Terri's Peep Hut ~~ Fiction Archive

Comments: Holy Mother of God, this didn't start out even remotely close to what we have ended up with here. I tried to write a nice, fluffy fic about Logan giving Rogue a kitten in response to a plot bunny flung by Karen. But two things happened-first, a good friend came and spent the weekend with me. She's living through divorce hell, and spent a few days crying on my couch, and there was no way I could think happy kitten thoughts after that. Second-I read the first five parts of Victoria's beautiful Love Will Tear Us Apart and (you may want to sit down before you read this next part) I actually sympathized with Jean. *Jean* of all people! I just couldn't let that go on. I had to clear that out of my head and let the Jean issues back in. So I wrote this and sent it off to Keli to beta. Being the super-duper brbf that she is, she suggested adding the last part, and then told me to drop whatever I was doing and read Renee's The Waiting Game. I ignored her for a little while, because what I was doing was watching the season finale of Buffy. But I read Renee's story immediately after, through the tears. Well, that, my friends, sealed the angst for sure.

She didn't yell when she found out. Didn't get mad, didn't throw things or break them. She just sat quietly, silent for a few minutes, then nodded to herself and rose from her bed. In a way, it was fortunate that Jubilee had been the one to break the news. She'd seen Logan and Jean having sex in the danger room, and she spared no detail in relating the scene to Rogue. In a way, it hammered home the reality of the situation for her, it helped to cement her decision.

Later that night, Logan came to get her for dinner, like he had each day for the past month he'd been back. Those dinners together-she thought they'd meant something to him too, something more than putting his time in, checking off the "Make sure you spend some time with Marie" box on his schedule. Now, she supposed she was wrong.

She told him she wouldn't be going to dinner, and he asked if she was all right. She wasn't, but she lied about that, and urged him to go on ahead. Later, she thought that if he had ever really known her or cared about her, he would've been able to read her well enough to know there was trouble, well enough to know she was about to run. Then again, she reflected in her darker moments, perhaps he knew and didn't care, or perhaps he knew and welcomed her leaving.

She packed a few things and left in her car that night. She didn't think he'd follow-he had what he wanted at the mansion, and he wouldn't leave. So she made sure she wasn't either obvious or overly careful in leaving tracks, and she headed for what she thought the last place he'd look would be-the desert. All she'd ever talked about was Alaska, about cold and snowy places far removed from her native Mississippi. He'd never think to try Arizona in a million years. And the Professor-well, she'd learned how to shield herself from his telepathy thanks to Magneto. He wouldn't be able to find her any more than Logan would.

She wasn't quite legal yet, so there was the tiny matter of how to support herself and get a place for the remaining five weeks until her birthday. She'd taken all her savings - $400-but that wasn't even one month's rent assuming she could find a place. Her only hope, she thought, was to take some of the completed paintings of hers she'd brought and try to sell them to a gallery that didn't ask too many questions.

She found one-the La Fuente Gallery in Sedona-and even if the gallery owner called herself Moonbeam Charisma, she still drove a pretty hard bargain. The paintings sold quickly, though, and within ten days of crossing the state line, she had enough to rent a place. She found a landlord who liked cash better than asking questions, and got a small studio apartment in Flagstaff. She did everything in cash-even paying her utility bills in person-to avoid flagging her location and to avoid the issue of her minority.

The five weeks passed relatively quickly, and if some part of her still expected Logan to look for her, she didn't let on. She had accepted the fact that she was on her own, just like she had been before Logan. She had a lot of confidence that she could make it. After all, she'd been in worse spots. This time, she'd just have to be careful not to make the mistake of falling for someone who helped her out. On her eighteenth birthday, she made herself a promise-she'd let go of Logan, stop caring about him altogether. It would be good for her, and it would be the start of a new life. It was a good time to make a new start, she thought.

More than a year passed before anything significant happened to her again. She lived, painted, hiked the rocks and desert, and didn't do much else. It was a quiet life, and if it was a little more solitary than suited her taste, she reminded herself that sometimes friends weren't much of a comfort. Sometimes, friends just screwed you over.

But on a bright, sunny, one-hundred-and-ten degree Tuesday in August, something did happen. Logan showed up, almost out of nowhere, in the gallery. She hadn't been there, but Moonbeam had, and she asked Rogue about the mysterious stranger that was looking for her. Rogue made it clear that she didn't want to be found, by him especially. Moonbeam said he looked sad and a little desperate-and that tugged at Rogue's heart for a moment-but then she remembered the birthday promise to herself and sternly ordered her heart to stop feeling that way. It more or less complied.

Rogue stayed in for three whole days after that, to be sure Logan wouldn't catch sight of her. She didn't have a TV or a phone, so she got a lot of painting done. Her heart wasn't listening as well as she thought-most of the paintings were of Logan and one was of Logan and Jean together as Jubilee had described them. It was then that Rogue decided her twentieth birthday promise would be no more self-torture.

"You don't know anything about me anymore, and that's how I want it." That hurt him too. "I want you out of my life. Permanently out. It doesn't work that way, Logan. You can't have us both. Go on back to her. She wants you, and you've made your choice. Live with it. There's no changing your mind now. Go back to Westchester." She guessed that he was probably still sleeping with Jean-her scent lingered on him enough for Rogue to detect it-and that he'd had plenty of little interludes in New York between spurts of looking for her.

