Title: Winter in Dillon
Author:  Terri
E-Mail:  xgrrl26@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone but Jules. And I'm keeping him ;)
Archive: Dolphin Haven, Peep Hut – anyone else, please ask ;)
Feedback: Please? With a some cookies on top? Good, bad, and ugly welcome……
Summary: AU of Winter in Yellowstone. Marie wanders through a deserted world and makes a deal
with a stranger.
Comments: As someone said during the beta process - this so much more "awww" than most of the "Seasons" AUs ;) It's positively foofy, if such a thing is possible in this apocalyptic universe. It is still, however, long. Clocking in at just under 40 pages, it at least has that in common with the other
Seasons fics ;)

She'd had a rough road so far - literally – the trek cross country, on foot, was hard enough in and of itself, especially for someone like her, who'd never had to give even a passing thought to finding the basic necessities like food or water before. As far as she was concerned, those things came from the refrigerator and the kitchen tap, and she'd succeeded in making herself sick more than a few times as she learned how to find a clean, non-poisonous supply of both in the wild.

But it wasn't only her trek and its attendant difficulties that had been hard on her – there had been other problems along the way as well. Two humans, men, were the first other living people she'd met up with. They took an almost-frightening level of interest in her until she disclosed that she was a mutant and warned them away from her skin. Then they beat her, threw rocks at her, and would've probably killed her had she not finally fought back with just the weapon they'd been warned against. Her skin killed them in less than a minute.

Before the virus hit and busily began emptying the world of its human and mutant population, she'd cursed the onset of her mutation. It had ostracized her from her parents and friends; her family had been forcing her to live in the attic and only opening the door to feed her once or twice a day.   None of them would speak to her anymore, not even when she cried so hard that her eyes literally bled from the bursting vessels. They'd told her to her face that she was an unholy freak. She'd cursed her mutation, God, her genetics – anything and everything she could think of, then. But after that first attack, long after she'd left the dead and dying inhabitants of her hometown, she was grateful for her skin.

Taking in those men – well, it wasn't pleasant, but when they were in her mind, she could control them, push them back and keep them there. Not true while they were still alive. Then, they could beat, punch, slap, and kick her, and if she found herself feeling a twinge of regret at taking their lives, she had only to call upon the memory of how they'd circled her, then jumped her, and the pure, acute panic and terror that'd shot through her to suppress any lingering guilt. She was not about to make apologies to herself or to God for defending herself or punishing them. After all, that's what it was – punishment, not prevention. She could've let go after just a brief touch, left them twitching but still alive, but she hadn't. Sometimes she told herself it was because she didn't want to take the chance they'd try it on some other hapless soul, one without her formidable defenses, but in her more nakedly honest moments, she admitted she'd done it to punish them for the hurt they'd inflicted and for the hurt they'd wanted to, plain and simple.

The taking of her third life was no more morally ambiguous in her eyes, even though his being a mutant like her had given her an extra twinge or two of remorse, but it had proven more troublesome after the fact than the others. It certainly wasn't the issue of any moral complications that bothered her about it – he'd come up on her with a leering, openly lascivious expression, and it was plain that he didn't just want to beat her body, he'd wanted more than that from her. And in the course of trying to get it, he'd managed to claw her and tear at her skin with his teeth, inflicting at least as much damage than the humans had. She felt justified in killing him before he could hurt her any more or, God forbid, try to rape her. No, what disturbed her about taking that last life was that she'd gotten his powers, and probably for good. They weren't unmanageable, quite the contrary – he had strength and healing, which weren't a problem, and his mind even held some very useful tricks for controlling her own unweildy mutation; he'd once known someone with a similar affliction, and thank God, she'd disclosed some of her mechanisms for controlling it to him, mechanisms that had proven wildly successful with Marie's own skin – but his powers would be, in the long run, quite difficult in their own way.

If her last attacker was sane, and not under some wild delusion, he'd been nearly two hundred years old when she'd killed him. His healing hampered the aging process nearly as effectively as it warded off disease and injury, and that meant that Marie was destined for a long life. A long, lonely life.

And that was the problem. She'd always been a social creature, thriving on human contact, needing it as much as air or water, and her isolating mutation seemed like the cruelest possible sentence when it had first hit. That was quite probably true, of course, until the Legacy virus neatly eliminated nearly everyone on the planet. Now, she wouldn't just be isolated from the people around her, forced to press her nose up against the glass and helplessly watch but never participate in the busy, happy world around her; now, that world itself was no longer even there to peer at in envy.

What was left of it hadn't proven very enticing, even if she did relish being able to move about in the world more freely now. The three people she'd met between Mississippi and here had all attacked her outright; she wondered idly if those were the only kind of people the virus had spared. She hadn't seen a living soul since Sabretooth, as he called himself, and that was in Nebraska. Drifting aimlessly west, she hoped that she was wrong. She hoped there were some good people, some friendly people left. Hoping that they wouldn't ostracize her just as her parents once had seemed to be setting the bar too high; Marie only hoped she could live on the outskirts of them, and have some passing acquaintance with them. Anything would be better than the deafening silence of the abandoned world as it was now.

She'd hoped to find people in Colorado. Her mother once told her that the Rocky Mountains were the most beautiful place on God's green earth. If that was true, she thought, maybe people would've gone there. On that slim thread of hope, she'd been following Interstate 70 west, thinking that would land her in the desired spot eventually. She didn't have a specific destination in mind – she only wanted to get up in the thick of the mountains, and high, and that certainly seemed to be a good description of the terrain she was traveling through now. However, she hadn't counted on the cold of the mountains, and how the altitude made hiking harder. Instead of covering twenty-five miles or so a day, she had been making only ten, on a good day – the healing factor apparently didn't help her out too much there, which made sense. It couldn't make more oxygen for her, and even a super-healing body could only be pushed so far. Realizing, not for the first time, that perhaps she'd find nothing, even if she searched the whole mountain range, she wondered if it was worth it to keep going.

She couldn't stop, not here, out on the interstate, she knew that much. She needed shelter, and probably a town, so that she'd have some hope of scavenging bottled water and pre-packaged food to survive on. She shivered a bit, and drew her coat more tightly around herself as she surveyed her options. She had wanted to find more people, badly – badly enough to drive her to make a climb up the Rockies and brave the dangers of the road – but this snow seemed to be a sign that she should just give that up and be glad for her survival. If she found some place to hole up for the winter, she could look some more after the weather eased up, when she could make more ground. Mississippi girls just weren't meant for the same kind of treks as mountain goats.

As she shuffled along the road, thinking, she saw a sign for the next exit – Silverthorne/ Dillon. She had never heard of either town before, but she vaguely remembered re-runs of a TV show featuring a 'Marshall Dillon.' As she stopped to ponder for a moment, a blast of frigid wind and stinging snow on the bare flesh of her face decided her – Dillon was going to be her new home, at least until it stopped snowing and the weather broke. Dillon, it would be.

Logan picked through the ruins of the supermarket carefully, searching for the foods that both he and Jules would like. He glanced down every few seconds to check on the boy, ever-vigilant to keep his promise to the boy's father to take care of him. Hank was long gone, but he'd been a friend to Logan while they were both prisoners in that God-awful lab, and he'd even taken the time (and not-inconsiderable risk) to free Logan when Legacy had taken out enough of the bastards to give them a chance at escape. Logan would never forget that. It was the first, and only, big favor anyone had ever done him. Well, as far as he could remember – everything was a blank before the lab. Hank said they'd been there three years when they finally stood on free ground for the first time, and that was about all of Logan's life that he could remember, give or take a month or two.

Logan remembered how Hank looked that first free day – so damn happy, and so proud of finally, *finally* having saved his son. Logan knew he loved the boy with all his heart, even though he'd been lab-created, even though he knew Hank anguished over the child's appearance.   It had been bad enough that they'd experimented on Hank to the point that he was covered in bright blue fur and sprouted fangs and claws – he'd been big, a little stocky, but essentially human-looking when they first brought him in, but that soon changed when the tests began, and Logan knew that Hank despised what they'd made him into. Jules had been created after his 'transformation,' as the scientists called it, and he'd inherited the fur, claws, and fangs. Seeing the small, screaming blue bundle in the arms of some scientist for the first time nearly broke Hank.

Logan couldn't quite remember what the human-like version of Hank looked like anymore, and thought for a moment whether that was because he was now always seeing Hank in his son. Didn't matter much, Logan thought – Hank had been his one and only friend, and the promise Logan made while Hank lay dying from the ravages of the virus was the important thing now.

"Stay close to me, kid." Jules gave an eager nod. They'd had only two visitors since Logan had decided they were going to settle here. One had been a drunken, dissipated man who they watched intently for two days as he meandered around Dillon's town center and artificially created lake. On the third day, he left town heading east, and Logan breathed a sigh of relief - the man had smelled bad, and Logan was now left to rely solely upon his instincts and his gut, which was had shouted that this guy was trouble, in spades. Hank, after all, had been the brains of their partnership.

The second visit came to a much more abrupt and violent end. It had been a woman, a human woman of child-bearing age, which Logan at first thought promising. He'd promised Hank not only to look out for Jules, but to care for him well. Somewhere in Logan's fragmented memory, the idea that kids needed a mother asserted itself when he caught sight of the woman. Not far behind was the thought that brothers and sisters for Jules would ease the toddler's loneliness. Logan's gut also told him that one fucked-up pseudo-father who didn't really know how to care for a child wasn't going to cut it in the long run. Hank would've given the kid much better, and perhaps getting a woman was one way to improve Jules' situation.

