Simple Dreams

1) Do I Wanna Know

It wasn't a conversation he expected to hear. Wasn't one he was particularly ready to hear but that was no one's fault but his own. He'd been around for a while and it hadn't escaped his notice that things were different. Sure the professor was back, after a fashion, but others were gone and some things had changed until they only bore the faintest resemblance to the way they were before.

Before.

Before the Cure. Before Alcatraz. Before he'd lost another piece of his humanity to blood and power.

"Don't you dare tell me to get over it!" Marie's voice was furious, contained and quiet but furious. He hoped like hell that the little ice dick wasn't the one she was arguing with. Anyone who fought with that kind of passion felt so deeply that he was envious of the recipient.

It wasn't Drake. She was fighting with Jubilee. The little mall rat herself. "Well I'm sorry if I don't get it. It's not that big of a deal. And it isn't like you aren't used to it."

"Used to it?" The Rogue was coming out. Like molten steel, that voice burned away at his nerves. "Not a big deal?" Whatever it was, it was a big deal to Marie and then he knew exactly what they were arguing about. And girl or no girl he wanted to smack Jubilation Lee a good one for what she'd said. Because it was a huge deal.

"You act like no one has ever been in the same boat." Jubilee clearly didn't get it. "It's just sex. Wear a nightgown, use a condom and just fuck someone already."

"Fuck you Jubilee." Now her voice was raw with pain. "It isn't just sex. It's touch. It's cuddling with someone in bed and knowing I won't kill him by accident. Or necking on the couch in front of the TV. Someone pressing a kiss to the nape of my neck while I'm cooking because it's the only part of me not covered with flour and he can't stand to not kiss me somehow. It's everything you just ignore or take for granted because you've always had it."

"Oh woe is me," Jubilee was turning bitchy now. "Poor Rogue, her boyfriend cheated after she betrayed everything she was and cared about so she could touch him."

"I didn't do it for Bobby. I wouldn't do it for some boy who was afraid to kiss me even for a half a second." Now Rogue turned cold and cutting. "You don't know why I did it. Nobody does. Because nobody ever cared enough about me to ask. Logan at least said to make sure I was doing it for myself. And he hasn't seemed to hold my choice against me."

"Logan wants into your pants so bad he'd wear a full body condom if it meant touching you." Now the other girl had a sneer in her voice and it was all he could do to not growl in fury at her words. Sure he wanted Marie. But he wasn't after a quick fuck, not with Marie. She was a good girl. The kind of girl you kept and he had no business bein' near until he was able to sack up and be what she needed.

"And yet he hasn't made a move has he?" Rogue snapped back. "You don't know him Jubilee and I doubt you ever will. Because you don't even know me and you keep saying you're my friend."

"Then why?" Jubilee screamed the words. "Why would you turn your back on all of us and go try to be normal? Why would you give up being special? What's such a big deal that you couldn't just work harder and figure out your skin? Why take shortcuts?"

"I wasn't raised to be a lawyer or a doctor or anything extraordinary," Marie's voice was quiet and all the more pained in its softness. "I mighta been a teacher, or worked at the bank or somethin'. There's nothing amazin' about Marie D'Ancanto. And that was all right. Because all I ever wanted was to someday have a home of my own, and a family. I wanted a husband and a coupla kids. Babies I could carry under my heart and bring into the world with blood and sweat. Children I could kiss on the forehead to check for fever and hold their hands to help them walk."

Her voice broke and she took a breath that rattled her lungs as if she held back tears in her throat. "It wasn't a big dream, not like being a movie star or an artist or even a doctor. But it was my dream. It was the life I was raised to have and I know I woulda been a good momma. I woulda been content, maybe even happy." Her voice hardened, "That's why I took the cure. So that I could have children. And you have no right to stand there and tell me that your beliefs about my mutation trump my dreams."

"If that's all you want then why don't you…get inseminated or something? Have a baby?" Jubilee was trying to offer a solution when she couldn't even understand the entire problem and Logan felt like throttling her.