"I want you to leave me alone. I want you out of my life. Is that clear or should I speak more slowly for you?" He gave her a hard look, and a hurt look, then stomped out. She thought he was probably mad enough to go drown his sorrows for a while before either taking her advice or trying to talk to her again. Just in case it was the latter, she began packing up her things. She could still sell paintings through the gallery, she reasoned, she didn't have to live in Sedona to do that. And, if he wasn't discouraged from trying to follow her by her disappearance, there were plenty of other places Logan would take a long time to think about looking. She had an idea of a few she'd like to visit.

It took her exactly an hour to pack all that she owned into the Jeep. If Logan had seen it, known it was hers, it would make her easier to track, but she loved that car, and she wasn't about to sell it just because of Logan. She was crossing the state line headed east at just the same moment he kicked in her old apartment door to find her gone.

She settled in Springfield, Illinois. A small enough but big enough town, right smack in the middle of nowhere. She lived there for another year before her landlord mentioned the frightening, hairy man that had paid him a visit on the last day of August. She didn't try to wait him out this time. She packed and ran.

The next year was New Orleans-she'd always wanted to go, but found living there to be less romantic, less sophisticated than she'd imagined. Logan showed up again in August, like clockwork, and this time it was her neighbor who'd alerted her to the burly man that had come around asking after her.

She thought then that maybe it was time to move north, maybe it was time to try Alaska, and she made it as far as Vancouver. She settled there, in a small Chinatown apartment, and decided she loved it too much to ever leave. She would simply wait for August to come. It came, but without the usual visit from Logan, and that made her think that she'd made the right move, that Vancouver was a good spot for her.

She thought long and hard about the fact that he hadn't come after her this time for most of September. She was relieved at first, then a little sad, then she came to a peace with it. He'd probably decided to stop chasing someone who didn't want him, and she reflected that she'd learned that lesson from him, so it was only fitting that she returned it. For the first time in a long time, days, even weeks, passed without her thinking of him, and she really did begin a new life then.

The old life never stays buried for long, though, and it was in November this time that she got a visitor, only this time it wasn't Logan, it was Jean. She caught Rogue on the stairs leading up to her apartment and asked to talk. Rogue initially balked, but she could tell there was something wrong by Jean's expression. She invited her in and made her tea.

"Yes." Jean looked a little surprised that Rogue had known when, and Rogue was a little surprised at that. After living with him all this time, Jean would have to know that Logan was, in his own way, predictable. "He, uh, was on his way here when it happened."

"The-the call came for a mission. Magneto had broken out of prison. Logan went and-well, he was hurt. Very badly. Almost killed." Jean shook a little as she said it, and Rogue felt sympathy for her-she loved Logan too, Rogue imagined. "It was..well, it was bad. But we've got his skeleton mostly straightened out now, and he's recovering."

Rogue could imagine what Magneto had done to him-he'd have been in agony for weeks on end as they tried to incrementally force his metal-bonded skeleton back into shape. She felt a wave of regret at that-regret that she hadn't known, regret that she hadn't been there with him, regret that she wasn't there with him now. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Yes, well, he-he didn't want me to come. He didn't want you to know. Actually, he made me promise not to tell you." The thought that Jean was very poor at keeping her promises flashed through Rogue's mind. "But he's, ah, he's been asking for you off and on, you know, when the pain gets bad, when he's not himself, and he's been..."

"He doesn't like me very much." Jean looked down. Rogue remembered that she'd hung the painting of Jean and Logan opposite the kitchen door, and that Jean would have a pretty good view of it if she happened to look. Rogue had done a poor job of keeping her twentieth birthday promise. "He sees me as the thing that took you away from him. He actually.." Her voice wavered and Rogue saw tears forming in her eyes. "he..he pretty much hates me for that."

"I was hoping you'd go back. Not-you can't tell him I asked you to. But he'd do better if you visited him, even just for a couple days. He's-he's coming out of the pain now, and he's pretty coherent. I think it would do him a lot of good." Jean said the last parts in her doctor-voice, and Rogue could tell that it was killing her to suggest this. She didn't understand why-it was almost as though Jean saw her as some kind of threat, and that just wasn't possible.

"OK. I'll-I'll be back later this week. Just for a day or so." She hadn't been back since she left and wasn't eager to go now. But Logan, everything else aside, *had* saved her life twice, and she owed him. She didn't like owing him, and this was, if nothing else, an excellent chance to pay him back.

She happened to come back on Thanksgiving Day. She said hello to those who greeted her-Kitty, Jubilee, Scott-but didn't stop to talk. She wanted to get to the medlab, see Logan, fulfill her duty to him, and go back to her life. For the most part, everyone was in a hurry to get to Thanksgiving dinner, so they were happy to accommodate her.

"Oh! Are you-by any chance are you Marie?" She was surprised that Logan had told the blue man that name, but she nodded. "He calls out for you quite a bit, in his sleep, and before, when he was...my dear, has anyone filled you in on what has happened to him?"

"Optimistically, he should be fully recovered in four months." Rogue was shocked to hear it-she'd expected the blue man to say a few days or weeks. It was beginning to hit home how seriously he'd been hurt. The thought that she could've lost him sent a bolt of panic through her, and she struggled to suppress it. "Pessimistically, it could take another year. Don't-don't fret, my dear. He will make a full recovery, of that I am fairly certain."