However, when Logan approached the woman on the main street of town, with Jules, as always, within scent and sight, she pointed and laughed at the blue-furred toddler, then asked what kind of 'freaky-ass animal' he was. Logan saw red, the claws emerged, and although the woman was fast, strong, and agile, Logan was moreso. She died right outside the town drugstore, and although Logan knew that some of the claw-strikes were for what she'd just done, a lot of them were payback for the tortures and punishments inflicted by her long-dead human brethren. Jules watched it all, and that troubled Logan – until he hugged himself to Logan's blood-spattered body after it was all over and whispered a forlorn 'fanks.' Jules saw him as a protector, not a murderer, and Logan was grateful for that bit of luck.

Now, as they rummaged through molded bread and chips, Logan was still thinking about Jules' safety and best interests – he wanted to be sure they had more than enough food for the winter. He found some crackers that were still good, and a box of mix whose instructions said that you could make biscuits with it by just adding water. Jules rounded the corner and disappeared into the next aisle while Logan continued searching. The snow was coming down pretty good now, and Logan's instincts told him they'd get a lot more before night fell. He could make it up the side of the mountain in the SUV and to the house they'd commandeered as long as there wasn't more than eight inches or so of snow on the ground. They had a little time, but just a little.

Really, they already had plenty of supplies up at the house. That was the first order of business after settling here – get Jules a warm, dry, safe place to live and all the clothing and food he wanted. The child was still reeling from his father's death, and the only way Logan knew to make that even a little bit better was to take care of his material needs. So, he'd found a house with some solar panels and batteries, and with propane-fueled appliances, and he'd raided the deserted town below for a huge stockpile of just about everything he thought they'd need. This trip was intended to gather up whatever was still edible of the food – instinct told Logan that the kid needed some variety in his diet; he couldn't subsist on the all-meat, all the time diet that Logan could. Besides, it never hurt to have a little extra when it came to necessities.

Just as he was about to turn the cart down the next aisle and join Jules, Logan caught an unfamiliar scent on the air. Taking a tentative sniff, he pinned it down a little – mutant. Female. Dirty. Hungry. But there was something good in her scent – something elusive and alluring - as well.

"Jules, c'mere." The child was unfailingly obedient to Logan, seemingly aware of the dangers of this chaotic world. He stood right beside Logan, literally at his knee, while they both waited for the female to approach.

She came through the door, not noticing Logan or Jules at first. Not surprising, since anyone still alive would probably think most of the world deserted. They'd be right, with a few exceptions. Logan watched as she moved through the front of the store, scrunching up her nose at the scent of the decomposing fruits and vegetables and looking for something still edible. When she began strolling down the aisle they lay at the end of, she finally started and let out an 'oh!,' seeing them for the first time.

"Stay right there," Logan warned. Jules was now hiding behind his legs, but his blue fur still peeked out a bit. "And keep your mouth shut." Wide-eyed, the female complied, putting a hand over her mouth for good measure. "What're you doin' here?"

The female pointed to the few groceries left on the shelf, scrupulously following Logan's instruction to keep quiet. Logan huffed, and seemed about to say something, when Jules peeked his head out from behind Logan's legs to get a good look at the interloper.

The female's eyes flung open even wider, and Logan felt the claws itch in anticipation of some kind of insult to the boy. But then her full lips curled upward and she smiled behind the hand still pressed to her mouth. Still minding Logan's warning, she said nothing, but her hand fell from her face to wave a little at Jules. Logan couldn't see it, but the child let out a smile of his own, a rare one.

"Stay there," Logan warned again. "And tell me what you're doin' here."

"I'm looking for food," the female said in a soft tone. "Are you looking for food too?"

"This is my food," Logan growled. "It's for me and the boy and you can't have none."

"Um, but there's plenty to – "

"Not for the whole winter. It's ours." The conversation ground to a halt. The female didn't seem to want to argue the point, but her stomach put in a grumble of hunger on her behalf. Jules, not quite understanding what the problem was, but understanding very well what it was like to be hungry, reached for a package of cookies on the shelf beside him and slid it across the floor to the woman, then looked up at Logan questioningly. "You can have the cookies," he allowed. "But that's it."

"Thanks," she replied, retrieving the packet and opening it hurriedly. "Mmmmm….."

"You a mutie?"

The female nodded. "You?"

Logan grimaced, knowing that she didn't have to ask if Jules was one. "Yeah."

"Is this your son?"

"No."

"What's your name? Mine's – mine's Marie."

"Logan."

"And what's your name?" she asked Jules, with a smile. When he didn't respond, and Logan remained silent as well, she held out a cookie and asked, "Would you like one?"

"No," Logan responded, holding Jules back with one hand. Jules seemed disappointed, but made no further efforts to move.

"Sorry. I, uh, didn't mean to, um……."

"Where'd you come from?"

"Mississippi."

"Where's that?"

The female was in mid-munch of the cookie she'd offered to Jules, and she took a second to answer. "South of here, and east. You know, the state. Mississippi." Logan didn't respond. "Where are you two from?"

"Canada."

"I bet it's even colder up there." She was still eating, wolfing down cookies, but Logan noticed that her eyes had become sharp, appraising. He got the definite impression that she was sussing him out just as he was her. "Where are you headed?"

"We live here now."

"Oh. Oh. I, ah, didn't know anyone was living here. Sorry. I was looking around for a place to get out of the snow and maybe – maybe spend the winter." Her head went down as her fingers fished in the bag for another cookie, but her eyes crept up to look at Logan.

"What's your mutation?"

"My skin," she answered through another ample mouthful of cookie. "It's lethal. It kills anyone who touches it, but I – I kind of absorbed this guy who attacked me and he knew someone with a similar mutation and he happened to know how she – um, well, the long and short of it is that I couldn't control it before but I can now. I'm not dangerous. I can be around people now. Kind of ironic, huh?"

"Hmph."

"What's yours?"

"Healin'." Logan didn't sense any deception or maliciousness from her, and she'd reacted well to Jules. So far, so good. But he wasn't about to spill all his secrets.

"Me too, kind of – from that guy I absorbed. That was his power, and my skin takes in powers, too, not just – not just someone's life."

"You plannin' on stayin' here for the winter?" Logan mentally catalogued his options. This could be another chance to secure a mom of sorts for Jules. The female seemed young, healthy, if a little thin and haggard at the moment, and was of child-bearing age. And, truth be told, his body was beginning to react to her. The hint of spicy, good *something* was more evident now that she was closer to them, and Logan found himself responding strongly to it. For the first time, he evaluated her as more than just a female and potential caretaker for Jules. His eyes roamed her body discreetly, taking in the curves and softness of her, inciting in Logan the urge to feel her beneath his hands. She had a kind look about her too – large eyes and an expressive mouth. Logan took her in a moment more, then shook himself out of it a little – after all, there were other considerations here, ones that could affect Jules. That was the priority, and Logan tried to focus himself on those. Her mutation – yes, her mutation as she described it could be dangerous to the child, but Logan felt confident that she could not harm him in a way he couldn't heal from, and he would protect the child at all costs. She might, at best, absorb some of his powers, but he was still bigger, stronger, and, he wagered, more willing to fight and kill. Her mutation wouldn't be a problem. There was, too, the possibility that she'd be a poor caretaker for Jules and any potential siblings – Logan guessed that she hadn't yet produced any offspring of her own – but his gut told him that she would do reasonably OK in that regard. He stretched, but couldn't think of any other concerns. He made his decision before she finished her answer.

"Well, I, um, I was thinking that maybe I could, but if you're here and you don't want me to, you know, share food and stuff and – "

"You can stay. If you want. With us." She started a bit at that, but Logan sensed she wasn't totally opposed to the idea. "If you agree to some things."

"What things?"

"You help take care of Jules. And he needs some brothers and sisters. You hurt him – you hurt him *at all*, and you die. Got it?"

She didn't seem to quite get it, because she just gave him a confused look for a long while. "Brothers and sisters – you mean you want me to have your kids or something?"

"Yeah."

"I'm – I'm only seventeen."

Logan said nothing, and noted more than a hint of apprehension and surprise creeping into her scent. Remembering how brutally the females had been treated in the lab, he reasoned that maybe she was thinking that's what he had in mind. "Mating. Not experiments. I won't hurt ya unless you do somethin' to the kid here. Then you die."

The female blinked once, then twice, then glanced down at Jules. "What do I get in return? If I – if I live with you and help take care of this little guy and – and, you know, eventually, think about maybe having some brothers or sisters – "

"Brothers and sisters. Not eventually. Now." Of the many things Hank had taught him, one of the most important was to listen to what people were saying with their words, not just their scent and body language. Sometimes, Hank counseled him, the words can tell you things too.

"I see," she whispered softly. "What – what do I get in return?"

"Safety. Food. Shelter. Clothes. I'll hunt. I'll take care of any threats. I'll provide for you."

The female fell quiet, considering the offer. "Can I ask you a question?" Logan nodded. "Please – please don't get offended or mad." Logan raised a non-committal eyebrow. "If this little guy isn't your son, how did you wind up taking care of him?"

"Promised a friend of mine that was his dad. He died. I said I'd do it." The female looked down to Jules again. Logan wasn't surprised she'd asked – it was a way, he thought, for her to assess his ability to provide the promised protection. In the early days, after civilization had broken down, but before Legacy had killed off more than about half of the population, traveling with a mutant as obvious as Jules would've attracted more than its fair share of dangerously negative attention. If he'd made it this far with him, the female would realize that he was a formidable protector, that he'd have had to fend off far more serious threats then than the few living people and harsh conditions could ever hope throw at them now. She went up a notch in his estimation – she was smart to have asked.

The female met Logan's eyes again and breathed in and out deeply, once. "OK, let's give it a try and see. Maybe we can just see how it goes. OK," she answered.

