Between the Sheets - ArielleMoonlight, JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo (2024)

Chapter 1: The Resurrection of Rogue

Chapter Text

Gruff, pensive and brooding, Logan tracked Marie to Hoboken, New Jersey, eight months to the day he last laid eyes on her. His enhanced hearing monitored the bustling urban landscape around him as he locked the truck. If New York was the city that never slept, its sister state couldn't be far behind. Sirens wailed, vehicle horns honked, and assholes in their baggy pants loitered on street corners hawking tiny bags of whitish powder. Sidestepping a fire hydrant, he pocketed the keys and eyed the shabby apartment building.

He always thought that when he finally located her, her modest home would come equipped with the old country charm she constantly craved. When he learned she had run and taken up waitress duties, he figured the escape led somewhere up north, with a white picket fence and a friendly neighbourhood diner. He could picture her serving tables in Alberta and forever fighting snowdrifts with her southern drawl and short skirts. But this place didn't suit the kid, and it kicked his ass firmly into the territory of a blackened mood.

After the events of Alcatraz, he hit the road and headed onto the cage fighting circuit. Eventually returning, the lust for violence sated, and his head finally calmed, his thoughtlessness had been rewarded with a Marie-shaped hole in his life. Once she had taken the cure, she gave Drake what he wanted, and the asshole soon moved on. With Logan gone, she hightailed it and cut contact with the X-Men. Her phone disconnected a week later. Then, the emails bounced back.

Gossip about her whereabouts continued to spread, and on Logan's second day back at the mansion, he smoked and drank through a heavy spell of worry. With the promise to take care of her hanging low over his head, he asked Storm to trace her social security number, and here he found himself outside Marie's apartment with a scowl.

The stifling temperature of another record-breaking day in August did little to quieten the complaints from Marie's lips. From Florida to Maine, the heatwave defeated the most vulnerable in society, and the news troubled her gentle soul. With a tentative sigh, she half-concentrated on the tiny TV screen on the cluttered kitchen counter and prepared dinner. The long-sleeved shirt and leggings were as dark and dreary as her current mood. She momentarily gazed out the kitchen window, watching the red-hot, hellish summer sun slowly set on the horizon. Preoccupied by severely sullen thoughts, a loud knock on the front door startled her. She anxiously checked the time on the kitchen wall and dampened the worst of her worries.

An impatient Logan waited in the communal area. He smelled the overcautious scent that belonged to a scared Southerner and heard the soft, hesitant footsteps as she unlocked the door. The sounds of the chains and bolts rattling were music to his ears as he braced himself for a full-blown argument. The door opened the tiniest of cracks, and he caught sight of the two-toned hair for several seconds.

Marie peered out for a moment and, recognising his face, made her feelings immediately known. He instantly jammed the door with his boot and stopped her from shutting him out of her life again. The hesitation turned to worry. The worry morphed into fear, and she shuffled away and returned to the kitchen barefoot.

He pushed the door open and looked around at the smallish living room. He had seen tin cans bigger than this apartment. There were no photos or pictures and nothing of any real value. Several scents lingered in the air, one he had grown fond of over the years, and the other belonged to an unknown male. With a heavy sigh, he retraced her footsteps until he reached the pine-clad galley kitchen. Watching her from the doorway, he noticed the suspicious avoidance of eye contact. Deliberate and calm, he crossed the threshold and closed the distance between them in the cramped space.

The loose hair, long and wild in the summer heat, framed her face and concealed a secret. She pinned her solemn gaze to the knife and carefully chopped the vegetables as the comforting smell of cigar smoke closed in on her. Thoughts immediately turned to ignoring, flouting, and snubbing his ever-dominant presence, but he made things difficult.

His fingers tugged lightly at the infamous white streak, and she focused on a favourite chopping board. She immediately felt his gaze tense when he gathered the hair and brushed it from her face. Releasing an anxious breath, thoughts spun aimlessly, searching for another plan to scheme and plot haphazardly. They both stilled, and she casually glanced at his boots until he moved again. When he leaned closer and studied her face, she finally gazed into the eyes of the Wolverine.

With a furrowed brow, Logan traced his thumb gently across the faint bruise under her right eye. He reached for the neckline of the cotton shirt and drew it downward a little, spotting several more bruises on her collarbone. Scowling, he felt her pull away and watched as she busied herself with pots, pans, and dish soap. He moved closer again while she vigorously washed at an already gleaming dinner plate.

He gradually tugged a sleeve upwards to her elbow, finding marks that resembled thumb and fingerprints. The disappearing act, the disconnected phone, and the bounced emails suddenly made sense to him. With an impending growl, he leaned against a kitchen counter and observed her closely.

Marie rolled the sleeved shirt down and searched for the words to share with her unexpected visitor. She grasped at a cluster of ready-to-spew excuses, desperate to protect her boyfriend, but when she dared gaze at Logan again, he shook his head with a growl. Identifying the look in his eyes frightened her, though not as much as the jingling of keys at the front door. Bracing herself for more violence, she wandered from the sink and nervously dried trembling hands.

An enraged voice called out, agitated and furious because his dinner wasn't ready. The front door slammed shut, the sound of footsteps stumbling under the weight of a heavy, unpaid bar tab. Drunken expletives mixed with vicious, violent, and specific threats toward a girlfriend he believed he owned.

Something tumbled over along the route to the kitchen, and the sound made Marie flinch. Spurred on by fear, she frantically cleaned up the mess on the counters. Her desolate eyes widened with panic, and she waited for her boyfriend to enter the room. Time almost stood still when he drunkenly appeared in the doorway, holding two bottles of whisky as he ranted about a lack of respect. She parted her lips to explain, ready to make excuses as always and afraid of the consequences.

Partially hidden by the kitchen door, Logan continued to scowl at the tiled floor. In a string of time-worn moves often practiced in cage matches, he harmonized the murderous thoughts with his clenched fist and felled Marie's unsuspecting partner. One brutal punch knocked his newly unconscious target in the air and shattered the bottles to the floor. He heard Marie gasp but raised his hand with a growl to stop her from surging forward.

The drunk landed with a sickeningthud,and Logan's unsatisfied gaze softened when it snapped to Marie. His boots crunched against the glass as he closed the distance between them. Scooping her into his burly arms, he carried her down the hall. When he opened the front door, with a gruff command of the situation, he set her down in the safety of the communal area. Snagging the keys from his jeans pocket, he tipped her chin upward until their eyes met.

"Go wait for me in the truck," he ordered in a no-nonsense tone.

His first spoken words to her in eight months seemed to shake Marie from the fogginess of thoughts and the blame game. She took the keys silently and, with one last glance toward the apartment, realised everything inside was tainted. Feeling beaten, defeated, and vulnerable, it wasn't only those caught out by the weather who suffered in their homes. As she wandered cautiously to the staircase, she faltered and gazed over her shoulder at Logan. He gave her a firm nod and waited for her to pick up the pace.

When Logan heard her reach the truck's safety, he returned to the apartment and ominously locked the door behind him. While he lit a cigar and breathed in a lungful of smoke, he savoured the familiar taste and waited for his victim to wake. His ears eventually picked up the drunken, pained groans from the next room. He looked intimidating in his wife-beater, jeans, dog tags, and combat boots. Still, the dangerous scowl he wore as he returned to the kitchen would have scared the toughest of men on the darkest corners of the globe.

A concerned Logan watched Marie in the rear-view mirror. She sat in the backseat, the furthest away she could be and gazed down at her lap. He drove them to Westchester, his head racing in an intense marathon as it pieced together the past hour. As he left the apartment, a middle-aged and frumpy female stopped him in the halls and congratulated him. She wanted to shake his bloodied hand and even offered a reward of a decent-smelling pot of chilli for his troubles. Many neighbours in the apartment block knew of the abuse, but none had been willing to step in and put a brutal stop to it. It made him rage internally as he gripped the steering wheel in a white-knuckled fury.

When they finally reached the mansion after midnight, Logan guided the traumatised Marie to his bedroom with a hand resting against the small of her back. She had nowhere else to lay her head with her old accommodation occupied by a raft of new students. He figured she would sleep but watched her head straight for the bathroom in a detached daze. After showering and dressing elsewhere, he dragged a worried hand through his damp hair and listened to her tears. She should have known by now that the sound of a shower head wouldn't fool his senses. He could hear the gentle sobs and sighed to himself.

After several more minutes, he knocked on the bathroom door. She ignored him, and he backed off, pacing the room like a caged animal. Her tears always had a way of wearing him down and niggling at his forever-frayed temper. Eventually, he opened the door and cleared his throat as he peered inside to check on her. She gazed wordlessly from the shower cubicle floor, swiping tears, and watching him approach. Sparks never flew amid emotional turmoil, but in that moment, she understood they were still firm friends.

Logan grabbed a sizeable fluffy bath towel off a gilded rail and offered his hand. After all, he didn't want Marie to drown in tears and figured it would fix some of the hurt in her head if she rested for a while. She put her hand in his without a fight, and he hauled her upright. He glowered at her body, mapping out the visible bruises that littered her pale skin and could feel the rage loosen inside him again.

She took the towel and shielded the injuries from his furious gaze. Tears streamed down her face again, and she shuffled forward in search of a safe place to mourn the end of a violent relationship. Burying her face against his bare chest, his arms wrapped protectively around her.

Despite their eight-month absence from each other, their friendship remained intact regardless of what happened on their travels. He would always look after her, no matter their choices in life. While she cried, he reached over and turned the shower off. The only sounds he heard now belonged to her broken and bruised heart.

"What he did wasn't right," he muttered, chin resting against her head.

The towel hung loosely in her hand, and she closed her eyes, wishing the memories of the last few months faded and floated away. She felt him steer her gently into the bedroom after a while, her exhausted feet shuffling along. He wrapped the towel around her properly, re-gifting part of the dignity she had lost since he last saw her. While she stood there, almost in a depressed trance, he rifled through his drawers and handed her one of his wife-beaters and a pair of sweatpants that engulfed her bottom half.

A wordless Marie pulled the shirt on and draped the towel over the chair. She glanced at him, and he gestured to the bed.

"You can sleep there, and you'll be safe," he said, walking to the door.

Sat on the bed, a faint whisper betrayed fears because she worried about what would happen once loneliness crept into every inch of her mind. "Please don't leave me."

Logan's troubled gaze snapped to the terrified Southerner perched on the pillows. He closed the door again and retraced his steps, settling down on the duvet and pulling her close. The continuous low hum of the air-conditioning unit constantly interrupted the eerie silence of the stifling warm night. At a quarter to three that morning, the haunting sound of an owl hooting in the darkness stirred him from a peaceful slumber. Minutes later, he fell asleep again with Marie's face nestled against his chest.

The resident feral's early morning rituals had imprinted heavily on her mind, and his memories still lodged deep in her psyche. She, too, valued the sunrise and the tranquillity of the mansion grounds before anyone else woke. But confusion reigned that morning until the memories of the previous night's barefoot escape flooded back. With a gentle sigh, she gazed at her gruff rescuer.

Already awake, his eyes studied the shadows on her face as the morning light streamed through the open window. He traced a thumb across the blueish-grey bruise under her eye and wished it would vanish altogether.

"I'll be okay," she promised softly, her trusting gaze never leaving his.

With some trepidation surrounding those words, he glanced down at her bare chest. Her breasts had spilt over the loose fabric during the night, and he tugged the shirt material up to save her from embarrassment.

She kissed his cheek with a faded smile. "You're always saving me, Logan."

Clearing his throat roughly and awkwardly, he eased his body out of the bed, and Marie caught sight of the problem. She affectionately called it his 'morning wood'. With his memories more evident than before, she settled back into bed and closed her eyes, pretending not to have noticed.

She knew his affliction had nothing to do with them sharing a personal space. He had always been this way and would carry it to his grave if he died early one morning. The thought of someone cramming his erection into a casket tickled her, and for the first time in over half a year, she almost felt alive as the loose laughter escaped her lips.

Later that evening, they stood at his bedroom window and watched the blazing sun setting on the horizon. Besides venturing outside for an emergency clothes shop with a generous Storm, she resorted to hiding in the safety of Logan's room, reading romance novels, or watching reruns of Bewitched.

Captivated by the late summer scenery, they watched in silence, side by side, with his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Their curious gazes darted to the air-conditioning unit when it suddenly whirled, spluttered, and stopped working.

Logan sighed heavily and tried every which way to fix it, even electrocuting himself when he stabbed the circuits with an annoyed set of claws. With a smile, when Marie laughed, he glanced at her and shook his head at the show of a morbid sense of humour. If one faltered, the other always picked up the slack, but it amused him when she laughed at a near-death experience.

She waved at him to join her in bed. They would find a way to get through this heatwave together, which eventually led them to camp in the shower cubicle, propped up against the tiles as the cold water poured over their semi-naked bodies. As they sighed in unison, cooling off in the welcome wetness, she slipped her hand into his. At that moment, neither of them said a word. They focused on each other, gazes turning into appreciative looks. The spark in the relationship had returned but never normally travelled further than a sequence of longing stares.

The penetrating gazes almost lasted a lifetime, only broken when Logan turned off the shower. Dripping wet, they continued to hold each other's hands, but ever the pragmatist, he stood to his feet and led them to the bedroom.

She peeled off her soaked clothes and glanced at him as she lay on the bed. Wordlessly, he rolled the heavy-duty duvet off the mattress and removed his wet sweatpants. Their unconventional night featured no more touching and little signs of affection. They settled peacefully beside each other and finally regained a loose-minded armistice in undisturbed sleep.

An aroused Logan opened his eyes at barely six that morning, feeling his hardened member grazing against body heat. Already awake, Marie watched keenly and acutely, weighing up the options after ending the worst relationship of her life. She lay in his arms, and they faced each other as his length brushed innocently against her inner thighs. The humidity between them intensified, as did the shared heat in their gazes.

Logan shook his head because it wasn't a good idea. It was too soon; she still wore the bruises and fought through trauma. He would continue to protect her, even if it were against himself.

"I understand," she whispered faintly, biting gently on her lower lip when his member brushed a sensitive spot at the entrance of her sex.

Tracing the bruise under her eye, his gaze narrowed. "Did that hurt?"

She shook her head because the aches were sexual, not upsetting or unkind. "I used to pray every night that you would find me."

"Then why did you slam the door in my face?" he asked gruffly, searching her face for answers.

"I felt ashamed. My life was never mine after I met him, Logan. He was kind at first but changed after a few weeks. When he first hurt me, I thought I deserved it." She heard him growl. "No, I really believed it. I thought it was my fault because he wasn't happy with me. I didn't clean like his last partner. I couldn't cook like his mama and didn't wash his clothes how he wanted. Nothing was ever good enough, and I lost myself in the pain. Every bruise he gave me, I thought I deserved it because I couldn't be the perfect girlfriend."

The growling Logan wished he killed the son of a bitch. One savage beating wasn't enough. Broken ribs would heal, and bloodied wounds would be stitched closed, but she would carry the trauma for the rest of her life.

"Look, you're perfect the way you are, Marie. Once those bruises heal, we'll make this work between us, you hear? You and me, out there on the open road, heading straight to Anchorage. I'm in this for the long haul once you're ready. The ball's in your court, okay?"

Her gaze sparkled as she wandered through his gruff words to uncover a promise she never felt truly worthy of. Her hesitant hand groped at the air before it stroked against his willing member. Fingers gently paraded across the twitching length, growing more confident as she watched his gaze gloss over with rampant lust.

She pushed away the horror of the recent past, the humidity in the room seemingly soaring to record levels, and packaged her response in a telling smile. "If I touched those balls gently and pointed to my court, would you run away from the corniness of my words?"

An amused Logan chuckled and rested a hand on her creamy hip. "That depends on the rules of the game."

"Unfortunately, the cheesiness is contagious," she advised him, teasingly kissing his lips. "I'm wondering if the balls can stay home, but your Canadian hockey stick can visit the shade of my Southern court."

He snorted at the corny analogy, chalking it up to a clumsier than usual chat-up line. Giving it some thought, he cupped the side of her face with his free hand. His eyes never left hers.

"You sure you're up for this?" She nodded vigorously, and he sighed, still in two minds, but she stroked his co*ck until he grit his teeth with pleasure. "This is a rebound, you know."

"No, it's a rebirth," Marie promised him, returning faithfully to her roots of loving Logan but without the distance or hidden lust. As he tenderly entered the warmth of her sex, their passionate gazes locked, and she gasped in appreciation. "It's the resurrection of the Rogue."

Chapter 2: Co-Parenting

Chapter by ArielleMoonlight

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Welcome to the Club

Chapter by JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo

Chapter Text

Seventeen-year-old Rogue hugged hundreds of dwindling hopes to her chest and forever danced around the dangers of poisonous skin. She wanted to be normal, cured, and rebellious and demanded to party, run, scream, frolic, drink, be merry, and damn it, that's just what happened. Yes, she partied; no, it wasn't an X-Men-sanctioned celebration. The party occurred off-campus, away from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

In fact, it was so off-campus that she might have accidentally wandered across a particular border into a specific country in a certain snowstorm during an unplanned drunken episode of stupidity and singing. Yes, singing was involved, and strangers, too. Then she locked herself in the motel bathroom once they arrived at Heck-Knows-Where with God-Knows-Who because suddenly the situation didn't feel safe.

Gazing at the swirling reflection in the teeny, spherical mirror, she pointed to herself. "Stand still and let me think everything through, Miss D'Ancanto. I'll deal with this situation, or maybe not. sh*t, damn and f*ck." She didn't usually cuss, but the growling Logan in her mind wasn't best pleased with the current state of her drunken ass. "I can't really do anything because how far is Westchester from here?"

As it turned out, calculations weren't a first-time drunk's best friend. Sitting in the empty bathtub, she rummaged through her coat pocket and checked the cell phone. It still had a healthy battery life but swam in her unstable vision. Hmm, that could be an issue, but who would she call? Not the X-Men. They were busy doing X-Men things. Yes, X-Menthings. You know, things the X-Men did at two in the morning, which involved sleep and missions. So, scratch the X-Men off the straightforward list, and that only left Logan.

Her gloved fingertips merrily tapped the buttons several times and searched for his number. He fled the mansion too long ago in search of a past he couldn't remember or recall but promised to return one day soon.

Maybe he would help a friend in need who currently lay in a bathtub with a pocketful of stuff. Yes,stuff. She refused to describe her pockets in further detail in case you were law enforcement desperate to enforce the law. Officers in Mississippi would shoot before asking any questions. What would the Canadian cops do?

Anyway, back to the problematic Logan. As proof they were friends, she jingled the dog tags fashioned around her wrist and pressed the call button. He would help, wouldn't he? Of course, he would help. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. No one picked up, and the worry seeped into every inch of her mind.Try again,Head Logan ordered. So, she did. Then again and again and again.

Logan was parked in a snowy car lot of a hellhole bar close to the United States border. With a smirk, his adventurous hand slipped under the silky skirt of a redheaded barfly he took a liking to over a shared love of motorcycles. As they continued to get acquainted in the bathroom stall, his jacket pocket vibrated for the thirtieth time.

"It's probably a family emergency," she suggested, inching the panties enticingly down her thighs.

He gave the woman an amused snort and shook his head. "I don't have a family."

"Guys say that all the time, but they're often lying," the fiery redhead said, patting his vibrating pocket. "It must be important, seeing as they call back every thirty seconds."

Logan fished the cell phone into his rough grip, muttering about inconveniences. He didn't recognise the number and looked relieved when it stopped ringing.

"Now, where were we?" he asked the long-legged beauty, about to put the phone away when it vibrated again. With a growl, he answered the call abruptly. "This better be important."

Complete silence greeted him until the pounding on a door could be heard in the background. Shouts of "Open up before we kick your ass, Rogue!" reached his ears. He frowned and stepped away from the woman, ignoring her even when lacy panties plummeted to the sticky linoleum floor.

Rogue cradled the phone with a gentle sigh and gazed at the too-small window, considering the limited options. "Hi Logan, how's your trip? Did you find your past, and is it treating you well?"

The frown on his face deepened because she sounded drunk. "Never mind what I'm doing. What's going on there? Have the geeks finally lost control of a school full of brats?"

Rogue winced as the knocking grew louder with every furious thump at the locked door. "It's funny you should say that because I'm in a tub."

"A bathtub? You're calling me drunk from a bathtub at two in the morning? Here's some advice, kid. Get out the goddamn tub before you drown, and go catch some shuteye."

