Author's note:

I apologise once again for the delay in posting. As I said in my profile, I am rapidly running out of buffer zone, and the exams are closing in. Oh well, such is life!

Hannah doing a great job betaing, despite the unholy amount of stress we are under, and I am very grateful to her as always.

Thank you to the reviewers for their feedback, keeping me focused and critical of my own work, and thus, I submit for your delectation chapter 10. From here on in is where we see some plot kicking off, and it seems that I will have to learn to write action! But we're not quite there yet, but until then, enjoy!

As always, the disclaimer – I STILL don't own the X-men, I'm just borrowing them! All credit must go to Marvel, and those people who bought the film rights off them!

Hope you like it!

Again, thanks for reading!

Xxx

Cheers!

PaintR


Chapter 10)

Logan sat on a bench, staring out across the lake into the darkness through thick plumes of cigar smoke. He sighed, heavily. He leant forward, resting his bare arms on his legs, listening intently, then "Beast," his gravely voice broke the silence.

"Wolverine," Hank said, appearing through the haze of smoke. "I'm tempted to tell you that smoking..."

"…is bad for me, I've heard it before," he exhaled a long thin stream of smoke and watched the tendrils drift and spread in the currents of the chilly night air.

The huge hairy man laughed "I was going to say 'makes you stand out in the dark'. Especially since you, my friend, are always healthy… except when you're nearly dead, usually when you've been saving a certain young lady." Beast sat down next to Logan. The poor bench groaned under the weight of the two X-men, one bulkily muscled and surprisingly heavy, the other huge, hairy and heavy.

"Kid can't help it." Logan grunted, still staring out in front of him, seeing the few lights still on in the mansion reflected in the still glassy, water

"She's hardly a kid anymore. She's doing university level studies now. She's technically graduated from the institute."

"She said she blew the roof off the danger room…" quite a feat really. Logan's voice cut through the silence again.

"Yes, everyone was rather surprised. But there's something else there. I mean, everyone's damaged the danger room at some point or another. When Piotr was still here and you and he did that…thing…"

"The fastball special," Logan smiled in memory.

"Yes, that. That was an expensive little manoeuvre." Hank sighed, and waved the cigar smoke away from him with one immense hand.

"Worked 'though," Logan puffed smugly on his cigar, leaning back on the bench. The silence stretched.

"But Rogue has been getting worse since she got her control…"

"I know. But come on, man, it must have been far worse before, it seems Xavier had to tinker in her head to get her over this 'Carol'. I'll get her to talk to me about it. This can't be that bad… anyway I think the worst is over." Logan's night vision picked up Hank's quizzical gaze. "Kid can't really turn off her skin, you know. She only stops it absorbing powers or life force or whatever. It seems to me that unless she's really concentrating, she can't block thoughts, especially ones aimed at her, or about her." Logan blew another stream of smoke out through his nose into the chill autumn air. "Some young punk with more libido than sense and an exaggerated idea of his own importance gave her his objectified opinion of her. No wonder she went to pieces."

"What did you do?

"What I always do. Let her do her thing. Read my mind, suck out my soul. The usual."

"My god man, you've got it bad."

Logan stood up, and then sat down again, nodding, his cigar held in his hand. "Yeah. She was even kind enough to remind me how old I am, might be. I think I'm at least 15 years older than I look, at the conservative end of the estimate, and I reckon I look mid thirties. So at the barest minimum I've got over a quarter of a century on her. It doesn't seem to bother her 'though."

"You seem to have given all this quite some thought. So, why are you out here and not up there? If you don't mind my asking, that is." Beast pointed his thumb over his shoulder, back at the dully lit mansion.

"'Cos she's in my room, and she's young and nervous."

"So you just walked out? Typical, you don't deserve her patience." Beast's voice was half criticism, half amusement, "Although I'm sure she'll appreciate your restraint."

"Give me some credit, man," Logan muttered, dragging on the cigar, now little more than a nub. "I spent a good long time staring at her as she slept first."

"You've really got it bad. You're even talking about it, you grumpy, taciturn bastard… and you didn't threaten me for insulting you." Beast stood up, the bench creaking. "I think I should talk to Charles about getting some iron benches…" he murmured. "I'll leave you to your thoughts, Logan, but I think you should probably go up soon." Logan looked at him with the infamous eyebrow quirk as he stubbed out the cigarette under his boot. "Your light's been on since I came out here."

Beast stood in the dark by the lake laughing softly. Who'd have thought that Logan could move that fast?