The three of them traversed up the mountain after piling every available nook and cranny in the SUV full of food, clothing, and other supplies. Marie had been especially insistent on things like shampoo, lotion, and canned vegetables. She'd also suggested several baby-related items for Jules. The child was shy but curious around her, and Logan had to be the one to fill her in on his name. He felt a little abashed that she was intent on getting things for Jules he'd never thought of - things like baby powder, special soaps, children's aspirin and the like. He'd realized Jules would need diapers, of course, but that's about it. Even as he mentally kicked himself for not thinking of those things, for failing Jules, it also confirmed within him the wisdom of getting a female to help care for the child. She had natural maternal instincts that must've led her to know these things, Logan reflected, and if all went well, she could prove a very good addition to their little family.

As Logan drove them up the unpaved, winding mountain road, Marie occupied herself with trading smiles with Jules and staring out at the scenery. She wasn't at all sure she'd made the right decision in coming with these two, but they were people – and semi-decent people to boot, or at least ones who didn't attack her right off or seem freaked out by her. The fact that Logan was looking out for his fallen friend's child suggested that he at least had some rudimentary moral compass. Even his repeated threats to kill her should she cause harm to Jules were kind of reassuring, in a way. Maybe, Marie thought, someone like him was the best she could hope for. It was certainly the best she'd found so far.

Which didn't mean that she had shaken off all of her reservations about this situation – far from it. Internally, she still hoped to put off Logan's demands for 'mating' and brothers and sisters for Jules, at least for a while. There was definitely something more than a little 'off' about him. She wondered what kind of trauma he'd been put through during the virus outbreak and the war that followed. He'd said his mutation was healing, and that would explain why there were no physical scars from whatever he'd experienced. She told herself not to think about it anymore now, to just wait and see how things played out. He wasn't unattractive, and if he turned out to be an OK person, maybe she'd get to like him and it wouldn't be so bad. If he'd provide for her and Jules and the children, then, well, was it really so awful? Marie tried not to think of what her mother would've said about their potential 'arrangement' – she herself certainly never thought there would come a day when she made a cold-eyed deal involving sex and bearing someone's children in exchange for shelter, company, and safety. But, then, this wasn't the world she or her mother once knew. It was a new world, one that called for new rules. Maybe it wasn't something that would've ever appeared in a romance novel, but if this guy, Logan, turned out to be OK, maybe it wasn't the tragedy or catastrophe it would've been before. Maybe it could even be a good thing. And if it wasn't – well, she'd already proven to herself that she could defend against men bigger, stronger, and meaner than she was. If it went bad, if he tried anything, she could still flip on her skin and protect herself.

Marie's thoughts were interrupted when they came to a halt before a large, well-appointed log-cabin-style home. Logan had certainly chosen well – the home overlooked the lake, was approachable only by the unpaved, steep road they'd come up, and it looked like it had some solar energy source. She was impressed, but that feeling was closely followed by a tic of apprehension. If it kept snowing, and it turned out that this had been a mistake, there was really no easy way off the mountain. She'd be stuck here for the winter.

Logan seemed to sense her trepidation, but didn't directly address it. "Help carry this stuff in, huh?"

"Sure," she agreed, taking a breath to steady herself, and picking up one of the boxes of supplies.

They busied themselves with putting away the things they'd brought up, with Jules still giving Marie a wide berth mixed with the occasional smile. Logan watched her closely the entire time, and made no attempt to hide it. Marie wondered if he might be having second thoughts as well. Finally, when they'd finished unloading and putting things away, Logan gestured for her to have a seat on the leather living room sofa as he rekindled a fire in the large, two-sided central fireplace.

The house was open in design and there were well-appointed furnishings throughout. The ground floor had no dividing walls, only thick lumber beams to help support the load of the house. Half of the bottom floor was shaded by an overhanging loft, which Marie assumed housed the bedrooms and maybe a bathroom. Marie wondered just how much a place like this would've cost, before. At least a couple million, what with all the wood and leather and antiques, she thought. She doubted that it was the aesthetic appeal that had led Logan to select this particular house, though. It was very practical, and self-sufficient in design as well. Marie had spied the solar panels earlier, and noted the large propane tank that probably helped to fuel the home. Absently, she wondered if they had hot water, and thought with joking amusement that a hot shower after months of ice-cold sponge baths might be worth a baby or two.

"What're you gonna do now?" Logan asked as he turned back from the now-flaming pile of logs.

"Um, what do you two usually do?"

"Sit here. Watch the fire. Cook dinner in a while."

"You cook?" Marie asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yeah. I can teach ya how." She smiled at that and even though Logan didn't smile back, something inside him wanted to. Jules wasn't as reserved – he did favor Marie with a wide, fang-y grin. Catching sight of Jules' response, Marie decided it was time to get to know a little more about her new young charge.

"How old are you, Jules?" Logan looked to the boy and nodded his permission to answer. Jules held up two fingers. "Two?"

"And a half," Logan amended as Jules' blue-furred head bobbed assent.

"What kind of games do you like to play?" Marie inquired pleasantly. "Do you have any favorite toys?"

Jules only looked at her blankly and Logan grimaced. "He don't have any toys."

"Oh."

"Forgot to get him some." Logan looked downright pissed now. This was yet another thing he'd forgotten to provide for Jules. "Dammit."

"It's OK," Marie soothed. "Maybe we can make him some. Or we could just play in the snow or something."

"Hmph." Logan's distemper wasn't easing, and Marie found herself a little unnerved by his sudden black mood. But before she could think of anything else to say that wouldn't worsen his condition, Jules piped up.

"Toys?"

"Toys. Things you play with," Marie elaborated gently. She thought a moment about whether she had anything with her that might qualify as a toy, and remembering her glitter-tube keychain in her duffel bag, she rose to get it. That prompted Logan to shoot up from his seat, tension seeping from every pore, and Jules to skitter back behind Logan. Marie found herself on the receiving end of a very hard look from the man. "I think I have something in my bag Jules might like to play with," she explained quietly and with more than a little nervousness. "Really, I'm not – I'm not going to hurt you or anything. I just wanted to show him a toy." Waiting for a gruff nod from Logan before she moved, she slowly crept to her bag and fished out the keychain. Suddenly, she felt like crying – maybe this *had* been a mistake, and a big one. Logan seemed hugely over-reactionary and his protective threats to kill her should she harm the child seemed a lot more scary and a lot less endearing all of a sudden. Marie reined in her emotions, barely, and gingerly crossed the room to hand the keychain to Jules. "See? This, ah, this has glitter in it. And the keys kind of jingle." She shook the keychain once to demonstrate, and felt stupid in addition to frightened. It really wasn't a very entertaining toy.

Jules, however, seemed to disagree. He reached out for the keychain and eagerly held it up before his eyes, shaking it, and giggling as the glitter danced up and down in the fluid-filled tube. "Hee!" Marie gave out a shaky smile and slowly eased herself backward until her rear end found the sofa. "Hee!"

"I'm really not planning on hurting him, you know," Marie said softly, trying for a tone more reassuring than apprehensive. "He seems like – like a very good kid."

"He is," Logan said sternly but not warningly, which was what Marie had expected. Still, he just sat there, staring at her intently, and Marie finally felt unnerved enough to say something.

"Look, maybe – maybe I should just, you know, head back down or something. I think I can find the way. It's – the snow will stop eventually, right? And I think I can find the highway again. I'll just get my stuff. Jules can – he can have the keychain, OK? There's nothing – it doesn't matter that I – I, um, don't really need the key to my house in Mississippi anymore, you know? He can just keep it. I'll just go." Hot tears welled up in her eyes, and she cursed herself for getting so upset over it. So what if this wasn't going to work out? So what if she had to go back on the road, be alone again, maybe for the whole winter? She'd seen worse, she tried to remind herself, and she rose to go.

"Wait. Don't – just sit back down."

"No, really, I should go," she replied, taking in a long, shaky breath. Forcing out a smile, she took a few steps back toward her bag, but she was halted by Logan's strong grip on her shoulders.

"I told ya. I'm not gonna hurt ya."

"You thought I was going to do something, try something," Marie argued with as much evenness as she could muster.

"Yeah," Logan sighed, relaxing his grip a bit. "I just – I don't know you."

"I don't know you either," she softly countered. "I don't want to get hurt anymore, and I'd rather go than – than – I'd just rather go, OK? This was a bad idea. I don't know what I was thinking."

Logan's hands didn't move from her shoulders and his brow furrowed in concentration, as though he were trying to remember something important. "I'm tryin' to do the best I can with him. I didn't think of toys, not in all the time we've been up here, I didn't think of the other stuff you got for him today. It's been just me and him and we ain't – we ain't used to other people. Besides, I promised his dad I'd take care of him no matter what, and I've hadta be – well, I've hadta be real careful a lotta times. I don't want him hurt. He got a shitty enough deal as it is. Don't wantcha to go, all right?"

"I just – I don't – "

"I'll count to ten." Marie looked up at him quizzically. "Hank, the kid's dad, he usedta tell me if I lost patience or started to fly off the handle, to count to ten before I did anythin'. 'Course, that don't apply to people who're attackin' ya or some shit. Don't apply to people who hurt Jules. But I'll count to ten before I do anythin' if I get a bad feelin' around you. Deal?"

"I – I just don't know if it's a good idea for me to stay."

"Twenty?" His completely earnest tone, the gravity of the situation, and her own niggling fear didn't prevent her from cracking a smile at that. "Well?"

Marie let out a breath she hadn't been aware of holding and eased in his grasp. "Do you promise?"

"I promise." As his eyes locked on to hers, she believed the words unquestioningly. Everything between them seemed to freeze for a moment, and neither broke the gaze until Jules gently jangled toward them and tugged on Logan's pant leg.