"No, you don't understand," she complained, attempting to clamber out of the bath with all the grace of a drunken farmyard animal. Eventually, she gave in and slid into the temporary plastic prison with a fed-up groan. Fighting to stay awake, she stifled a shuddering yawn. "The tub's not at the school."

Logan raked a hand through his hair and listened to thethudsandsqueakscoming from her location."Oh yeah, and where's this tub at, huh?"

Slumping into a semi-comfortable state, she sighed dramatically and tapped her gloved fingertips against the bath. Her words were deliberately vague and subdued. "I might have seen the Welcome to Canada sign at one point, but I'm unsure with all the snow and liquor. Can we please talk about it later? I've never told you before how much I like your hair. It's wild, like a mane with magical powers of persuasion and grumpiness."

"Is that your way of letting me know you're sat drunk in a tub in Canada?" he questioned gruffly, catching the sound of muffled words that sounded suspiciously like a significant problem for the both of them.

"I know you think I'm shy, and everyone else sees me the same way, too, but liquor helps me unwind. Do you know something else, Logan? I'm tired and want to sleep, but I'm asking for a ride because it's unsafe here, and I'm scared."

"sh*t," he muttered worriedly, forgetting about the waiting redhead. Heading straight to the car lot, he passed through the noisy bar, the phone still crushed to his ear as he listened to some drunken semi-confession from a seventeen-year-old pain in the ass. "Where are you?"

Her eyelids grew heavy with promises of peaceful sleep, but she fought to free herself from the tub for the second time. "I already told you that. I'm in Canada. I'm drunk in Canada with my new friends, who I think might be criminals."

Logan listened to every tumble, squeal and squeak and reached the SUV. Scrubbing the recent snowfall off the windshields and mirrors, he sighed heavily. "You better be okay, kid." Silence settled into the call for a good minute and a half. "Now what's going on?" He unlocked the car and sat behind the steering wheel.

"I can't get out of the tub," she whispered sluggishly, gazing up at the curved light fixture that reminded her of a sun.

"How about telling me where you are." Met with a wall of silence, his brow furrowed even further as he turned the key in the ignition. "You must know where you are."

"I'm in Canada," she replied unhelpfully and spelled it out in a cheerful sing-song tone. "C-a-n-a-d-a."

An irritated growl rolled from Logan's lips. He would have to wake Charles up and send him down to Cerebro. "Just sit tight and keep the phone close. I'll get back to you once I've contacted the geeks."

The call ended with abeep, beep, beep,and Rogue shrugged to herself. That went better than expected. Humming tunelessly, she craved junk food and a cheese-slathered quadruple cheese-filled, cheese-stuffed cheeseburger as thoughts lingered lightly on the current predicament.

Drugs didn't interest her, neither did liquor, because look what happened when you drank. You ended up lost in Canada, laying in a bathtub you couldn't escape as you considered singing to pass the time until a gruff Canadian with wild hair saved you.

"One, two, three, four. Can I have a little more? Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I love you. Sail the ship, bompa bom. Chop the tree, bompa bom. Skip the rope, bompa bom. Look at meeeee. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. Black, white, green, red. Can I take my friend to bed? Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue. I love you."

Logan grimaced at the noisy voice of a drunken Southerner and the seemingly endless song. Didn't she understand he could hear every goddamn word? He switched over to the other line with a heavy sigh. "It sounds like Rogue's keeping herself occupied for now. Chuck got a fix on a location yet, Jean?"

Jean stood outside Cerebro dressed in the tight-fitting X-Men uniform and clasped a phone loosely in her long fingers. She paced outside the secretive room, awake because of a late-night mission. "Not yet. I'm sorry this happened, Logan."

"It's not your fault she poured half the liquor in North America down her goddamn throat," he said, impatiently drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. "Can you tell him to get a move on? I haven't got all night."

She smiled at the impatient tone. "Once we have Rogue's location, we can pick her up on the X-Jet."

"No, it'll be fine once she stops singing. I'm already here anyway. Any word on who her new friends are?"

"Most of us were unaware she had met anyone outside the gates, but according to Scott, she befriended new neighbours who moved into the old O'Malley house."

"Well, she's gonna unfriend them once I'm through with her," he growled ominously.

"Logan, you can't stop a teen from making friends," she admonished him.

He grumbled and changed his mind on the X-Men not being at fault. "Why not? She's just travelled eight hours to the border, and none of you noticed until she called me for help."

"Because seventeen-year-olds make mistakes, and you know we're busy with missions and classes. I have mounds of schoolwork to mark, lessons to plan, speeches to write, research to complete, I run the sickbay single-handedly, and I'm planning a wedding. This is a school, and we try our hardest to monitor the students, but sometimes we make mistakes, too."

All the more reason for him to deal with this alone. With another furious grumble under his breath, Logan heard the Professor share the location of Rogue. She was at the Motor Inn in Hamilton, Ontario, Motherf*cking Canada. He ended the call and returned to the other line, grimacing at the instant stream of drunken singing as he reached for a wrinkled map on the passenger seat.

"She asked me to stay, and she told me to sit anywhere. So, I looked around, and I noticed there wasn't a chair. I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine. We talked until two, and then she said, "It's time for bed". She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh. I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath."

He snorted in amusem*nt at the song as he searched the map marked with motels, hotels, inns, guesthouses, and bars. "Look, Kid, you keep singing, and I'll leave you to bed down in that tub until hell freezes over." He heard a commotion in the background and drove out of the car lot with his eyes darting to the map every few seconds. "What's going on?"

"You asked me to stop singing, so I considered my options and the tub is the bed, but the door's locked, and the window's too small," she explained, sounding drunker as her words slurred dangerously. "Do you understand?"

"No," a frank Logan grumbled, wondering what she had chased the booze down with. This was more than a simple case of beer talk. "What the hell made you think any of this is a good idea, huh?"

Rogue glanced at the door and stifled an almighty yawn. "What do you think about personal growth?"

"Is that a joke, or are you as drunk as you sound?" he shot back, putting his foot down on the accelerator and relived he had decided to hang around Hamilton for a few more days before crossing the border. The kid was lucky his plans changed when he met the redhead in the bar, or they would have missed each other completely.

"I don't find any of this funny, Logan," Rogue replied firmly, then giggled until she dropped the phone on her lap. She picked it up again when she heard several death threats screeched through the door. "Did you hear that? My new friends want to kill me."

"Tell 'em to get in line," he answered gruffly and kept his narrowed eyes on the deserted country road on the outskirts of town.

Rogue focused on the light above, her eyes circling the faux sunlight. She ignored Logan's voice echoing against the tiles and wondered when the cell phone battery would die. The punching at the door was soon replaced with genuine danger. Still, it never entered her floating mind as she focused on the colours of the rainbow swarming across the walls.

"You're my only friend," she whispered and meant it too. "Everyone else is scared of me. Scared of my poisonous skin and frightened I'll harm them. They look at me like I'm a monster, and maybe that's why I'm locked in a bathroom in Canada. I'm just a runaway who can't even run without making a mess of things. I'm a monster. A mutant. An almost friendless freak who fails at everything and can't even sing without hurting people's ears."

Logan sighed heavily at the sound of furniture crashing against the bathroom door. "Just sit tight and stay awake," he ordered, closing in on the motel from a freshly ploughed highway.

"You don't understand. I hate my life, Logan, and hate living like this. Why can't I be normal like everyone else? I never asked to be a mutant. No one said, 'Hi, Rogue, do you want to kiss this boy and hurt him badly because you're a freak?' It happened, and then I ran away. If I keep running, do you think things will be different, or will it always feel this way? There's an emptiness inside me, and I'm scared it will swallow me whole."

He fished for an answer and grumbled to himself. There was nothing he could say to make Rogue feel any better. Sure, her skin remained an issue, but mutations were hell on earth to deal with, and the baggage didn't lighten over the years.

"We'll talk about it later," he promised and turned into the motel car lot. "Stay put in the tub, and let me deal with this."

"Deal with what?" she asked, forgetting most of the night as the colours expanded in her mind and rode blissfully into the stratosphere.

Logan parked and exited the vehicle in four seconds flat, ready to rescue her from a difficult situation. He left the car unlocked and used his nose to trace Rogue's scent to a nearby ground-floor motel room full of partying kids ready to riot. His sharp hearing overheard plans to smoke her out of the bathroom as he entered through an unlocked door.

The disarray inside the four walls was difficult to ignore, and the same could be said for the strong scents of beer, whiskey, tequila, and a heavy co*cktail of street drugs. Shattered pieces of pine littered the stained carpet where chairs once sat. The music stopped, and the confused voices raised merry hell until screams rang out.

With one get-the-f*ck-out-of-here wave of Logan's claws, the kids fled the motel room, leaving the empty bottles and drug paraphernalia behind. It was almost too easy, but he shoved the worry aside for now.

He made an instant beeline for the bathroom door and sliced through the lock. Sheathing his claws, he sighed in relief at the familiar scent of a certain Southerner as he closed in on the bathtub.

"The light's calling me, Logan," Rogue whispered as his concerned head appeared above and joined the animated rainbows dancing in her vision.

Sniffing her confusing scent, he started to scowl and noted the size of her swollen pupils. She smelled of beer, whiskey, tequila, and rum, but the worries were pinned to whatever drug she had stupidly taken. Shutting off her phone, he pocketed it and pulled her free of the tub.

She swayed unsteadily on her feet, thanks to the alcohol, and he gazed into her eyes with all the care he could muster. "This running away business isn't the end of the world, but how about you fill me in on whatever you've taken tonight."

Rogue felt his steady hands rest on her shoulders. He turned her around and walked them outside into the cold night air, avoiding the black ice, slush, and snow. Words swam away, and she didn't mind because life finally seemed tolerable. That's what she told him. Maybe life wasn't meant to vanish from the tips of her gloved fingers tonight because rainbows were a sign of happiness, weren't they?

The incoherent rambling worried Logan, and he settled her into the front passenger seat. As he sat quickly behind the steering wheel, he drove them across town, searching for a motel while constantly checking that they had no stragglers following behind.

"What did you take?" he questioned gruffly, demanding to be told the goddamn truth. "I can smell the booze a mile off, but I need to know what else is lurking inside that body of yours."

Silent for an untold time, Rogue struggled to respond as he growled impatiently. Words danced before her euphoric gaze, and sentences faded with the unfrozen weather. Snowflakes twisted and turned into raindrops as she battled thoughts, feelings, and muted emotions. Her head remained detached and dazed despite his infamous temper unravelling in knots.

"Poisonous skin coats my body, but I drank liquor and liquor and more liquor. I didn't like it, though, and I don't think it liked me." She gazed at his scowling face with a distant stare that concerned him. "They only let me hide in the bathroom because I swallowed a pink pill with a shot of tequila. Two pink pills or maybe three pills, two pink and one a pale, pallid, whitish shade of beach-like sand."

"For f*ck's sake, Marie! What the hell's going through that head of yours, huh?" Logan snarled, gripping the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip as he swung the vehicle around when he spotted a nearby motel.

Thrown forward by the rapid change of direction, she listened to the tyres screeching against the drizzly, sub-zero tarmac. Thankful to be wearing a seatbelt, a yawn faded before it began. Sleep seemed to escape into the night, as did a little lecture.

"You should wear a seatbelt. Remember what happened the last time I warned you about road safety?"

Putting a lid on his temper, a scowling Logan parked again and headed straight to the office to pay for a room. He returned several minutes later with a key card. Cursing bad-temperedly to himself, he pulled her into his burly arms and carried her from the car. Whatever she took had robbed the use of her goddamn legs, and he was out of options.

"You called me Marie," she murmured to his fuzzy face, eyes glossing over with further waves of drug-induced confusion.

"Uh-huh, that's your name, remember?" he said, unlocking the door, booting it shut with his foot and sitting her down on the king-sized bed.

He checked her coat pockets and caught another strong whiff of drugs. Fishing over a dozen small, transparent bags of assorted pills from the coat, his brow furrowed as he headed to the bathroom to flush them.

She watched him closely and had difficulty sitting up, staying still, or even blinking, and smelled of anxiety and dread.

"Where was the same worry when you hit the road with a group of thugs who plied you with drink and drugs?" he growled and soon returned to her side.

Rogue couldn't answer because words continually vanished, and her lips refused to use them. She pushed his bare hand away from her face several times, but he was persistent and scowled dangerously as he laid out his plan to save her ass.

Logan sat down on the bed and sighed heavily. "You're either gonna OD on the pills, or the booze will take you to the nearest emergency room. We do this my way, you hear. I'll heal you, and you'll stay put until I'm awake. I mean it, Marie. Your disobedient and reckless ass doesn't move until I'm healed and on my feet again."

Nineteen-sixties song lyrics had faded from Rogue's mind with a shivering, shuddering halt. They were replaced by thoughts that chased after redheads behind clouds of cigar smoke or snarled about stupid Southerners drinking underage and hightailing it across the border with pocketsful of drugs. Rolling her eyes, she instantly dropped the attitude when Head Logan ranted the longest string of cuss words known to mutant kind.

Last night's guilt, shame, and embarrassment chipped away at her fragile state of mind. She couldn't sleep, anyway. Not while lying beside a volcanic corpse, waiting for it to heal, growl, and spew venom everywhere. Logan would kill her. He'd kill her. He would pin her against the wall with his claws and roar until she no longer existed. Bye, Rogue. f*ck you, Marie. You're dead, dead, dead.

She wandered through his memories for a while, still shivering in the frosty temperature of the room. Every inch of her head screamed to stay in case he woke, but a miniature portion of stubborn pride ordered her to flee while he remained out of action. The Wolverine's personality suddenly swamped any hastily made plans to run.Don't you f*cking dare.And that was her told.

Then again, the SUV needed locking because a stolen car would mean an even-deader Rogue. Searching through Logan's jacket pockets and snagging the car keys, she wandered outside and would never get used to it. The sights, smells, and sounds polluted every inch of her mind. His mutation harnessed the world in full-colour vision, and it was a legal high without taking drugs.

"I could get used to this," she admitted softly, feeling powerful and in complete control.

As she pressed the lock button on the key fob, noisy, vengeful footsteps approached. Tilting her head to the side, she spotted an unknown man's reflection in the window of the car. The Wolverine's instincts merged with her fear and timed to perfection; she swung around with all the bravery of a borrowed mutation.

The darkly smirking face of an entertained but furious drug dealer stared back at her. His eyes were the bluest she had ever seen, and his mid-length hair was darker than the night. If he hadn't been here to threaten, maim, or murder, she might have developed a crush, but Logan's voice in her head knocked the crush-talk into the nearest trashcan with a formidable growl.

"You have something that belongs to me, and I want it back," the dealer said, one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other pointing an index finger.

Head Logan coached her through every movement.Back away. That's it. Never take your eyes off an enemy. Don't answer him, either. Focus on your surroundings, Kid—the door's right behind you. No, don't look at it. See, now he knows what you're planning. Yeah, I see the gun. Don't worry about it; keep backing away until you reach the sidewalk. Forget what the geeks taught you, okay? Just listen to my voice, and everything will be fine. There's a change of plans, but I promise we'll handle this together.

Rogue's heels bumped against the curb as she crept backwards, reaching the sidewalk. Her gaze never left the gun. Thoughts of death and dying trailed the outskirts of her mind, and Logan's personality slowly took control of every movement.

Tell him what he wants is waiting down that alley, but don't turn your back on him. You never look away from an enemy, especially when they're armed. Go on, Kid. Now's your chance to tell him. Lie your ass off.

"What you want is down that alley, buried in the dirt," she said confidently, pointing a gloved fingertip towards the shadowy entrance of a lonely passageway across the car lot.

Attagirl. Now, you let him lead the way, okay? Do exactly as I tell you, Marie. You've got one chance at this, and I'll be with you every step of the way.

Paler than the moon and frightened of her shadow, Rogue stared at the ceiling and searched for nineteen-sixties song lyrics. Something, anything that would drag her away from the current thoughts tumbling, twirling, and twisting in the back of her mind because the truth was darker than her worst enemy's soul.

After a further spell spent worrying, Logan stirred just as the sun rose outside. She rolled onto her side, refusing to be a coward and watched him groggily open his eyes.

He groaned, scratching at his head and disorientated, until the popcorn ceiling came into focus. As he inhaled the surrounding scents, the memories of the early morning dash across town to save the kid returned with a vengeance. Tilting his head, he studied her face for signs of lingering drink or drug use.

Rogue's ashamed gaze dropped to the bedspread, and she picked at the loose fluff out of a nervous habit. Most words felt insufficient after running away, partying through the night, underage drinking, smuggling drugs across the border and then getting stuck in a bathtub while drunk and high. The less said about the singing and everything else, the better things would be.

"Look at me," Logan ordered, sounding calm. He noticed the trembling and pulled her closer with a protective hug. "Hey, quit moping around and look me in the eyes, Kid. If you're old enough to break the law, you face the consequences head-on, understood?"

She nodded gently and raised her chin until their eyes met. "I'm sorry I dragged you into my mess."

He shook his head in gruff disappointment and hugged her close. "No, you're not. Dump the fake apology and try again. I'm giving you one last chance to come clean, and you best take it."

Her glance grazed across his concerned face, and she closed her eyes. Breathing in the calming scent of cigar smoke, the promises tumbled out instead. "It won't happen again, I swear. I'll never even look at a beer bottle without feeling sick."

"Fine, we'll do things my way." Taking out his cell phone, he searched for Jean's number, determined to ask her to read the kid's mind and fish for secrets.

A curious Rogue twisted his jacket sleeve until she caught sight of the phone screen. Her eyes widened. No! Every secret was personal and mostly danced around her hidden crush on Logan. She wouldn't let anyone read her mind. She grabbed his phone and tossed it on the carpet floor without thinking. It bounced several times and landed under the desk with a clattering thud as it struck the wall.

Logan turned his scowl on the ceiling and worked through a heavy dose of anger. Right about now, he regretted ever making any promises to a goddamn southerner with temper tantrum issues. "Pick the phone up."

"No." She turned her back on him and closed her eyes to sleep despite the cold temperature in the room. The heating wouldn't work; it was a metaphor for her crumbling life. Everything was either out of date, broken, misused or mistreated.

"I haven't gotten to your punishment yet, Marie. Pick the phone up."

She scoffed at that. As if her only crush in the world would punish her. "You're always on the road. And don't call me Marie."

"Not anymore, I'm not, and you can forget about having a social life. You owe me some serious Danger Room time,Marie."

Glancing over her shoulder, she glared at him. "It was one out-of-hand party."

He raised an eyebrow at the lame excuse. "Bullsh*t. Now go pick the goddamn phone up." As the stubborn standoff in the bed continued, they frowned at each other. "You ran away, crossed the border with drugs in your pockets, got drunk and high with your criminal friends, and now you're giving me an attitude. Does any of that seem smart?" His eyes suddenly narrowed dangerously as he stumbled across a thought. "What, was this all for my benefit?"

Rogue's face flushed from ghost-like to the garden pink variety of embarrassment. Her mortified gaze darted to the walls, the floor, the bedding, and the ceiling. When she failed to escape the humiliation and awkwardness of the moment, she frowned darkly at him. "No, because my life doesn't revolve around you, Logan!"

He shook his head because he had finally gotten somewhere and unlocked the reason for her case of sudden stupidity. "You let them use your ass as a drug mule, so I'd come running?"

The embarrassment felt overwhelming. Rogue ripped the dog tags from her wrist and threw them in the same direction as the phone. She heard them strike the same wall as the phone and land on the desk, and no, it didn't make her feel any better.

"Real mature, Kid. You better start acting your age before I've finished healing."

"I'm not scared of you," she replied petulantly. This wasn't the Logan she wanted when she planned the party, the drinking and agreed to the accidental border-hopping. But the drugs had been a drunken calamity wrapped in an eternal mistake.

"Then you're more stupid than I thought. This deal between us and the promise I made on the train doesn't give you the right to put your life in danger. Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you. This isn't a f*cking game, you nearly died, Marie."

"Stop calling me that name," she muttered despondently, sluggishly leaving the bed and crossing the carpet. If he wanted the phone and tags, she would throw them at his head, and no, she didn't understand the growling, grumbling fury in her mind. "I'm not a kid, either."

"Could've fooled me." Logan leaned against the headboard, still frazzled by the aftereffects of her mutation. He would label this a partial win but intended to dig deeper through the behaviour of a runaway, dumbass kid because was last night a one-time mistake or had it happened before on a smaller scale?

She had enough sense to carefully pick up the phone and dog tags and carry them to his side. While half tempted to fling them at his head for no reason, her hands gripped the items tightly as she sat on the edge of the bed close to his feet. "You're an asshole."