"Of course. He's behind that curtain." The blue man gestured, and Rogue realized that he must be unable to move or take care of himself at all if he was still in the medlab. He hated it here. She wondered why Jean hadn't moved him to their room, hadn't cared for him herself. Surely she had to know he would've been more comfortable there.

She parted the curtain and was relieved a little by what she saw. He looked all right. He was sleeping, jerking his head back and forth a little in response to a dream, but sleeping. He was pale, and his face-he'd been shaved clean, recently. She'd never seen him like that and thought he must have changed his tastes since last August-she wouldn't have imagined that he'd like the clean shaven look.

All of a sudden his eyes opened and focused immediately on her. She cursed herself a little for standing there staring at his face like some schoolgirl instead of thinking about what to say, how to handle this. On the other hand, she hadn't come up with any good ideas about that on the entire trip out, so why would one have come to her now? "Hey."

"I didn't mean what I said, you know, last time." His eyes were cloudy and from his casual tone and expression, she knew he wasn't really talking to her. Not in reality, anyway. He spoke to her like they were old friends, like she'd never left. He must have been having dreams or hallucinations with her in them.

She must have fallen asleep as well. The next thing she remembered was feeling a muscle cramp in her back and shoulder from leaning half against the wall and half on the bed. She sat up carefully, aware that Logan's hand was still clenched to her own and not wanting to wake him.

"Probably, yeah." His head sunk back in the pillow, and it dawned on her that he was relieved she'd be staying for a while. Her whole world tilted a little on its axis with that-with the realization that she meant something to him still, that maybe there was a grain of truth in what Jean had said, that maybe he was a little lost without her. She didn't quite know how to handle that.

When he was in deep sleep, Rogue left him and sought out Jean. Dinner was long over, and she wanted to catch her before going to bed. Rogue found her in the kitchen, and told herself she should've looked there in the first place-it was one of Jean's favorite spots, she remembered.

"I-I just think he might be a little more at ease in your room. You're a doctor, you can take care of him." Rogue had the sinking feeling that Jean was for some reason about to cry, and was appalled by the thought of having to try to comfort her.

"It hasn't been-for the past few years, he hasn't been very good to me. I'm-I was thankful that he did it, actually. It was-I couldn't seem to break it off myself and it was time." She let out another one of those clipped, bitter laughs. "After all, who wants to be with a man who won't even look at your face when he fucks you?"

"What the hell else do you want from me?!" Jean stood up now, angry too. "I let him come to me whenever he wants, put me on my stomach, turn my face away, God, I even don't say anything anymore when he calls me by your name." Rogue had seen those roles reversed in her own nightmares. "He hasn't looked me in the face for years. What the hell else do you want?"

"Jean-why the hell would you let him do that to you? Don't-you can't blame me for that." After all, Rogue herself wasn't one to stand around and let Logan be with another woman. She couldn't even watch it from afar, let alone put up with something like that. She wasn't liking Logan an awful lot right now, but she was just dumbfounded with Jean's behavior.

"Because I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand it anymore, listening to him call for you, watching him try to push me away every time I tried to touch him or help him after he got hurt. He carried on whole conversations with some imaginary version of you. For days at a time. He even fought with you, made up with you, begged you to love him, all in his head. Well, I should've known. I should've known there wasn't any room in there for me."

"You know what, Jean? Fuck you. Not everything revolves around you. I left for me, because *I* couldn't stand it. I wasn't about to try and make him love me when he loved you, when he wanted you. What was I supposed to do? Stay here and live with it? I needed to let him go, to get on with my life. It wasn't about revenge or any of that shit. You've lost your fucking mind." Rogue stomped out of the kitchen and back toward the medlab.

"I believe so. We are merely waiting for his healing factor to repair the damage done. He doesn't require medical attention except the administration of pain medication and I have shown you how to perform that task. He is able to eat solid foods, but he is not able to move from the bed, so you would have to attend to him with a bed pan and bathe him. Otherwise, he should be fine."

"Because I always thought it was better for both of us that way. Because maybe that's not true. Because..because I owe him. I owe him a lot, whether I like that or not. And because..well, because he doesn't want to be here, I don't think, and he'd do it for me. No matter how pissed off he was at me, he'd do it for me."

"I'm headed home to Vancouver tomorrow." He said nothing, and turned his head away from her. She gently caught him by the chin and turned it back. "I was wondering if you'd like to come along and see the new apartment. I won't even make you break in this time."

She was about to play a little dirty here, but it wasn't too far out of line, she hoped. "I want to spend some time with you. Don't you want that?" He didn't respond with words but his eyes left no room for mistake as to what the answer was. "Then let's go. It's that simple. Let's go."

Now she was going to play *really* dirty. "This one time, Logan. I'm making the offer this one time. That's it." She took his hand in hers, and consciously softened her demeanor. "Come on. I want this." He spastically squeezed her hand again, and she could tell he was trying to rub it, trying to be gentle. She let him think it through, let him hold her hand and work it out.

Hank helped them get settled in Vancouver. It was relatively easy, since Hank was one of the few people that could carry Logan single-handedly. Logan hadn't said goodbye to Jean, nor she to him, but Jean did say her goodbyes (interspersed with a few choice expletives) to Rogue. She also gave a parting shot of advice having to do with Logan's preferred sexual positions that was too lewd to be repeated.