"Wook!" Logan smiled down at him and ruffled his hair, finally releasing Marie. She slid back to the sofa, and sunk into it. He chanced one more look at her before becoming absorbed in watching Jules enjoy the keychain/toy.

They spent the rest of the evening companionably, with Jules becoming visibly more comfortable with Marie as the night went on. The storm around them worsened, but Logan's bear meat dinner and their mutual good spirits made the house feel cozy, and warm. Marie urged Jules to try some canned green beans, and found that he liked them.

"Dood."

"Mmm-hmm, they are good. Have you tried any other vegetables?"

"Ummmm…..nuh-uh. Meat. Meat dood. Grrr!" Marie let out a surprised and delighted laugh at the child's mock-growl, somehow having no doubt he'd picked that up from Logan.

"Well, you're right, meat is good. It has protein and gives you strength. But you need to eat other foods too."

"Wike beens?"

"Yep, like green beans. We brought up some carrots too. Maybe you can try those tomorrow."

"Yeah," Jules agreed, swiping up the last of the green beans and plopping them into his mouth. As she looked over to Logan to make a check of his demeanor and mood, something she'd found herself doing occasionally despite the pleasant turn the evening had taken, she saw him looking at her intently.

"Kid likes ya."

"I like him too." She smiled down at Jules as she said it and he beamed back a green-bean-flecked grin of his own. "Who wouldn't like him?"

Logan darkened at that, but decided to let it go – for the most part. "Nobody good." Jules seemed to sense the shift in Logan's mood, subtle (for him) as it was. He moved from his spot next to the coffee table where they'd all been eating dinner and settled himself in Logan's lap, then lay his head down on the man's broad chest. Marie watched as Logan's arms came up to encircle the boy, holding him close. She saw no hint of embarrassment or bashfulness at his plain display of affection. He did it matter-of-factly, and for some reason, that deeply touched Marie. "You gotta get a bath tonight, you know."

"No." Jules burrowed into Logan's chest and seemed quite distraught by the prospect. Marie was confused at first by his suddenly grave reaction to a simple bath, but then surmised that whatever Logan may have been through, Jules was likely to have fared badly too. After all, she'd been attacked, and she wasn't nearly as obvious or defenseless a mutant as Jules was. She cringed at the thought of so young a child being hurt, and wanted very much to hug them both at the moment. She would've, if she hadn't been sure it would produce a very bad reaction right now.

"Jules, you smell bad," Logan explained in that same factual manner. "You need at least one bath a week, that's what your dad said."

"No baffs."

"Hey, kid – " Logan addressed Jules in the softest tone Marie had heard from him so far. "Nothin's gonna happen, OK? You're just gonna get cleaned up, that's all."

Jules didn't give any further protests, but he began gripping his tiny, clawed fingers deeply into Logan's shoulders. Logan let out a sigh, and rose, Jules clinging to him for all he was worth. "Gotta bath him. He don't like it, but might as well get it over with. Be back in a sec. Eat more, if you want."

Marie's stomach growled despite all she'd already eaten, but she said, "Can I do anything to help? Maybe – maybe distract him or entertain him a little with the toy?"

Jules showed no reaction to that; in fact, he was pretty well frozen in Logan's arms, and Marie wondered if the poor little guy was actually in shock. Logan thought on it a moment, then replied. "Stay by the door. See how he takes it. Sometimes once he gets in there, it's not so bad, but other times………"

"Got it," Marie replied succinctly and then followed them upstairs to the bathroom. The loft portion of the house had two generously-sized bedrooms, each with their own bath. Jules' room bordered on spartan – definitely not your typical child's room. Marie watched from the doorway as instructed as Logan delivered Jules into his bathroom, then gently pried him loose and set him down on the tile floor. Wincing a little at how cold that must be, despite Jules' fur covering, she leaned in a little and said, "Do you want me to find a rug or a towel or something? The floor's probably cold."

"Cold," Jules intoned slowly in a hollow, far away voice that struck at Marie's heart.

Logan's grimace was back, and she thought for a moment he must be doing some of that mental counting-to-twenty he'd promised. "Yeah," he answered slowly, through clenched teeth, "Get somethin'. Didn't think 'bout that."

Marie gave an apologetic smile and went to retrieve a thick, plush towel from the linen closet. She returned but paused at the door, not wanting to stress out the bathroom's two inhabitants any more than they already had been by this whole process. Logan gave out a little grunt and lifted a now-only-diaper-clad Jules up off of the offending floor. Marie quickly moved to spread the blanket beneath him, and Logan put him back down. Gently laying Jules onto his back, Logan began to undo his diaper fastenings. Marie stayed put, holding her breath a bit as she watched.

"Why dontcha run the water? Not too hot, not too cold. He likes it medium – warm." Marie nodded and hurried to do so. As she fiddled with the controls to find the right temperature, she heard a soft, low keening from behind her.

"Is he OK?" she whispered.

"No. He got hurt, before." That prompted more low whimpers from Jules. "This pretty much scares the shit outta him."

"I'm so sorry," she said, turning back to face Logan. "That's the most horrible thing I think I've ever heard."

"Yeah." Jules wasn't making any more sounds, but had started shivering. Marie eyeballed the child, then Logan, and then gathered her courage to ask something.

"I could hold him, if you like, while the bath fills up."

"He ain't doin' that 'cause he's cold." Logan's eyes narrowed on hers. Marie was encouraged that he didn't seem to want to kill her outright for suggesting it, though, so she pressed on.

"I know. I won't hurt him, I swear, but – but maybe we should, you know, try to make the bath thing as different as possible for him from…from whatever happened to scare him about it before." Just as she was about to shrug and say 'never mind' under the weight of his long, wordless, unblinking stare, he nodded.

"Be careful," he said solemnly, holding the naked child and extending him toward her. Marie took him in her arms and cuddled him to her, much as Logan held him before. Nestling her head down to press her cheek against his forehead, she began rocking him a little and cooing in soft whispers that he would be all right. Logan's eyes never left Marie and Jules, and the tension in his body didn't subside. But Jules seemed to be soothed, at least a little, by Marie's words and actions. When the bath was full enough, she gingerly slid a hand away from Jules' body to shut the water off, and then dipped her fingers in to test the temperature. "Feels OK." Logan tested for himself and nodded. "Come on, Jules," she whispered, "let's put you in the bathtub. You're going to be OK. Nothing bad will happen. Logan is right here to protect you."

At that, Jules broke out of his frozen state for the first time, glancing up at Logan with more than a little trepidation in his eyes.

"It's gonna be OK," he echoed as Marie slowly and gently eased him in to the tub. "I'm here to protect ya."

"That's right," Marie affirmed when Jules was seated in the water. He was shaking again, and his wide yellow eyes blinked with oncoming tears. "It's OK," Marie reiterated, reaching for the soap on the bath ledge. "We're going to wash you up with this, and then you'll be all clean. That's it. Nothing bad will happen." She and Logan were kneeling side by side before the tub, and she glanced over at him just momentarily. "Washcloth?"

Without answering verbally, and without turning his attention from Jules, Logan reached backwards and retrieved one from the cupboard beneath the sink. Marie dunked it in the water, then began gently wetting down Jules' fur with it.

"There," she cooed, "you're going to be OK. Nothing bad will happen. Logan is here."

"That's right," Logan agreed, leaning in a little closer to the toddler. Jules sniffled, and reached out both small hands toward Logan. He grasped one, and held on to it. "It's OK, kid."

"You know, Jules," Marie began, almost distractedly, while she worked her way down the boy's arms, "I really like your fur. It's a very nice color, and I bet it'll be nice and soft once it's all clean. You're very lucky to have such nice fur." Logan shot her a mildly surprised look, but she continued on in that vein. "You were a very good boy at dinner, and you did such a good job of eating all your food right up. It's really nice that you're not a picky eater." Her tone – approval, gentleness, affection – seemed to be coming through to Jules even if the words might not be. He relaxed, just a little, but visibly, and his eyes turned toward Marie, and focused on her. "Hey," she greeted with a smile when she found his eyes. "You're doing a really good job. Want to stand up so I can wash your legs?"

Jules silently rose, and extended a foot to Marie, using his grip on Logan's hand for balance. Marie could've sworn that Logan nearly smiled at that. He put one large hand on the small of Jules' back just to be sure. "Doin' good, kid."

Marie kept her gentle smile turned on Jules while she got the soap and began lathering it in his fur. Given how dirty the poor child was, she thought it best to save his head and face for last, and concentrate on the dirtiest spots first. "You know what we can do sometime? We can get some toys, maybe ones that float, for you to play with in the bathtub. That might be a good idea." Her washcloth made it's way to the child's private parts, which were definitely in need of a cleaning – she absently wondered if Logan had been using wipies or just Kleenex or something – and noticed both Jules and Logan tense. Suppressing the huge wave of sadness that the reaction brought, she continued her task and focused on keeping her voice and expression even. "Next time maybe we can try some of that pink baby shampoo we got. You might like that better than soap. And I bet that you'd like to get all snuggly in those flannel jammies I saw on your bed." Or a cleaner version thereof, Marie amended mentally as she finished cleaning his sensitive spots and moved down to his legs. "You have a very nice bedroom. I bet you like playing in it."

"Yeah," Jules whispered. Marie smiled as she gently lifted one foot, then the other. When she rocked back on her heels a bit and began rinsing out the washcloth, Jules seemed to suddenly come to life a little. "Wait – dis." He extended the hand that was death-gripped to Logan's throughout the bath for her inspection. Smiling widely, Marie took it and cleaned it as tenderly as she had the rest of him.