"And you're a goddamn idiot," he answered gruffly, holding his palm out.

Dropping the objects into his hand, Rogue turned away, ashamed when he looked at her.

He pulled the dog tags over his neck and gripped the phone. "You ready to tell the truth, or do I have to call Jean because what you said last night about your mutation –"

"I just want to forget everything that's happened," she said softly, talking over him in a half-daze as she hugged a pillow.

"It's obviously bothering you. Come on, don't be stubborn. It doesn't suit you, kid," he said, searching her face for clues.

Rogue sighed loudly. "You don't know me, and stop calling me that." She wasn't a kid. She was a monster.

"Like hell, I don't. This isn't you. You know what I think? Your head's been turned." His brow furrowed, and he sniffed the air again suspiciously. "And you want my advice? Grow the f*ck up, drop the attitude, and tell the truth."

She gazed at him for a moment in understanding. "Because the truth sets you free?"

"Yeah, something like that," he said, nudging her knee with his boot and holding out his arm as a peace offering.

"The first time I tried it, everything felt better. Life seemed to calm, and worries faded. Does that make sense?" she asked, crawling toward him.

He hugged her, and they lay silently for a little while as they thought things through. Certain scents still troubled his nose, and his brow continued to furrow.

"Maybe, maybe not. I can't condone anything you did because you're an idiot, but I understand wanting to run from trouble."

She rested her head against his chest and squeezed her eyes closed, desperate to disappear entirely from the world. "Every part of me wants to do it again."

He growled at that and tightened his protective hold. "You keep thinking that way, and I'll kick your ass."

"Thanks, Logan," she mumbled into his flannel shirt and sighed.

"No problem," he grunted, still curious about the scent that clung to her. "Anything else you need to confess?"

Rogue felt classless, tactless and senseless. She was a monster and a dangerous freak. Confusion reigned free, and her thoughts swung high and sunk low. Nothing felt at peace. Drugs, drinks and random friends didn't care for her, but Logan did, and she let him down badly. "I've done something. Something evil. Something unforgivable."

"Spit it out, huh? Remember that saying about the truth setting you free? I figure that's what you need right about now."

The thought of him discovering the whole truth turned her world upside down. "Something happened earlier, and I can't live with the responsibility of keeping it a secret."

"Go on," he said, relieved she finally wanted to cough up further information about the stupid drug use. "Let's hear it, then."

Rogue lifted her head and looked at him with a watery gaze. Gulping, she knocked a trembling hand against his shirt pocket. There were tiny rips in the material across her knuckles. "I hurt someone." The words coincided with the sound of sirens outside closing in on their location.

Logan's eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his hardened gaze snapped to the window and then down to her hands. "What happened?" he asked gruffly.

"I hurt someone," she repeated faintly, in a frightened daze and unable to explain further.

He traced a finger carefully around the holes in one of the gloves and left the creaking bed behind. "Sit tight and let me deal with it," he said, opening the door and studying the nearby crime scene.

The stench of blood and death struck him as he inhaled the scents in the early morning breeze. Across the street, he caught sight of an ambulance and at least three cops' cars parked haphazardly in the car lot.

"sh*t," he said and headed outside, lighting a cigar as he closed the door behind him.

When the sirens were switched off, his hearing picked up scraps of information - a dead body with a loaded handgun and three fatal stab wounds. No witnesses. The victim was a known felon. The cops didn't give a damn and hated paperwork.

To be on the safe side, Logan dug through his pocket and made a phone call to somebody who could make this all disappear. He was owed a favour and cashed it in to save the kid from a lifetime of hassle. She'd killed somebody. Marie had killed somebody. This had to be a f*cking joke. The more he mulled it over in his thoughts, the closer he came to packing it all in on the spot and dragging her back to Xaviers, where she would be safe.

A silent Rogue continued to stare at the ceiling. The bed was comfortable, the room cold, and the noises outside disturbing. Everything felt wrong, off-kilter and otherworldly. Hurting someone slowly morphed into harming someone because murder, killing or homicide couldn't breach the depths of her cluttered, frightened and guilt-ridden mind. She had hurt someone. He was armed, ready to shoot, but she hurt him. She harmed someone, and now the terrible memories were fully present and unwilling to flee.

Twenty minutes later, with several cigars smoked, a satisfied Logan noticed a new team arrive. Men kitted out in black suits swept the area in dark vehicles with blacked-out windows. When they passed him on the sidewalk, they exchanged nods, and that was that. Case closed, and it was Rogue's lucky day.

He headed inside the motel room and smelled tears. Sighing heavily, he locked the motel door and walked over to the bed. "He was armed, Kid."

"I know," she whispered sadly and gazed at him. "But what if he had a family, Logan?"

He settled on the bed, which creaked under his adamantium weight as he gathered her into his arms. She cried against his shirt, and he patted her back in silence. Shedding tears under the circ*mstances couldn't be helped, and they both played their roles well, with Logan the protector and chief hugger and Rogue the vulnerable, murdering and sobbing sidekick.

"I've handled it, and the investigation's gonna be kicked into the long grass. He's a known felon, had several warrants for his arrest, and imported drugs into the country. If the cops had their way, they'd give you a medal because he made his bed last night by threatening you." He frowned down at her. "He did threaten you, didn't he?"

She nodded, tears falling as the memories repeatedly played. "When I went outside to lock the car."

"I told you not to leave the room," he growled, scrubbing a weary hand over his face. "Look, it's time we hit the road, okay? I figure the X-Men would welcome you back, and I can do a little teaching if they'll have me."

"You hate teaching," she pointed out in an upset tone because no matter how she framed things, the drug dealer's death would forever stain her conscience.

Logan hated most things associated with schools, students, and kids. Still, he couldn't dump Rogue there and hightail it back to Canada. After the last twenty-four hours, he was half tempted to murder her himself, but tossing the jokes aside, she wanted him to stick around, and it would probably benefit them both. A clean slate is what they needed, but the X-Men offered everything on a plate.

"Things change," he said, patting her back and listening to the clean-up crew form a chain of command over the crime scene.

Desperate to flee her own thoughts, many of the Wolverine's memories swiftly sprung forward like magic, but one caught Rogue's attention. "She looked like me; that's why you killed them."

He searched the Southerner's face and understood the meaning behind the words. "Yeah, she did. Some suits high up in the government asked for help. The X-Men thought it would build bridges between us and them, which is bullsh*t. Things got a little out of control when they traced the girl to a hideout in New Mexico. The idiots who planned the mission wanted the kidnappers left alive, but I had other ideas. Her family were happy with the outcome and offered me a Get Out of Jail Free card anytime I needed to use it."

"And you just used it," she said softly as he pulled her to her feet and toward the door.

"Yeah, I used it, all right," he said, tossing the room key onto the bed and leading the way to the SUV.

Unlocking the car, he glanced across the street and sighed at the yellow crime tape flapping in the wind. "Don't let this haunt you. I'm proud of what you did."

She followed his gaze, even as he gently guided her closer to the car. A smartly dressed man carried a body bag to the alley, and she almost felt her legs buckle in horror and shame at the sight. "You're proud of me for hurting someone?"

"Killing for the right reasons isn't something to feel shame over. In our line of work, it's just another day. Welcome to the club, huh," Logan said, hauling her into the passenger seat and closing the car door.

The silent trip across the border into the United States left Rogue room to wriggle through thought after thought. Emotional devastation and trauma tripped the murderous memories into the forefront of her mind, and she glanced at Logan every few minutes or so.

"Spit it out," he finally said as he rolled the window down and lit a cigar.

"You welcomed me into a club I don't want to be part of," she explained softly, the tears seeping into the words.

He sighed heavily and pocketed the lighter. "It's too late to back out, Kid."

She bit her bottom lip relentlessly, dealing with a wave of remorse and anxiety. "Scott said it's never too late to change anything."

"He's a dick," Logan snorted in response. "You took a life last night, and there's no escaping it. Yeah, you'll feel sh*tty for a while, but the feeling will pass."

"Do you feel guilty when you take a life?" she asked curiously, gazing at him and brushing tears away.

"No," he answered honestly without a second thought and looked at her.

She appreciated the honesty. Continuing to gaze at Logan, she blinked away tears that threatened to fall. The hurt rose, and the guilt multiplied. "Why did you make me do it?"

His brows knit together in confusion and concern. "Do what?"

"Hurt him. You told me to hurt him," Rogue whispered, thinking of the voice in her head.

Logan puffed calmly on the cigar and watched her face for several seconds before turning his gaze back to the road. He searched for a response that wouldn't sound unsympathetic or too harsh. "There's no use shifting the blame on me because those tenants in your head don't control you. You're the one in charge of your own destiny, you hear?"

She crossed her arms and gazed out the window at farmland and snowy fields. Her feelings were a bit hurt because he didn't understand. "That's not how my mutation works."

"Then you're not trying hard enough to overcome it," he warned with a half-grumble.

Rogue scoffed, annoyed. "That's a sh*tty excuse for a reply, asshole."

He arched an eyebrow and glanced at her. "You're making my point by letting somebody else talk for you."

She frowned at him sassily. "They're my words."

"No, they're not," he said, shaking his head. "I know you, Kid. You'd rather duck out of an argument than fight your corner."

"They're my words, Logan! I'm not the same person after joining a club that I never wanted any part of."

He sighed. "Yeah, I get it, everything's sh*tty right now, but that's what happens when you act like a dumb ass and don't listen to me."

Rogue fell into a warm and welcoming silence. There was no point arguing with Logan because 'Stubborn' was his middle name. Perhaps even his surname, too. Maybe she would learn to be stubborn and cold-hearted, so everything would stop hurting inside.

"What, no comeback, huh?" he questioned, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

Upset by the whole series of events, she blinked tears away and rolled her eyes. "What's the point?'

"Don't slide into a depression. You rid the world of a drug-dealing asshole, and there's nothing to be ashamed of."

Letting the words sink in, she glanced at him. "Proud enough to drop the punishment?"

"Hell no. You owe me four hundred and forty-six hours in the Danger Room," he answered gruffly and pointed the cigar at her. "You're not slacking, either."

Rogue focused on the snowy scenery, trying to run from the memories of the past day or two. No part of her questioned him because she already knew why he picked four hundred and forty-six hours. The Logan inside her head smirked.Finally using your brain, huh?She rolled her eyes. Last night, she travelled four hundred and forty-six miles from Westchester to Hamilton because of a crush.

Head Logan stopped smirking.A crush? All this over a crush on some boy?

"I don't have a crush on a boy. I have a crush onyou!"she snapped in response and blushed a fiery shade of red. Feeling the heat rising to every inch of her face, desires turned to dying on the spot because this was the cherry on top of the worst twenty-four hours of her life.

From behind the steering wheel, a frowning Logan concentrated on the traffic ahead. His head ticked over with dozens of straight-shooting answers, and he eventually sighed. Now, it all made sense. Jean had been right all along; the kid had a crush on him.

She ignored Head Logan's chuckle and flirtatious remarks. What would tomorrow bring? Life was strange because she sat beside her only crush, searching for beef jerky after murdering a drug dealer. Everything weighed heavily on her shoulders. He saw her as a kid, a friend and a mess. She tricked him into saving her and then killed someone because he said so. He murdered two kidnappers because they hurt a girl who resembled her a little and then used his Get Out of Jail Free card to save her from a life of orange jumpsuits and prison meals.

"Life's stranger than fiction, but thanks for caring, Logan," she whispered, hoping the time spent in the Danger Room would break the embarrassing infatuation.

He grunted and continued to watch the road. "Like I said earlier, welcome to the club, but you deserve better than this, Marie. You deserve better than me."

Those words caught Rogue by surprise. The tone of them. The expression in his eyes. The way he chomped on the cigar and watched the highway without elaborating any further.

Whatever the future held, she would handle it with all the grace of a one-time drug mule who couldn't hold her drink and murdered someone under the influence of a growling, gruff personality in her mind.

Sighing, she gazed down at the torn gloves with across-the-board shame. This is where the story ended. On the road travelling back to Westchester, words left unsaid, a death on her conscience, and a crush that would either flounder or flourish by the time she turned eighteen.

Life would never be the same again, but Logan was here, and he soothed the worst of the worries as she reminded herself that liquor, drugs, bathtubs and Beatles songs didn't mix.

Chapter 4: Co-Parenting Pt 2

Chapter by ArielleMoonlight

Chapter Text

Co-parenting - Part 2

It had been weeks since she'd told him and his mind was still reeling. The kid was getting married. And not to him. Another gulp of whiskey was not enough to douse the growing burn deep within him. Without her, his life had no purpose. Without her, he'd be without his daughter as well. Not that Marie would ever stop him from seeing her, but having another guy in the picture would, without doubt, rub off on the impressionable 2-year-old.

He knew he was a terrible father to her, a terrible partner to Marie. He couldn't help it. It wasn't in his nature to put down roots. He was a drifter, only content when there was wind in his hair and a wide open road beneath him. But he thought she understood that. Thought she understood him, and the need to be free.

Inside his jacket pocket was an invitation gilded in silver, crumpled and grubby through his constant fingering, even though it was printed on heavy-gauge card. The name of his girl and daughter, once embossed, now almost faded into smoothness.

Little did Logan know that over four thousand miles away, Marie was pacing up and down in her dressing room in a beautiful fitted white dress, embroidered with lacy flowers and beads. She twisted her engagement band around and around her finger, coming to a stop by a window that overlooked the stunning gardens, all set for the occasion.

She could see Remy holding her little girl, looking clean (for once) and angelic, her tawny ringlets embellished with a fresh flower crown. She smiled as Jamie gently placed her chubby palms against Remy's scrubby whiskers and squeezed, smushing his lips together and giggling in delight.

Marie smiled, fighting back tears as the guests slowly filled their seats.

"Hon, how you doing?" The soft voice of Storm floated in from the doorway behind her. When Marie turned, she was blotting a tissue in the corners of her eyes to stop her mascara from running.

"Storm, I think I've made the wrong decision!"

Logan had started his way back down from Anchorage. He couldn't stand the cold like he used to, perhaps it had to do with a lack of woman to keep him warm, or perhaps he was just getting old. Either way, he needed to migrate back down south sooner rather than later if he didn't want to lose his fingers to frostbite. The truck's heating system had seen better days, and if that wasn't the only thing wrong with it, he would have traded it in long ago. This truck had memories, fond ones.

Driving with no particle destination in mind other than 'warmer', his foot pressed the gas pedal with increasing pressure. The snow-chained tires performed well on these icy roads, and even if the worst did happen, it wasn't anything he wouldn't heal from. Not like his shattered heart.

Surprisingly, Remy was very understanding about the whole situation, which made Marie feel worse about it all. He took her in his arms and held her, whispering that he never thought he had the power to tame the Rogue. Marie just squeezed him back and thanked him for being there for her and Jamie when they needed him.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out, Belle." He leant in to kiss her softly on the cheek.

Then Marie packed up the car, and still wearing her wedding dress, embarked on a cross-country journey with Jamie in the backseat and a CD of Disney's greatest hits on repeat. They stopped overnight in Milwaukee and ate a hurried breakfast at a diner across the street before continuing their journey.

Logan was on his third day of driving when he realized where his internal compass had been navigating him. The next exit was Laughlin City. He signaled to come off.

Marie pulled into the parking lot, seven years to the day she'd first met Logan in that exact spot. The dive bar that housed the illegal cage fights had burned down, probably the handiwork of a disgruntled patron, knowing the kind of clientele who frequented that joint.

The air was frosty as she stepped out of the car to stretch her legs. Jamie was asleep in the backseat, her mouth hanging slightly open, looking the image of her father, only cuter and far less hairy.

Marie was just contemplating whether to wake her when a familiar-looking truck careened into the parking lot across from her. A stab of nerves prickled through her belly and she unconsciously held her breath as a tall figure emerged from the vehicle.

Logan, looking careworn and rumpled, made his way over in long strides, darkened eyes intent, fully focused on Marie, and Marie alone. She gave a little squeal of delight and rushed over to meet him halfway. A few feet away, she hit a patch of black ice and skidded, the propulsion sending her directly into an oncoming Logan. He opened his arms to enfold her but she ended up knocking them both to the ground.

Her mouth fell onto his in a deep kiss, both of them fully savoring the sweet moment of being reunited. His arms tightened around her as she pulled back to look at him.

"Miss me?" He questioned, smirking at her wide grin.

"Not really." She replied, stroking his wild hair off his forehead.

"Mama? Where you?" A small voice called from across the deserted parking lot. Both parents chuckled and made their way over to the babbling toddler.

Not too much later, Jamie was sprawled across the vast double bed in the adjoining room, fast asleep after eating a large pile of spaghetti.

While the small girl slept, her mother tried to keep quiet as Logan brought her closer and closer to an earth-shattering org*sm.

He knew her body well, knew how to make her come. Two thick fingers were all she needed. She panted into the three weeks' worth of beard on his neck, and when those pants became so close they were indistinguishable from each other, her body tightened and released in convulsive waves, bringing her down into a satiated rightness.

Marie lay under him, gloriously naked, as they held each other in sweaty post-coital embrace.

Logan knew her body well, but that didn't stop her from flooring him every time. Her belly bore the marks of child, where she'd stretched to accommodate the life that grew under her heart. Now faded silver, these were the only visible differences. The others were less tangible and probably unnoticeable to anyone but him. Her body seemed to be more responsive post-baby, her tightness eased somewhat. She was still small, only needing less warm-up. More in tune with herself. That and the subtle difference in her scent; his mingled with hers in a way that made sense. Smelling of both his woman and his daughter, both his family.

"I love you," he muttered into her hair.

Marie glowed, knowing those words were not given in half measures by the Wolverine. She could probably count the times he'd told her those three little words on one hand. Such admissions were rare but in their absence, he'd shown her he could put his money where his mouth was. Or the sensitive, needy place between her legs, she wasn't picky.

"I love you too. So much, you don't even know."

Logan sighed, wrapping her ever more tightly in his arms.

"We've gotta have 'that chat' now, though," Marie continued.

"Can't we just lay here till morning?" He questioned, in a falsely tired voice.

"Nuh-uh, mister. You owe me this."

"I guess I do, babe."

Marie braced herself for the comedown. She knew this was the make-or-break moment. Logan wouldn't be able to move back to the mansion permanently. Living that way before had torn them right apart at the seams. No matter how much they loved each other, they couldn't survive being so disjointed, especially when trying to co-parent. But Marie could offer up a piece of her life, if only temporarily.

"You've gotta give us some stability. I don't care where we live, but it has to be with you."

"You asking to move in with me?"

"Yes. We can live in a camper van towed on the back of your truck," she teased him, thinking back to the snowy night they'd met.

"Just no more dodgy appliances!" Logan agreed.

"But when Jamie reaches school age, I want her to be more settled. We can still travel in the holidays, but she needs some structure and stability in her life. Especially if she manifests."

"You mean when she manifests!"

"Don't change the subject, Logan."

He smirked at her. She always had been a smart girl.

"You know, that sounds… pretty great."

"Yeah?" Marie questioned, failing to keep the excitement from her voice and the sparkle from her eyes.

"Yeah." Logan bent down and she tilted her head back to receive what she anticipated to be another mind-blowing kiss, but at the last second, Logan pulled up and his lips connected with her forehead instead.

She frowned at him in a faux insolent way.

"Think it's time I made an honest woman outta you?"

"Good thing I brought my wedding dress, is it then!" Marie let out a snort of laughter and the sudden sound made Jamie stir in the next room.

"Is that my proposal? You better get me a bigger and more sparkly ring than Remy did!" She teased.

"How about a boatload of org*sms and a promise of a lifetime of happiness?" He replied.

She pulled Logan's face to hers by his muttonchops and stared deep into his eyes.

"Can I sample the goods before I bite?" She breathed.

"Darlin', I'd be terribly disappointed if you didn't."

THE END

Chapter 5: The Canopy Over the Bed

Chapter by JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo

Chapter Text

Logan chased down a shot of whiskey with a beer, and nope, it didn't help settle matters. Thoughts roughened around the edges until they sliced through his goddamn cranium. He was a f*cking idiot, an asshole, and a piece of sh*t who hit the road when the weeds threatened to grow under his feet. Wherever he travelled, there was always a bar stool waiting for his useless ass, as the memories of Jean pleading for death haunted every second of the day.