"Before she died, Jean couldn't even figure out if I could carry a baby," Rogue confessed. "We don't know if my mutation will kill any fetus like my skin can kill with a touch. And even if I did conceive and managed to carry to term… I wouldn't ever be able to touch my baby. I wouldn't be able to nurse her, or kiss him or…hold them that first time on my skin all bloody and messy from birth."

"There are plenty of—"

"Don't tell me there are plenty of guys, or babies that need adoption." Rogue sounded tired now. "You don't understand and right now I don't think you ever will. I'd be a worse danger to a child than I am to the rest of you because a baby wouldn't understand why its momma can't touch. It'd be hurtful and mean to try to adopt a baby when I couldn't care for it the way a momma should. And until you're able to stop judgin' my choices and try to understand them you're not allowed to try and talk to me about them. I've had enough."

"I just…" Jubilee's words faded off as Logan heard footsteps on the carpet.

Marie appeared in the doorway and he looked at her. "You heard." She said quietly.

"Every bit from 'Don't you dare tell me to get over it'." He returned wryly. "C'mon darlin'." He took her by the hand and pulled her out of the mansion.


The woods were always a good place to walk and think and when he'd found one of the nicer spots he sat down on a log and patted the space next to him. "So how embarrassed are you?" He asked finally. She hadn't said a word since he'd taken her hand.

"Surprisingly, not very." She shook her head. Her pretty mouth curved slightly. "I'm kinda at the point where I feel like I don't have much left to lose."

"Yeah?" He grinned. "I know that feeling pretty well myself." His arm slid around her shoulders and pulled her body closer to his. "For the record Marie, I think we could manage without the full body condom."

"You really oughta tell Jubilee that, it would serve her right." Marie was grinning, he could hear it in her voice. "Don't think I'd want you to suit up like that anyway sugar. Doesn't seem like you."

"Her idea of a nightgown and a condom has merit though." He drew back a little so he could see her face. "Though I think a silk sheet would be better. Plus it takes a bit for your mutation to kick in. I could have a lot of fun with that."

"Don't do me any favors Logan." Her voice was dry. "I know you like your woman hot and wild and sex the same way. A virgin who dreams of bein' a housewife isn't exactly your type."

"I like fighting in bars and women come easy there if I need sex. But that wasn't how I was raised." He pressed his nose to the top of her head and inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. "Weren't a lotta women lawyers or doctors back then. Women were strong, had spines like steel, but on the frontier, they had to be in the home or in the fields. Lotta times women'd do the plowin' or plantin' while the men hunted for meat. Had to get a lot in order to make it through a winter. Marriage was a partnership and it wasn't for the weak. Still isn't."

"Sugar what're you sayin'?" She sounded hopeful but so tired at the same time. He knew that feeling. Life could be exhausting. Hope would wear you down with disappointment until you didn't have the energy to do more than put one foot in front of the other.

"I'm sayin' that if you wanna be a teacher or a bank clerk or whatever that I'm all for it. But if you want to be my woman and take care of me and any kids we have or pick up along the way I'm good with that too." He couldn't look at her when he said it. Just like she couldn't look at him when she'd asked. "Jubilee wasn't wrong when she said I wanted to get into your pants. She just didn't realize that I want you in my bed, in my house, our house, for the rest of my life."

"Sugar, I'm not feral like you, I.."

"Can absorb any mutation. Including mine." He drew back and looked her in the eye. "And if you think that I won't take advantage of that to keep you healthy and by my side for as long as I possibly can then you've lost your mind." He'd been waiting a while for this. A long time for her to be old enough, for his heart to be healthy enough that she'd know he was asking because he wanted her. Not because the woman he'd cared for was dead. Not because he was desperate. But because he wanted Marie and had since she'd hollered an unneeded warning in Laughlin City. The Wolverine had claimed her then, promised to take care of her and tried to give his life to do so. She'd been his long before she put on those tags and every day since then. She might not have known it but he had.