"Almost missed that hand. I'm glad you remembered," she said lightly. "I think that covers most of you – we'll get your face and hair in a second. Ready for the rinse cycle?"

Jules probably didn't understand her meaning but her easy, reassuring manner was contagious, and the boy nodded. Rinsing out the washcloth and using it and her cupped hands to sluice the water through his fur, Marie made quick work of rinsing him clean. Jules' spirits seemed to be improving, so Marie chanced a suggestion. "Jules – I'd like to let this water out and run some more clean water for us to do your face and head. What do you think?"

The boy looked at the drain for a long time before responding, and Marie let him. "'Kay."

"Good boy," she soothed, flipping the drain latch and simultaneously turning the faucet. Although he skittered back toward Logan, wide-eyed, he seemed altogether in better shape than he had been during the first round. Marie ran a shallow bath, then shut the water off and motioned for Jules to come to her. Again, she waited until he did so. "Close your eyes, sweetie." She laved him with the washcloth and then with soapy hands, being careful to clean every nook and cranny, and especially behind his cute, pointy ears. Running clean water from cupped hands down over him, she completed his bath, and sat back on her heels. "There. All done."

Jules' face lit up with relief at that, and Marie let Logan lift him out of the tub while she went to retrieve another towel. Returning to kneel down beside the boy, she opened the towel to him, and was surprised when he cannonballed right into her. It took a moment before she recovered enough to envelop him in the plush, cotton towel, and another to realize that he was crying in her arms. She shot an alarmed look to Logan, but his expression was now written only in relief as well. "Y-you're OK," she reassured the boy, and then hugged him, not quite knowing what else to do. "You're OK."

Jules held on to her for a long time before easing his grip. When he did, she gently pushed him back from her so that she could see his face. He was still sniffling, but smiling shyly too. "Hey," Marie whispered, "You did a really good job. I know it was scary before, but – well, it's not going to be scary any more. Logan will protect you. I'm going to be very gentle with you. I won't ever hurt you. I'm just going to be nice to you and play with you and take care of you, OK?"

"'Kay." Jules impulsively grabbed her face in both his tiny hands and smacked a kiss to her nose. Something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a burp choked in Logan's throat. Before Marie could turn to look at him, Jules bounced out of her grasp and ran off to his bedroom, giggling a little along the way.

"C'mon," Logan gruffly instructed, clearing his throat and looking down at the floor. "We gotta, ah, diaper him quick. Believe me, I learned that one the hard way." Marie still looked at him with a little confusion, but followed him off in search of Jules.

After Jules had been duly corralled, diapered, and put to bed (with a story from Marie – The Three Bears, during which Jules was especially amused by the growling noises Marie tried to make), the adults left him to his slumber as Logan guided Marie to the other loft bedroom.

"Is, ah, is this your room?" As the words left her mouth, it dawned on her that this was, in all likelihood, about to become 'their' room. Logan's insistence on 'mating' and doing it 'now' replayed itself in her mind and she wondered if this was about to be even more daunting than the bath. It wasn't that she was afraid he'd attack her, not like Sabretooth had wanted to – she had a good enough feel for the man by now to know at least that much. But she knew practically nothing about sex or the man she'd be doing the 'mating' with, and that was giving her more than a little pause. There was some curiosity in her, though, along with the trepidation. Several of her friends had already 'done it' with a boy, and Marie herself wasn't a prude – it was just that her mutation hit at sixteen, before she'd had much chance at all to explore physical contact with the opposite sex. There had been that one kiss with David, the one that revealed her mutation, and a few others, but nothing more. Before she'd figured out how to control her skin, she'd mourned not being able to touch or be touched, especially sexually, even more than she could admit to herself. Now, she not only had the ability to explore the mysteries of sex, she had a real, live willing partner who wanted to do so with her, and probably right now. She wasn't sure she was ready for sex, let alone children, but then again, this may be as ready as she was going to get, and might be her best opportunity in this fragmented, strange world for a reasonably safe and hopefully pleasant initiation to all things sexual.

"Yeah. Got a bathroom too. Over there." Logan's words brought her focus back to him. He casually walked toward the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. Marie thought she'd better say something in response.

"Am I, ah, going to be sleeping here too?" Might as well find out sooner rather than later, she thought.

"Yep."

Well, there it was then. She didn't quite know what to say. "Um……."

"Take off your things. We'll do this in the bed." Marie gulped. Sexual initiation was definitely headed her way, and fast. Her nerves began to jangle a bit, and she got cold feet. All those thoughts about finding out what it would be like suddenly seemed like not such a good idea.

"I was thinking that we could kind of wait on doing that a while."

Logan stopped in mid belt-un-buckle. "Why?"

"Well, I mean, there's plenty of time, and I'm still a teenager, and it'll take me a while to get used to taking care of Jules and – "

"Doin' good so far," Logan put in.

Marie couldn't help but give him a genuine smile and let some of the nervousness melt away at that. "Thanks. But I just – well, it just doesn't feel right, ah, jumping right into, ah, it, as it were. Plus, I've – I've never done this before."

"Hmph." Logan looked pensive for a moment, then finished unbuckling. "Think we should just do it." I can see that, Marie thought, as he stripped his jeans off, revealing a pair of red thermals. "Gonna take nine months for a kid anyhow – that'll give you time to settle in."

"True," Marie allowed, turning away as he hooked a thumb beneath the waistband of the thermals and began tugging them down. "But, um, I'm just – I guess I'm – I'm really – "

"Nervous," Logan finished for her, making her blush at the thought of how silly she must seem.

"Yeah," Marie conceeded.

"Take off your things," he repeated the words in a softer tone. "It'll be OK. I never did this before either."

"Really?" Marie said, turning to face him in surprise, and immediately casting her eyes downward at the realization that he was naked. She hadn't gotten a good look at him, not at all. All she could tell was that he seemed pretty hairy.

"Yeah. At least not that I remember."

"Not that you remember?" Her eyelashes fluttered as she chanced a quick peek in his direction. Part of her brain was processing his words, part was chaotically buzzing with hormones, and part was still fairly nervous despite his assurances.

"Yeah. Don't remember what happened before the lab. That's where they had me and Jules' dad. That's who made Jules. Fuckers took my memories, tried to make me inta some kinda animal."

Marie's mouth dropped open and her eyes lifted to find his. Those words had definitely registered. "Those places are real?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, God………" She'd only heard them as urban legends. This was a bit much to take. Knowing that people – mutants – had been actually kidnapped, tortured, experimented on – well, she knew that something bad must've befallen Logan and Jules during the virus outbreak, but she never guessed at this. And she'd never quite believed the rumors she'd heard could possibly be true – they'd been just too vile to be believed. She hadn't wanted to entertain the notion that people could actually sink that low.

"Look – " Logan's steady voice snapped her attention back to him. "Take off your things, OK? We'll figure it out. I know you don't know me, but – look, I know what not to do. I know not to hurt ya."

Marie was touched by that, and she took a step closer to him. "Promise?" she asked again. She still didn't feel ready, and the cold feet certainly hadn't melted completely, but there was something moving about the way he'd revealed those things to her, the way he'd made himself a little vulnerable too.

"I promise."

"OK." She gulped, but began to undo the buttons on her sweater. He'd promised; she felt reassured enough by that, and by his earlier revelations, to give it a try. She took her time, though, undressing before his avid stare in a slow, but not lascivious, manner. She wanted to ease in to things a bit, even if she was committing herself to giving this a try with each undone button and zipper. When she was completely naked, she felt a little odd, and so she drew her arms inward, hands meeting just above the junction of her tightly-pressed-together legs, and arms covering her breasts.

"You're gonna be good for this." She knew he was trying to say something nice, even if the words weren't quite cooperating. That was reassuring too. "Good for carryin' babies." She gave him a small, lopsided smile to let him know the compliments were received as they had been intended.

Their rapprochement was interrupted by a small voice from beyond the closed bedroom door. "Wogan?"

Logan simply moved to answer the door, then opened it, nakedness notwithstanding. "You need somethin'?"

"New diapee."

"OK, kid." He turned back to Marie momentarily. "He don't like it when he takes a shit in 'em. Be right back." With an apologetic shrug, he shut the door behind himself and Marie found herself breathing a sigh tinged with disappointment more than relief.

Logan trotted over to Jules' room and quickly disposed of the offending soiled diaper. As he put a new one on and dressed the child, he reflected that he was so resilient – even after all he'd been through, Jules still had the capacity to be a happy child, one that would smile peacefully up at him, one that would hug him, one that could admit a stranger into his life like he had Marie.

"You are a good kid, ya know," Logan whispered as he yanked Jules' pajama bottoms back on. "Real good one."

"Me wike her."

Logan started at that, surprised that the child would broach the subject, but he soon turned a wry smile on Jules. "Yeah? Ain't bad, is she?" Jules dutifully shook his head no. "She likes you a lot."

"You too?"

"Don't matter," Logan responded, without giving it much thought.

"She stay in dis house wit us now?"

"Yeah. She's gonna take good care of you."

"You too?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of you too. I ain't goin' nowhere. I promised your dad that, and I'm keepin' that promise."

"No – you too?" Jules asked again, and it took Logan a moment to catch on to his meaning.

"No, she don't hafta take care of me. I don't need no help."

Jules frowned at that, and then hugged himself to Logan. "You too," he said insistently. "You too."

Logan sighed and hugged back. "We'll see. C'mon now, time for you to go to sleep." Jules parted from him and bounced into bed, letting Logan tuck him in. "Good night, kid. You need anythin', you come over right away, OK?"

"'Kay."

Logan gave him a smile before heading back to his own room, pausing momentarily after he shut the door and before heading back to a waiting Marie.