The pain faded over the years, but the guilt remained locked and loaded like a hair trigger. He scrapped, fought, and battled in cage matches, drank his weight in booze, and healed from alcohol poisoning more times than he cared to remember. Life was sh*tty on the road and lonely, too. His days were filled with drinking, fighting, and f*cking, but in the dead of night, as he scowled at another motel ceiling in another shared bed, he saw her. No, not Jean. He sawher.Marie smiled at him, even though he'd f*cked her over countless times and deserted that promise the day he walked out.

He visited the X-Men a handful of times since but always called ahead, letting Storm know his plans. Every time, without fail, he would catch Marie's faded scent in the mansion but never crossed paths with her. She always hightailed it before he arrived and returned after he left. It was thoroughly deserved because he'd acted like an ass and broken her heart, and in retaliation, she severed all contact and tossed their friendship into the nearest dumpster.

"f*ck it," he muttered and ordered another drink, demanding something stronger to drown the pain.

Abandoning Marie didn't sit right with him, but neither did sleeping with her four times during a heavy spell of grieving for Jean. His head at the time had been a mess, and his other head, well, sh*t, that glistening co*ck of his had enjoyed every second. He knew she had a crush on him; how could he forget the night he saved her drunken and drugged ass when she killed somebody? Something shifted around that time and strengthened through the countless Danger Room sessions he drilled her through. Then came the cure and the fiery redhead's death.

Through another never-ending drinking session, an impulsive thought struck the brooding Canuck between the bloodshot eyes, and he planned to return to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. No calls ahead this time; he didn't want to spook Marie. Yeah, it seemed time to set things in motion and kick ass. He planned to approach her, chat, and apologise. If they could sift through the ashes of their friendship, maybe the depression would lift without the constant need to dull the pain with booze-filled sessions in sh*thole bars. It was worth a shot anyway, and he drunkenly stumbled off the scuffed bar stool and headed straight to the blustery car lot, where a motorcycle waited.

Bracing himself for the fallout of a southern spitfire readying herself to take revenge, he heaved a sigh and scrubbed a weary hand over his unshaven face. The sh*t would probably hit the fan, and she would continue to hate him, but he had to do something before the booze steamrolled over his useless, murdering, drunken ass.

With a furrowed brow, Logan parked outside the garage, giving the sprawling grounds the once over with weary eyes. He caught sight of a green and yellow party banner flapping in the light wind above the school's main entrance and read the words with a curious frown. "Happy fifth birthday, Anna." It was true what they said; the latest recruits grew younger each year.

Sighing, he headed up the stone steps and missed the days when Marie would tackle him with a hug and a smile. Already desperate for a smoke to chase away the nerves, he snorted. He needed to man up and face the kid. No, she wasn't a kid any longer. He'd seen to that as did the passing years. What age would she be now? Twenty-four, maybe even twenty-five? Sifting through the thoughts only made him feel twice as old and a hundred times sh*ttier for bailing on the team.

Searching for any sign of a friendly face, he reached the main staircase and sniffed the polluted scents. The early morning racket reached his ears, with cutlery clashing against plates and the shouts, yells and footsteps from over-eager students passing from one room to the next. Suddenly, something took him by surprise, and it wasn't welcomed with open arms.

Bouncing down the staircase and landing inches from his boots was a vacuum cleaner that burst open in a cloud of dust, dander, dirt, and debris. He spluttered and coughed as he looked up the stairs and spotted a little girl staring down at him. Yeah, the recruits were definitely getting younger each year.

"Does this belong to you?" he asked, brushing the dust off his jacket and nudging the vacuum with his foot.

The girl shook her head sadly because the plan hadn't worked, and she owned no vacuum cleaners as pets. "I thought it would fly."

"You thought it would fly?" he said, raising an eyebrow at the stupid answer.

She nodded solemnly, and he snorted in amusem*nt. Jesus, her parents must be idiots. "Vacuum cleaners don't fly, Kid. What's your name?"

Her nose wrinkled with concentration as she plucked a name from thin air. "Cowabunger Cheese Feet," she answered thoughtfully, and he didn't need to sniff her scent to work out she wasn't telling the truth.

"Uh-huh," he grunted and looked around for any familiar faces. Finding nobody to save him from the conversation, he looked at the girl again. She picked up a toy rabbit and cradled it in her arms. "Who's your friend?"

"It's a secret, moody boy," she responded, watching his sullen face and copying his glum scowl with anything but moodiness in mind.

Logan grunted again, dumped the rucksack at his feet and searched for another question to fill the awkward silence. "You seen Rogue about?"

She nodded, slid clumsily down one step, and cradled the threadbare rabbit with its wonky eyes. Her curious and troublesome gaze never once left the moody boy's face.

At a loss for words, he grunted for a third time and smelled Marie's fresh scent everywhere. He looked relieved when he spotted Storm.

Leaving the Professor's old study, Storm's gaze briefly widened before she recovered her serene composure. "Logan," she greeted, surprised by his unannounced visit. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting attacked by a vacuum cleaner," he muttered irritably, wiping more dust off his clothes. "Who does the dumbass kid belong to?"

Storm gazed up the stairs and was startled when she saw the girl climbing the handrail like a monkey. "A former student," she said, rushing up the steps to stop the fearless child from falling.

Logan grunted for the fourth and final time and shook his head at the kid's stupidity. "Is Rogue around?"

"I'll fetch her," Storm replied, smiling in relief as the girl settled safely at the top of the stairs again.

He waited impatiently at the foot of the stairs, running through some lines he could use on Marie to break the wall of sh*tty silence she surrounded herself with. His brow furrowing, he watched the resident troublemaker scoot roughly down each step without a care in the world. "Do you have a death wish, Kid?"

"I don't know what that means," she answered, cuddling the rabbit as she slid down the last six steps at such a speed that she crashed into his legs with a giggle.

"Take it easy," he warned, looking at her with concern. "You're gonna break a bone if you're not careful."

In Logan's old bedroom, Rogue searched through a box of clothing she found stashed in the back of the closet. Most of it belonged to him, and some items still smelled of cigar smoke. She smiled slightly, in the mood to reminisce and mend her forever-broken heart. Standing with one of the hooded jackets, she faced the mirror and sighed in disappointment when the bedroom door flew open.

"What did she do this time?" she sighed knowingly, dropping the jacket into the cardboard box. "I asked Kitty to babysit while I finished moving my belongings in, but I know what she's like, always finding trouble."

Storm rushed in and gently shook her by the arms. "Logan's downstairs."

A shocked and silent Rogue needed this trope. Yes,thistrope. She was standing in front of the mirror, gazing at her reflection and wondering where the years had vanished while she silently cussed Logan's ass to the point of damnation. She looked a little older, wiser, more forthright, edgy, heated, and heartsick. That crush had flourished, faded, compounded, and cemented into love. She loved Logan, and he broke her heart when he fled, but he left something behind. A precious gift that grew inside her for nine months.

It started with drunkenness, that silly spell of intoxication at seventeen, with the drink, drugs, and accidental homicide of a drug dealer outside the motel in Hamilton, Ontario. That night brought her and Logan closer together. She had killed with claws and taken a life away with a borrowed mutation that stung, hurt, and frightened her. The memories of the dealer's death still plagued the worst of her nightmares and worsened since becoming a forever-failing mama.

The Logan-sized hole never seemed to fade, even after giving birth to their daughter. It was her fault. She fell willingly into his muscular arms and spent two nights of stormy bliss with a genuinely feral Wolverine. She wanted it and craved every inch of him. He could smell the lust and growled like he owned her. God, that snarl from his lips. The way his gaze had darkened as he stalked across the Persian rug. Even now, she welcomed another trope with open arms because the memory made her feel weak at the knees.

It continued with Jean's death—a depressing time in the mansion. Logan killed Jean, and after taking the cure, a repentant Rogue, remorseful for missing the battle and erasing a poisonous mutation, searched for the mourning Wolverine.

She had found him in his bedroom, a broken man, barely able to make eye contact and lost in a drunken stupor. He wouldn't even talk as he nursed another bottle of whiskey. Sitting beside him, she stayed silent and passive amongst the ocean of empty bottles that littered the bed.

Slowly, she niggled away at him, like poking a bear with pleasantries. She talked about how sorry she felt and why it wasn't his fault. That the darkness didn't belong like a canopy over his bed, and why he shouldn't lose himself in the torrent of trauma.

"I'm proud of you for being a good friend to Jean," she said softly, gripping his hand. "Hey, I'm proud of you, Logan. Please don't lose yourself in the darkness because you're the greatest person I know."

The fawning comments went down like a bag of warm vomit on a sweltering day with singing. Yes, she might as well have flung a leaking sick bag at his head as she sang because he yanked his hand away and gulped down a third of whiskey. It was only then that he noticed her bare hands had touched him. He reached for her again, brows deeply knit together in a curious frown. He touched her. Grabbed her hand and held it tightly. Nothing happened mutation-wise, but something shifted between them. She saw it in his gaze before he finished the bottle of whiskey and passed out.

The next afternoon, she checked on him again, and it happened — Logan in sweatpants and her wearing a pair of mismatched pyjamas. Empty liquor bottles rolled to the floor as they landed together in a tangle of limbs and animalistic urges on his bed. That's when she knew it was love. She loved him. The crush had enveloped every section of her heart, and she gift-wrapped her virginity and handed it to him.

Then came the unbearable heartbreak. Three days later, Logan left without a word. He disappeared, and even Storm didn't know where he had gone. She forgot to take birth control in the turmoil and the pain of feeling used and abused. Then, with a positive pregnancy test, she had to admit to Bobby that cheating ran rampant in her cured veins. It wasn't like she could pretend the baby belonged to him because he was still too frightened to touch her.

With another failed relationship and a fractured and bruised heart, Rogue packed a duffle bag and left through the same door Logan had disappeared through months earlier. But she travelled to the South, back to her parents. They welcomed her and the pregnancy because she lied about being married. The father was busy at work, she said. He worked overseas, she explained with an awkward gaze, and no, he wasn't a mutant.

Fast forward five years, and life felt more normal even though she frequently balanced a chaotic daily routine with ever-exploding drama. The cure continued to work, and she loved life at the mansion. Romantic dates were hard to come by because she always put her daughter first, and no, the Wolverine didn't know he was a father.

Rogue switched off the radio, chasing the panic away and gazed at Storm with an absentminded stare. "Did you say Logan's here?"

Logan tilted his preoccupied head to the side, listening to the footsteps marching toward him with a reassuring stride. He sniffed the familiar scent and caught the smile before it reached his lips. She appeared at the top of the stairs, wild-eyed but attractive for the ages, and smelled worried but seemed guarded and highly alert.

"Hey," he greeted because it sounded the safest way to start a conversation.

Dressed in ratty clothes, which she only wore when cleaning and tidying, Rogue gazed around and didn't spot her daughter anywhere. She glanced at Logan. He still looked the same and even wore the identical flannel shirt she had cried on that night he saved her from a drug-induced death.

"Hey," she replied softly and climbed down the stairs at a leisurely pace. "Have you seen a little girl?"

He nodded and jerked his thumb toward the kitchen because the kid had headed that way. Again, his eyes swept over the southerner's figure, chest, and face, noting she wasn't wearing a bra. "So, how's life been treating you?"

Rogue searched his rugged face, smelled the cigar smoke, and felt the resentment melting away. She could never stay angry at him, even when he deserved it. "It's been tough, Logan." He sighed heavily at the answer, and she reached for his shirt and helped brush the dust away. "But everything's fine now. Did you get into a fight with the vacuum?"

"No," he answered with a snort. "Some stupid kid tossed it down the stairs because she thought it would fly. It went off like a goddamn bomb and covered me in this sh*t."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously at her face. She looked paler for several seconds, working through several emotions before stifling a laugh. "It's not funny, Marie. Somebody should tell her parents she's a loose cannon. No ship would sail with her on board; she'd sink it and chuckle as sharks ate the crew."

It was Rogue's turn to frown because he better not be talking about her little girl. "What did she look like?"

"I don't know," he grumbled, pointing to her shoulders. "Dark hair to about there, I guess. Green clothes. Sad eyes. She had a toy rabbit that's seen better days."

"That's the wrong answer because Anna looks exactly likeyou," she replied with a furious stare. "Everyone under this roof knows you're the daddy, and I haven't told anyone. They all come to me and say, 'She looks just like Logan. Look at her scowl like Logan. Look at that temper, isn't she like Logan.' That's all I hear every damn day of my life."

Logan watched her crouch in a huff, fixing the vacuum together. She plugged it in and began cleaning the mess as his head ticked over with curses and merry hell.

"What did you just say?" he growled, wanting to ensure the facts had fallen into place before he imploded.

"We have a daughter together, and it's her fifth birthday tomorrow. I know I should have told you sooner, but I didn't want to hurt either of you because you weren't ready to be a daddy, and she'll never be ready to have her heart broken by you. Can you please move your feet?"

He moved his feet, rucksack, and fraying temper out of the path of the vacuum cleaner. Time stood still as the thoughts lined up, ready to be shredded by his claws. Now everything made sense. This was why she always ducked out on his visits, hiding secret after f*cking secret from his suspicious nose. They had a kid together, a little spitfire of a girl who threw sh*t down the stairs and covered him in dust. Marie had been correct all those years ago; truth was stranger than fiction.

Rogue concentrated on a single household chore, running the vacuum over a too-clean floor until satisfied Logan had calmed enough to hold a civil conversation. He looked dazed, almost lost in his thoughts, until she touched his forearm.

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but I'm also proud of myself for keeping all those secrets close to my chest."

Logan's gaze loitered on her chest again. Yeah, she wasn't wearing a bra. He could trace the outline of her nipples through that tight-fitting, plain white t-shirt. Clearing his throat roughly, he focused on her face and didn't know what to say for the best. Fury rocketed through his head, but so did a stream of understanding. He was proud of her for sticking it out and seeing through five years of single parenthood, but he was also pissed because nobody kept him in the loop.

"Are you going to say something?" she asked, worried the news had broken him.

A growl dented every word because he didn't want to be a father saddled with a tonne of responsibility. "You should have told me, Marie."

She nodded, leaning the vacuum cleaner against the wall and sighing when she heard screams from the kitchen. "That's why I'm telling you now. Sorry, I really need to deal with the commotion, but it was nice seeing you again, Logan."

He watched her walk away and figured whether he stayed or hit the road again was down to him. With a grumble, a growl and some further thoughts, a decision would be set in goddamn stone before the day ended.

The clock struck eight o'clock in the evening, and light rain tapped against the window panes of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Further torrential rain clouds loitered in the skies high above Westchester County as a drunk Logan examined the Professor's old desk with a gaze choked with regret and cynicism. The familiar scents of old friends and lost comrades had long since faded from the room, replaced by mountains of paperwork and the lingering smell of Storm's overpowering perfume.

"I could do with some wise words right about now, Chuck," he said with a sigh, wishing the hatred in his head could be turned like the hands of time. "How's Jean, huh? She keeping you and Summers in line? Yeah, I should probably be doing this outside, toe to toe with your graves, but the stench of rotting corpses sends me feral. You heard the latest news? Brace yourself: I've got a kid. She looks just like me but throws sh*t down the stairs. You already know her mother, it's Rogue. Yeah, my sweet Marie. But I don't think she wants me anymore, Charles; she's distant and keeping those hugs under wraps. She's tossed my ass into the nearest dumpster, and who can blame her, huh?"

He rifled through his jacket pocket, pulling out a lighter and a stray cigar. He lit it, watching the flame dance in his gaze as he slumped lazily in an armchair.

"I've been running for nearly six years, scared if I put down roots, the pain would flatten me like a freight train. All that time, I should've been here with Marie, helping out and raising a kid; maybe it would have worked out for us. Now, I'm too late; all I see is the pain in her eyes, and I don't know how to fix it. I thought she needed space, needed protecting from me after Jean died. Hell, I wasn't in a good place. None of us were. So, I hit the road with no plan and no clue. Would things be different if I stayed? I don't know, maybe the kid wouldn't throw sh*t down the stairs, but would any of us be better off?"

Logan's eyes narrowed in a haze of drunkenness. For a fleeting moment, he saw the Professor sitting behind the desk and wearing a reassuring smile. Mumbling in confusion, he shook his head several times to dislodge the last of his whiskey-burdened thoughts.

"Yeah, I should have stayed clear of that stash of booze you hid in the desk. It was probably older than the both of us combined. But hey, maybe it's time I headed out on the road again and left them to it. Marie's real capable and headstrong. She can handle parenthood alone. I'm like a spare part, sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, and no kid needs somebody like me in their life."

"Am I interrupting something, Logan?" Storm asked with interest, standing in the doorway and gazing around the study.

"I'm just packing up my thoughts," he answered, reaching for his rucksack at his feet and leaning back into the comfort of the seat once he realised how drunk he was.

Storm entered the room with several files in her hands. She neatly placed them on the desk, never looking away from him once. His newfound habit of drinking every drop of available liquor worried her. "Have you spoken to Rogue?"

"Not really," he muttered, puffing on the cigar and resting his feet on the edge of the desk. "She doesn't want me around; that much is clear. Anyway, she's probably busy stopping the kid from throwing sh*t down the stairs."

Smiling sorrowfully, Storm paused beside him, pushed his boots off the desk and snuffed the cigar on an accountancy book. "Anna's just a little mixed up sometimes. She's playful, intelligent, and highly spirited. She's a child, after all. Your child, Logan, and don't you dare think about leaving. Rogue needs you more than you will ever realise. Did you know she put herself through college, graduated at the top of her class, and became our live-in accountant?"

Logan shook his head. Marie hadn't told him anything about her current life. "She hates me. That's all there is to it."

"I don't believe that for a moment, and neither should you. Yes, you hurt her, and your drinking will push her further away if you continue down this dark path of self-destruction, but you need to remain sober long enough to realise what you have. Ample opportunities are available under this roof if you can put the bottle down and open your heart. You can either be a good father, friend, and X-Man, or you leave through that door tonight and never return. The choice is yours, but do you truly want to live a lonely life when you have family waiting for you?"

Storm left the former X-Man alone to decide his fate. He would either make amends or leave. She wouldn't allow a continually drinking staff member to live on the grounds of a bustling, thriving school; in his current state, he was a liability and a shadow of his former self. She hoped he would find the light because Rogue loved him, and Anna desperately needed a father.

As midnight closed in and the rain continued to fall, no one stirred in the mansion apart from Logan and his little mini-me, causing mild chaos in their separate spaces. One brooded in the kitchen over another beer, and the other flapped her arms along the hall, pretending to be a bat that had escaped its bedroom.

Anna was a brash, moody, sometimes cheerful, though often sullen, free-spirited loudmouth wrapped in a sea of green clothing. A little girl with cheek, grit, and a deeply embedded streak of naughtiness. She climbed everything, clambered great heights without fear and loved trees and nature. She was stubborn and mostly brave, liked getting her own way, and would never share. The girl had the worst temper anyone had ever seen in an almost five-year-old, but she also had a heart of gold and pure imagination that scaled both borders and continents.

She liked to play alone and never seemed to make friends. Still, she loved her toy rabbit, which was affectionately named after a singing detergent commercial. Her oddities and energy were boundless, but the smile on her face was forever contagious, and her eyes matched her daddy's, as did the shade of her hair. She often wore his scowl as armour and pretended to hurl pretend enemies against the wall with clenched fists. She disliked the colour pink, lived for collecting lost coins from the dirt, and once swallowed a seashell after mistaking it for candy and believed for a whole month that the ocean would wash her away while she slept.

Sitting at the top of the stairs in the dead of night, she tugged the vacuum cleaner nozzle closer and smiled at the toy rabbit tucked affectionately under her arm. Everything was ready for her greatest mission yet. The bat disguise was forgotten, ready to welcome a new and exciting persona.

"Tonight, I call a meeting, and you will listen to me because my hair's pretty, and look at how the clouds like me," she announced, pretending to be Storm and holding her hand up. "Zap! Zap! Zap!" Pushing the vacuum closer to the edge, she pictured lightning striking the pretend world around her. "Zap! Bang! Zap! Bang! Bang!"

Logan set the half-empty beer bottle on the kitchen counter and picked up his rucksack. He chuckled at the sound of the little girl's midnight playdate and left the kitchen to check on her. Thoughts of unwelcome fatherhood chased the amusem*nt away, but he figured helping Marie out would be a welcome distraction from the memories of Jean. He peered through the bannisters, relieved to see her butt parked on the floor, not putting herself in danger.

"I'm not wearing another cloud of dust, Kid," he warned, pointing an index finger through one of the gaps in the handrail. "Leave the vacuum alone and go back to bed."

