[A/N:] Elise POV

Thanks to Delenn for beta-ing this chapter

Logan wasn't supposed to come home this early. In fact, I figured he wouldn't come home tonight at all. Most date nights are like that.

This time, though, he tries to hide the pained look on his face as he slinks off to his room.

Shit. I really thought they might work out. Cynthia was so nice… and good looking to boot. Hell, if circumstances were different, I'd date her.

Why is it good things never seem to last for him? I mean, this certainly isn't the worst I've seen him after a breakup, but he doesn't deserve this shit.

Every. Fucking. Time.

I mean, sure they all have their reasons, and some we both knew wouldn't last long, but it seems some spiteful god has it out for him.

And he probably, no, wait – definitely fucked up some of those times, but in the end, we're all human. We all fuck up.

I sigh and go upstairs to find him.

I knock on his door, "Logan, are you alright?"

"Go away, Elise."

I exhale sharply. This happens every time. And every time he says he wants to be alone, but he won't stop moping 'til we do something to get his mind off it.

Shinkt.

Distinctly not going away, I slip a claw into the lock mechanism and open the door.

He's sitting on his bed facing the opposite wall. He doesn't so much as look my way when I open the door.

He huffs, "Did you really just break my lock?"

I sit next to him, "It needed to be replaced, anyway."

"So what part of 'Go away' made you think I actually wanted you to break into my room?"

"Logan, I know you better than you know you. And I know you'd much rather have a drink, or ten, than sit here doing nothing. C'mon. My treat." I get up and offer my hand.

He thinks for a moment, sighs, and gets up, ignoring my hand, "Fine, but I ain't talkin' about it."

"Wasn't gonna ask."

We slip downstairs to the garage.

"Well, we can take my car or your bike," I say, offering him the keys to my car.

He looks at his bike, then at me, frowning, "Guess we're taking your car."

I hook the keys back on my belt loop, "Hold it. What's wrong?"

He takes off his leather jacket and offers it to me, "Wear this. Don't want you getting hurt if we crash."

I raise an eyebrow and smirk, "Were you planning on crashing?"

He isn't amused with my teasing, "Just put it on."

I do and we get on the bike. It wasn't really meant for seating two people, but it ain't like we're giants. I wrap my arms around him to hold on. Actually, not just to hold on. I lay my cheek against his back and tighten my arms around him in probably the least discreet hug ever.

He looks over his shoulder at me and starts the engine.

~ooOoo~

We get to the bar and find an empty corner to take up. We order a couple drinks.

He quickly downs his whiskey as I sip my margarita. The silence gets awkward, at least for me.

"You know, I bet if you try hard enough, you could get a little tipsy. I can, takes a lot of effort, though."

"Really," he says skeptically.

"Yeah, but that usually involves crashing a frat party and playing beer pong with my cups full of vodka."

"Even if you were drinking vodka and the kid had beer, that still ain't fair ta him."

"Hey, one time I used some smuggled absinthe. Wanna know how well that worked out?" I grin stupidly.

He blinks, "You mean that green-"

"Yep."

"That makes you –"

"Yep," my grin widens.

The waitress sets our next round on the table.

I smirk, "Didn't water it down like you're s'posed to, either."

He stares at me like I've got three heads, "Please tell me yer just shittin' me."

I laugh and take a drink, "Nope."

He blinks, speechless. After a moment, he asks, "Do you even HAVE a self-preservation instinct?"

"Yes, but I get bored sometimes. Anyway, it gets better."

"I ain't psychic, but the next thing out of your mouth won't make this 'better'."

You don't even know the half of it.

"So way back, I used to make a little extra income by betting people in bars I could out drink them. It was great."

"I don't like where this is going."

I continue, "So this one time, I guess one of the regulars or the bartender or someone caught on that I was doing feats of drinking no one my size or gender shoulda been able to do."

He looks thoroughly not amused, "Please tell me you at least pretended to be drunk some of the time."

"Yeah, I ain't stupid."