He'd been very pleased with the look of her naked – full breasts, ample hips, a nice rounded belly – they all spoke of fertility, and he felt confident that she would produce good offspring. He understood her trepidation about mating – truth be told, he wasn't surprised. She was right – she was young, and inexperienced, and Logan knew enough to know that fear of the unknown was a universal constant. But he was determined to be with her tonight. If she put him off now, she'd keep trying to do so and they might never mate – Logan also knew that much was true about human nature.

Wracking his brain for some idea of how to continue to ease her nervousness, he settled on one before heading back into the bedroom. But when he first entered, he noticed that she'd covered herself with his discarded shirt, and for a moment lost track of his brilliant idea. Their scents, commingled as they now were, caused a flare of animal lust that didn't settle easily. But he did come back to himself, and the fact that she'd *only* covered herself with his shirt seemed promising, at least a little. It was time to test his idea.

"Look, why dontcha take that off, huh? Get in the bed. We'll do this there. And Marie – if somethin' doesn't feel right, you tell me, OK?" Sometimes, with Jules, the only way to get him to try new things was to promise him that if it got too hard or too scary, that he had an out. Maybe that would work with Marie.

Judging by her increasingly relaxed demeanor, it had. "OK," she agreed, delicately dropping the shirt and moving her hands and arms to cover herself as she had before.

Logan sauntered over, gently pulling her arms open and away from her body. "Lemme see you. You look good," he reassured. She quirked a small smile at that and the resistance left her limbs.

"Thanks."

"Welcome." He stepped closer to her, bringing their bodies into contact. She felt warm, and soft in a way that Logan couldn't remember ever having experienced before. He tilted his head to bury his nose in her hair, and breathe in a good, long dose of her scent. "Mmmm….."

He felt tiny hands at his waist and in response pressed himself to her more tightly – so tightly that any movement created a very pleasurable friction against the erection now trapped between their bellies. Logan began bucking his hips a little, urging his excitement along.

"Should we – should I touch you or something?" she whispered. Logan raised his head to look at her, seeing the beginnings of a flush of arousal stain her ivory cheeks.

"Get on the bed," he said softly. "We'll do it there." Marie nodded, and slowly lay herself down on his large bed. Instead of joining her, he took himself in his own hand, stroking, as he looked at her naked form. The pink flush deepened, and part of it was embarrassment, Logan knew, but part of it wasn't. Still stroking, he circled around to the foot of the bed and finally climbed onto it.

Letting his erection jut out on its own for a while, he turned his attentions to the mate in his bed. He knew what actions were required to impregnate her; he remembered that much. But the other things he vaguely knew he was supposed to do – touch her somehow, make her ready to receive him – with those things he had only instinct to guide him; the memories were too far gone.

"Logan?" He looked at her and nodded. He couldn't just stand there and stare at her. That wasn't going to get the job done. He took one of her calves in each hand and gently began to pry apart her demurely crossed legs. "Are you, um – are you – "

"Easy," he soothed. "Lemme see you." She relented, but with some nervousness. He separated her legs, strong hands running up from the calf to the inner thigh and pushing her fully apart. Her scent wafted to him and he breathed it in deeply. She wasn't fully ready for him, but she wasn't uninterested. Gently probing with one large, rough finger, he swept along her soft curls until his finger slipped into her cleft. She was moist there, and warm, so Logan delved more deeply, with two fingers now.

"Logan….." That was half-caution, half-moan, and he liked it. Slowly, incrementally, he worked his fingers along her body until he felt an opening. Hearing a gasp that she hadn't even been able to form into any coherent word at the contact, he instinctually plunged both fingers inside her, as deeply as they would go.

She made a different kind of gasp at that, one tinged with pain, and sat up a little. But she didn't tell him to stop. He withdrew his fingers, then plunged them in again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it clicked into place – she was tight, a virgin. He needed to loosen her to help make her ready. He began working his fingers in and out in a rhythmic pattern, watching with satisfaction as she quickly began to writhe beneath his touch.

Satisfied with his progress and her growing arousal, he slid a third thick finger inside her. She moaned loudly at that but bucked her hips to meet his hand. As she twisted and squirmed with and against his ministrations, the knuckle of his thumb brushed against a small but firm pad of flesh concealed in her folds. "Logan!" A gush of slick wetness followed his accidental touch and Logan's mouth twisted in contemplation. He did it again, this time on purpose. "God!" He did it one more time, with more pressure on that spot. "Unnnh!"

Her back arched, and inside, her muscles clenched strongly around his fingers, very strongly. That was it. The animal inside him rose powerfully, and before he even knew it, he was plunging his erection inside her, replacing his fingers with his heated flesh. Even her surprise and pained gasp didn't slow him. He immediately began thrusting inside her, feeling her warm, tight, wet heat pulse and quiver around him. It took only a few thrusts for him to give in to the urge to drive deep, and let go.

He came down from the orgasm, panting hard and slumping on top of Marie. Trembling hands tentatively rested themselves on his back, and he caught the scent of blood in the air. Had he done something to hurt her? Why hadn't she said something? Propping himself up to look at her face, he saw uncertainty there, but no recrimination. "You OK?"

"I – I think so." Her brown eyes scanned his face nervously.

"You're bleedin'."

"It's OK. That's – that's supposed to happen the first time. It's normal."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "It's just a little blood." Logan grunted, and withdrew himself, noting with disappointment that some of his seed trailed on to her thighs as he did. He peered down at her, getting a good close look. "Really, I'm OK."

"Hmph." He did see and smell blood, but she was right – it was just a little. "You think this one took?" He wasn't sure if the blood might interfere with impregnating her. He hoped not, but, even if it did, it was only the first time. Other times should work out OK.

"I don't know. I mean – we won't know for a while." Her nervousness ratcheted up, and so did her heartbeat. "Do you, um, want to go to sleep now because it's kind of been a long day and that was a little – um, a little tiring."

"Yeah, OK," he agreed, shifting them both into the position he desired – her in front of him, both of them on their sides, one of his hands anchored between her legs, keeping the rest of his seed in. "Hey – you're OK, right?"

"Yeah. Fine. Just fine. Just a little – it's a little weird, you know. This wasn't how I thought my first time would be."

"I didn't really think on it much myself, but this was OK."

"Yeah. Yeah. It was OK."

"Marie – relax, OK?"

"Sorry. I just – I guess I'm freaking out a little. It was nice. It really was. I'm just – it's just new, I guess. And not like it is in books or in the movies. It's just new."

"Hmph." He didn't know what to make of her words or how to calm her. In fact, he wasn't quite sure what to do or say in this situation at all.

"Did you, um, like it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. OK. Good."

"You said it was nice, right?"

"Yeah. Parts of it were very nice." She took a deep breath. "It was uncomfortable when you were – you know. But I think that was just because it was the first time. It should get easier – right?"

"Dunno." He unconsciously held her a little tighter. "What parts didya like?"

"When you were touching me." The words came in a whisper and she did calm with saying them. "That was real nice."

"I can do it again next time."

"OK," she whispered, and settled into his embrace. Logan lay awake a long time after she'd slept.

Marie awoke to the not-unpleasant feeling of being tightly embraced to the large, warm body next to her in bed. It took a moment for her to remember how she'd gotten there, and who the body belonged to, but when it did register, she simply snuggled down in his grasp. It would be a long time before she got her fill of safe, comforting touches.

And she did feel safe with him. Neither one of them were experienced and it was only to be expected that their first time would be less than perfect. She'd felt a little weird and freaked out right afterward, but they'd talked, and she was encouraged that Logan wanted to keep doing things she liked. He had shown no signs of wanting to hurt her or do anything bizarre in bed, and Marie figured that the other awkward or uncomfortable things would work themselves out in time, with practice. The bottom line was for her that this time yesterday, she'd been wandering through a deserted world all alone, but today she had a roof over her head and a warm bed beneath her body, not to mention a man that would provide for her. Overall, it wasn't a bad deal, Marie thought, not a bad deal at all.

"Mrmph…….." A smile flitted across her lips as Logan stirred. She wondered what he thought of the whole thing, and what Jules was thinking. He was such an adorable child, Marie thought. Her heart ached for what he'd been through, but he seemed to be bouncing back well under Logan's care. She didn't want to think about what might've happened to him if Logan hadn't stepped in. "Mph."

"Are you up?" Marie whispered. Logan's entire body tensed immediately at the words, and his grip on her was now painfully tight. "Logan?"

"Shit," he cursed, finally opening his eyes and coming fully awake. He eased his grip and saw the confusion in her expression. "Sorry."

"It's OK," she said, trying for a smile. Thanks to Sabretooth's powers, the bruises he'd inflicted would probably heal in seconds, but she wasn't sure what had prompted his reaction. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said wearily. "Get a little outta sorts whenever there's a change in the usual."

"Like a new person sleeping in bed with you?"

"Yeah." He sat up a little. "Didn't hurt ya, did I?"

"No," Marie fibbed. "That happens to me too, sometimes. It's disorienting, especially when you're waking up to something a little different."

"You sleep OK?"

"Mmm-hmm. Very well, in fact. I don't know how long it's been since I slept someplace warm."

"Gets a little cold in here at night when the fire's down, but these thick blankets keep ya pretty warm." With that, he swung his legs out from under the covers and rose from the bed, nonchalantly yawning, stretching, and heading for the bathroom. Marie was both trying to look at his still-naked form and not. She felt silly for being shy after they'd been intimate, but it was still so new. When he didn't bother to shut the door behind himself, Marie cautiously stole glances at him while he urinated. She was curious about what he really looked like – yes, she'd seen 'it' last night, but her curiosity hadn't been sated by her few quick, bashful peeks.