"My name's Storm and I don't talk to moody boys on the street," she replied with her best impression of a furious Ororo. Poking the vacuum cleaner over the edge, she watched it bounce down each step. "Now go away, moody boy! Run, or I'll attack you with my bad girl bolts!"

The vacuum landed with a loudthud,and Logan grumbled half a dozen curses as he made his way to the foot of the stairs and stepped over the mound of dust and debris. He climbed up the steps, shaking his head and scowling at her. He could see the physical similarities between them now as clear as day, and she looked like a mini-him apart from her stupid behaviour and the heavy dose of Marie's warped imagination.

"Yeah, she uses lightning bolts sometimes, but mostly on kids who don't do as they're told," he explained gruffly. "You want me to go wake her?"

The frightened Anna shook her head, leapt to her feet, and ran down the hall, leaving the toy bunny behind.

Logan chuckled, picked up the rabbit, and gave it the once over with narrowed eyes. It looked flea-bitten but well-loved. He sighed heavily and carried it with him, surprised the kid had let herself in his bedroom. Sniffing the surrounding scents, he could smell Marie, too. They were camped out in his room, weren't they?

He poked his head inside the bedroom, spotting Marie curled up on the bed and dead to the world. A vast canopy made from a transparent, floaty material gathered above the headboard and spread across both sides of the mattress. It had all the hallmarks of a DIY project on a rainy day, something to keep a little pain in the ass occupied while you told them canopies were dream catchers and nightmare chasers.

"Mommy said it's like a hug," the little girl whispered, peeking out from under the bed and tugging at the hem of the canopy.

"That sounds like something she would come out with," Logan snorted and entered the room, ditching his rucksack quietly beside the dresser. He checked the current time on the alarm clock on the nightstand. "Shouldn't you be sleeping too?"

The girl shook her head and dramatically announced her favourite fact. "It's my birthday!"

"Well, birthday girls need the most sleep," he said, tossing the rabbit onto the bed and sitting on the window seat. She gazed at him, and he looked at her. "Just go to sleep, Kid. That way, I can find somewhere to bed down for the night."

Anna's nose wrinkled with disapproval, and she comically scowled. "Moody boys don't tell me what to do."

"I'm not a moody boy. I'm your…" His voice trailed off because he didn't know how Marie wanted to handle things.

"What's your name?" Anna asked curiously after a while, sliding further under the bed and sneezing as a little dust cloud greeted her midnight adventurer's nose.

"Logan," he answered, sitting on the rug and wondering what she was up to. "You okay under there?"

She peered at him for several seconds before slipping out of reach. "Mommy talks about you in her sleep."

Finding that news reassuring, his eyes darted to the sleeping Marie. She looked beautiful even in the dead of night, and those dinosaur snores of hers hauled an amused smirk to his face. "Does she now?" He wondered if those steamy dreams still plagued her.

Nodding, Anna poked her head out and faced him with a solemn frown. "You make her cry." Sounding unimpressed with his behaviour, she slid away from view.

The grin faded from the disappointed Logan's face. The words of a pint-sized kid cemented his asshole status and brought him back down to earth with a heavy bump. He looked away and heaved a sigh, feeling nothing but shame. Once she had fallen asleep, he would hit the road with a one-way ticket to Alberta. It was for the best, he reminded himself.

Anna finally fell into a welcome doze at a quarter to two, and he shifted over to where a pair of socked feet poked out from her latest hiding place. He crouched, his brow furrowing when he heard Marie stirring metres away from his nose.

"Logan?" she whispered, her eyes opening, surprised to see him staring right back at her.

"Sorry to wake you," he said, carefully freeing the sleeping Anna from a dusty blanket. "I'm just putting the kid back to bed. She's been raising hell for the past few hours."

Rogue searched his face with a peaceful sigh. She wanted the old Logan back, the one who saved her from the drug-induced death. The Logan who growled, grumbled, and forced her through four hundred and whatever hours of Danger Room sessions. The dependable Logan who didn't drink to get drunk and lived life with a sardonic wit and a furrowed brow. She missed him and would do anything to have him return for Anna's sake.

She smelled the tell-tale signs of liquor wafting from him as she watched his every movement. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise she wasn't beside me. Have you been drinking again?"

"Why bother asking when you already know the answer, huh?" He stood with their sleeping daughter cradled in his arms, stepping around the boxes to reach the other side of the bed. "Stop looking at me like that, Marie. I've got everything under control."

"I'm only worried about you," she admitted, noticing how tender he was with Anna. The gentleness gave her hope.

"I don't need you fussing over me, you hear?" he told her gruffly, frowning up a storm.

Continuing to show concern, she changed tactics and offered him an olive branch. "Can you do something for me?"

"Sure," he answered, setting the girl down gently in the bed and crossing the room to fetch his rucksack.

Rogue gathered the duvet around their little girl, wanting her to be snug and safe from the world. "Anna's birthday party starts at midday in the rec room. I'm really hoping you'll come, Logan. It will make her day."

Lost in her perfect gaze and mesmerised by the teasing pout, Logan dropped all plans to leave. He appreciated the lifeline she tossed his way. Nodding in agreement to attend, he wished things were different between them, feeling like an outsider spying on his own family. He left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him and once again lost in the loneliness and regret of past decisions.

At ten o'clock on the dot that morning, a toy store loomed in front of the Wolverine as specks of rain fell from the overcast sky. He checked the time on his wristwatch, an old gift from Jean one Christmas when everything still made sense. Cravings returned with a vengeance, and desperate to head to the nearest bar, he loitered at the entrance for an untold time, watching a conveyor belt of parents push shopping carts past him.

What the hell was he doing here? He nearly left, almost stalked out the exit with booze and cage fighting on the horizon, but remembered the hopeful look on Marie's face. Sighing heavily, he headed inside the store, out of place in a sea of happy faces.

Every aisle was stuffed with stacks of colourful toys, hundreds of labels jumped out, and nothing pink seemed to fit the bill. He mulled over his options as a father of twenty-four hours. What did he know about the little spitfire of a kid? She threw sh*t down the stairs. Had a thing for threadbare rabbits. Developed a liking for late nights and didn't seem to like him much. She enjoyed make-believe and pretending to be other people; if he didn't know any better, she would take over the goddamn world one day.

He skipped the fluorescent pink aisle because the Wolverine refused to be seen surrounded by Barbies. Anyway, the kid seemed less bubble gum pink and more forest green. Yeah, that sounded about right. He spotted an aisle covered in floor stickers and signs with cartoon turtles that caught his attention.

"Cowabunga," he muttered, reading the speech bubble on one of the stupid surfing turtles.

Now, he was onto something. Ignoring the dumb idea of turtles who fought crime and took down enemies from a sewer, he stalked along the aisle, checking out the toys. Nerf guns? No, they smelled like trouble. Maybe the girl would like the figures? Even if she tossed them down the stairs, they wouldn't break.

"Welcome to Toys R Us, Sir, the store where everybody's dreams come true," a bouncing young woman called out, trooping toward him like a parading and proud soldier.

He eyed her swinging auburn ponytail and toothy grin with a sigh. Shaking his head at the cheerfulness, he turned away because all his dreams had died as soon as he entered the goddamn store. When she didn't leave, his eyes narrowed at the pile of turtle-endorsed products.

"Do you need any assistance today?" she asked, rocking on her feet and reminding him of a walking nightmare.

"No," Logan growled, glaring over his shoulder. His scowl returned to the turtles on the shelf. He picked up a large box, reading some of the lettering. Age seven years and older. Did that matter? It wasn't like the kid would ingest any of the items, would she?

"Would you like to sign up for a store card? You’ll receive countless benefits on your eighth, twelve and fifteenth shop," the woman explained, continuing to beam happily. "Including a twenty percent off voucher on your twentieth purchase if you make a substantial contribution to our in-store charity within eighteen weeks of your first, second and third purchases."

That entire sales pitch sailed over Logan's brooding head. He never wanted to darken the door of another toy store as long as he lived. If dealing with sh*t like this came hand in hand with parenthood, he'd head straight to the nearest bar and stay there.

With a formidable growl that clawed at his throat, he snarled bad-temperedly at the sales assistant. "Go f*ck yourself."

Anna crept along the treeline, weaving through the bushes and damp foliage, searching for dinosaurs. With her best friend clutched tightly under her arm, she gasped and ducked down behind the damaged trunk of a dying tree.

"The dinosaur is close!" she whispered excitedly to the rabbit and crouched in the dirt.

Crawling through the thick brambles, sticks and mud, they made their way closer to the rumbling noises. One little girl's imagination carried the weight of the world as she paused in her quest and straightened the beige safari hat sat crookedly atop her head.

After dodging the dangerous dragons, the bad girl bolts, and the threats of a grumbling volcano, she peered out from behind a hedge and frowned in disappointment. "You're not a dinosaur."

Logan scowled down from the motorcycle and hooked a large, rustling Toys R Us bag onto the handlebar. He killed the engine for a few minutes, listening to furthercreaksandcracksin the light wind. Holding out his hand, his scowl darkened. "C'mere," he ordered in a no-nonsense tone.

Anna clambered to her muddy shoes and traipsed across the bark chippings to the driveway. She glanced curiously at the open gates for a few seconds and watched them swing shut. After another moment or two spent straggling, she wandered over to the moody boy with a hop, skip and lively jump.

He scooped her onto the motorcycle and settled her safely in front of him, his eyes snapping to the trees again. Tracing the sound of the deadlycreaking, he grumbled to himself and looked around for Marie. "Where's your mother?"

"Eating cake with Bobby," Anna answered, more interested in the bike and reaching forward with a muddy hand to grip the handlebars.

"Goddamn ice prick," he muttered darkly under his breath and secured her in place with a protective arm.

Restarting the motorcycle, Logan glared suspiciously at their surroundings one last time. Even the girl's first ride on a bike didn't lighten his mood as he steered them carefully along the drive and into the garage, where he spotted Storm. "You've got a tree that needs felling down by the gates."

A furious Rogue stormed down the drive with clenched fists and a tense jaw. How dare he! First, Logan was two hours late for Anna's party. He doesn't call to inform her about the lateness or suggest they meet him elsewhere. Oh no, that would be too polite and stable for Logan with No f*cking Surname. What does he do instead? Turns up late and then takes off again with a chainsaw, a scowl and no apology. And then Anna runs into the kitchen, covered in mud and calls Bobby a 'goddamn ice prick' in front of a roomful of gossiping airheads.

Today had been a mini-disaster, and it hadn't been the fault of the temperamental weather or the sparse attendance at her baby girl's birthday party. She secretly knew no one really liked her daughter. Most people in the mansion kept their distance. They were too busy judging her parenting decisions or gossiping because she slept with the Wolverine. It was love, okay? She had fallen in love, that's all. Anna had been born from a loving but fleeting relationship that lasted no longer than forty-eight hours.

Okay, it's obvious. She had given birth to a little adventurer. A boisterous handful who loved trouble. Yes, Anna was a little naughty at times and liked to throw things down the stairs, but they worked on correcting the misbehaviour with calmness and stable stability. Yes, stable stability. The kind of stability someone like Logan would never understand.

So, she wasn't a shouter. She didn't scream because that wasn't her parenting style. Rogue carried love in her heart and wanted to be seen as a loving mama of one. Sweetness mattered, not discipline spiked with shrieks that echoed throughout the city. Everyone judged everything she did, and right now, as the gentle breeze teased her long, flowing two-toned locks, the exhaustion and upset weighed her down like boulders in the river.

Hearing the noises of a chainsaw ahead, Rogue's frown cemented into place. "Logan, what the hell's wrong with you?!"

Logan had heard the stomping footsteps and smelled the furious scent for the last ten minutes. He didn't give a sh*t about the anger directed his way as he sliced through the rotten tree trunk like a pro. "Stay back while I deal with his," he growled because they had plenty of time to trade insults afterwards.

"You haven't matured at all, have you? And you're taking your jealousy out on an innocent tree," she accused him, loitering on the drive with a frantic frown.

He snorted at the accusation and guided the half-felled tree to collapse in a safe direction. "Try again."

"This isn't one of your silly games! You can't tell a little girl to say something and then storm away and attack a tree. I'm not the same person you left behind. I'm a mama now. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Shaking his head at her stupidity, he looked satisfied when the tree fell with athud."I've got no idea what you're talking about, Marie, but do you know what? Yeah, you being a sh*tty mother means something to me. You any idea how disappointed I am?"

Those words felt like adamantium claws slicing through Rogue's heart. Did he really think she was a sh*tty mama? She approached him, blinking away tears. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"

"What the hell's wrong withyou?" he demanded to know, putting the chainsaw down and grabbing her upper arm. Hauling her closer, he pointed down to the tree stump. "You see that?"

Gazing downwards, Rogue saw a circular mound of blackened wood. "It looks like your heart."

He scowled at that remark and tightened his grip. "That's rot because the tree's dead and needed felling before it landed on Anna's goddamn head." He watched her face pale. "You didn't notice her crawling through the mud under those trees, huh?"

A shocked Rogue swiftly felt nauseous. "I just – I mean – I was busy hosting the party."

"No, you were busy with Drake," he growled darkly, releasing her arm.

Her eyes narrowed, and feeling defensive, she walked away, returning to the drive. "I'm not listening to this, Logan. You're just like everyone else. You think I'm a terrible mama."

He heaved a sigh and picked up the chainsaw, carrying it with him as he followed her wounded scent. "You ever wondered why everybody keeps coming to the same conclusion?"

Turning around, she snapped at him as tears fell. "I wish you had never come back. Do you hear me? Anna doesn't need you in her life."

"Could've fooled me," he muttered, strolling ahead with a shrug and ignoring the urge to wrap her in a hug. "If I leave you to it, she's gonna be six feet in the ground before her sixth birthday." Even he understood that was a low blow. The smell of her tears knocked him sideways, but stubborn to the adamantium-laced bones, he continued toward the garage with a scowl.

A crushed Rogue wrapped arms around herself and let the tears repeatedly fall. All she ever wanted was a picket fence-looking family—two loving parents for her precocious daughter. Every night was lonelier than the last, but she knew where her failure lay. She was too trusting and too laid back. People forever walked over her; even Anna did.

She reached the garage and watched him put the chainsaw away. "Do you always have to be so cruel?"

"I'm a realist, Marie. You knew that when you met me," he grumbled, locking the box and slotting it in the rafters above his head. "I'm not about to sugarcoat the bullsh*t, you hear? You're failing right now, and it's a real goddamn shame."

"Have you any idea how hurtful that is?" Choked with tears, she followed him out of the garage and across the lawn to his favourite smoking spot. "I've been a single mama for five years! I'm not tired. I'm exhausted. I struggle every day to keep my head above water because I don't know what to do for the best."

He snarled as he snatched a cigar from his battered leather jacket pocket. "Whose fault is that, huh? You're the one who kept the girl a secret. What stopped you from reaching out during the pregnancy?"

"You did," Rogue hissed crossly, wandering to him with a tense and accusatory finger. "Do you know who I blame for this? Jean! I hate her after what she did to you. Don't look away from me when I'm finally sharing the truth. She's selfish for ruining everything we had!"

Logan's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he stalked closer. "We didn't have anything. It's all in your f*cking head."

More tears tumbled down her heartbroken face. He was a liar. "If you didn't care, why did you take my virginity?" she asked in a devastated whisper, watching him look away. "It hurt, Logan. Sex with you hurt." His pained gaze snapped to her again. "Do you even remember? We did it four times in that bed, and every second hurt me."

Looming over her and lighting the cigar, he figured the nearest bar called his name. Teeth clenched, the heated thoughts died, replaced by nothing but pain. He'd hurt her. He had hurt his sweet Marie. Turning his back out of shame, he searched for an answer to plug the damage.

Rogue's anger faded when she realised what he must be thinking. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean how that sounded. I wanted it to happen. I wanted you inside me, even when it hurt."

Jesus Christ, she made it sound even worse. He glanced at her and shook his head. "This isn't a game, Marie."

"I know, and we can't be together under the same roof. We're too broken, and one of us has to leave," she said softly, fresh tears falling as the heartbreak crushed her.

Nodding in agreement, he inhaled a lungful of cigar smoke. Yeah, they were broken, but maybe the fixing part would be painless if he wasn't around. People healed from all kinds of problems when the primary link in the chain shattered.

"You can stay," she offered after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. "I'll leave with Anna."

"Over my dead body," he muttered gruffly. "You've got a job here, a safe place to live. You're not throwing that away to spite me."

"I don't need your chivalry or grumpiness. We'll be fine. I can find a job down south, and Anna can grow amongst southern roots close to my mama and daddy."

Logan shook his head, putting his foot down. "You both stay here where it's safe. If you're bored and need a change of scenery, take some parenting classes."

Her eyes narrowed with pain. "I'm not asking for your permission, and stop insulting my parenting skills. I'm a good mama." He snorted in disbelief, and she frowned in warning. "Stop it. I'm a damn good mama."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that," he told her, leaning against the wall with his full concentration on the cigar smoke coasting in the tense wind.

"You don't know the first thing about being a parent," she shot back, beyond hurt by his asshole tendencies. "You wouldn't be able to handle everything I do daily."

"Uh-huh. You see her nearly dying on my watch?" he questioned gruffly, his scowl suddenly fading. Tilting his head to the side, he sniffed the air warily and listened closely to a set of suspicious scrapes, clambering and mutterings from up above their heads.

He tossed the cigar to the ground and looked up at the rattling window caught in the breeze. Opening his mouth to shout a string of threats merged with curses, he was too goddamn late. Anna had already flung herself into the air like a kid with a dozen death wishes.

A horrified Rogue gasped in a full-blown panic and watched Logan dive to the ground and catch the mud-caked Anna. She rushed over, her knees buckling when she reached them. Crouching in the dirt, she brushed a trembling hand through the girl's wild hair. "Oh my God! Are you okay? Is anything hurt? Can you talk?"

The pale-faced girl nodded glumly and looked around with growing interest at her surroundings. That was fun, and she wanted to do it again. She spotted where her rabbit had landed on a nearby bush and tried to reach him but couldn't escape the moody boy's arms.

Holding the kid protectively in his arms, a grimacing half-feral Wolverine slowly sat up, snapping the painful kink from his spasming neck. He looked from Anna to Marie and then back again, expecting a detailed explanation for the stupid stunt.

"Why did you jump from the window?" Rogue asked in a shaken voice, feeling like the worst mama in the world.

"He told me to," Anna whispered, pointing up at the window with a cheeky grin as the colour slowly returned to her ashen cheeks.

Logan and Rogue shared a furious and rage-filled look before shifting their gazes to the spot where the girl pointed. "Who did?!" they asked in unison, eager to trace the soon-to-be murdered culprit who dared mess with their daughter.

Chapter 6: Outlaws from the West

Chapter by ArielleMoonlight

Chapter Text

A lot had happened in the last year; firstly the farm where Marie and Bobby D’Ancanto made their livelihood succumbed to a plague of locusts. Then an unexpectedly dry spring had killed off most of their livestock before the hot, dusty summer rolled around and killed the rest. And a few weeks back, Bobby, had ailed and eventually died himself of the yellow fever.

Once he’d gone, there was nothing left to stick around for, so Marie high-tailed it off cross-country in search of any living relatives. She did remember her late father saying there was a great-aunt Carrie somewhere out in California, so that was her heading.

Honest work for a woman without any references was almost nonexistent, and since she could no longer rely on the familiar acquaintance of locals, she was fresh out of luck. In another twist of cruel fate, her beautiful sandy-colored horse, Meadow, had been stolen from outside a mercantile while she hurriedly shopped for ‘cheap’ staples that wiped the last of her tradable goods.

The onward journey on foot was less than pleasant. In near hundred-degree heat and shoes that had almost worn down to bare, she settled her feet into a shallow, slow-flowing river when disguised behind a bush, she’d overheard a conversation between two lawmen. They were searching for a group of bandits who called themselves “The Idealists”, who’d been apprehended but somehow given them the slip and crossed quite a few state lines in order to escape jurisdictional charges.

Quietly, Marie slipped her useless shoes back on and continued on her way. She’d just about taken to stealing eggs and other easily obtainable goods from good folks’ gardens in order to survive when she stumbled across the camp of vagrants.

Watching the camp members’ interactions for a while, she figured she’d slip into one of the outer tents to see if there was anything of value she might pawn for a few more days worth of meals. After all, stealing from thieves wasn’t quite as immoral as stealing from the innocent.

