A one-shot. Logan's POV, fits between 6.02 and 6.03. As per usual, I don't own anything. Reviews? I'd love them! Positive, negative, it doesn't matter. Just tell me what you think.

Thanks to my beta, Emma.

His Mecca

You have always considered Amsterdam your spiritual home… your Mecca. It is a place that allows you to fulfill your desire, to loose yourself. To forget for a moment the plans others have for you. Close enough to everything, yet far enough away to be outside their immediate reach. Ever since your first visit before junior year of high school, you have eagerly awaited each return visit. By day, it is a city of intellectualism, history, and culture. It challenges you and enlightens you, and although you may not show it often, you thirst for knowledge too. By night, it is a city of freedom and of a wild energy. It reminds you that you are alive, and that opportunities to explore are abundant.

But this time… this time, the open arms of Mecca haven't been as satisfying. There is coldness. Something lacking. You try to tell yourself that it's not just that she isn't here with you. Because she hasn't been with you all summer. And you haven't turned into a sap, no matter what Colin and Finn accuse you of.

But by day you remember that she said she enjoyed Amsterdam the most. That she and her mother had enjoyed their coffee at a particular little nook on a street you passed this morning when you were leaving the hotel. You have to push away those intruding thoughts that suggest you should both come here together some time soon. Because thinking about her here reminds you of her enthusiasm for all types of knowledge, and her ability to recite factoids until she is pink in the face. She looks so stunning when she is flushed with the excitement of learning something new and passing that knowledge on to others. It reminds you of her when she was showing that girl from her high school around Yale – when all you wanted to do was kiss that irritated look off her face. And without her enthusiasm, without her yen for knowledge this place seems hollow, and it is somehow less fulfilling to tour the old streets of this city. Your Mecca.

As the afternoon light fades you see a brown haired woman leaning over a pile of books at a courtyard vendors' sale and for a moment you think it is her. But it isn't. Your girl is still back home, working away at her community service (and you wonder when Hartford became home again). The urge is strong to be close to her again, and even though you know it isn't her, you still have to hold yourself back from walking up behind this strange girl and trailing your hand down her side. Because you have learned in your short time together that she loves to be touched there. When you lay in bed in the morning, a brief caress on the upper curve of her waist wakes her up in the most delicious way. The memory of her as she wakes in your arms ready to welcome you causes you to close your eyes tightly in an attempt to rid the image from your mind. It has been so long since you have been with her. With anyone really, because you made a commitment to be faithful, even though few believed you capable. And so it is that not even here can you be tempted to seek temporary relief. The bodies of your old spiritual home seem like poor substitutes for hers, and not worth the price.

The boys take you out most nights, and this night is no different. They have accepted by now that you won't be taking anyone back to your room after, but it still causes them to look at you strangely when they think you aren't paying attention. So you sit in the booth, sipping your scotch and amusing yourself by watching Colin and Katrinka. You're not sure how that one is going to play out, really. With a deep gulp you finish the glass. A hand brushes across the top of your shoulders. You turn to see who has approached you and sigh, seeing just another blonde. Just another nameless face, no longer causing any attraction from you. Not when you make the inevitable comparison to her. Because you can't help thinking that she would have approached you differently. You can't help the warmth that rises in your body when you think about how she would walk up to you and place her hand softly on your hipbone, rubbing light circles so that her thumb slips under your waistband, caressing your skin. Those little fingers of hers both soothe you and excite you. And you send the nameless blonde a scowl, telling her wordlessly that you aren't interested. The girl has the wrong hair, eyes, face. She has the wrong name. Above all, it isn't her touch that you crave, but someone else's. The blonde is here, and the one that you desire is elsewhere.

Finn hands you the pill before moving on to the dance floor with the girl of the night, and after a cursory glance, you slip it into your front pocket. You think it rather ironic that it is imprinted with a heart on one side. It would be foolish to take it now. Because the rhythm and pulse that your body would crave exists only in her, when she is lying beneath you, beside you, or around you. As the chemical dissipated through your body, the tastes and textures that you would desire are all mapped on her body: her skin, her hair, and her essence. Her voice, when you are appreciating her like that – it needs no augmentation. It is already so powerful a stimulus, and if it touched you any deeper, you would finish before you could start. And later, you drop that little pill into sink drain of the men's room, because all it will do is make you desire that which you cannot have here in your former paradise.

There is no satisfaction for you here.

So you leave. You slowly walk back through the now quiet streets and into the hotel hosting you for this, the last leg of your summer adventures. And as soon as you open the door to your suite there is only one thing calling you, and it isn't the bed.

It is a number you know by heart. A number that you memorized with surprising ease, considering how you have always relied on your phone directory in the past.

The other side picks up after only a few rings.

"Logan?" a sleepy voice questions.

"Hey Ace," you whisper, a deep breath leaving you. Relief. Finally.

"What's up?" she asks in that soft husky sleep voice you miss so much.

You sigh in relief. This is what you needed. Perhaps it is time to concede that these days your spiritual home is elsewhere. That just maybe… she is your Mecca.

"I missed you."