He coolly raises his hands, "Didn't say ya were. You just do stupid shit. A lot."

"Ain't gonna deny that. Back to the story, I was up against this guy who drank a lot and we were down to the deciding shot. Someone spiked mine with something I couldn't identify by scent. So naturally I drank it anyway."

"I take it back. You're fucking retarded."

"I later found out that I had taken enough LSD for an elephant to trip balls."

He stares at me for a moment before holding his forehead and shaking his head.

"Okay, so imagine something for a moment."

Without lifting his head from his palm, he says, "I don't think I want to."

I continue anyway, "Imagine it's late at night and you get a call from your sister. You're mildly pissed about being woken up."

"Seems about right."

"Now imagine the first thing you hear from the other end is something to the effect of 'Oh my god, the colors are attacking me there's a fucking dinosaur I don't know where I am come and get me'. What do you do?"

He looks up and blinks a few times before responding, "I'd probably hang up on you. Because what the fuck."

"That's… exactly what you did. But the story does have a sort of happy ending. I don't actually remember anything else that happened that night-"

"No shit."

"… but I did wake up in my bed, so I assume you came and got me."

"I wouldn't just leave you there. Even if you do act brain dead sometimes."

The waitress comes by and we order another round. I switch to straight tequila.

Back to our conversation, I tell him, "That's 'cuz you're a great guy. You didn't just ignore me when I needed help, and you definitely could have."

"Was this some sort of convoluted pep talk?" He asks.

"Nah," I say, twirling my finger over the rim of the empty shotglass. "I intended it to be something to distract you for a while. The pep talk was an added side benefit," I smile.

He smiles weakly, then stares intently into his glass, "Thanks."

"You deserve to be happy more than anyone I know."

"No."

"Logan, everyone has their off day. Shit happens."

"Well, usually when I have an 'off day' and 'shit happens', people die."

I sigh, it's gonna be hard to make things optimistic after that.

"At least your heart's in the right place. One time I started a real nasty bar fight because I was bored. Some poor bastard went blind 'cuz someone sliced his eyes with broken glass."

He reaches across the table and puts his hand on mine, "Hey, you couldn't've known that would happen."

"I started it, though. Didn't even have a reason. Got to walk away with nothing but a ruined shirt."

"But you-"

"Logan, you try to make all sorts of excuses for me, but if you had done the same thing, you would never let yourself live it down."

He doesn't answer, just bunches his eyebrows together and withdraws his hand.

"You don't remember, but not long before… " I trail off, trying to find the words. "Shit happened, we had joined the Canadian special forces together. We both did horrible things in service of our country, but see, you did it to help people. I just wanted to prove something," I look down.

Talking about our past together's got his interest piqued, "Prove something? To who?"

"You, maybe. Myself? I dunno," I shrug. "Point is, my heart wasn't in the right place. Yours was. You actually convinced me to quit so I wouldn't fuck myself up more than I already had."

"I did?"

"Yeah and even though I was livid when you did it, it was better that way."

He doesn't say anything, but his eyes beg me to continue the story, filling in as many details as possible.

Logan, we'd need far longer than a bar room chat to go through all that. And even if you'll never remember it for real, I can't deny your curiosity when it comes to our lives before Weapon X.

Who knows? Maybe I'll shake a few rogue memories loose? Wishful thinking, I suppose.

I see my reflection in the glass and realize I look like I'm about to cry, so I try to put a smile on before he catches it. Regardless, I can feel the tell-tale pressure change around my eyes and tell myself to suck it up before tears actually form.

So I continue with the story, "Even though I'd agreed to do it, I was beyond pissed you convinced me to quit. So pissed, in fact, that I didn't bother to get your contact information when I left. I spent about two years not trying to get in contact with you. I went back to college to finish my degrees. When I tried to contact you, I couldn't. You'd left Special Forces and they didn't know where you went after that. I knew you had wanted to travel the world, so I didn't even know which country to look, let alone city. So I got a good job, a small rental house, and lived alone for a few years."