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a little wooden box. He'd been carrying it around for the better part of two years waiting for his moment. Maybe handing it to her wasn't the most romantic gesture, and it wasn't the most original ring in the world. A piece of white gold twisted around a twinkling diamond, set smooth so it wouldn't catch on her gloves.

She opened the box and looked down at the gleaming metal. Silver and shining against the soft interior of the box it was perfect. "Oh Logan." Marie whispered and he couldn't be sure if she was saying no or if she was just confused.

"You gonna let me put it on you? Or should I court you some more?" His voice was gruff with uncertainty but she beamed up at him.

"I want you to put it on me." She pulled off her glove and held it out to him to use as a barrier. He shook his head and took the ring, slid it on and smiled as it fit snugly around the base of her finger. His mouth pressed down onto her finger and knuckles where metal met flesh and he felt the dizzying flicker of her mutation fluttering against his lips.

"You know what this means right?" He looked into her eyes, his breath still warm on her hand.

"Means I get to be your wife?" She tilted her head, obviously wondering what else it could mean.

"Means anybody bad mouths you, I get to kick their ass." Logan grinned and loosened the leash that held the Wolverine in. "And it means you're mine. And I'm yours. Forever darlin'."

"Sounds just long enough." She leaned up and pressed a delicate kiss to his lips.

Soft and sweet and hot, and everything he wanted, right there in one kiss. The Wolverine howled his triumph at the moon and the man drew her ever present silk scarf over her lips to devour her. "Mine." He proclaimed.

His mind was teeming with plans, a small house with at least two bedrooms, a fireplace for winters, a tub for his mate and a mudroom so he wouldn't dirty her floors. Bookshelves and a drawer full of scarves and gloves. A wide firm bed in their room with a soft quilt and a guest room that could end up a nursery if their luck went that way. Space outside the house to add more rooms on if needed and colors on the inside. Green like Marie's cloak and brown like mahogany of her hair.

"You're awfully far away for a man who just kissed me," Marie's soft voice teased. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"The house I'm gonna build for you." He smiled at the shocked look on her face. "And how I'm gonna prove to you that I'm worth all the shit you've taken about me over the years."

"Sugar, you don't have to prove anything to me." She stood and to his delight reseated herself in his lap. "I know everyone gave you a hard time because of me. And I don't care what anyone else thinks. I've loved you since I saw you fightin' in that cage."

"Marie, I…" He took a deep breath and prayed she'd understand. "I don't know love…not that soft sweet stuff everyone's always shoutin' about. What I got…is blood. Blood screaming inside me to work its will. Maybe that's love. If it is then I'm love's bitch because it's been screamin' in me since I saw you and every day since then. It doesn't take brains or sense…but I know that without you…the world isn't worth livin' in darlin'."

"Logan, that is love." She smiled at him and took his hand in her gloved fingers and held it to her hair and cheek. "You're right. It's not pretty, or nice or polite. But if it is…then that isn't love. My momma and daddy…they loved each other. And they fought and screamed but if they hadn't…if they hadn't cared enough to fight…"

She took a deep breath and kissed him again, careful and soft but so tenderly. "The opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference." She slid off his lap and stood looking at him with his hand still in hers. "C'mon sugar. Let's go back to your room and scandalize Ro."

There was the Rogue. His wild woman who'd go and do what she had to in order to find her dream. "Sure you wanna do that? I'm gonna make you scream Marie."

"Promise?" She gave him a lightning grin and took off running.

The Wolverine laughed and then growled as he gave chase.


Author's Note: So this pretty much wrote itself in an hour. Please bear with me and forgive any errors. My knowledge of the third X-Men movie is pretty much limited to fan fiction and what little I saw in the previews.

I hope you like it. It's just a little three shot, totally unrelated to my other fics but it grabbed me this afternoon and wouldn't let go.

Oh bonus cookies to whoever finds the TV show quote/reference I put in.