Once they were settled in, once Hank left, Rogue let out a sigh of relief. Logan had been made comfortable in her bed. He hadn't wanted any pain medication, so she thought he must be feeling reasonably all right, that the move hadn't been too hard on him. She felt at ease with the situation, but she could see that he was still tense.

"So, would you like a tour of my spacious apartment?" Logan could see it in its entirety from the bed. He didn't laugh at the joke. "Here we have the fabulously appointed kitchen-" She gestured to a bar-style countertop and two stools, behind which, against the wall, stood a small stove, refrigerator, and sink. ""-and over here, the master bathroom-" Her hand waved to the obnoxiously orange room, barely large enough to accommodate a toilet, sink, and tub. "-and of course, the main bedroom, which you are in now." She punctuated the end of the tour by sitting next to him on the bed. "What do you think?"

"Nice paintings." The one in his line of sight was one she'd begun just before flying back to Westchester. It was him, jumping down on the Statue of Liberty to save her. She wasn't sure she liked it, but Moonbeam would probably love it, and it would sell. She'd need to support the both of them for a while, and that thought made her promise herself to start painting again tomorrow.

"I'll get better quicker than they think." She'd actually given some thought to how to ease his concerns about her taking care of him. She put a hand on his chest, lightly, and felt his whole body tense beneath it. That wasn't the reaction she'd hoped for.

"For a long time, I couldn't stand even thinking about you." She kept her gaze fixed away from him, straight ahead, and kept moving her hand gently over him. "You chose Jean over me, sexually, and that hurt. I thought I always came first with you-always and with everything."

"Let me finish this, OK?" She hadn't glanced over at him, but she did stop stroking him, just for a moment. "I look back now and realize that was a childish way to think about it-it was a fantasy of how I wanted it to be. Now..well, when I saw you in the medlab, I realized that I'm a deeply stupid person. I could've lost you, and the last words I ever would've said to you would've been angry words. And maybe I was second best in your eyes for some things, but you were still better to me than anyone else in my life, ever. I mean, you risked a lot for me, and gave a lot to me, without any reason to do it. I figured you didn't deserve to be treated how I was treating you, even if it was what I needed, you know, for me-for me to get over how I felt. I figured that maybe it was my turn to be unselfish, to give you what you needed and worry about the cost to me later. Because that's what you did. That's what you did in a big way."

"I honestly don't know. I don't-Jean told me how your relationship was, that you called her by my name and other things, and I don't really like that. I don't like you for treating her that way. Ironic, huh?" She allowed herself a brief glance to show him her wry grin, but faced ahead again after a moment. "And I don't think I can be second best. It's just something-I don't know. I want someone in my life who thinks of me as the first choice. I need that. But I want us to-I don't want us to not talk or not be able to be around one another. It's-it's not easy for me, but I can do that. I think you and I can do that."

"Yeah." He let out a long sigh, and her hand slowly stopped moving across his chest. She scooted down the bed a little and lay on her side to face him. "I knew it right away, too. The first time I knew right away. But you were gone. You were already gone."

"I know. I thought-some part of me thought that you'd want that. That you'd wanna see me treat her bad. You know, just in case you showed up one day. Part of me thought that you'd come home and see her cryin' or somethin' and realize that it never.that I wasn't - I dunno.."

"I just meant.I just meant that it's dangerous. I could-I could let myself get too close to you and I could get hurt all over again. Then you'd have to wait God-only-knows how many Augusts or get yourself almost killed again before we could work it out."

She spent almost all of her time in the apartment, painting and caring for Logan. The first few days were difficult-she was uncoordinated at maneuvering him for sponge baths or to use the bedpan. It took her a while to figure out that she needed to ask if he wanted or needed anything before she left the apartment to go somewhere. He was too stubbornly proud to bring it up, and she'd come home to him in pain or thirsty or needing to use the bed pan desperately. She toyed with the idea of asking him to tell her those things, because it sure would be a hell of a lot easier than having her guess, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be doing this for unselfish reasons, and resolved to remember to ask him.

He was recovering, but very slowly. He did seem to be doing better outside the medlab-he at least seemed to sleep better than before. Rogue struggled with the idea of where to sleep-part of her wanted to sleep in the bed with him, for lots of reasons. He'd sleep better, and she'd sleep better knowing she was close and would be alerted to any problem immediately. The bed was really the only place to sleep-it wasn't as though she'd thought about living in this apartment with another person who needed their own bed. But in the end, she decided that was a little to close, a little too seductive, a little too dangerous, so she made herself comfortable on the only other piece of furniture, a papasan chair. It really wasn't that bad to sleep in once you got used to it.

Rogue found that she actually enjoyed caring for him. It *was* payback, and that did feel good. He seemed to even appreciate it a sliver more than he resented needing it, and he often thanked her when she did little things for him. Tonight, she was preparing to do one of the things she enjoyed the best-feeding him. He was almost coordinated enough to do it himself, and she thought she might actually miss doing it when he was. It would be at least another week or so, though, and tonight she'd brought home some lo mein for them that promised to be delicious.

"We've got chicken lo mein tonight." She put the food and drink down and carefully grabbed him around the waist to drag him into a sitting position up against the headboard. She was developing some serious upper body strength as a result of this whole thing. "How's that?"