Wondering if any of that money could be stretched to a hot bath, she made to jump out of the tall grasses that she thought were concealing her when a large, work-roughened hand clamped over her mouth and pulled her back.

“And just where do you think you’re going, little miss?” A gravelly voice purred in her ear.

She started to protest but her words, muffled by the stranger, came out little more than squeaks as she thrashed around trying to get free. She could feel that he was tall and powerfully built without even catching sight of the man.

“We got ourselves a live-un here!” He yelled, striding purposely into the camp with Marie’s back still to his chest and both her hands trapped by one of his large ones.

A thin, older man approached from his position by the campfire, with steel-grey hair and cool grey eyes, “So,you’rethe scoundrel who’s been pilfering all of our canned goods? I expected you to be… bigger. Surely you can’t have eaten all those beans yourself?”

Her restrainer removed his hand from her mouth so Marie could respond.

“No! Ah’ve only just arrived, actually!”

More camp members appeared, poking their heads out of tents or emerging from tasks in the immediate area. A slender, haughty-looking redhead narrowed her eyes at the disheveled Marie as she took her place beside the older man, while various other men and women leaned up against nearby trees or stood conspiratorially in smaller groups, whispering behind their hands.

Marie struggled in the larger man’s grip, succeeding only in bruising her wrists, while he interjected, “Caught her trying to sneak into Pete’s tent.”

A menacing-looking cowboy eyed her lasciviously and spat a stream of tobacco near her feet.

“Sir! Ah will thank you kindly tonotdo that!” Marie objected, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“Hoo, hoo! You’re right. Logan. She is lively!” The spitting cowboy called Pete hollered.

“Ah won’t be alive much longer if ah don’t get me something to eat!”

The grey older man addressed her again, in a tone that quite clearly told her, woman or not, they didn’t take kindly to strangers.

“And why should we care?”

Marie thought quickly, and her mind fell a few miles back to where she’d overheard an interesting conversation.

“Cause y’all got the law on ya like ants at a picnic and ah know how to ward ‘em off!”

“I did see a few of the Pinkerton fellas hanging around near the creek at dawn,” The man called Logan interjected.

“Woman, if what you say is true, what makes you think we needyourhelp?” Another cowboy spoke, this one smaller framed with shoulder-length brown hair swept under his hat.

“Ah got a plan!”

Marie explained her hastily thought-up idea, which involved luring the defectives away down a false route while the other gang members relocated the camp some miles down and across the river, heading back on themselves somewhat.

“It could work,” Pete mumbled, “we ain’t got a lot of options if they’re as close as Logan says.”

“What do you think, Eric?” Logan addressed the grey man.

The red-headed woman leaned into Eric and said in a quiet voice that was all too easy to overhear in the silence of the clearing, “We can’t trust her. What if it’s a trap?”

Eric held up a hand, “Jean, let me think.”

Marie was fast running out of options, and if she wanted to avoid this day being her last, then she needed this group of strangers to trust her, or at least feed her.

“Why would I be trying to trick you when I want to join? I’ve traveled halfway across the country by foot because I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

Another woman standing close by, with caramel-colored skin and oddly white hair for somebody who seemed to be in her early thirties, stepped in, “You found me under similar circ*mstances. I think we should give her a chance.”

“I promise you, Ah’m just a woman down on her luck. Youcantrust me.”

Eric eyed Logan over her head for a long moment.

“So, we got ourselves a deal?”

Eric nodded, more to himself than in reply.

“The girl stays.” Then he turned and headed away into the largest tent with a fuming Jean at his heels.

Marie busied herself with menial tasks and tried not to get in anyone’s way. She’d show them she was worth keeping around. That afternoon, she was put on dinner duty with the mean-looking Victor, who leered unpleasantly at her while he sat back, watching her prepare vegetables for the stew.

“Are you just gonna sit on your sorry ass while ah do all the cooking?” She shot at him.

He picked his teeth with fingernails in dire need of a trim, which should’ve under no circ*mstances have been around food for human consumption, “Cooking is a woman’s job.”

“And what’s yours?” Marie questioned, trying to keep her temper.

And the arrogant man replied with, “Mine is partaking in the goods, sweetheart.”

“You ain’t gonna get a lick of stew if ah have it my way.”

“Just as well that I’m not hungry for stew then, ain’t it?” he raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Marie raised the blunt paring knife and used it to punctuate her next sentence, “You continue and I’ll make sure you never hunger for anything again!”

Victor chuckled darkly, “That little thing won’t keep me at bay for long.”

“Size is no reflection of power.”

He got to his feet, towering over her, and smiled widely, showing off his crooked and surprisingly pointed teeth.

“Wanna bet?”

Marie snarled in reply.

“D’Acanto!” Logan shouted over. “We’re on errands!Now!”

Marie tossed the knife down, narrowly missing Victor’s mud-caked boots, and stomped over to the wagon Logan had settled on. With a sarcastic wave to Victor, who was watching her leave with a mad glint in his eye, the wagon set in motion and they were off.

As soon as they were out of sight around the first clump of trees, Marie turned to Logan, who seemed to think he was owed some kind of thanks.

“Ah don’t need saving by the likes of you!” She snapped, folding her arms.

The corner of his lips twisted up in an amused smile, “Didn’t say you did.”

Not easily appeased, Marie huffed, “Well next time, don’t butt in.”

A few seconds silent contemplation passed before Logan spoke again, “That man you were arguing with got a bad history with his temper. Those who challenge him usually aren’t around to tell the tale.”

“Being challenged should be the least of his worries! Goddarn lazy bastard sitting on his backside like he owns the joint while ah’m doing all the work. Me and my husband used to share the workload, and sit down at the end of the day to a meal we’d both cooked, as equals.”

“He sounds like he was a damn good man.” Said Logan, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Taken off guard by his genuine response, Marie softened slightly, “Yeah. He was. But I still don’t need any unsolicited warnings or advice, thank ya very much!”

“Just saying. If you want to live to see another sunrise, don’t go picking fights with Victor.”

Marie took to pouting and looking out over the approaching town. The late afternoon sunlight had a golden quality to it, bathing the landscape in warm orange.

“What are these errands we’re running?”

“Need some supplies.”

“Oh, for ‘Victor’sstew?”

Logan chuckled lowly as he pulled the wagon up outside a general store on the outskirts of the small town. It seemed a friendly enough place with the melody of hymns floating from a nearby church and a red-painted school barn across the way. Chickens roamed around freely outside the entrance to the store, pecking at the mud.

Marie looked up at the peeling lettering on the sign, taking in the ambiance of the town life. The idle chatter of passersby. The way her bare toes felt through her battered shoes on the creaking boardwalk planks. The tinkle of the bell as she entered through the door. It was almost like her old life, familiar somehow amongst the sea of newness.

Inside the shop, rows and rows of neatly lined products assaulted her vision. There was so much of everything, from fresh produce to clothing, presented in a way that made her long for them all.

Logan made his way over to the girl serving and smacked his list onto the counter. She smiled at him sheepishly and explained she couldn’t read that good yet, but she’d get her daddy and he would be able to help.

As Marie perused the shelves of canned goods, she caught sight of her reflection in a desilvering mirror, which presumably was there for customers to admire their potential new garments. Her skin, which she usually washed with violet-scented lye soap, was smeared with dirt and her only dress was filthy and torn.

Marie placed her hand over the concealed locket Bobby had given her on their wedding day and let out a mournful sigh.

A quarter-hour later, Marie stepped back out of the store outfitted in slacks, a chambray shirt, and a new pair of boots. Her new clothes were a lot cooler and more lightweight than her old, stiffly boned dress, and she felt surprisingly at ease in the more masculine clothing. She even managed to wash her face in a bucket of water out back, although her budget didn’t quite stretch to luxuries such as soap.

Logan finished loading up the supplies and turned, catching sight of Marie.

“New duds?” He asked.

“Thought it was about time ah traded in my last links to femininity.”

He shook his head with that small, crooked smile she’d spotted before, and pulled a tarp over the back of the wagon. A few young children ran past, a little girl with a hoop and stick and two boys with a roughly sewn-together pig skin ball. A few more skittled after them, calling and laughing as they headed home from school.

“Ready to head back?”

Smiling to herself, Marie climbed back onto the wagon bench and settled back into the wooden seat. Then she caught sight of a double-barreled shotgun resting by the wheel.

“What in the hell is that for?” she asked, with surprising ferocity.

“What do you think it’s for?” Logan replied, looking at her like she was soft in the head.

“There arechildrenaround!”

Logan came to check the horses were still comfortably rigged before climbing and settling onto the bench himself.

“And if we don’t have protection, how do you suppose we’ll be if we get into any sort of trouble?”

“Why would we get into trouble?”

“Don’t know if you realized this Marie, darlin’. But we’re not so honorable.”

He had a fair point. She knew the camp was a gang of outlaws, it made perfect sense they would be armed to the tobacco-stained teeth.

“Well, hide that thing! And don’t call me ‘darlin’.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” He replied, laying the gun down by their feet.

A moment passed where Marie just stared at him, wondering if he was making fun of her.

“Ma’am? You’re sh*tting me, right?”

“Nope. I was raised correct.”

He clicked his tongue and the horses swayed into a slow gait, pulling the now-loaded wagon through crests of dried mud that comprised the road.

He was a funny one to unravel, that Logan. Darkly tanned and well-built from working outdoors, although not traditionally handsome, he was good-looking in a strange kind of way that made her heart flutter. She was not usually swayed by looks. Her marriage to Bobby had been in name only, more of companionship than love. They both wished for a simple country life, a world away from the stuffy upbringing in Mississippi.

She’d only just met this Logan, and although he was quiet and seemingly closed off, there was something about him that drew her in. The gentle way he touched his horses. Reserved without being sullen. Well-mannered. She kept finding herself covertly glancing at him, as they journeyed on in relevative quiet.

A rickety bridge they’d passed over on the way was too frail to take their increased weight, so they traveled a bit further over to find the next one.

A few men rode past them at a fast trot. As they passed, Marie recognized one of the horses as Medow, her stolen palomino, from the bright white star under her forelock.

“Logan, stop the wagon!” she cried out, snatching up the shotgun from under the bench seat and launching herself out.

Logan pulled the reins sharply, “Woman, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Exacting revenge,” she muttered, squeezing one eye shut and aiming for the rider. She missed, but the bullet caught the attention of the men, who stopped their horses and turned to see what was happening.

The recoil almost caused Marie to be blown backward off her feet, it was that powerful.

Logan jumped down and seized the gun off her, “You don’t even know how to shoot?”

“Well, it still got their attention, didn’t it?”

“And what’s the plan now, kid?”

“Errm, flee?”

Logan’s eyes blazed as he let out a small growl, “Get back in the wagon.”

The men came galloping, pulling pistols from their belts as they fast approached. Marie snapped the reins while Logan jumped onto the seat, hanging over the side, and aimed at the closest rider.

“Next time, I’d prefer it if you didn’t start sh*t you can’t finish.” He bellowed as the round left the shotgun, finding its target in the man’s shoulder. He cried out in pain and fell off the careening horse, which then trampled the man in fright of the gunshot.

Unfortunately, it was one of his comrades who was riding Meadow, a gangly youth very nearly out of teenhood. His blond hair flopped down from under his hat, just reaching his smooth jaw. The hand holding the pistol was unsteady, utter terror shining in his eyes as he stared down the barrel of Logan’s gun.

He fired near the boy’s ear, not close enough to put him in any real danger, but sufficient so he could feel the bullet whooshing through the air beside him. Terrified, the boy fell from Meadow, or he could have jumped, that was more likely, and rolled into a clump of brush by the side of the dirt road, leaving only one man.

Older, grizzled, a mean smirk twisting his sun-weathered features through a week’s worth of stubble. He took a shot at Logan, which grazed his shooting arm. Marie let out a scream, as Logan yelled at her to keep going. He took aim with his other arm and managed to hit his target right in the chest. The horse stumbled and the man was thrown over onto the ground.

Marie pulled the wagon to a stop and they both hurried back down the road to investigate the damage. The man was lying in the dirt on his back, breathing hard. A dark, wet stain slowly spreading from the wound in the middle of his chest. When he took in a deep breath, it gurgled in his throat, spilling down out of the corner of his mouth, which was still twisted in that horrible grimace.

“Damn you to hell,” Logan muttered before, raising his shotgun for the last time, and sending a bullet through the man’s face at close range. Marie looked away, disgusted.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “I didn’t think it would end like this.”

“All actions have consequences, Marie.” He replied, wiping specs of blood from his face with the back of his sleeve. “Luckily for you, I recognize this guy. Nasty piece of work. Goes by the name of Lindsey Wofford.”

“And how are you acquainted?” Maire asked.

“Wofford was the ringleader of a rival gang we teamed up with once… they screwed us over…”

Meadow came trotting over to Marie then, resting her muzzle in Marie’s hair. “Hi, there girl. Ah missed you.” She patted the horse’s neck gently and kissed the star on her forehead.

“I suppose sometimes, if your actions are for a cause, it’s worth it.”

Marie just nodded, hiding the tears in the eyes in Meadow’s long mane.

It was twilight by the time they reached the outskirts of the camp. It had been abandoned. And quickly. Logan held a hand up to prevent Marie from asking any questions while he scouted out the area. The Pinkertons were waiting by the doused campfire, a scant few lanterns illuminating their faces, distinguishable by their black suits and hats, the attire of funeral attendants.

“It seems the others have made a getaway. Probably executing the plan you came up with earlier.”

“Should we go after them?”

“Nah. Don’t wanna draw attention.”

“Oh?” Marie questioned.

“Yeah, we don’t wanna lead them right to us.”

They decided to camp somewhere else nearby and follow the others down over the river in the morning. If they were apprehended, Marie decided they could pretend to be immigrants who spoke little English. Luckily it didn’t come to that.

They set up a temporary camp near the flat plains of the lake, building a small fire and opening some of the supplies they had bought earlier that day.

Logan heated the beans and fried eggs while Marie cut bread best she could with a foldable knife Logan kept in his jacket pocket.

Once they’d eaten their meal directly from the pan, Logan poured them some coffee in the solitary tin cup they’d be sharing.

“One thing I have learnt from this life is, always carry the essentials with you, because you never know what you’re going to need.” He said as he passed Marie the steaming cup of tar-like coffee.

“Christ, this is thick enough ta stand a spoon in!” she grimaced as she took a sip.

“Well, it works well enough to keep me going. I’ll take first watch.” He took the mug back, took a swig, and placed it on a fallen log beside him.

Marie looked over to the single bed roll on a springy pile of moss. The area was well protected under a large, overhanging tree, safe from the elements and the likes of prying Pinkerton eyes.

“I think it’ll be safe for us both to sleep. We’ve had a tiring day.”

“We only have one bed.” Logan helpfully pointed out.

“If you promise to be a gentleman, we can share.”

“I don’t want to be ruining any reputations, now” He scalded light-heartedly.

“Ah wouldn’t worry about that. Ah have no reputation to protect anymore.”

So they made sure the horses were contented before settling down into the bedroll, Marie comfortably pressed against Logan’s wide chest.

Beside the dying fire, the stars above them were bright in the expanse of sky. The sound of the nearby stream was all they could hear.

“Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like this life?”

He paused for a long moment, almost long enough that Marie thought he’d forgotten to answer.

“It’s not what I would have chosen.”

Marie stared into the campfire embers, watching the scant glowing logs.

“Did you ever think about leaving them?”

“They’re my family.”

“Seems like that Eric guy would throw you under a stagecoach for ten dollars.”

“Everyone has their shortcomings. The man practically raised me. I know him through and through. If he did, he’d have a damn good reason to.”

“That’s the stupid in you talking”

“There’s only a few rules out here in the west; don’t call a man stupid unless you want your liver carved out with a sharpened stick. Don’t trust those who are not without sin, as those who claim to be free from it are lying son-o-bitches. And lastly, do not seek absolution from those who you have wronged, because they will probably give it to ya.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Because you don’t need it, one way or another."

She turned to look at him and saw wildly shifting intelligent hazel eyes staring into hers.

Tomorrow they would find the rest of the gang and evade capture, and Marie would begin her life as an outlaw, assimilating into a family who held strong morals about loyalty and friendship. Where they protected their own and made sure no one ever went hungry. And where love might one day seep into her heart.

Chapter 7: From Dawn to Dusk

Chapter by JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Recovery

Chapter by ArielleMoonlight

Chapter Text

"Let me in… he won't hurt me."

"Rogue, he's different now. Like this. He doesn't know what he's doing."

"He's acting on instinct. He's trapped and scared. But he'll recognize my scent."

"Only if I come in with you," Scott folds his arms in that way he did that emitted finality in waves.

She huffs, clenching and unclenching her jaw unconsciously. Scott's authoritarian stance told her it was no good. But she knew it wouldn't work this way.

The two enter.

He sits in the corner, huddled. Naked chest billowing up and down, taking in the new scents. The specially made monitoring device around his head beeps lowly. His eyes, wild yet still, rest unrelentingly on the intrusion.

The fluorescents flicker on low for the benefit of the newcomers, because he doesn't need light to see.

A female, familiar, but from where, he does not know.

A male, not a threat.

The female studies him from a distance. He does not like it. Hackles on the back of his neck raise.

She puts her hands out, crouches low, steps toward him. He growls.

"Rogue. Back off," Scott warns from the door, one hand touching the side of his visor in preparation.

A louder snarl.

"Logan?"

He sees her mouth a word he doesn't understand, but the way she says it, with tenderness in her voice makes him feel warm inside.

A step too close and he lurches forward to snap at her outstretched hand. A bolt of red slams into his shoulder, knocking him back in a howl of pain.

"Scott!" she reprimands. but it's too late. He pulls her backward out of the room just as the feral regains enough strength to pounce.

"Why did you do that?"

"He was about to attack"

"He's not an animal."

"Face it, Rogue. We don't know what he is anymore. He's not the man we used to know."

He walks off shaking his head, muttering to himself.

Rogue observes the man on the screen outside what was as good as his cell. He was trying, again, to rip the monitoring device from where it was bolted to his skull. Barbaric, but necessary, they'd said. For his own good.

The beeping must be driving his enhanced senses crazy. She would know. Once she'd taken in enough of him to understand how overwhelming the school environment was. The cacophony of sounds was enough by itself, but the smells of the younger kids, and the adolescents. Thank god there were none young enough still to be in diapers.

The device kept track of his heart rate, core temperature (running always five degrees higher than a 'normal person') and helped maintain his circadian rhythm in the sterile environment of the basem*nt-level med-lab. She'd begged them to allow him out, at least for an hour a day so he could smell the wind and feel the earth beneath his feet, but this had been unanimously outvoted.

She'll try again tomorrow.

In the cool grey light of morning, she collects a handful of leaves from the woods just outside the parameter of the mansion. On the side away from the road so they'd have no residue of pollutants on them. A strange gift, but one she is sure he'd at least recognize. She also brought him a steak, cooked rare, just like how he liked it before.

They'd never really had a stand on their "relationship." He'd promised to look out for her when she needed him most. Now she was repaying the favor.

Back then, she'd been just a girl. One who'd looked up to and idolized the gruff Wolverine because she had experienced his tender side. A lift out of the snowy terrain. A much-needed arm to lean into.

How love could transcend through time was something she still did fully understand. She still felt the same tingly sensation she did when she looked at him now as she did when she met him, ten years ago. A lot had changed since then, but the way she felt about him hadn't. She was older now.

She'd been with Bobby only long enough to realize that she was interested in him solely because he liked her, and once that had passed, after the cure, there wasn't anything remaining.

Then there was Remy. They'd at least shared true affection for one another, better but ultimately they weren't well suited. That and she still held a candle for the man she wanted in her life, but one who didn't return the sentiment. So much so, he couldn't stay.

Tuned out he didn't stay away out of choice. The team had found him detained in a mountaintop facility that worked on genetic modification. They'd been harvesting cells from him, without anaesthesia because such drugs didn't work on him. Had him chained to the wall like an animal. Almost reduced him to one.

Amongst her musings, she arrives at his door. Suppressing the urge to knock, she enters, closing the door quickly behind her.

He's calmer today, still crouched defensively against the wall, but deadly still. Only the twitching of his nostrils give him away.

She immediately bows her head and sinks to her knees. Submitting. Trusting. It was better like this, she thought. If he was acting purely on instinct then she should at least give him the opportunity to control the situation.

He emerges from the corner, unabashed in his nakedness. They had provided him with clothes, but he'd shredded them to use as bedding. His body on full display, still formidable in its unused state, heavy ropes of muscle easily discernable in the half-light.

