Introspective

by Suzy

Summary: Bobby can't sleep. X2 spoilers.
Rating: G.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Don't sue me 'cos I am poor and without a decent job!

Sometimes Bobby can't sleep at night. He tosses and turns, closes his eyes, kicks the blankets off, drags them back and counts sheep until the early hours of the morning. It used to be because of Rogue, his sort of girlfriend. He's a relatively normal guy. Well aside from the whole frosty the snowman thing. He has normal feelings and Rogue drives him crazy. When she sits so close to him just shy of touching. When her mouth is so near to his own. When she speaks his name softly in his ear in her slow southern drawl.

But how can someone be your girlfriend when you've never even kissed, can never kiss? When she can't even touch you except through the safety of layers of clothing. Sometimes he thinks that it would be a wonderful way to go. Thinks that he would gladly give up everything to be part of her. But then it would be over and he would be too. So he imagines touching her and looks forward everyday to their almost kisses and to holding her gloved hand and her resting her head tentatively on his shoulder. It doesn't bother him. It doesn't bother him at all.

Lately he's taken to sitting in the kitchen at 3am, slowly working his way through a carton of ice cream, preferably Cookies and Cream. It's good stuff too, none of that cheap generic crap. He briefly thinks how girly it is to be sitting here drowning his sorrows with ice cream and then decides that he doesn't care. If anyone has anything to say about it they'll soon discover the discomfort of having certain items of clothing frozen onto delicate body parts.

This thought makes him smile, remembering when John ate the entire stash of Twinkies he kept in the back of the kitchen cupboard behind the dusty cans of spinach and creamed corn and that had sat there for months because, let's face it, that stuff was just gross. John had thought it was really funny until Bobby had somehow managed to freeze his clothes, which had broken off the second he had moved. He hadn't found running upstairs to his room naked very funny. Especially as the then occupied games room was on the way. Kitty and Jubilee never let him forget about it. Too bad they didn't have a camera.

Bobby stares at his spoon. But John is gone now. He made his choice. And it wasn't them. He didn't choose the school, he didn't choose the X-Men, he didn't choose his friends, and he didn't choose Bobby. Bobby wonders sometimes if there was something more he could have done. John was, had been, his roommate. Was there something wrong with them, with him, that had made John so willingly go to Magneto. Magneto of all people. The man who had tried to kill Rogue and with her most of the people in New York. Who had had no hesitation in using Professor Xavier's mind to murder all the humans on the planet. And John had jumped at the chance to go with him than stay with them.

A noise at the door. Bobby looks up as Logan stalks into the kitchen and silently goes about getting himself a Coke from the fridge. A much better place to keep them than the cupboard in Bobby's opinion. He remembered how Logan had looked at Dr Grey in the foyer the day he had returned. How he had mentioned it on that night and got nothing but a death glare, a silent 'none of your business kid'. But Dr Grey was gone now, sacrificing herself for her friends, her family. Logan takes a seat across from Bobby at the counter and twists the top off the bottle and they sit in silence. But it is not uncomfortable.

Bobby still feels intimidated by Logan especially after that night. He had never seen anything so terrifying as Logan had raged against the men who had dared invade the school, his territory. He had plunged his claws into the chest of the man who had almost shot Bobby leaving deep dents in the door of the fridge after the soldier had slid lifeless to the floor. But his voice was calm when he asked if Bobby was all right. He had taken Bobby's arm firmly but gently as they moved through the dark corridors of the school, pressing him back when more men had appeared. He had leapt to the rescue after Rogue, John and Bobby had been confronted by the soldiers.

Things had been different after that night and Bobby isn't sure if it's a good thing or not. Things were happening quickly now. Things he didn't really understand. Stryker was dead and his laboratory where countless mutants had been experimented on and tortured was destroyed and that couldn't be anything but good. But people both mutant and human were more afraid than ever after what the Professor had done, everyone had suffered and lost and people had died. People he knew.

Logan places the bottle on the table and observes the boy sitting across from him. Bobby looks up and meets Logan's eyes. Logan never seems to show any emotion aside from anger or irritation and occasionally, when he thinks noone's watching, paternal pride when he looks at Rogue. But now he looks sad too.

"I know" says Logan. But that's all he says. Because he's never been good with words, but sometimes you don't need them.