"Mmm-hmmm." He licked his lips afterward. When she first noticed him doing that, she thought it was because he was worried about lingering bits of food or liquid on his mouth. When she moved to wipe his mouth for him, he flinched back and explained, a little awkwardly, that he could taste her on the glasses and silverware that they shared. She didn't know what to say to that, so she just went on as if she hadn't known.

"The lo mein's good. Here." She gently delivered a forkful into his open mouth. She felt his hand smack into, then settle on top of, her leg. He liked to be touching her somewhere when she was doing things for him. She thought it probably made him feel better, made him feel connected to her, made what she was doing seem more like an intimate act of care than an act of charity. She didn't mind it. "What do you think?"

"The stuff from the other place was better." He tended to prefer Wu's while she preferred the China Star. She alternated between those two. "But this ain't bad." She ate some herself and scooped up more for him while she was chewing. "You know, Jeannie woulda never done this for me."

Every now and then he did that-said something like that out of the blue. In the beginning, she ignored it, but lately, she'd been responding. Might as well talk about things, she thought. "That's just because she was mad at you. She cares about you-still, probably."

"This ain't who I am to her. Hell, it ain't who I am, period. She - I dunno, she couldn't think that way or somethin'. At first, when they were cuttin' me open and movin' my skeleton around and I kept screamin' from the pain and goin' in and out, all I can remember is her lookin' disappointed. Like I let her down with this, gettin' hurt." He sounded like he felt pretty much the same way Jean did about that, and he turned a suspicious gaze to her. "Why ain't you like that? You're supposedta see me as your protector or somethin', aren'tcha?"

"I guess it's just a lot to ask, you know? It's a lotta shit to ask someone to put up with." More lo mein for him. She tried to feed him a lot-somewhere in the back of her mind, her momma's adage that you have to eat your way better had stuck with her.

"'Cause I knew you wouldn't run away from me this time. You wouldn't just leave me if you thought I needed ya. I know you. " Rogue suspended the fork in midair on its way to his mouth. "Maybe this way, we at least get some shit worked out."

"I don't think that's possible. I don't even know what that is-how could we-how could we know what we would've done?" She put the fork down, and the beer too. The conversation was holding all of her attention, and she really wanted to hear his answer.

"Maybe we don't know. Maybe that's wrong to want that. I just remember how you usedta look at me. I just remember how you usedta curl up to me when you were scared or just felt a little iffy and how much, how deep it made me settle inside. I remember how I could feel all this good stuff when I was around you-things I haven't felt since. I can remember all that, plain as day, and I want to have it back."

"But what about me, Logan? All that's-it's good for you, but what about me? Am I just supposed to trust you, to pretend that nothing ever happened because all of a sudden you decided you might want me? Because you miss holding on to your little girl? What if-what if I do it, and you aren't happy then? What if it happens just like it did with Jean-you get what you think you want and it turns out not to be enough? Have you ever thought that maybe you just want some things so much because you can't have them? That once you get them, they're just not desirable to you anymore?"

His grip on her leg tightened and his hazel eyes turned stormy. "You ain't-I dunno what you're supposedta do, Marie. I dunno. I sure as hell haven't expected you to do anythin' you have done so far. I never expected you to run, to not wanna even have me in your life at all anymore. Shocked the shit out of me to see you in Westchester for Thanksgiving. I didn't think you gave a shit about that holiday crap. I still think this-you takin' me to Vancouver with ya-I still think this is some damn dream I'm gonna wake up from, that's how surreal it is to me."

They fell silent for a few moments, and her gaze drifted to the painting of him she'd hung outside the bathroom. It was her favorite, done in blue and brown and green. She'd cried up a storm the whole time she'd been painting it. She thought of it as the Logan she wanted, the one she knew she'd never have, the one he couldn't be. He was reminding her of that painting now a little bit now, just a little bit, and it scared her.

"Marie, I did miss holding on to my little girl. I thought of you that way-mine and little. To be protected. Not to be fucked. Not to be used by me, to be looked out for by me. I still don't think about you like some..I don't think about you that way. But I realized somethin'. As stupid as I fuckin' am, I realized somethin'. I wanted what I knew, not what was good. I wanted someone I *could* think of that way, someone I could fuck until I exhausted her, someone I could use all up. And I could do that with Jeannie. I think I was hopin'-I was hopin' that just a little of the good stuff - all that shit I felt when you gave me the slightest touch or look, all that shit that scared me-I was hopin' that some of it, maybe just a little, would be there with Jeannie. Just enough. Just as much as I could cope with, which wasn't very fuckin' much. I thought-well, she gives some of that to Scooter, she'll give it to me and I can do what I know and still..I was selfish. I know that. And when it wasn't there, not at all, I got pissed. 'Cause I knew it never would be and I figured out that it was you that made it happen, just you. The only person in my whole fuckin' life that could give me anythin'."

"But when I went lookin' for ya the next day, you'd picked up and run. And when I finally fuckin' found ya-you told me you wanted me outta your life permanently. I figured I'd hurt ya, but I didn't see that comin'. I think..I just thought it was the same with you as it was with me-that whatever happened, there'd still be *somethin'* between us worth hangin' onto, that nothin' I could do would ever put me outta your life. I know that was a stupid thing to think. It ain't the same for you. You're-you got a strong sense of yourself, Marie. Real strong. You didn't like me fuckin' with it, and I don't blame you."

