They've been gone for years now. Logan had to find out who he was and she made sure he took her too.
She regrets it now.
It was called the Weapon X program and a lot of evil men played their part in making Logan into Wolverine. It seemed he was a lot older than they had originally thought but besides vague recollections and sheet upon sheet of blackened documents , his life would forever remain a mystery. She found the man who had so softened while they were in New York became colder and harder than he had ever been.
He killed anyone who was even remotely associated with the project. She even felt bad for that poor bastard Stryker. The things Logan had did to him had made her sick to her stomach. She even threw up a few times as the hours of torture stretched into days.
She had wandered off in disgust when she found his son. A drooling invalid who begged to die through heavy lidded eyes. She knew it was a mercy killing but as she smothered him and cried to a God she no longer felt was there A piece of her died as well. She didn't mind hearing Stryker's screams after what she had seen what he had did to his son.
Through the research notes and technology they had found in a few different labs they had come across she got her powers under control. Logan has even taught her to fight and defend herself. Sometimes her body felt like one big bruise and she would ache for days on end. She remembers the time Logan had gone off and Sabertooth had found the cabin. She had barely made it out alive but that bastard didn't get up after she split his head with that ax. After the adrenaline slowed she had cried and wondered whatever happened to that doe eyed girl she once was.
He was there for her in his own way. He nursed her back to health and looked out for her like a hawk. He would buy her gifts and even every once and while would compliment her with a begrudging grunt right when he had his back turned.
But she saw it in his eyes when he ignored the burning in her own. She was the little girl who never grew up. Her body yearned for a man that would never see her as anything but a surrogate daughter or little sister.
She never felt more alone than at night in the cabin with him. She would cry herself to sleep as she listened to his dreams and another woman's name broke the silence of the night.
The open wound she hides
She just keeps it bundled up
And never lets it show
She can't take much more of this
But she can't let it go
And that's ok, she don't want the world
All the things she says
While he's just lying there
Without someone to hear her cry
She slips off into a dream
About a place to hide
And that's ok, she don't want the world
Ororo tells him every day that he just sees the world in black and white . She always laughs when he corrects her that it's actually deep crimson and pink to him actually. But it's that same unwavering sureness that makes him see the writing on the wall no matter how much his heart screams for it not to be.
He tries so hard to prove his love now. He showers her with gifts, takes her on trips and writes and recites poetry to her on mid-day picnics. But he knows she is lost to him when he kisses her and it tastes like ash of a love burned out in her heart a long time ago.
They still make love but it seems to showcase the growing void . She responds to his touch and is vocal of it's rewards but he knows another man's name dies in the back of her throat. He tries to get out more and goes to the bars with Ororo, Hank and their new friend Kurt. But even as he becomes more social she withdraws more until it's always one excuse or another abut why she is just going to stay in and read.
It's strange how they have switched places. Who knew that the starchiest teacher in the school could become it's most beloved. He sits on his desk in jeans now reading them Keats and Browning without realizing he has become the cool teacher. He looks up one day to see Charles looking at him with such beaming fatherly pride that he dismisses the class with a lump in his throat. As he grades papers later in the day he has an epiphany. He started this change in himself for her but it had since evolved. It was about him finding himself apart for her and changing into the person that he wanted to be.
It all came to a head at a celebration dinner of all things. Charles was getting older and wanted him to take over as headmaster. He was overjoyed and was gushing to Jean over their pasta and wine. Talking about all the changes he was going to make, about the life they were going to have together, about the wedding and the children and the memories; and then he looked into her face and realized that he was channeling a time long past. There would be no wedding or pitter patter of little feet or happily ever afters for them. He looked at her and opened his mind and pushed a thought towards her that was both a regret and a relief.
I Forgive You …. Now Go.
And with that she silently left the restaurant without a word.
He drove around for hours as he cried and laughed and tried to make sense of his own messed up head. He didn't know what to do with himself or even what to think until he came back to the mansion to find she had already packed and left. No goodbye or tearful pleading on his part. No one last chivalrous act to make her stay or promises that it would be better.
He sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled as if he had been holding his breath in for months and he felt the weight of the world slowly lift off his shoulders
This love she feels
Everything she's ever known
Or ever thought was real
Seems like it's been thrown away
Now how's she gonna live
It's ok, she don't want the world
Those words he never spoke
Haunt her life, the memories
Of all the times before
She tried to show him love
While he would only ask for more
But it's ok, she don't want the world
She's reading her book and he's smoking a cigar when a knock at the cabin door breaks the silence. She doesn't even look up from her book as he opens the door to see who it is. She thinks it's probably one of his poker buddies until she hears a soft feminine hi and he stops breathing.