Logan finished then seemed a little at a loss for what to do next. Marie decided to fill the awkward silence with some conversation. "So, what time does Jules get up?"

"Dunno. When he gets up, I guess." Logan frowned, then paced a little closer to the bed. Marie propped herself up, taking the comforter with her to keep her breasts covered. She was still naked too, after all.

"Is, um, something wrong?"

"No. But, ah, do you, um……"

"Do I what?" she inquired as Logan huffed and sat beside her on the bed.

"Do you wanna go again now?"

"Oh," Marie answered, blushing. "I was thinking we were going to, um, you know, again at night. I wasn't thinking of doing it in the morning."

"Jules'll be asleep for a little while still. Now's a good time."

"I was, ah, thinking of maybe taking a shower," Marie demurred. Sex in the morning, in the wide-open daylight, seemed somehow decadent, and seedy.

"Mph," Logan grunted, non-committally.   "There's towels and soap in there. Can borrow some of my clothes if you want. Yours all dirty?"

"Yeah," she sighed, with relief.

"I'll wash 'em. We got a machine for that. Don't use the dryer 'cause it takes up gas for no reason – can dry 'em just fine out in fronta the fire."

"Sure," Marie readily agreed.

"So let's do it again and then you can take a shower."

"Um……." No words came out and Logan crawled closer to her on the bed. When he reached her, he pulled the blanket down from her breasts, then just looked at them for a good long while. "Um……."

"Lay back. I'm gonna touch you like I did before." Whatever was left of Marie's reservations melted at the remembered pleasures of last night. True to his word, as soon as she lay down, he stripped the blanket away from her completely, and gently spread her legs apart. Mimicking the slow, sensual touches he'd given her half-accidentally last time, he soon had her writhing and panting beneath his hands.

When she gave out a final moan, he positioned himself to enter her. He slid in a little easier this time, and didn't smell any blood. With a few slow, firm thrusts, he was soon losing himself in the pleasure as well.

He'd been going for a while when he felt Marie's soft hand on his own. Somehow, without quite realizing it, he'd palmed her cheek and shoved her face to the side. "Gentle, OK?" she whispered, and he eased his grip and stilled his movements.

"Sorry."

She looked up at him with soft eyes, and let go of his now-slack hand. "It's OK.   You were just getting a little carried away. It's OK."

"Hurt ya?"

"No." A certain look came over her then, soft but with something fiery and wanting mixed in too. Raising her face to his she tenderly brushed their lips together. Logan flinched back, surprised at first, but then leaned down for a kiss of his own. He knew what they were; he'd just never had one that he could remember and was startled when she wanted to do that with him. Kisses – they were affection, not strictly mating. Affection hadn't been part of their deal. It wasn't required of her. Why was she doing it?

Before his mind could take that line of thought any further, she gently opened his mouth with her own and brushed her slick tongue against his. He moaned into her and began thrusting again. They were both soon lost in the intense kiss. The desperate, passionate motion of their bodies complemented the motion of their mouths and before long, the rhythm was bringing both of them to the edge. Marie broke the kiss first, throwing her head back and letting out an unabashedly sated moan.

Logan was issuing moans and grunts of his own as he redoubled his already frantic pace and enjoyed the rock of Marie's hips against his. A change in her movements from bucking to a slow, determined grind tore a simmering growl from the depths of his chest. She ground her hips against him again and then spasmed, almost as if in seizure, and cried out her release again. He couldn't keep any sense of restraint after that – he drove into her now completely pliant body relentlessly, scrambling for his own climax. When it began to come over him, he thrust so hard that he slid her all the way up against the headboard and thumped her head against it. Marie let out a little 'ow,' and although Logan didn't want to hurt her again, he needed to keep going, and forcefully, to complete his release. Quickly, so quickly that his jackhammering pace didn't falter a bit, he slid his hand behind Marie's head to cushion the blow. He would have bruised knuckles to be sure, but he would also have the intense release he was so frantically chasing. When he felt soft hands on his straining back, that compounded the intensity of it, and he pounded in to her several more times before he had fully emptied himself. With a loud grunt, he collapsed on top of her, still cradling her head in his hand.

"Oh, God…….." Logan liked the purr in her voice when she said that. "Logan….." And he liked hearing her say his name with that purr even better. "That was………"

"Damn good," he panted, finishing her thought.

"Yeah……." Logan couldn't suppress a self-satisfied chuckle at the dazed, awed tone in her voice. "Oh, Logan……."

He propped himself up off of her a bit, and lay her head on the pillow. "Why'd you kiss me?"

"Wanted to," she answered honestly, picking up his pronoun-free speech pattern a bit. "I liked it." She smiled up at him to reinforce the words, but he didn't smile back. In fact, he looked quite grave.

"Gonna do that all the time?"

A cloud appeared behind her eyes, and he felt her body tense up. "If you'd like to. If – if you liked it too. Did I do it wrong or something?"

"Hell no." The soft, pleased look was back on her face at that. "Just – you didn't hafta."

"I liked it. I wanted to," she repeated. "Look, if we're going to – to have children together, and live together like a family, I think we should just, you know, get to know each other and try to be loving toward one another. Don't you think?"

"Yeah," he sighed. Now he was the one with awe and wonder in his voice. "Yeah," he said, a little more solidly this time. "I'd like that."

Marie favored him with a huge, beaming smile. "Me too." She leaned up for another quick kiss.

"Do that all the time, huh?"

Marie smiled widely. "I can do them even outside the bedroom if you like. Kissing is pretty good just about anywhere."

"Do it again now, then, OK?"

Marie complied, favoring him with another passionate kiss. At length, she broke from him, before either of them could get carried away again. "I'm going to hop in the shower."

Logan rolled to his back, letting her up. She gathered the sheet to cover herself and closed the bathroom door behind her. Logan lay back in bed, feeling affirmatively good for the first time in a long time, and shaking his head a little at the incongruity of the way Marie dealt out her passionate, fierce kisses with abandon and yet was bashful about her own nudity, something Logan considered far less intimate. Allowing himself one more soft chuckle, he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of Marie's bathing from behind the closed door.

The trio spent a pleasurable snowbound day together. Jules and Marie wound up the evening by reading a book together in front of the fire. Jules watched in awed fascination as she narrated the story of the ugly duckling, taken from an old collection of fairy tales she'd found in the living room bookshelves. Marie knew why he'd identify with the duckling's plight, and she hoped the story made him realize there were other people in the world that were 'different' too.

Logan, for his part, had settled on the sofa opposite them, watching Jules watch Marie. She looked very attractive, in fact, downright beautiful, in the firelight, and the picture of the two together seemed somehow right. He wistfully hoped that Hank could see this, or at least know that he'd managed to find a mother to care for his child, a good one. There were times when Logan missed his friend terribly, even if he didn't admit it to himself, and now, watching Hank's child – content, warm, happy, in the arms of someone who was growing to love him – well, he found himself thinking about his friend quite a bit and wishing he had made it.

Hank had spoken about his former life on occasion – his friends and family, his colleagues, and his scientific work were all frequent topics of conversation during their imprisonment. Logan never said it aloud, but he often wondered how great Hank's friends and family could've really been since no one had ever come to rescue him from the lab. Surely, they'd noticed he was gone; surely - if Hank's assessment of how close those relationships had been were correct – they would want him back. They'd at the very least want to know what had happened to him. But no one ever came for Hank. In Logan's mind, he considered those people to have been either quite stupid or lazy or both, and possibly damn liars on top of it all. They didn't care about Hank, not really. Maybe they had just pretended to like Hank and the poor guy never really caught on or didn't want to see the reality of the situation. Hank was smart, yes, but he had had an emotional side, just like anyone else, and Logan had known him well enough to know that he yearned to at least believe that he'd once had true friends and acceptance. To Logan, Hank was the epitome of a social creature, someone who actually *needed* company and other people – hell, he'd even befriended fellow inmates, even those as dangerous and bristly as Logan himself.

Logan didn't know for sure, but was somehow certain that there had never been anyone looking for him. He just didn't think he was the kind of person to have attachments, to attract friends or to keep in touch with whatever family he might have. The claws surely would've kept people at a distance, and he doubted his demeanor had been sunny and bright even before the lab people got him. Just how foreign any hint of belonging or closeness felt on the infrequent occasions it had happened seemed to be a big clue about what his life was like before. It wasn't really until he began to care for Jules that the feeling of being attached to someone finally stopped seeming so completely alien. Sure, the child was a responsibility, and a big one. There had been many times that Logan would've fared better had he been on his own. But he was also a connection, evidence that Logan wasn't alone in the world, that he had family now, someone to care for, a purpose. Something about that was deeply satisfying to Logan.

And something about Marie's earlier words about being loving toward one another and living like a family resonated with him as well. That hadn't been part of their agreement, but it made a hell of a lot of sense – Logan could see her as part of their little family already, as the part that made it complete. She was young enough to bear many children to add to the family, and tender enough to balance out Logan's own self-realized gruffness and naked practicality. He couldn't quite articulate it, but he thought of her as the indefineable *something* that was making this house into a home, the something that was making their necessity-forced family into a real one. He'd made the right choice, he reflected, offering her what he had back in the store. Logan was suddenly flooded with a surge of gratitude that she hadn't been afraid to take him up on it, that his rough appearance and manner hadn't frightened her off. Marie seemed the kind of person to stick to a deal, too – Logan didn't have many worries that she'd go back on her word. All in all, he'd gotten very lucky with her. It was definitely time, he thought with a wry smile, that some good luck came their way.