"Why did you keep coming after me, Logan? Why didn't you listen to me in Arizona and leave me alone?" She traced a hesitant finger along the painting's frame, letting herself get a little lost in the colors of the painting as he answered. The hazel really did match his eyes exactly, and the swirls mimicked his hair. She hadn't seen him in almost two years when she'd painted it. She'd resolved long ago never to sell it.

"I tried. I was pissed as hell at you for ditchin' me all of September. By October, I was calmin' down and tellin' myself I wasn't gonna chase you if you didn't wanna have anythin' to do with me. But by New Year's I'd be rememberin' how you'd given me that Christmas present and how beautiful snow looked in your hair. By Easter, I'd be tellin' myself I just needed to see ya one more time, that I wouldn't even try to talk to you 'cause you didn't want that. By May I was trackin' ya, by June, I'd usually found ya, and July-well Julys were always the worst 'cause I'd spend a month decidin' whether I wanted to chance hearin' you say some more bad shit to me and makin' things worse to have just a slim chance of tryin' to put somethin' back together with you. But by August, I always decided to go lookin' for ya."

She felt like she should turn away from the painting and back to him. But she couldn't pull herself away just yet. Not yet. "I can't fix everything for you. I don't know how. Your life won't get miraculously better or happier or easier if you just have me like you want. And I'm not-I'm not the same little girl who'd run to you when she felt like she needed you. I've worked hard not to need you and I don't want to change that."

She finally turned to face him. "I don't know." Wet eyes darted back and forth around the room as she shrugged. "I just don't know. I'm not saying that to be bitchy about it. I really" She wrapped both arms around herself, hugging tightly. "I guess I'm selfish too. I want you in my life, but I want you to be how I want, to be what I can deal with."

"No, no, not like that. You have to be-you have to be who you are. If you just try to please me all the time, it won't-it won't work. Just be who you are and let me see, OK? We've both changed, Logan. We've both changed a lot. Maybe we both need to just try it and see." Maybe that's really why I brought you here in the first place, she thought.

"It *was* love." That came out in a whisper, soft and almost frightened. "I never had it either, not really, but I knew what it was. I couldn't even-I could never even pretend it was anything else. That's why I took it so hard, Logan. That's why."

"I am. Now let's-let's eat, OK? I'm hungry." He fumbled his hand onto her leg, in the same spot as before, and she reached for the food. Just before raising the fork to his lips, she paused. "Thanks. Thanks for talking to me like that. I needed to know those things."

"It must've been hard for you, I know that. I just want you to know I appreciated it." He didn't answer in words, but she'd never seen quite that look in his eyes-serious and wanting and vulnerable. She wasn't quite ready to deal with all of that, so she lifted the fork and watched as he parted his lips for her. "Let's eat."

"Logan, Logan wake up. It's a nightmare." She had hoped he didn't have them anymore. He hadn't in the month he'd been with her so far. But she guessed that they came to him about as frequently as they came to her, so she should have known her luck wouldn't last. "Logan?"

She knew she should say something-tell him again that she was all right, that it was just a nick. But instead, she stroked the back of her free hand across his face. Moving very slowly, very delicately, she turned her hand over and ran slender, gloved fingers over his cheekbones and nose, over his forehead and chin. She wasn't aware of how much time she spent doing it - just that at some point, his breathing changed to fall in time with hers, just that he held her gaze the whole time with wondering hazel eyes, just that she wasn't afraid of him for the first time in a very long time.

She gracefully drew her hand away and leaned forward to kiss him-on the cheek, where he'd let his mutton chops grow back out. It felt safe. She knew he couldn't touch her, couldn't yet really move his hands around to hold her, couldn't do much of anything at all but let her kiss him. And she did, several times. When she pulled back to look at his reaction, it wasn't what she'd expected. She thought maybe he'd be feeling aroused or bittersweet or surprised. But all she could read from his expression was joy. Simple joy.

Later, she'd ask herself why she kissed him then, why he'd reacted in precisely that way, and why it'd made her so happy to see that look on his face. But at that moment, she simply rose off the bed, scooted him over to one side of it, and lay down beside him. Not touching, not holding him, but right beside him. They both fell asleep quickly, and he had no more nightmares that night.

"I kind of figured." She actually hadn't gotten him anything either. Their budget was tightly stretched to support two people, and, although she'd had a run of paintings sell in the past month or so, she knew it would die down a little after Christmas. She'd have to hold on to as much of the windfall that the holidays brought as she could. "I didn't get you one either, but I was thinking we might try something that would kind of be like a present."

"Yeah." She went to get it, then returned and handed it to him. It took a long time, but he was able to position it under his hips himself. She went off to the bathroom to run the water and look for some variety of bubble bath that wouldn't be completely obnoxious to him.

"Done?" He nodded and she retrieved the bed pan. He sat up a little, preparing to travel the few feet to the tub. "Good thing I've got a small apartment." He grunted in reply as he listened to her empty and rinse the bed pan in the bathroom. "All right then, ready?" He grunted again, and she grabbed him around the waist to raise him to a standing position. He wavered quite a bit, but was able to lean on her and give her some help in supporting his weight.

They slowly shuffled to the bathroom together. The water was still filling the tub when she lowered him in. She sat him up on the end of the tub opposite the faucet, and turned the water off. It was the perfect temperature for a grey, drizzly Vancouver morning-just on the tolerable side of too hot. Logan relaxed into the tub, letting the water soothe his body.