Logan walked through the doorway to his room, drawing the door closed quietly. Marie was sitting up in his bed, the bedside lamp on, the covers rumpled. She wore one of Logan's shirts buttoned up over her stockings and gloves as a nightie. God, his shirt had never looked so good. "Where'd ya go?" she asked softly, her green eyes soft and dark, as she scooted to the edge of the bed.

"For a smoke, you were asleep," he explained, rolling down the sleeves of his denim jacket and sliding it off, leaving it crumpled over the back of the chair. He sat on the edge of the bed, smiling as Marie shifted to lean against him. He ran a calloused finger down her cheek and lifted her chin. "Were you worried?" he asked as she played with the chain running around her neck. She gave a little nod, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Ah thought ya mighta been runnin' again. Ah had a dream… not one of mah own," she whispered, burying her head in his chest, as he wrapped her in an embrace, his huge muscled arms shielding her from remembered evils.

"You want to talk?" he asked.

Marie heard his voice rumbling in his chest, and smiled, as she shook her head. "No, ah wanna sleep. Ah feel like ah could sleep for a week, if mah dreams would just let me. What about you, don't ya sleep, Logan? Or do ya smoke instead?" She asked, releasing him.

"My bed seems to be taken." He raised an eyebrow at her, his features softening as she patted the bed beside her.

"Ya can come ta bed Logan, it is your bed," she smiled, "but just in tha non-euphemistic sense."

He leant down to her, stroking her hair, "For you, kid, I'll have the patience of stone."

Logan moved away from the bed, stripping down to his boxers, sliding his jeans over his hips, and down his well muscled thighs. He climbed into bed next to her, drawing the covers up over them both. He pulled her around until she rested her head on the pillow of his arm, his other arm pulling her back tight against his chest. "'Night kid," he murmured into the thick dark silk of her hair.

Marie awoke several times in the night, unused to sharing a bed. The first time she awoke she was confused by the ceiling, before she realised, feeling Logan shift against her, that she was not in her room. Logan's body was like a furnace, and she kicked off the covers rather than leave his grasp. He murmured softly in his sleep, and she smiled, nightmares seemed far from him this night.

Later she awoke as he shifted on the bed behind her, pulling her closer against his chest, making her smile. Turning her cheek so that her skin touched the skin of his arms Marie felt for his mind. She felt satisfaction, relief and triumph among the jumbled images in his mind, along with a hint of frustration, and possessiveness with a hint of jealousy. She smiled sadly, empathically. She was so important to him… she just wished that he could see how badly she had ached for him, how her resentment at Jean had been always at boiling point, and how her "relationship" with Bobby had never, not even nearly, felt right.

Carefully, so as not to wake him, she turned around, settling her head back on his bicep, carefully blocking her skin from his with her hair. He was lying facing her, his other arm lying across her waist. His hair, messed up from being in bed, was longer than it seemed, with a slight curl. She gently brushed it back from his face with a gloved hand, and looked at his sleeping face. The near permanent frown lines between his eyebrows had softened in sleep and his eyelashes were long and as dark on the hair on his head and jaw. Gently Marie lifted her gloved hand to his face and traced the line of his cheekbone, and then his lips. He murmured, and his eyes flew open. Marie blushed and snatched back her hand, but not before Logan had planted a kiss lightly on her fingertips.

He pulled her closer, dark eyes almost invisible in the room lit only by moonlight from the window which was only half covered by the curtain. Marie's lips tingled, desperate to feel his lips against her own, and she was not disappointed. His lips crushed hers as his arms dragged her against him. Marie's eyes fluttered closed, and she concentrated hard on holding off the pull of her skin. Logan sucked on her lower lip, and her shock broke her concentration, and she broke the kiss hurriedly.

"Ah'm sorry, ah should go." she whispered, embarrassed, as she shifted, ready to run back to her room. She felt Logan's finders flex where they rested at her hips through the thin fabric of his shirt.

"What make's you think I'm going to let you go? I'm not letting you out of my bed." Marie felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, at the mixture of bland statement and blatant innuendo in his voice and was grateful for the darkness of the room, before remembering Logan's night vision, which made her blush more. Logan chuckled, kissing the top of her head, before settling her against his body; this time with one of his legs thrown over her own.

Marie smiled, and pressed herself against him, letting herself fall gently asleep, feeling his regular breathing move her hair and his hand heavy, firm and comforting against her hip.

Just as she drifted off, finally succumbing to her tiredness, she heard him sigh, and whisper, his muted voice rumbling in his chest, "No more running, Marie."