She sits motionless, quivering only slightly when he reaches her, scenting at the glands behind her ear. She was very aware of the raw and savage power he possessed, that lay so closely under the surface now. God, what had they done to him?

She thought back to the forceful protector he used to be. So sure of himself. The brash intelligence that lay behind his wild hazel-coloured eyes. The quick wit and sarcastic twist of his lip when he quipped at her. She'd inherited that part of him unintentionally.

She daren't lift her eyes to his now, in case he thought it a challenge. The gifts she bought him lay, until then, forgotten in her lap, and she slides them towards him. An offering.

He snarls. Snatches the bloody meat from the plate. Rips a fat strip off with his teeth.

"ROGUE! Get out of there!" Scott's voice came crashing over the speaker.

The Wolverine was back in his corner, hackles raised.

She sighs, backs out of the room.

Later, in the warm afternoon light of the professor's office, she sits with the senior members of the team. Storm, Scott and Jean, heavily pregnant with their second child (the first scuttling over the rug attempting to pull the corded phone from Xavier's desk at every opportunity.)

Bobby and Kitty, forever holding hands in that lovesick way newlyweds do. Jubliee sitting on the window ledge and chomping on a big wad of gum she'd added to every few minutes since the meeting began. Piotr, in the opposite corner, his eyes decisively avoid Jubliee; the hangover of a few months of dating gone sour. She was always too much of a bright spark to be tamed.

"I still don't understand why I can't at least try," Rogue spoke up, breaking the silent rumination of the last few minutes.

"Because you don't seem to grasp the danger you're in, Rogue!" Scott snaps, pulling his toddler from the phone cord yet again. The boy let out a wail and clenched his cubby fists in indignation, kicking his father as he went.

"There must be something that can be done?" Rogue deplores the professor. "Can't you set up some mental barriers that would stop him attacking?"

Xavier sighs, "Unfortunately, no. Since he returned, his mind has been fully resistant to tampering."

Rogue secretly thinks this is probably a good thing, and Xavier shot her a small smile.

"We can leave him locked up in there like an animal? How is that any better from where we've taken him from, aside from the … procedures," She didn't like to go into the details, they'd all read the reports.

"Rogue, Honey. We're just trying to protect you," Storm places a placating hand on her shoulder, which Rogue shrugs off.

"We should be protecting him! Aren't any of you going to come up with an idea?"

She stood, turning to look at the team, her family for the past ten years. How could they abandon him, like her old family did all that time ago? They were supposed to look after their own. They all stare back at her reproachfully, like she's the crazy one.

The next time Rogue tries to access the room, she runs into Jean. Not like an eight-month pregnant lady would be any match if she wanted to bypass her, but to Rogue's surprise, the redhead smiles weakly.

"I'm sorry for not speaking up in the meeting," She gets to her feet warily, as if it was costing her a great deal of energy, both mental and physical, "I think you're on the right track."

"You do?" Rogue questions skeptically.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, that's why I'm here."

"You… you can't come in with me."

"That wasn't what I had in mind…"

A minute later, both women stand in front of the detainment room.

"Are you sure you don't want any… protection?" Jean's manicured hand tightens around the box containing the taser.

Rogue shakes her head sadly, trying to appreciate the offer was coming from a good place.

"Just… try to keep the others away."

Jean nods, offers a reassuring pat. She understood what Rogue was trying to do for him, what the others had done for her when she needed them. Granted, the situation was different, but still, she could have killed them all.

"If things get too… heated. I'll pull you out. Teleconetically, of course." She adds, when Rogue offers a slight smile.

She places her offering down in front of her, the same as before, and waits for him to approach, which he does a lot faster this time.

When close enough to touch, she flicks her gaze to his, stopping him in his tracks. Keeping her head bowed so he knows she's not a threat.

He eats the American breakfast with his fingers, tossing the pancakes to the wall after the first sweet bite. The rest, he devours in a minute flat. She nudges the small cup of black coffee toward him, which he tips upside down with a co*cked head, watching the bitter liquid trickle into the tray.

With him satiated, she brings her hand to his cheek, moving her thumb back and forth over his grizzled, dense crop of facial hair when he allows her to.

She raises the scissors she told herself she'd bought in only as a tool for trimming, and not as a weapon, if it came to that. Ever so slowly, she brought the blades to his cheek, letting him feel the steel warmed by her flesh against his skin, before cutting a chunk of matted beard away.

His hand shot up to catch the falling hair, let it fetter through his fingers. The nails on which were bitten down short, a good sign, she decides. Almost like a grooming habit, even if he was unaware.

Hesitantly, she snips again, and he surprises her by allowing her to do so, even lets his eyes flicker closed for an infinitesimal moment. Did he enjoy this before, the intimate but not crude touch of a woman. So many hidden things she did not know about him, but wished to. Wondered if he'd ever remember himself. The thought saddens her.

He nudged her cheek with his, making her look up into his wildly shifting eyes.

She holds her breath while he analyzes her, trying to make out something he can recognize in the complex swirl of emotion. He didn't feel at the capacity she could, he knows that. He only had the basics, hungry, tired. Although the feelings aren't completely foreign to him, he struggles to comprehend all the flickers that pass through her.

She lowers her head again, submitting to him. He likes that. Like another human he used to know, a lifetime ago. One who threw him into a chasm of confusion. Contradictory in every sense of the word. Innocent yet seductive. Sweet but sexy, in her late-teen kind of way. The remembrance of guilt came flooding back, part of him knowing it was wrong to want her, the other daming that first part to hell. It was a stupid human convention that told him feelings so pure could be wrong. Some misplaced sense of chivalry in fighting it.

This human reminds him of her in more than her submittance. The sweet flush over pale skin. Thick hair, dark and luscious. Delightfully curved in a way that made his mouth water. His lips draw back to display his canines, a primal reaction.

Slowly, he pushes her back, laying her down beneath him. Detecting no hint of fear tainting her scent. Only blind concession, maybe even a trace of excitement. Of course, she respects him as the alpha, would submit to him. Despite the fact there are no others around, he knows she would pick him over the rest.

Although, she wore a barrier, restricting her sex, and it frustrates him. Nothing that can't be rectified. With a swift pop of his claws, he removed the obstruction.

"Rogue, did you need intervention?" Jean's anxious voice fills her head.

"No," She thinks back without hesitation, wishing for privacy. If he was going to hurt her, the time had passed.

Exposed to the cool basem*nt-level air, she shudders, then immediately is grateful for the heat radiating from the powerful, heavy body over her.

His head dips to taste her neck, the furious beating of her pulse under his tongue. She feels him grow rigid against her, unable to keep still in anticipation. It was something she wanted for a long time. Craved. Maybe even since the first time she saw him. In the cage, glistening in sweat, so close to the edge of true violence. The feral in him prowling just under the surface, what she hopes is the opposite now.

A low, masculine rumble of approval reverberates from deep within his chest. The sound stirring, one she's never heard through her own ears.

Without conscious thought, her mind flicks back to the memories she always tries so hard to repress. Past encounters. Trying not to compare what he gave in comparison to what she received.

He gave them only a fraction of what they wanted. She considered if he was even capable of affection, or if they were ever anything but prey to him. Chasing the pure rush of release faster than he could connect with the woman in his grasp. Very much superficial. Allowing them to touch his physical self, but never his soul.

A noise from outside, a tinny echo, just about reaches her ears. A small commotion, could have been miles away for all the attention she paid. But the Wolverine growls, pulls her closer toward him, then away into his pile of bedding. To safety.

Even now, when mating is imminent, he is aware. Much more than she, even without the enhanced senses. She wondered if there was ever a time he let his guard down. Age differences aside, he'd always been older, more weathered. It took him being in this state for her to fully understand why.

Being constantly on edge, ready for inevitable conflict, could wear a person down. Mutant. Feral. Whatever. That constant state of awareness must be tiring. In every sense of that one little word, that didn't hold the full gravity of its meaning. Draining. Relentless. Agonizing.

He's growling again, but not malevolently. Not like he'd ever had to threaten to get his point across. Even when he was capable of words, they were never sharp, nor spoken loudly, and never without intention. And didn't that make what wasn't said more compelling? The weighty silences, tension crackling in the air between them. Awaiting the small inclination into his thoughts.

She'd noticed the downright shocking bulge in his jeans before it was probably appropriate to do so. Even now, these indecent thoughts make her blush, prevent her from looking, even now she's grown.

Blunt pressure between her legs, not an unknown sensation, but different. More extreme, taking in their size difference. He gives her no time to become accustomed, starting a primal rhythm inside her. Torturous, languid strokes, not hard but with power behind them.

She runs her hands over taught flesh, over the small lacerations in too precise of locations, barely healed. Bone marrow. God knows what type of tool they'd used to penetrate his unpenetrable skeleton. She could almost cry at what they did to him, probably would again later, but now wasn't the time.

His strokes begin to falter, pulling back the last few strands of restraint, not for her benefit, but for his own pleasure. Enjoying the tightening, the winding desire. His personal kind of blissful purgatory. It would make it all the better when he finally gave himself over to it.

His restraint is what sends her over the edge first, and she thought again about this not being about her own pleasure. Disconnected from human emotion as he was, he still cared enough to want this to be good for her too. Makes her sure the man is still in there.

Arching, he stiffens into her and grunts out his pleasure. The sound is so raw, so private, she is unsure whether to be in awe that he could be so open with her, or ashamed she had witnessed something so personal.

After the first wet rush, the tension leaves his body in waves. Her own body throbs helplessly in response. Each clench and release wrangles a slightly softer moan, pulsing his seed deep into her.

The Wolverine was his shell, the harsh exterior he showed to the world. Inside lay a sensitive man. A kind man. One who'd pick up an outcast teenage runaway with no ulterior motive. Ask her to stay not only to keep himself company, but because it was the best place for her. Two lost and hurting individuals, as separate as they can be, waiting to be alighted.

She knew that deep in his heart, he was not without hope. He may once have been still, immobile through life, but that time was no more. Whatever they had taken from him, it had taken that part of his soul too. The inhuman part. Now what was left was the shattered remains of beast and man, the former closer to the surface, but both very much still a presence in that one, hardened body. Hidden, but not lost to the indifference and pain and malice they had inflicted on him.

Maybe it was better if he didn't remember after all. Maybe, after what he'd been through, he felt like he deserved it. Or maybe he was just too f*cked up to care. She had a sneaking suspicion that maybe he'd suppressed his feelings towards her this whole time because when you start to have something to look forward to, it's all too easy to slip back into hopelessness when it's taken away.

"M're," he mutters, with reverence. So low anyone with ears more than an inch away from the lips that spoke would have missed it.

"Yes," she nods in the affirmative. Then places a soft hand over where his heart is beating wildly, "Logan."

"Lo-gan," he repeats disjointedly.

She smiles at him, careful not to show her teeth. And mouth his twitched up in imitation of the smirk she so desperately wanted to see grace his features again.

It wasn't much, but it was progress. Incremental. The Logan she loved was still in there, hidden beneath the rage and carnal dominance. Maybe she'd be able to help him unlock those memories again. Maybe not. Either way, she'd be there every step on the road to recovery.

Chapter 9: The Canopy Over the Bed 2

Chapter by JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo

Chapter Text

The light breeze carried the furious Rogue's thoughts from conception to a flurry of movement. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted to the doors, ignoring Logan's shout to stop. f*ck him. f*ck the cure, drama, heartbreak, rulebook and playbook. f*ck the world because she planned to flip the lid off her fiery temper.

Oh, you wanted to tell her daughter to jump out of the window, did you? f*ck you, too. She would tear down her closet, burn all her clothes, and dress as a mama bear until the end of time. No one would play games with her little girl and slip into the shadows without feeling the wrath of the Rogue.

"She never goddamn listens to me," Logan growled, climbing to his feet and stalking after the red-hot scent. Shifting the scowling Anna in his arms, he eyed her as they headed inside. "And what's your problem, huh?"

"Suds doesn't want to be left in a bush," she complained tearfully, wriggling for freedom and finding it tougher than she imagined because moody boys were stronger and moodier than they looked.

He put the puzzle pieces together, connected the dots, and worked out all the whining over a stuffed animal, which failed to dampen his anger. The kid had jumped out of a window. Literally, climbed up onto a windowsill and dived headfirst from a height of three stories.

"Well, I don't want you hauling your butt out of windows," he grumbled, spotting Storm ahead and handing the kid over. "Don't let her out of your sight."

"What's going on?" she asked Logan worriedly, struggling to calm the unhappy child and watching him jog to the staircase.

Logan followed Marie's scent up the stairs. "She's gifted herself a major death wish for her birthday. Keep a sharp eye out, 'Ro. I mean it; don't let her out of your sight."

Storm exhaled resignedly and hushed the crying Anna. "Cake and ice cream?" she offered the unruly birthday girl.

Pushing the creaking bedroom door open, a breathless Rogue wandered inside, expecting to find someone preparing excuses or even willing to fight. The room was empty, wind billowing the curtains wildly into the air. She crossed the carpet and breathed the gentlest of sighs. Picking up the little safari hat on the unmade bed, she studied it with trembling hands. The thought of losing Anna terrified her.

She heard Logan's footsteps. He always had a consistent stride – quiet, firm, meaning business.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, tears gathered in her heartbroken gaze. She gripped the hat tightly and held it up for a moment when he appeared in the doorway with a face full of concern. "Hank bought Anna this for her birthday. It's part of a dressing-up box. A safari set worthy of a little adventurer."

Logan grunted and entered the room, sniffing the surrounding scents with a frown. He nudged his rucksack out of the way and headed straight to the window. Looking down at the drop, he heaved a heavy sigh.

"There's three fresh scents in this room, Marie. Yours, mine, and the troublemaker."

"You can smell whoever made her jump from the window, right?" she asked, hopeful they would band together and put the problem to bed.

He shut the window and locked it firmly shut. "You know, that troublemaker I mentioned has a birthday today, and she's real lucky to be alive. You get what I'm saying? The kid owns the keys to the asylum, and it will only get worse the older she gets. How about we discuss those parenting classes?"

Rogue couldn't believe the words twisting off the tip of his tongue and running daggers through her heart. Her tearful eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head to the side, outwardly mocking him and his feral ways.

"I know my little girl, Logan. I've spent every damn day with her; even when I went to college, I chose to take online classes, so we were never apart. There's no one in the world I trust more, and she wouldn't jump out of a window without being tricked. Stop smirking and listen to me. Yes, I'm pissed at you for everything and anything, but you're wrong about this. Something made her do what she did, and when I find whoever's responsible, I'll deal with things my way."

"Uh-huh," he said with a heavy dose of scepticism and folded his brawny arms. "Here's what I think happened. She was bored, headed up here, rifled through my rucksack and decided to see if she could fly."

Scoffing, Rogue dropped her gaze to her scuffed tennis shoes. "Everything's always about you."

He sniffed her dejected scent and closed the distance between them. "Don't turn this into another argument. All I'm saying is whatever you've got going on isn't working out."

"You're right. It isn't working out," she admitted softly, brushing the tears away and walking to the door with the safari hat.

f*ck him. Absolutely, f*ck him, and not in a carnal way, either. Anna was her daughter, not his, and she would handle this with all the stored and scorching fury of a mama bear.

In boredom, Anna reached for the salt and pepper shakers later that evening, rolling them across the dining room table. "It's a secret," she whispered and soon abandoned the silver-plated toys when the lost Suds popped into her overreactive on-the-run mind.

"We don't have secrets," Rogue explained softly as the other X-Men discussed the latest mutant scare in the press. "Do you promise someone else was in the room with you?"

Nodding, Anna settled on the floor, under the table and beside the chair. "He's my image friend."

"Your 'image friend'?" she repeated, tucking her two-toned hair behind pierced ears and abandoning the cutlery on the plate. "Do you mean imaginary? He's your imaginary friend?" Watching Anna nod enthusiastically, she began to worry. "Anna, he hasn't hurt you, has he?"

The girl shook her head and laid down fully under the table. Peering upwards, she poked repeatedly at the chewing gum with a fork, hoping to free it from its wooden jail cell.

Sighing and instantly feeling awkward, Rogue spotted Logan watching from the doorway. She shifted her seat away from his line of sight and ignored the beer-drinking display of gruffness.

He could drown in that bottle for all she cared and shove those parenting classes up his hairy ass while he sunk to the bottom of a crab-filled casket. Accusing her of being a lousy mama was unforgivable.

She picked up a knife and lightly tapped a glass of water. "I have an announcement to make."

Logan raised an eyebrow and watched her shrug the shyness away. "Let's hear it, then."

Ignoring him, she gazed at Storm, Hank, Kitty, Bobby, Piotr and the others. "Tomorrow, I'm taking Anna on a trip south. I guess it's a much-needed vacation for the both of us."

"To visit your parents?" Storm asked warmly, ignoring the amused snort from the doorway.

"Yes, we're leaving first thing in the morning. I finished all the latest accounts yesterday and left them on your desk," Rogue explained, leaving her chair and glancing at Bobby with a gentle smile. "Goodnight, everyone."

Logan's eyes narrowed when he caught the shared look between the past lovers. The jealousy spiked, and he growled under his breath, sinking the last of the booze. Grabbing her upper arm when she passed by, he scowled and deliberately diced up words to pack a punch.

"You whoring yourself out to the ice prick to make up for your sh*tty parenting skills?" he slurred roughly in her ear with beer-baited breath.

Rogue's saddened gaze scrutinised every line of his rageful face. "You're making a fool out of yourself, Logan." She glanced over her shoulder and beckoned to their daughter. "Come on, Anna. It's time for bed."

Anna crawled out from under the table with the fork speared with a half-dried wad of rose-pink bubble gum. Much to Kitty's horror, she abandoned it on the dining table and hopped, skipped, and dashed across the rug with her arms spread out in search of a whooshing wind.

"I'm flying!" she called out, making wind noises with her best frightening roar.

A grumbling Logan released Rogue's arm and snapped his eyes to the kid. Snatching the toy rabbit from his back pocket, he held it out for her to take.

“Here," he said, tone softening. "Make sure that game of yours keeps your feet on the ground this time, understand?"

Her little face lit up, and she hugged the rabbit, running to the stairs. Nodding in response and whispering plans to play into the lolloping grey ear of her best friend, she clambered up the steps.

The sighing Rogue glanced at the shadow of the man she once loved. "I don't understand. One minute, you're spitting nails at me, and then you soften, and I wonder if you're trying to find your way home again."

He snorted harshly and shook his head. "I'm not lost, Marie. I'm right here where I've always been."

"You're more lost than you realise because keeping a bar stool warm every night has turned your brain to mush. Doesn't meeting your little girl for the first time make you ache for normality?" His gaze loitered on the stairs, and she hoped the words resonated. "I miss the old you. The dependable you. The grumpy guy who would chew me out for making mistakes in the Danger Room or chase my pain away because he hated seeing me cry."

"I still hate watching you cry," he muttered absentmindedly, eyeing the staircase with growing suspicion.

She parted her lips to respond with words bundled carefully in care, but Anna's scream surprised them both, and they instantly sprang into action.

Logan swung the heavy fire door open and sniffed the lingering scents stifling the winding hallway. The wallpaper was as wild as his kid's behaviour, and he grunted at Marie's upscale taste in hotels. That accounting gig of hers must be raking in the cold, harsh cash.

He stalked down the hall, feet steady, drunkenness healed, with a rucksack slung over his shoulder and a creased and crumpled Toys R Us bag in his hand. Stopping in his tracks, he grunted and tilted his head. Lips twitched into a knowing smirk, and he rapped his knuckles against door 2282.

Rogue crept toward the sound and used the spy hole to check on the late-night and unexpected visitor. She sighed in annoyance, spotting the familiar arched eyebrow, frowning face and communicative scowl.

"Open up, Marie," he said impatiently, eyes narrowed at the hesitant noise inches away from his nose.

She opened the door and peered at him, her gaze eventually dropping to the bag. "Have you taken to carrying your judgement around in a Toys R Us bag now?"

Logan held it out for her to take. "It's the kid's birthday present," he answered calmly, refusing to be drawn into another fight. "I figured you could hand it to her before the night's over."

Examining the inside of the bag, Rogue spotted the Mutant Ninja Turtles box, and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

She gazed at Logan again, searching his face for any sign of intoxication. "Which bar stool did you keep warm this time?"

He sighed heavily and looked at her. "You hightailed it before I could tell you what I found." When she failed to roll out the red carpet and welcome him in, the frown on his face showed a heavy dose of pain. "Look, I haven't darkened the door of a single bar before making my way here." She still didn't say anything. "What do you want from me, huh? I've tracked you down in the dead of night, and you're staring at me like I'm all that's wrong with the world."