I had wondered if he was happy. I wondered if he found a wife and started a family. I wondered if he missed me, or if he was happier without me.

"Y'know, I can tell when you're glazing over the important stuff."

"I honestly have no clue what happened to you in that span of time."

"Then what happened to you?"

I sigh and look down, "You would have been ashamed of me if you had seen me then."

"I don't think I would."

"You don't understand. I didn't leave the house except to get essentials and work. Gradually my nightmares got worse and worse until I drugged myself nearly every night to try to get rid of them. It got to the point where every time I got stressed, I'd get stoned. No one at work noticed because I never had hangovers and always passed the drug tests, but one time I accidentally overdid it and passed out on the kitchen floor. My Landlord came over to check on me and called an ambulance. Once I recovered, I got locked in a psych ward for a couple days for suspected suicide attempt. I mean, what else would they think if they found more drugs than Elvis did in a month in someone?"

"I don't see nothing to be ashamed of. Who knows? I coulda been worse off."

Yeah, but we don't know. You coulda had a family. You coulda been happy.

The waitress sets down our next round and I slip her a tip.

"Do you think we could talk about something less depressing?" I ask. "I mean, unless you want us to be companions in misery."

"Yeah, sure."

"What do you wanna talk about?"

"The past, I guess."

I chuckle, "Logan, that's a much broader subject than you'd think. Any specific part?"

He shrugs, "Something happy?"

I think for a moment, then smile, "When I was very little, our parents died, so you ended up raising me. I wanted to be just like you – I preferred wearing your hand me downs to dresses. And also, I had really curly hair and you kinda sucked at brushing it, so it hurt whenever you did. To be fair, though, I usually had half a swamp in my hair from playing in the woods. But whenever you'd leave me to my own devices, I'd chop off my hair. So for the longest time whenever we'd go to town together, everyone thought I was a boy," I chuckle.

He cracks a small smile and raises an eyebrow.

"Anyway, we lived in a very secluded and otherwise abandoned house in the middle of a forest. So one day when you were at work, I wandered into the woods and tried to track a fox. It didn't really work out well and I got very lost, but I heard some other children playing, so I followed the sound of their voices. Probably about a mile from our house, I found our closest neighbors. They had two boys about my age and a baby. The boys were outside playing swordfight with sticks. So I grabbed a stick and asked to play with them. Around sunset, I'd always head back to the house to make it there before you got home, but one day, the mother asked me to stay for dinner, so I stayed."

"I think I know where this is going."

"So you came looking for me and tracked me to the neighbor's house. You asked where your sister was.

They were very confused and probably thought you were crazy. But, I heard you being worried about me, so I came to the door. The mother and father were appalled by this shocking revelation that I was, in fact, female and I dressed like a boy, and played with boys outside playing unfeminine games instead of learning to cook and sew and shit. You got chewed out for letting me dress and behave in such ways. The two boys acted like I had the plague or something and refused to be anywhere near me during all this."

"So when did all this happen?"

Eh, lessee… I was born in April of 1843 and I was about six or seven at the time, so…

"Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away."

He is not amused with my Star Wars reference. He crosses his arms over his chest.

"Let's just say, in addition to totally owning at the guess-your-weight carnival game, we would also win the guess-your-age one, too."

"A year? A range of years? How about an approximate decade?"

"No. Let's get back to the story-"

"Why do you always want to change the subject whenever I broach the subject of our ages?"

Because if you're this upset about losing what you think to be up to 35 years of memories, how upset would you be if I told you it was well over a hundred?

"It's not important."

I don't want to be the one to tell you.

He starts to get agitated, "Yes, it is."

Because I don't want to watch the knowledge devastate you.

I huff, "You're obviously legal to drink, so what does it matter?"

Because I don't want you hurt.

I imagine what I'd say to him, if he finally pushed me to spill it all at once:

Fine. I'll just tell you. I don't give a shit anymore.

