A/N: So, this is part of a series I actually started in 2009, writing a happy family Christmas for the characters in various fandoms. My X-Men muse always seems to get active around Christmas and I've never quite figured out why! lol Meh, hopefully someone will read it and think it's cool anyway :)

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Marvel, Fox, Stan Lee, and other folks that aren't me.

A Mutant Family Christmas

Marie was never the religious type but she always loved Christmas as a child. The family all together, warmth and fun, thoughtful gifts and all the best food. When she grew up and learned that she was a mutant, that she had a gift and a curse all wrapped up into one, she stopped expecting nice things, including happy Christmases. She figured she was done with family altogether, any kind of traditional family set-up anyway. The folks at the Xavier School were great, but the woman who usually went by Rogue these days was greedy enough to want more, even when she was sure she couldn't have it. Turned out, she was wrong.

"You wanna bring that box over here, darlin'?"

"Yes, Momma," he replied, smiling as he brought her the rest of the ornaments for the tree.

"That's my good boy," she told him, fussing his hair when he reached her side. "Now, you think we should go for some kind of order or do we just throw 'em all on and see how it looks?"

"I vote for throw them on and have done with it," said a voice from the door, trying for grumpy but not doing a great job of it somehow, not today.

"Papa!"

The forced bad mood disappeared altogether as Logan caught his son when he ran at him full force and smiled at the little boy who was eager to hug him 'hello'. If Marie had never considered she could be part of a family again once her true nature was revealed, she knew damn well she wasn't the only one. Logan had lived enough years to fill three life times and pretty much always been alone. He swore up and down that he could never be a husband or a father, not the man they called The Wolverine. Anybody who saw him with his kids would never believe he used to act like such an animal.

"Isn't it too late for little monsters to be running around?" he asked with a smirk, dangling Chase upside down and making him laugh.

"We were just tryin' to get the tree done," said Rogue. "It's been a tough day all around, I was hoping to cheer up Annabeth but that didn't go so well," she added, rolling her eyes.

"I'll talk to her," Logan assured her. "Meantime, how about you help your Ma with that tree already, Chase. It's not going to decorate itself," he said, putting the kid back on his feet and giving him a gentle shove towards Rogue.

"Pretty sure she's in her room," she said of Annabeth. "At least, I hope she's still there."

Logan nodded, blew her a kiss from the doorway and then went in search of his daughter. He wasn't sure what the problem would be this time, but she did seem to have a hundred of them. Not that it ever bothered him or Rogue, they wouldn't have adopted her if they didn't care or didn't want to deal with her.

"Hey, kid?" he called, tapping on her bedroom door.

"It's open," she told him.

Logan let himself in, finding Annabeth sitting in the window, staring out. She didn't exactly seem eager to talk. The two of them had that in common, but that was actually a good thing. It meant they understood each other's need to hide away sometimes, even if they had both learned to share a little these days.

"You're missin' all the fun," said Logan, perching on the desk chair a few feet from Annabeth. "Your brother'll have all the ornaments on the tree before you even get a chance to look."

"He's really into the whole Christmas thing," she said, eyes fixed out of the window on the night sky still. "I guess he would be though. It's the first one he's really old enough to have a clue. Did you like Christmas when you were a kid?" she asked, turning to look at him then.

"Not much of my childhood I like to remember," he told her, looking down at his hands. "But yeah, I guess Christmas was a good time, when I was Chase's age at least."

When she looked back to the window, Logan knew he had said the wrong thing, but that was par for the course with Annabeth. It never seemed to make much difference. If she wasn't used to him by now, she never would be.

"Look, kid," he said, getting up to move closer, sitting on the other end of the window seat so he could see her better. "You know it doesn't matter where you come from so much as where you're going. Me and your Ma, we both had messed up lives, one way or the other. Chase got lucky, sure, he's got the best of us, but you have too. If I could go back in time... again," he said with a smirk, "I'd fix that messed up childhood of yours, but I can't."

"That's not your fault," she said, smiling some as she glanced at him. "And I get the whole bit about getting over the past, looking to the future. Never mind the crap that happened before, because look at what you've got now," she said, words she learnt verbatim from family and friends who only wanted to help her but sounded too much like therapists and self-help books to really be of use. "I don't know, I guess I just wish you guys found me sooner is all. Pretty dumb, huh?"

"Not sure we'd've been much use to you any sooner." Logan shook his head. "Your Ma maybe, she got her head straightened out way faster than me. She got it on the first try. Got control of her powers, even got control of me, somehow. More than a hundred years and I still needed her help before I could figure out what the hell I was doin'."

Annabeth laughed, maybe at the way he said it or the smirk he wore. It didn't matter much which one it was. Honestly, he was just glad to see her smile.