Just then, her brown eyes flitted over the top of the book, finding his. She returned his smile with a wide, good-natured one of her own, then finished the page she was reading. Logan's gaze turned heated, resulting in a pretty blush that slowly spread up her neck and to her cheeks.   He would take her to his bed again tonight, he thought to himself, and continue to bind her to him, and to this family. He would make sure that she continued to be pleased with the arrangement they had here, that she continued to pour out her warmth to Jules and her passionate kisses to him.

"Mawee!" Jules' squeak of protest and the high-pitched laughter that followed caught Logan's attention. They'd gone outside to play in the snow, and he'd been watching from the window for a while, enjoying their snowman-building almost as much as they were. It was the first sustained, heavy snow of the season – the skies had cast down some kind of frozen precipitation on them nearly every day of the five weeks Marie had been with them, but this was the first time they were getting a good, all-day, three-footer. Logan liked watching them, but he didn't much care to join them – in his opinion, the best thing about snow was being able to watch it come down from somewhere warm and safe - so he'd set about making dinner while keeping an eye on them. Now, hearing Jules' obvious delight made him curious enough to take a closer look.

"What?" Marie laughed, trying to feign innocence. "That snowball jumped right out of my hand. Really." More giggling didn't help her case. Logan smiled.

"Did not!" Jules countered, then flung a snowball of his own. Their snowman looked half-done, but neither seemed to mind abandoning his construction for some good-natured snowball-throwing. Seeing that his snowball had missed, Jules decided to run and tackle Marie. "Wheeee!"

She laughed, and let herself be wrangled to the snow. Jules climbed atop her well-bundled body triumphantly. Inside, Logan let out a bark of laughter – Jules' delight at his success was written all over him. "Oh-oh, you've got me!" Marie teased.

"Yeah! I gotchu now!" Jules had been talking a lot more in the weeks since Marie had come, and Logan credited her story-reading. The little guy really loved being read to and often tried to mimic Marie's words. It was one of the many things Marie was giving him that Logan couldn't, but it no longer caused even a twinge of anger or frustration in him to see those things. He was only happy for the child. It helped that Marie never seemed to look at him with recrimination for the things he hadn't thought of or wasn't good at.

"What are you going to do with me then, hmm?" Logan's attention was directed back to the playful pair with Marie's words. He watched as Marie sprinkled a handful of powdery snow on top of Jules' head to punctuate her words. Jules returned the favor, a little more clumsily and with more force, but still in a way that made Marie smile.

"You got snow on you."

"Yeah, I wonder how it got there," she teased. "I think it was you."

"Nuh-uh," Jules grinned, clearly enjoying the game.

"Uh-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Nuh-uh!" The child dissolved into giggles with that, and they both enjoyed laughing together for a few moments. Then, gradually, Jules' face clouded over a bit.

Logan tensed. This happened sometimes. Something random, something Logan couldn't even identify, would trigger a sad thought or memory for Jules. Before, he'd just carefully watched the child, and waited until he worked it through. If Jules came to him and wanted a hug or wanted to sleep in the same bed, Logan provided that. But he'd never initiated any touching or words of comfort, calling on his own predisposition to just be left alone when he was hurting. He thought it best to let Jules take the lead and show him what was needed. But Marie had a different approach. She often approached Jules first, offering open-armed hugs or soft words. She often hugged him even when he wasn't upset. Jules seemed to like it, that much was sure, and Logan had been thinking of taking the same approach himself. He watched with some curiosity to see how this particular time would play out.

As expected, Marie's arms came around Jules as soon as she caught his expression. He lay his head down on her shoulder and sighed. "Do you want to talk about it? Are you OK?" Jules shook his head no, presumably in answer to both questions. "It's OK, you know, if you're sad sometimes. I get sad too. Everybody does. Before, when I was on my own, I didn't like not having anyone around to talk to, anyone around to be with. I didn't like having to look out for myself all by myself."

"Yeah," Jules agreed in a forlorn whisper. "I sad."

"Do you want to talk about what's making you sad?"

"Miss dada. He pwayed wif me. Miss him." Logan felt a strong pang of sorrow at that. He was beyond grateful that the child remembered Hank, and he knew that his friend made the most of every single moment he stole from the virus to spend with his son, but it just wasn't fair that all they'd had was a few weeks together. Not fair – it was worse than that, it was almost obscene. Not for the first time, Logan wished he could've traded his healing factor to Hank, or that he could've found some way to save him. He watched Marie to see how she'd try to explain it all to him, how she'd try to comfort him.

"Oh, sugar, I know you miss him," Marie wrapped her arms around him even more tightly. "He must've loved you very much."

"Yeah," Jules sighed again.

"I know he wishes he could be here to take care of you, but you know what? He loved you so much that he picked the best possible person to take care of you – Logan." Logan's heart stopped, just for a moment. Marie had definitely seen all the things he'd forgotten to get or do for the child, all the things he didn't know about how to raise him. That she could say that so easily, and with such conviction, just stopped him cold. For the first time, a kernel of an idea began to take hold in him, something that his mind had whispered since the kisses, something that appealed to him greatly, but something he'd resolutely pushed aside as an impossibility. Hearing Marie say that now, he began to think maybe it wasn't such an impossibility after all. "He made sure that you had someone to take good care of you, even when he couldn't be around. And Logan will always look out for you; he'll always be around to take care of you."

"Pwotect dood, take care me dood," Jules agreed, "But I miss dada."

"I know," Marie consoled with a long sigh. She knew there wasn't really any substitute for a parent, even if Jules now had two good putative ones. And as heartened as Logan was, by both Marie's words and Jules', he knew that too. "I think Logan misses him too. I – I'm sorry I never had the chance to meet him. I bet he was really nice."

"Wooked wike me."

"Did he?" Jules nodded his head against her shoulder. "He must've been very handsome then," she soothed.

"Mawee," Jules raised his tiny head up to look her in the face. "Why you come here?"

"Why did I come live with you?" The child nodded in the affirmative. "Do you know why I think it was? I think it was because I was supposed to. I think I belong with you guys, not out there wandering around all by myself. I think that it's a lot better for all of us to be here, together."

Jules considered her words for a few moments before responding. Logan had heard them too, and was doing some thinking of his own. "Me too. Dis a dood spot."

"It is a good spot – especially since you're in it." A lighter tone permeated her words, and Jules gave out with a smile. "You want to play some more or go in? I bet Logan's got dinner started……."

"Yeah! Stew!"

"Come on, let's go." As she helped Jules up and dusted the snow from her legs and back, Logan turned from the scene outside, and began to make a plan.

"You asleep?" Marie picked her head up off of Logan's bare chest to indicate that she was not. Tired – yes. Still feeling like one big limp noodle after their passionate lovemaking – yes. Asleep – no. "I think we hafta talk."

"About what?" She wondered if he was concerned that she wasn't pregnant yet. She'd gotten her period a week or so ago, and knew he'd been disappointed, but she didn't think he was seriously upset about it. She couldn't think of anything else he'd want to discuss, though.

"You said somethin' today that stuck with me."

"Yeah?" She propped herself up and parted from him so that she could see his expression better. "What was that?"

"You said it was better for us to all be here, together, and I think that's right. I think you're right."

"Me too," she smiled warmly.

"I know what our deal was," Logan began, meeting her soft gaze with a level one. "But I was wonderin' if you'd be willin' to change things a little bit now."

"Change them how?"

Logan took a deep breath in and out. "I want it to be normal, like a real family."

"We – we are normal."

"No, Marie, we're not. We're a coupla people who made a deal. Not a bad deal, just a deal. But it ain't the same as how people do it normally or how they should."

She considered his words for a few moments, then gave a reply. "I know we made a deal. I know that's how – how it began. But, Logan – there's not a whole lot of 'normal' left in this world. I think what we did, how we decided to all live here together, I think it was OK."

"Right. It ain't a bad deal."

"Then what – "

"I wanna go forward from here and not stick to the deal. You do what you wanna and so will I. I want the stuff that happens to be because we both decided it, not 'cause there were no other choices or 'cause we're both obligated by the deal. All bets off. Only – only what we both wanna do from here on."

"What do you want to do?" Leaning forward to hear his reply, she began absently, almost unconsciously drawing small circles across his chest.

"I wanna provide for both of ya. I wanna live with you and him. Not 'cause of what I promised him, not 'cause of the deal with you. I think it's the right thing, how it's supposedta be, and I wanna do it outta that, not the other things. I promised Hank, and I won't forget that promise, but – but there's more to it than that now." He'd gotten it all out, at least, and was relieved.

Marie smiled at the words. "Do you know what I want?"

"I got an idea. I know you like the kid." Logan thought anyone who missed that would have to be blind – she had a plain affection for the boy. And he suspected from the kisses and her softness with him that she was growing to have more than a little affection for him as well. The question was – was that enough to keep her with them, without the agreement they'd made to support it?

"I do like Jules. I like you too."

"Good." Logan frowned a bit. He'd hoped she was going to say more than that. In a moment, she obliged.

"I like what we do together, here, in private." She cast her eyes downward, shyly, but then seemed to recover some bravado. "I like that a lot." Her eyes came back up as soon as the words were out, and the even gaze that accompanied them stirred something within Logan. He rumbled, deep in his chest, and found himself circling an arm around her, pinning her hips to his. "I like having someone to wake up with and to fall asleep with. I like having someone to talk to. I like having someone to do things with. I like having someone for all of that, but I especially like it that it's you."

That was it – that was his answer, and it was the one he'd hoped for. Smiling, Logan drew her down for a kiss – the first one he'd ever initiated. She responded eagerly, and they were soon drowned in passion. This time it was different – this time, he knew the only thing motivating her fierce kisses and heated sighs was desire. It would be a long time before either slept that night, but when they did, for the first time, they both dreamed of the future, not their scarred pasts.