"You didn't believe me, Logan," she replied in a hurt tone, taking the bag from him and continuing to block the door.

"Yeah, well, I believe you now. You gonna let me in, or do I have to sleep out here?" he asked, nodding to the heavily patterned carpet.

Rogue's anger thawed slightly, and she stepped aside, letting him inside the hotel room with plush seats, modern art, sprawling beds and a large flat-screen TV above the bathtub. "Anna's still awake."

"I'm not surprised. Look at this place," he said with an impressed whistle. Dumping the rucksack beside the roomy armchair, his gaze searched the room for the pint-sized troublemaker, and he followed her scent to the bathroom.

He chuckled, peering inside the glossy tiled room and spotting her in the empty tub wearing a pair of bright, clashing cartoon-covered pyjamas. "Yeah, you're your mother's daughter, all right."

Rogue rolled her eyes with pursed and pouty lips. "You're never going to forget that, are you?"

"Nope." He entered the bathroom, glancing at the retro show the kid watched. "Now, what do we have here?"

Anna sat up a little straighter and pointed to the screen in the ritzy tiled wall. "That's Samantha," she explained excitedly. "She's a lady with a nose."

Raising a probing and bushy eyebrow, he looked down at the kid. "A nose, huh? What's so special about her nose?"

She plopped her finger on her own button nose and wriggled it side to side. "It goes like this, and then this happens!" Launching the stuffed rabbit into the air, she giggled as it bounced off the light fixture.

Logan tugged the bag wide open and caught the rabbit on its downward route. With another chuckle, he handed over the gift to the girl in the grand bathtub. "What do you think, Kid?"

Anna had trouble lifting the huge box onto her lap when she opened the bag. Happily, her eyes widened, and she pointed to the little green characters on the packaging. "Cowabunga!"

"Yeah, cowabunga," he agreed with a relieved grin. Pleased she liked the gift, he glanced at Marie in the doorway. "Do you think your mother knows the catchphrase too?"

Smiling faintly at the emergence of Logan's softness, Rogue wandered over to the bathtub and peered down at their daughter. “Cowabunga, Baby Girl.”

Rogue carefully lifted the sleeping girl out of the tub and carried her into the bedroom, bypassing the judgemental frown on Logan's face. "I don't need to hear it," she warned in a gentle whisper.

"I figured most kids fell asleep in a bed, that's all," he muttered, shrugging away the harshness of her stare.

"Anna's different, okay? Even when she was weeks old, I drove to the mall and back five times a day just to help her sleep."

Logan watched the exhausted Southerner tucking their daughter into one of the colossal beds. "You look like you're about to drop."

"I'm fine, Logan. I've always been able to take care of myself." She glanced at him with a stare spiked by a spiralling need to knee him in the balls when he snorted in disagreement. "I've taken care of myself since I turned sixteen. Stop rolling your eyes and listen to me for once. I know what's best for me. I know what's best for our little girl. I'm the best mama I can be because I know what it's like to be alone, and that's all there is to it."

There was plenty to unpack there, and he didn't know where to start. She tossed another lifeline his way by labelling Anna theirs, then circled the wagons with the claims of being able to care for herself.

"Look, I get that things between us have rusted over time. But we've gotta find a way to come together over this intruder business because somebody's hunting the kid."

Her gaze betrayed the fear before it seeped into her terrified scent. She brushed away rhyme after reason, coming to a startling conclusion. "Someone at the school hates Anna and wants to drive us away."

He shook his head. Whoever it was could mask their scent and wore size eleven combat boots. Somebody had shipped in a professional to stalk the upstairs rooms of Xavier's School for Gifted Brats. The boot impressions in the dirt beside the rose bushes matched the ones he found on the broken doll house.

The responsible party could scale walls undetected and owned a hair-trigger temper. They weren't sent there to destroy a little girl's mountain-sized birthday gift but had seen fit to take their rage out on it when a plan failed to come to fruition. The tell-tale sign of the ridges on the boots held the key to unmasking the identity of the prowler.

"You're not telling me everything you know," she accused him, gazing at the sleeping Anna as the wave of fear gripped her paling face.

With one arm snaking around his ex-lover's waist, he hoisted her upright before she collapsed. "Hey, you need to calm down and think rational thoughts, Marie."

"Rational thoughts? Someone wants to murder mydaughter in cold blood!" she hissed, lowering her voice so she didn't wake Anna.

"There you go, gatekeeping a pint-sized troublemaker again. She's our daughter, you hear? It took the two of us to create a kid that throws sh*t down the stairs and tosses herself out of goddamn windows when she feels like it." He hauled her across the cushioned carpet to the bathroom, shutting the door behind them so they could hold a heated discussion without prying eyes or ears. "Listen to me: We've got to stick together right about now and put this war of words behind us for the time being."

She studied every inch of Logan's weathered face, focusing solely on the dark circles hugging his eyes. He looked tired. Exhausted from life, desperate for a lengthy rest in a comfortable, quiet bed. "You're right for once in your life."

He heaved a heavier-than-normal sigh, resting his forehead against hers. "I don't know where to start, but you and me have to work from the same page."

"Singing from the same hymn sheet?" she suggested, their lips barely grazing as she welcomed the touch, the taste of smoke, and the closeness.

Logan snorted in mild amusem*nt, breaking the contact before they hauled each other down the slippery slope of no return. "I've heard your singing, Marie. If we're ever in a tight squeeze, we'll break out that weapon of mass destruction, and you can entertain the enemy until their ears bleed."

Rogue wrinkled her nose as she watched him tug down his fly. "You make it sound dirty," she complained, reminding him to lift the toilet seat as she turned away and left the bathroom. "I'm not the worst singer in the world. It's not like I shatter glass or assault all the eardrums in a thirty-mile radius."

She heard him chuckle as she settled beside their sleeping daughter on the bed. Squabbling about singing seemed the only rational response to deal with the current crisis. Her mind struggled to wrangle free of the fear of losing Anna, so she dived onto a mountain of pettiness instead.

“I'm serious. My voice won prizes in middle school. Even at high school, teachers always told me I was going places."

"I'm telling you now, you misheard them. They told you and your mouth to hit the road, but you had other ideas and hung around until chucking out time."

The toilet flushed, and Rogue rolled her eyes to the heavens and beyond. "I'll have you know, I've never misremembered a day in my life. Unlike some of us, my memories are intact and unriddled with bullets or trauma." She suddenly changed the subject, swerving away from catty talk of lost memories. "Even my mama and daddy's church welcomed me into the choir. They said I sang like an angel."

"Nice save," Logan grunted from the bathroom, soaping up his hands at the sink. "And I'll have you know; churches have a habit of welcoming just about anybody who darkens their door. They want to keep those lights on one collection plate at a time while they chase down altar boys and chug the holy jungle juice."

"You can't meet my mama. You'll drive her into the arms of the nearest straitjacket if you talk that way about church or her favourite pastor," she complained, sliding between the cotton sheets and their comfortable high thread count.

"Then we don't head down south tomorrow. I'd bet my last dollar that the key to unlocking this mystery rests back at that school," he said, stripping out of his shirt as he entered the room and reached for the rucksack.

Rogue's enthusiastic gaze traced the rippled muscles carved into his stone-like biceps. He was like a rock stooped prettily and proudly inside the Michelangelo maker's vast workshop. She smiled softly and noticed his questioning gaze.

"I'm just thinking about Italy," she explained a little tongue-tied, the heat rising to her face the longer he stared.

Careless thoughts floated away, lost in the shadows of the balmy night, as she almost succumbed to the temptation of diving into a forever-wrecked relationship. She couldn't return to the past, no matter how many fantasies she entertained of Logan parading about without a fig leaf.

"And I promised both my mama and daddy I'd visit with their only grandbaby. Not to Italy. I'm happy enough travelling to Meridian in the morning."

He sighed and pulled a crumpled white wifebeater on. "You don't owe them anything. Remember how I found you, just shy of seventeen, huddled in the back of my trailer, close to freezing to death? You've got your own little girl now, Marie. Is she gonna find herself out on the streets someday, with nowhere to turn to and through no fault of her own? Think about it and get back to me, huh?"

Logan loomed over a rickety picnic table at an empty truck stop, scoffing his third doughnut of the overcast morning. His free hand reached for the sizeable coffee cup until he spotted Anna launching herself toward the busy interstate. He grabbed her fur-lined hood, plucking her out of harm's way before she succeeded in running further than two steps. Dangling the tiny girl in front of his scowling face, he sighed with irritation.

"You, the rabbit and your butt need to stay put," he grumbled, setting her down on top of the unvarnished tabletop. "Where's this death wish come from, hey? You wake up one day, realise you're halfway to double digits and decide you're hankering for your first taste of danger?"

Anna pouted and hugged Suds to her chin. "You're moody like bad girl bolts in the rain."

He lightly tapped her nose and handed over the uneaten side of the glazed doughnut. "You're real perceptive when you're not searching for a way out of this life."

The little girl huffed at the half-offering of breakfast and pushed the sugary, doughy delight to the rabbit's sewed-on, slanted mouth. "He doesn't like it."

"Well, you best let him know it's all he's getting until lunchtime. I'm not running a pick-what-you-eat service, Kid. There's only one item on the menu, and they're called doughnuts. Some folks, like me, wash them down with a bucket of strong black coffee. Others, like your mother, carry them around in a napkin while buying up half the stock inside the gas station store."

He watched Marie cross the parking lot and wave with a hefty bag weighing her down. "Yeah, she's always been one to spend until she drops. She's either eating, shopping, or singing to while away the time. We're safe and sound as long as she's not doing the latter."

Refusing to take any chances, he scooped the kid up, discarded the empty doughnut box and carried his coffee to the sleek black SUV. "What took you so long?"

Rogue smiled slightly and rifled gently through the overflowing bag of edible snacks, little toys, and other offerings or items. "I thought you liked mornings."

"I'm a creature of habit, Marie," he pointed out in a no-nonsense tone pitted with gruffness. "No part of a trip down south fits into my usual morning routine." Opening the back passenger door, he settled the kid inside and frowned at a brightly coloured candy bag tossed to them. "What's that?"

"Suds only eats gummy worms for breakfast," the Southerner whispered to him and winked at the impatient girl. "Is he happy now, Anna?"

Anna nodded and tore open a little crease in the corner of the packet. "He likes it because I do," she beamed, pretending to feed the rabbit a bendable green-on-yellow worm until she sneakily popped it into her mouth.

Logan shut the door and eyed Rogue over the roof of the car. Now, it all made sense. "No wonder she's always throwing sh*t down the stairs instead of sleeping. She coasts through life on a sugar rush, and you're her go-to dealer."

"We needed snacks and supplies for the journey, and what did I tell you about judging me all the time? I'm happy to leave you by the side of the interstate, Wolverine. Go ahead, walk to the nearest bar, and drown yourself in a barrel of frothy beer. I don't care as long as you stop making those lower-than-low comments about my parenting. I'm a good mama and one of these days, you'll understand everything I do is for the best."

He watched her huffily climb in the front passenger side because he had commandeered the keys after she parked haphazardly—trust Summers to fail on the simplest of fronts when teaching her driver's ed. With a sigh, he fished out the jingling set of keys from his jacket pocket and wondered what chaos the rest of the journey would bring.

In a seen-better-days diner on the edge of the busy interstate snaking due south, Logan, Rogue, and Anna settled onto a dated crimson booth, shouldering their fair share of unsaid words, secrets, and emotions. It was challenging to merge as a family unit of three when tension remained taut between the bickering adults, disagreeing about everything from the choice of snacks to the perfect pee spots, what to buy for Rogue's parents, and how to park a car.

Logan finished telling the story of his last unhappy shopping experience before shrugging the wrinkled jacket from his overheated torso. "It's hotter than Hell in here," he muttered, eyeing the waitress in search of coffee and a set of menus.

"I guess you would know." Rogue fixed him with a shady look of mistrust. "Were you really late for Anna's party because you told someone in Toys R Us to go f*ck themselves?"

"Yeah, and got my ass banned for my troubles. But maybe she'll learn how to handle an extra cup of joe next time, hey?" He shorted in amusem*nt and dumped the jacket beside him. "I figure it's typical of that generation. I know for a fact in my day, things would have been different."

She frowned and pushed a packet of unopened crayons across the table to Anna. "Wow. Has Boomer Logan joined us for lunch? I feel so privileged to be in his grouchy presence."

He had no idea what the hell that insult meant but scowled anyway. "Thanks to her overreaction, I had to hit the road again and head into the city to find another toy store."

"I didn't realise you're the victim in this silly story," she sighed, toying with a lock of white hair as she waved the waitress over and ordered two strong coffees and a malt shake.

"It's not a story; it's the truth. And I'm telling you now, today's generation is soft in the head and light on its feet," he growled with an ever-prominent scowl painted on his unshaven face.

Rogue rolled her eyes and contemplated abandoning him in the local nursing home. He would match perfectly with their plaid-only décor and could use his claws to help tidy the overgrown lawns. Perhaps he would strip down to next to nothing, sweating and swaying in the sun as the yardwork teased the wrinkles from his brows and penis. Smiling in pleasure at her witty thoughts, she caught his suspicious glances.

"I'm just thinking about Italy again," she explained with a faint blush heating her cheeks.

"Uh-huh," the sceptical Logan grunted, slumping slightly in his seat when he smelled the wave of lust from her fidgeting frame.

He figured she was interested in the group of loud-mouthed guys who had settled opposite them. Not that it mattered because they had never been in any rock-steady relationship. Their rugrat-making time together had been nothing more than a four-times deal in a bed loaded with empty liquor bottles and potato chip crumbs.

When the swept-off-her-feet waitress approached, understaffed, underpaid and carrying a coffee pot, Anna abruptly lifted her head from the colouring book to share the most vibrant phrase from her vocabulary. "Go f*ck yourself!"

Inside a cramped motel room, floral wallpaper peeled from the damp walls, and the two oldest inhabitants squabbled together like the youngest. They spat barbed words at each other, trading insults as they battled over a scruffy, itchy comforter that looked destined for the dumpster.

All the while, their daughter threw herself about the room, pretending to fight against car tyres at stoplights with the help of Suds, the ever-reluctant sidekick.

Rogue pursed her lips and huffed in disappointment. "I don't understand you sometimes, Logan. You're either soft, difficult, or fuming. Is the lack of bar talk bothering you, or do you just hate road-tripping? Between Anna cussing at people and you slashing tyres, I swear to God I'm about to die from little more than overexposure to found and made family."

The gruffer than gruff Logan adjusted the prickly set of sheets covering the two of them in the too-small bed. He had heard enough of her bellyaching to last a f*cking lifetime. This trip south had been a mistake housed on a goddamn catastrophe. "Look, I warned him to mind his own business."

"He wanted to grow his business; that's why he offered me a card with his phone number printed on the bottom," she explained testily, tugging the duvet away.

"Yeah, right," he muttered bad-temperedly. "I could smell the lust rolling off the both of you in waves back at that diner."

Rogue lifted her head off the flat, uncomfortable pillow and gazed at him. He sounded jealous, and it confused her exhausted mind. “You're envious."

He snorted roughly and let her have the duvet. "Don't go using words you can't even spell, Marie."

"That was one stinking time, and you know Scott's to blame for that mistake of mine," she shot back angrily, jabbing a finger in his face.

He stared her down until she stopped poking the tip of her finger into the corner of his left eye socket. "Go right ahead and blame the dead geek, hey? It's not like he can counter your bullsh*t excuses when he's ten feet in the New York state ground."

She blinked salty tears away in response to his callous words. "Scott was more than just a geek."

"Don't tell me you had a crush on him, too," he grumbled half-heartedly, closing his eyes to catch some much-needed sleep.

"He was family. Found family. And you better open your damn eyes and talk to me, Logan. I need to know why you act this way. What goes through your tiny mind and tells you it's a really good idea to lean out of a window and slash a car tyre? Do you have something against red stoplights, or are you missing half of your brain because you can't go and play with the rest of those pathetic guys drinking every state dry?"

He growled in response and snatched the sheets away from her. "You gonna throw beer talk in my face every time we disagree?"

She softened slightly and stopped tugging against the sheet. "I didn't mean to learn any beer talk, and I hate fighting with you." Their calmed gazes locked, and she sighed gently. "This still isn't working, is it? We're too different, too hurt, too angry and forever annoyed at each other."

Logan circled the leafy Mississippian streets a third time, eyeing the tidy-looking yards in the middle-class suburban neighbourhood. When he thought of Marie running north with an out-of-control mutation, he figured she had escaped a born-again ultra-religious sh*thole, but now the lack of street smarts made perfect sense. She had been a comfortable kid whose head was turned by maps and hastily made plans to escape an unhappy home.

"Okay. I'm ready," Rogue announced, asking him to slow the speed as they approached her family home. "It's the one with the red vehicle in the drive."

His gaze snapped to the house as her scent swamped the air with a mixture of anxiety and dread. "I can keep driving?" he offered in case her feet were itching for another disjointed attempt to run for the hills and snow-capped mountains of Canada and beyond.

"I promised we'd visit," she reminded him, glancing over her shoulder and smiling at the sleeping girl. "Anyway, Anna's excited to meet my daddy and mama."

"Yeah, she looks it," he snorted coarsely, glancing in the rear-view mirror and parking beside the red pickup truck. His eyes soon settled on the flaking white paint on the wraparound porch and the co*ckerel-shaped welcome sign.

Every inch of him wanted to slam his foot on the gas pedal and reverse like a bat out of hell, especially when the front door flew open, and a shrill voice pierced the air. "Jesus Christ."

An animated and permanently anxiety-ridden woman with shapely hips and a short stature raced down the porch steps, arms raised elatedly. Her long, dark hair was pinned atop her round head, and she wore an ocean of egg-blue fabric fashioned into a frilly dress. "Marie, you're home!"

The long-suffering ex-mutant nudged him sharply with her elbow as her stomach dropped. Returning home always dragged her worries kicking and screaming into the forefront of her mind. But her main priority was Anna's safety.

Surely, no one would think to look for them here. With Logan keeping secrets, she knew it had to be something terrible. Something even worse than her mama hollering and dancing for all the neighbours to see.

"That's my mama, and her name's Priscilla. She loves Jesus, couponing and making a fuss of next door's cat. Jesus, couponing, next door's cat. Jesus, couponing, next door's cat."

"Snap out of it, Marie," Logan ordered grumpily with a heavyweight wince and locked the doors when the shrieking woman approached the jeep.

With a sigh and a frown tossed his way, Rogue reached over his seat to unlock the doors. "She's only dangerous if you get between her and the lord, and no, I'm not joking."

She rested her hand on his knee for several seconds and nervously chewed on her bottom lip as she pressed the button. "Remember how you always say I'm a horrible liar?" He nodded, and she sighed again, her eyes grazing his suspicious stare. "I might have told them we're married, but don't worry, I've been practising, and everything's fine."

He pointed to himself and grumbled when she settled back in her seat and reached for the door handle. "You told your folks I'm your husband?" When she confirmed his worst fears with a firm nod, he snorted and shook his head. "What you been practising, huh? Taking a wrecking ball to my junk?"

"Don't be like that. I had to lie; they would never let me stay under their roof if I admitted the truth," she explained softly. "And this is better than staying somewhere Anna's unwelcome." She tugged loosely at the handle, continuing to justify her decisions. "Anyway, we had to run, and it gave us space and time to plan what to do next. Just listen to me for once in your life, Logan. I have everything under control, okay? Everything will be fine if you don't upset anybody or anything."

Logan watched her leave the protection of the SUV and become engulfed in a hug by the outlandish, shrieking, screaming woman. "Jesus Christ," he muttered on repeat as the sound of the reunited mother and daughter pounded against his skull like a thousand ice picks tangled in a sledgehammer or ten. Checking his plaid pockets for a stray cigar, he pulled out his cell phone and noticed a missed call from Storm.

His thoughts turned to chasing down booze until he heard Anna stirring behind him. With a relaxed tone, he looked over his shoulder, chuckling and amused by her messy bed hair. "Hey, Sleepyhead."

Anna rubbed the lingering nap from her eyes and sat up slowly, yawning and peering nosily out the window. Suddenly, she stared at the moody boy and collected Suds from the seat beside her.

Hiding her ashen face behind the stuffed rabbit, she curiously peered out and answered in a ghost of a whisper. "Hi, Weapon X."