You were born approximately the year 1835. I say approximately because at the approximate age of ten, you started having amnesia after our parents died. Which is understandable, considering our dad's fucking brain got blown all over the room. Mom's, too, but you weren't around to see that. You got your claws because you saw dad get shot, I got my healing factor because I was two and accidentally set myself on fire. Yes, your claws are not a product of Weapon X, there's actual bone under that shit.

Back to reality, "Elise, are you even listening to me?"

"Yep."

"You're lying."

"Ya caught me. I spaced out for a bit because my brain has an anti-bitching filter."

He scowls at me.

Do you really think that has any fucking effect on me, you ass?

"Why does this happen every time I try to tell you shit about your past? I ain't a fucking encyclopedia. You can't skip to the parts you want to hear about because maybe I'm not ready to tell you that shit yet."

I close my eyes and take a few controlled breaths, "I don't want to argue. This was supposed to be fun and relaxing."

On the up side, at least he ain't moping about his ex.

I look at our walls of empty glasses, "Waitress."

"Yes?" The curvy young brunette asks.

"Can we have another round? Actually, at this point can we just have the whole bottle of tequila? Whiskey, too."

"Um," she looks at the glasses then back to me. "I don't know if we can do that. You both have had a lot to drink already, and- I don't think anyone's ever asked that before. I'll go check."

"If ya can't do that, make 'em doubles."

"Alright," she says, looking warily at the glasses again.

" Thank ya, miss."

"Some other time, then?" Logan asks.

I blink, "Huh?"

"Some other time to tell me things like how old we are. When you're ready."

"Yeah. I don't know when that will be, though. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he smiles gently.

The waitress comes back with two bottles. I fish out some cash from my wallet and hand it to her.

"Thanks. Keep the change."

She smiles, "Thank you," and goes over to another section of the bar.

"Now that we have enough booze to last us a while, what do you wanna talk about?" I ask, filling an empty margarita glass with tequila.

"How 'bout you finish the story where you were a child crossdresser?"

"What about the one where I was an adult crossdresser and your way of asking me to stop was to pay a nasty hooker to harass me?"

After a brief moment of shock, he starts laughing.

"That seems like a story for another time," he says.

"Alright, so where were we?"

"We were getting bitched out by the neighbor family…"

"Well, I got upset by the yelling and ran back home. You weren't far behind me. When I got home, I started crying because the only two other kids my age I knew either didn't want to or weren't allowed to play with me because I'm a girl. So you came in and, after me getting upset at you for pointing out my gender to people, you eventually got me to calm down and sit with you."

I smile, "You gave me some great advice. You told me real friends would love me for who I am and not care about what I am."

"Kinda funny you mention that," he says. He pauses and looks as if he's choosing his words like an artist chooses his colors. "Cynthia… she decided she couldn't bear the possibility of having a mutant kid. I said I'd be fine without kids. But… well, apparently she wasn't," he looks down.

"I'm sorry, Logan," I put my hand over his.

"Yeah," He laughs humorlessly. "Not at all how I expected date night to go."

"Eh, shit happens. Wanna look around and see if there are any worthy catches in here tonight?"

He shrugs and downs another shot of whiskey.

"What about that blonde at the bar? I'd give her a solid seven outta ten."

He looks her over, "I'd say six."

"It's 'cuz she ain't ginger, right?"

"Well that definitely factors in."

"Cynthia was blonde."

"She was strawberry blonde."

He says that as I take a swig from my tequila, unfortunately. I try to hold my laughter in and accidentally shoot tequila in my nose.

This would be one of those times where enhanced senses are a bad thing.

I set down my glass and hold my nose, involuntary tears streaming down my face, "Fuck, aw shit ow ow ow."

"Are you okay?" He asks, genuinely concerned.

Indignantly, I say, "Your knowledge of colors made me shoot tequila up my nose!"

He busts out laughing.

"Fuck you, Logan."

I don't think he heard me, though, because he's laughing too damn hard.