She looks up to see them locked in a passionate embrace and she feels like the ugliest little duckling of them all. She is all but forgotten and she can't sleep the rest of the night due to the creaking bed springs. Muffled moans and the bile that sits in her throat.
She is sitting on the porch when he comes out to collect the wood to cook breakfast and tells him she is leaving . He sees the duffel bag beside her and the look in her eye. He nods and she sees the pain flash briefly in his eyes. They've been together long enough for him to know that she will never darken his door again.
She takes the truck because she so used to it now. She drives for days without stopping or eating. The windows down the whole time so she can feel the winter air cut into her skin. She knocks at the door and wonders if she looks as terrible as she feels. She rings the doorbell and as he answers she sees the tiredness in Charles' eyes turn to happiness and hers do the same. He doesn't say a thing just motions her to come in and shows her to her room. Her heart swells when she realizes after all these years, he hadn't touched a thing. She collapses on the bed and for the first time in a long while drifts into a contented sleep.
She wakes up in the morning to a knock at her door. Breakfast is ready and she makes her way down to the dining room. She feels like she's that doe eyed young girl again when everyone treats her like she never left. After breakfast Charles pulls her into his study and brings her up to date on all the goings on. He asks her of her plans and helps her figure them out when she says she doesn't have any. He asks her of the years she has been gone. She can't vocalize at all so she opens her mind and shows him. He kisses her cheek and holds her in a crushing hug as they both cry together.
Charles asks Scott to make her the tactics teacher and drill instructor. He complies only after she promises never to tell about how badly he was beaten on her tryout. She settles into a routine and starts to feel alive again. The teachers go out for dinner once a week and sometimes when they feel like it the bar. They laugh and talk over beers and she even helps a nervous Hank finally work up the courage to ask Ororo for a dance. She is a master at designing simulation and challenging her students who all groan but secretly adore their teacher with all her energy and oomph . She dates a cocky Cajun named Gambit eventually but that ends when she breaks his nose in two places and his arm in three when she catches him with some Emma chick.
She loves it when summers finally shows it face for the first time since she came back. She marvels at the freedom of tank tops and capri pants after what felt like a lifetime of full body unitards and gloves. She takes every lunch outside on the lawn feeling the sun warm her skin. It's a Friday today so she has no classes in the afternoon so she doesn't fight when her eyes become heavy and she is overtaken by sleep.
She wakes sometime later to a strong voice uttering soft words. It takes her a minute to realize Scott must have took his final class outside for the day . She stretches knowing she is quietly hidden and listens to his words. She recognizes the book he is reading from and listens intently. She drinks in each word and is filled with something that overwhelms her heart. She quietly rushes to the library and find the same book and retreats to her room. She's reading the same passages over and over again but she grows angry that it doesn't inspire the same spark, that same fire.
It's well into the evening before she realizes that it is the reader more than the words that instilled the feeling.
She quickly makes her way down the hall and knocks on his door. She comes in after her tells her and thrusts the book into his confused face and simply but sternly says read.
Softly in her sleep
Pictures of the life she's longing
For slowly appear
She's seen them all before
But somehow never quite this clear
She just smiles, she don't want the world
This love she feels
Everything she's ever known
Or ever thought was real
Seems like it's been thrown away
Now how's she gonna live
It's ok, she don't want the world
A brand new morning shines
As she wakes up alone again
This time to face the day
She swears there's time to make it
As she simply walks away
And it's ok, she don't want the world
He reads the first few poems confusedly trying to understand. He was simply doing his evening marking when Rogue burst into his room with such an odd request. But she seems quite an intent listener and it is his favorite book so eventually he relaxes in his recitation. It's only when he looks up, between one of the poems and the next, that he sees her gaze. His mouth quickly goes dry as he sees how close she has gotten and stumbles over the verse until she reaches for the book and throws it away and crashes her mouth into his . He is nervous and uncoordinated until her bare fingers entwine roughly with his head and the pull gives him his bearings as he intensifies the kiss. They devour each other hungrily and he doesn't even care if he ever breaths again but as he lifts her in his arms her legs lock around his waist and her mouth moves to his ear which is assaulting with gasping breath and lust filled words . He decides he never liked that shirt anyway as he hears her tearing it and he dives with her atop the bed.
He watches her sleep with a smile on her face and he gets one on his . He's amazed at her, everything about her . Her passion and fire equal to none and for the first time in years he feels bathed in light, her light. Chased away is the specter of loves passed and lost, of loves never returned. They could see the fear and hurt in each others eyes and washed it all away with confessions of dedication and locked fingers . Three words whispered at the peak of their pleasure said with nothing but truth and need and hope.
In her sleep, she clung to him like she would never let him go and he stroked her ribbon of snow white hair and decided he would stay forever if she let him.