had a little sinking feeling inside where my heart should have been.

"I have been working with Rogue for the last two years in the lab. We've been very curious to isolate the mutant genome, study it, you know…"

"No. I don't. Why?"

"To know…"

"You mean to change 'em?"

There was a twinkle in the doctor's eye when by all rights - when I was glaring like I do believe I was - there should have been wariness.

"That was not our intention, at first…"

"Oh, it never is."

"But we have recently discovered some potentially wonderful news for Rogue, and every other mutant whose mutation is…" the doctor trailed off, looking at my Marie with a question in his eyes.

I looked at her too and she had that sweet, sad smile on her face that I'd hoped never to see again. "It's okay Hank - you can say it."

Still, he gave an apologetic glance before finishing his statement with "…emotionally crippling."

For half a heart beat, everything was still, then I saw red. Almost literally.

Emotional cripple? Is that the only way these narrow minded hypocritical bastards could see Marie? Just because she couldn't touch she couldn't feel, is that the way it was? Or was it that everyone in this damn house was so filled with misguided fear that they wouldn't touch her to save her? Fucking bastards… Fucking Xavier - I trusted him, and this is the environment he provides?

I hadn't realized my claws were extended until Marie put her hand over mine, covering my knuckles and the base of those deadly metal protrusions. If it had been anyone else I probably would have ended up slicing off their fingers, but looking down at her made me think that tearing apart Xavier's office wasn't the best immediate answer.

She was kneeling down at my feet, looking up at me with those wide does eyes that usually bespoke entirely too much experience, but that right now were filled with a little sadness, a little more understanding, and quite a bit of more of something I've only dreamt of.

"It's alright, Logan. They don't mean nothin' by it. And besides," she grinned, "It's not like I'm known to be the most stable one in the house."

I breathed her in and calmed enough to retract the claws. "Yea," I said, smoothing her hair, "I guess with me rattling around in there you couldn't be all that peaceful."

She smiled at him then, and my chest felt bound because of it - it was a secret smile, the ones lovers share when all alone, whether or not they're in a room full of people.

"Ah thoughts Ah told you before, Logan, or don't you listen?" she whispered. "Ah can handle you in my head."

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I had a little half smile on my face and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it, not while she was looking at me like that, making me feel all over again that maybe I matter to the world, and in particular maybe I matter to her. "Yea, I think I remember you sayin' somethin' like that."

I had the irresistible urge to gather Marie up in my arms and hold her there in the chair, just letting her sit in my lap as we had this meeting with Xavier. A Scott-like voice informed me that such an action shouldn't be done right away and so I was about to do just that when Marie solved the problem before it got too complex by shifting slightly. She curled up between my feet, her hands clutching on to my leg through the denim, her head resting on my knee.

It was such a natural thing to do, just to sit there and feign listening and pet her. After all, maybe there was some part of her that was still just a kid, that still just craved the physical closeness of someone who cares. Before I really thought about it I found my hand instantly drawn to her hair, stroking it softly, massaging her scalp, getting great handfuls of the silky brownish auburn locks.

The initial thought that the position Marie assumed was that of a child didn't really last long. Maybe it was the way her fingers moved on my legs - stroking gently with those tiny movements. Maybe it was the way her head found its perfect and comfortable position against my knee. Maybe it was the way Marie's hair seemed to fan out across my thigh. Maybe it was how damn possessive I felt just then sitting back in the chair with Marie at my feet, my fingers gently tangled in the strands of silk, my eyes daring anyone in the room - in the mansion - to so much as think that this woman - my woman - was emotionally bereft in any way.

Pieces. That's all that there would be left of such a person. Bloody little slices three centimeters thick. Slice and dice, baby.

But then, maybe all of that wasn't why I couldn't possibly attribute Marie's actions to innocence. I was in her head - a nice, fresh up-to-date version of me. Wolverine, take two. A version that knew fucking messed up things about my past, even if I couldn't actually remember them first hand. A version that wasn't particularly softer or nicer, or any gentler than I had been before. But of course, Marie had a version of me in her head that was head over heels in love with a beautiful woman a century or so his younger, who if she looked in the mirror, she might recognize.