"Now, don't panic. I won't put this in unless you agree." She held up a foofy-looking bottle of bubble bath. "But it's vanilla and I thought you might like just a little." She put the bottle beneath his nose and he took a sniff and vehemently shook his head. She laughed at that. "I guess that's a 'no'. All right then, just soap."

She noticed as put on her 'bath gloves'-she was still amused that people made gloves for this purpose-and lathered the sandalwood soap between her hands, that he had an erection. It wasn't uncommon-he got them every time she'd sponge-bathed him and sometimes when she was just moving him around. He was usually embarrassed, and she usually just ignored it. But it made her think that he must be frustrated-no sex and not even masturbation. A thought passed through her mind, and she decided to act on it before thinking about it too much.

"Hey." She brought her free hand up to caress his face. "It's not a favor, it's-it's taking care of you. It's care, OK?" She moved a little faster, a little firmer, but still gently. "Don't-don't fight it, just let go. You need it, Logan, you do."

"Y-yes.more.." She knew he meant the kiss. She wasn't sure if she could give much more, though, and she settled for kissing his head again, then laying her cheek against it and drawing her body a little closer to his. "Oh.." It seemed to be enough for him too-he finally stopped trying to hold back and began moving his hips jerkily in concert with her movements.

"Yes, sugar, yes." She felt him stiffen and then come - warm spurting liquid dripping onto her sleeve, heated from his body enough to be felt through the material. "Yes.." She kissed his head one more time then drew back. He *had* needed it-that was written across every muscle and tendon of his body. She hoped it had been enough, that it had been OK.

"You needed it." That wasn't the whole story, and the look on his face told her that he knew it. "Look, Logan," she began softly, "I just wanted to. It-it occurred to me and I wanted to. I don't know-I don't have a plan or something. I just thought of it and did it."

He smiled at that, relieved, and flailed a hand out to touch her. That simple gesture brought home to her how much he was hurting, how desperate he was to have her, have *something* with her again, and not just that. It brought home how pure, how clean that desire was, how unlike what she'd feared it might be. It wasn't the frivolity of wanting what you couldn't have-it was the intensity of craving what you needed. That realization brought tears to her eyes. He caught them right away and the smile disappeared. "Wait - Marie?"

"It's OK. It's fine-just-" His expression shifted again-this time to a grimacing self-hatred that she recognized in her own mirror now and then. She had to say something to change that, to make that go away. "- just-I started thinking, you know? About us. About how I can see how much you miss us and how I miss us too."

"But you could. And I could hurt you." And for the first time, that was the thing she was most afraid of, the thing that made her heart seize. She could hurt him, and badly. He was dependent on her now, and not just physically. He was trusting himself to her, and taking what she gave. It scared her deep into her bones to think about that, to know that she could-and that part of her wanted to-hurt him every last bit as much as he'd hurt her.

Hank's optimistic side had been right-it took Logan about four months to recover reasonably well. By April, he wanted to begin fighting again. Rogue pointed out that, while he could walk around for short periods of time, and could generally take care of himself pretty well, he still tired easily and took a long time to heal. The cuts that his knuckles bore after a claw-inducing nightmare took almost a full day to heal completely. She finally convinced him that having to heal injuries from fighting would only delay his progress toward full health. And she played a little dirty again-she said how much she liked having him around all the time and how much better she thought they were doing.

He'd been very careful with her since Christmas. As soon as he was able, he offered to touch her, be with her too. For the first few days, she declined-she wasn't quite sure he was as healthy as he wanted her to think. But then, she thought that she was saying no because she was afraid. Him touching her was much more of a big deal, much more of a risk, than her touching him. He would be the one in control, and she would have to trust at least her body to him. She wasn't sure if she could do that.

The first time she tried, she proved herself right. She had to tell him to stop, she panicked. She knew it hurt him very badly, and tried to explain that it was all about her fears, not about how he was acting at all. He pointed out that he gave her those fears in the first place, and spent the next week stewing in self-contempt. Marie painted a lot during that week-the first one was a portrait of Logan sleeping. She consciously chose that subject, wanting to focus on a situation in which she felt safe with him, and safe from him.

The next painting was of herself-it was of when she was still seventeen and out in the world alone, a scene she remembered from one of those first few days in Arizona. She felt strong then, and proud of herself for doing what she'd had to do, for leaving the only stability she'd known to make her own life. As she painted it, Marie reflected that she'd more or less succeeded at that. This life was hers, warts and all. She'd made her own choices every bit as much as Logan had, and some of them had been better than his, some worse, but they were at least hers and not anyone else's. Logan looked at that painting for a long time but never asked any questions about it.

The third and last painting of the week was a painting of the two of them together. She'd deliberately never painted herself and Logan, only Logan and Jean. And she hadn't set out to paint either subject this time. This one wasn't supposed to be a portrait at all, it was supposed to be a still life of the apartment. But the still life subject she chose was her bed, and her mind kept tracing a path back to a night they both spent in it a few weeks ago.

That time, it had been her with the nightmare. She woke screaming and sick, as usual, and before she knew what she was doing, she'd instinctively turned to Logan for comfort. He took her in his arms and lay back, cradling her on his chest as she sobbed. Nothing about it felt wrong to her. Nothing about it caught her notice. There was no nervousness on her part, no trepidation. She just wanted to be held, and by him. It seemed natural.