"You think there are any ornaments left?" she asked then.

"If there's not, we'll buy some more." Logan rolled his eyes, getting up and heading for the door without another word, already knowing she would follow.

Downstairs, Rogue lifted Chase up towards the top of the tree, encouraging him to put the star on quick, because her arms were beginning to ache. With his tongue poking out the side of his mouth from the concertation of setting it straight, Chase finally achieved his goal and Rogue happily set him back on the ground.

"Now you show up," she said, rolling her eyes at Logan but smiling anyway. "You're the one with all the super strength, why am I doing the heavy lifting?"

"I'll make it up to you later," her husband promised, an arm around her waist pulling her close as he planted a quick kiss on her lips.

"I did not come down here to see that," said Annabeth, faking a shudder at any parental affection, as any good thirteen-year-old should. "You got any ornaments left for me, munchkin?" she asked Chase then.

"We got lots!" he declared, rushing at her with an armful of pretty coloured balls, candy canes, and such.

Of course, he was about to drop them all before he ever reached his sister, but Annabeth was okay with that. Her parents didn't worry either, not with their daughter around. The second Chase's load started to slip through his grasp, Annabeth threw out her hand, catching everything in mid-air and floating every piece over towards the tree. Chase rushed over there too, watching with fascination as each ornament pushed itself onto a branch, all at a flick of Annabeth's wrist.

"That's one fancy Christmas tree," said Logan, smiling in spite of himself. "And now it's done, you kids can get yourself to bed, give me and your Ma some alone time."

"Logan," Rogue admonished him. "You just got Annabeth down here."

"It's cool, Mom," her daughter promised, walking over to kiss both her parents goodnight. "Thanks for making me be a part of this," she said to Logan. "I'll try harder with the other traditions, I promise."

"Whatever makes you happy, kid," he told her, ruffling her hair.

"Seriously?" she complained, trying to straighten out the mess he had made before she turned around to catch a hold of her brother as he ran by. "Come on, munchkin. I'm gonna tuck you in tonight. The parentals look like they're getting nostalgic," she said with a look as she carried Chase towards the stairs.

"Goodnight, you two," Rogue called to them. "Thanks for your help."

She sighed and looked up at her husband then.

"I'm glad she came down, even for a little bit. I want her to have everything, Logan. I want both of them to have happy lives, just as much as they can, especially while they're so young. There's so much bad in the world and who knows what's coming around the corner?"

"Hey, stop worrying so much," Logan advised, pulling her close in his arms. "I'm pretty sure all the bad we're supposed to have has already happened. Some of it twice over," he recalled, shuddering yet.

"You have so much to deal with," she said, hand creeping up to his temple as she spoke of all the memories he carried, many from another timeline that no longer existed, that nobody in the world knew about but him. "I'm glad you at least shared some of it with me."

"Didn't exactly have a choice since you can see inside my head half the time," he noted, smirking. "I'd probably have told you anyway."

"And why's that?" she asked, smiling back at him, knowing exactly what she was goading him into.

Most men were kind of allergic to the L word, but Logan was just the worst at saying what he felt. It was one of Rogue's greatest sources of fun to try and trick him into saying he loved her whenever she could, and most of the time, he fell for it pretty easy.

"Why'd you think, sweetheart?" he asked, running his hand through her hair, fingers lingering on the silver stripe that he knew so well.

"Can't know unless you tell me," she teased him, leaning back when she realised he aimed to kiss her.

He was a little too good at distraction that way, but she wanted her confession first.

"You know you might just be as annoying now as when I first picked you up on the side of the road all those years ago," he told her with mock-aggravation.

"Logan," she said, taking his face in her hands.

His eyes closed at her touch, as they often did, letting him savour the moment. He had waited too long in the beginning for her to dare to trust herself enough to touch and be touched. It still gave him a thrill when she made a point of it like that.

"I know there's a week to go yet," she said, with a smile he could hear even before he opened his eyes, "but can't you grant a woman her Christmas wish?" she said, gazing up at him.

Logan sighed.

"I love you, Marie," he told her at last. "You and those two crazy kids upstairs. If you don't know it by now-"

"I know it," she assured him. "It's just nice to hear once in a while," she said, leaning up to place a soft, sweet kiss on his lips. "Now, if you had any Christmas wishes you might want me to make come true, I do believe there might be some mistletoe in one of these boxes."

She turned away to retrieve it, but Logan spun her back into his arms in a second, holding her tight.

"Who needs mistletoe?" he all but growled, capturing her lips in a searing kiss.

It was going to be a wonderful Christmas this year, Marie just knew it.

The End