And knowing all of that …well, maybe I was just being a possessive male with his choice of mate. But Marie knew what I thought, didn't she? Couldn't she imagine in surround-sound how I'd react?

Or did it work that way? Shit. Maybe it didn't. I really need to discuss this with Marie. I really do. As in, the moment we step out of this room, no more waiting.

Still with us, Logan? Xavier asked, his voice sounding off with much humor in my head.

I looked up from the purring kitten at my feet, raising an eyebrow. Did it look like I was paying attention?

Yes, it does. But not to myself or Doctor McCoy. His findings will interest you, so I do suggest you give him at least part of your attention.

I sighed a little and looked at the big, furry, blue mutant and tried to follow the conversation. In the end it came down to genetics, a topic of which I knew shit about and cared even less. So it wasn't really my fault when my mind wandered to the package of sweetness nestled between my knees.

I didn't look at her, mind you. My blank stare was fixed on the doctor speaking, but then, I didn't need to look to savor. Long, slow breaths of Marie-filled-goodness works just as well.

Mostly, there was the sweet musk I remembered the last four years. Sometimes I'd imagine it heavier, laced with he desire, mingled with our sex. Just now, however, it was still light and just a little savory.

But there were other scents hidden in that musk. The most prominent was peach. Her shampoo? Probably. Lavender radiated off her skin and clothes like she'd bathed in water scented with it. She hadn't worn any perfume today, if she ever wore any at all, but there were other smells below the musk and peach and lavender.

Like me.

Marie smelled like me, like she was wearing my clothes, or as if she'd rubbed our naked bodies against each other - both things I hadn't remembered happening in the since he'd first seen her.

But she had touched me. And if she could get my smell from me, then that would explain the scent beneath mine - faint, ever-so-faint, but still there and completely foreign.

Logan, pay attention.

I think I might have growled in my head at him, but I tried again to listen to what the doctor was saying. It was just then that something was said that I think I should have understood better, cause all the sudden Marie freaked out.

She was babbling and it had happened so quick I wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but she was obviously bothered by something that had been said. I finally did pull her up into my lab and held her while she stared, now silent, through wide, glazed eyes. I looked up and growled, first at Xavier, but he was obviously talking to Marie in her head and I didn't want to distract him, if that were possible, so I turned it on Hank.

"Now, Logan. There's no need to resort to our more animalistic instincts. I had no idea our dear Rogue would be anything other than delighted at the news, even though it is still in the developmental stage."

My growl got louder. "You want animal instincts?" I was thinking of those five years, the ones I'd been so damn ashamed of. But as my muscles tensed I remembered, as if I could have forgotten, that Marie was in my lap, and making her feel better was the most important thing. So, I changed tactics. "What the hell'd you say to her? And this time, speak in a language I understand."

"In laymen's terms, all I said was that I believe I've found something of a way to retard the effects of her mutation on others."

Fuck.

"You're shitting me."

"No, I really wouldn't do that sort of thing."

It was right then, when my mind was reeling with the oh-so-staggering amount of possibilities that Marie snapped out of it and found herself in my lap. She wiggled a little bit, and what with the choice fantasy running through my mind right now involving me, her, and the chair we were both sitting in, I barely contained the groan. Fuck, this was all going fast. Not that I minded the speed, but I worried about Marie. I didn't think she'd be okay waking up in my bed anytime soon.

Shit, that didn't come out right. There just seems to be so much going on with her right now, and even though she seems fine to me, moments before I walked into the scene she was… Well, yea. Not in a good way. And I don't want whatever it is we are gonna have - cause we are gonna have it - to start because I took advantage of her when she was at her weakest. That just ain't right. So, even as fast as it was going… Oh, fuck. I don´t know what I'm gonna do, not really.

All I do know right now is that I ain't letting her go.

TBC