It didn't worry her too much at the time. They had become closer, and more comfortable with one another, and even before he'd healed very well, she found herself letting him hold her and touch her. But there was some nagging piece of it that lodged in the back of her mind. It surfaced a few days later that what had stuck with her about that situation was a touch of neediness on her part. She didn't just want his comfort-she didn't quite need it either - but there was a voice inside her that said *only* Logan could make her feel this much better. She didn't like that. The life that was hers now wasn't compatible with it and even if she didn't want to hurt him, she couldn't give him that. She couldn't pick back up what she'd struggled so hard to free herself of.

But as she painted, as the picture of them lying in the bed together took shape-her on top of him, his arms and legs wrapped around her protectively, she calmed that small voice. Yes, maybe there was beginning to be a little need there. Yes, it was scary and it was antithetical to what she'd worked to achieve. But who said that life never changed? He'd changed, she could see it plainly enough not to doubt its reality, even after everything. Maybe it would be all right for her to change, just a little. Not to need him, but to admit the possibility that he was not only her first choice, but also her best choice.

When she was done painting, they both looked at the picture for a long time. Logan rose from the bed, one of the first times he'd walked on his own, and came to stand behind her. He put a hand on her back, rubbing it in small, gentle circles. She began to organize thoughts in her head, began to make a plan for how to explain to him all she'd been thinking about, but before she could speak, he did. "Don't sell this one," was all he said, but it told her he understood, at least a little.

She took him back to bed and they tried again. This time, she proved herself wrong. It was good and better than good. She let go of all of her nervousness, all of her concerns about them, the relationship, and life in general, and just lay back in his arms and let the pleasure he was giving her wash over everything. He held her close to him the whole time, as though he was afraid she'd up and bolt from their bed if he didn't. When she was close, she turned in his arms so that he could watch her face as she came. He never wavered from her gaze and as she called out his name the last time she thought she saw tears forming in those beautiful hazel eyes. She held him close to her the rest of the night as they slept.

"I'm not tired. I'm wearing tights underneath this skirt and we have condoms. I thought you might want to take me to bed a little early and make love to me." She hadn't meant to be so matter-of-fact about it, so she softened her tone and expression. "If you'd like to, I'd like to too."

"Life isn't that way, sugar. Not real life. Things happen when they happen." She slid out from behind the counter, dropping her long black skirt along the way, and settled herself in his lap. "Besides, I don't want to wait another four months, do you?"

"Then trust me. It won't-it won't make anything bad happen between us. I am a little scared, but I'm ready. I know that as soon as you lay me down, as soon as you start touching me, I won't be scared anymore. I know you'll take care of me, Logan."

"Because I love you." She'd never said it, never, not even in the throes of passion, not even when he'd practically begged her to say that or *something* about how she felt. He gasped a little, then fidgeted. He was scared too, she thought. "So take me to bed. Take me to bed so I can show you." He smiled and that look of joy was back on his face. It was a look she wanted to keep there, a look she wanted to savor.

The couple came into the gallery in August. There were always some tourists at the tail end of the summer. Most people didn't have the sense to stay out of the desert in August if there were sights to be seen and things to be bought. Oh well, Moonbeam thought, can't complain-a little stupidity is good for business.

The woman looked at several of the paintings, hovering over those that were of a higher caliber-not the usual tourist fare. Moonbeam was just about to credit the woman with some good artistic taste when she stopped, seemingly mortified, before the feature piece.

Well, if she didn't like that one, she didn't have taste at all, Moonbeam adjusted. This was her all-time favorite piece of Rogue's, and that was saying something. She'd become a favorite artist of the locals, and she would be a world-renowned artist by now if Moonbeam had had her way. The poor girl was simply shy, and with an artist's temperament to boot. Well, there's only so much you can do.

And there's absolutely nothing you can do to instill a little good judgement, she thought as she watched the red-headed woman gape at the painting. There were so many ways in which that was inappropriate. First of all-it was an exceptional piece. It had integrity, passion, and complete harmony of form and content. The lovers depicted-the long-haired brunette woman with her back against the wall and the feral man placing her legs around his hips-managed to convey not only passion but deep, profound love for one another. That was difficult to do, all the more in an abstract piece like this one. Second-the choice of color and proportion and focus was as good as any she'd ever seen. And third-one simply does not gape. It's just not done in polite company.

The man, her companion, displayed his ignorance equally well. He never took off his glasses the entire time. I mean really, Moonbeam mentally chastised him as he stood stock still before the feature piece, you're not convincing anyone you're cool by doing that, and moreover, you can't properly see the artwork.

"The artist wishes to remain anonymous." That was Rogue's standard line, and one Moonbeam always honored. It was probably why Rogue chose to display her works at the relatively small La Fuente rather than any of the dozens of others clamoring for her pieces.

"Well, this is an extraordinary piece by a much-sought-after artist, and it is one of the artist's best works, the best I've seen." The man just stared at her. "It is marked at twenty thousand dollars. And at that price, I assure you, it is a steal."

"Thank you," the man offered politely before following his companion. For a moment, she thought she caught an emotion on his sunglass-shielded face. Something much like regret. But it was gone in a moment, and so were the tourist couple. Moonbeam thought about them, and Rogue's picture, for a long time after they'd left.