[The Flight]

Logan watched with curiosity as Marie dug a brush from her bag and pulled back her hair into a long ponytail. She wasn't generally the primping sort.

"Kid?"

"Keeps it out of my face," she tossed back, digging her flight jacket out from behind the seat. It was the green and orange nylon one with the patch that always made him smile. Don't Eat Yellow Snow.

"Heh."

"I know, right?" She added a scarf around her neck and then zipped it up before pulling on her gloves and hat.

Logan had parked the truck off the road in the trees and they were preparing their gear; two full packs with sleeping bags for each of them. The rest of their provisions were split between them. Marie shoved her small bag into the top of her pack and flipped the flap down before cinching it up.

She looked him over. "If you have a hat you're gonna want it. Gloves too."

He pulled a knitted black cap from his pack and put it on, pulling it down to cover his ears and then slipped his hands into his leather gloves, holding them to his nose after he did just to watch her blush. They still smelled faintly of her most intimate scent. Now that he'd worked out that she came harder when her skin was on, he made a point to make love to her that way too.

"So, how's this gonna work?"

"Hmm... I think maybe from behind?"

He chuckled. "Isn't that my line?"

She rolled her eyes. "In your dreams, cowboy."

"Yeah," he said with a wide, dirty grin.

The verbal sparring was a way for them both to bleed off some of the underlying anxiety as the coming experience of Alkali Lake loomed closer.

"I think it'll work best if you hold a pack in each hand and I put my arms around you from the back."

"Sure." Logan gathered the packs, wrapping his fist around the handle at the top of each.

"Not too heavy?"

"Hmph."

He gave her a withering look and she laughed and punched his shoulder. "Fine, tough guy." She pushed her aviator shades on her face and stepped closer and he laughed. "What?"

"Nothin', Maverick."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You know that makes you Goose, right?"

He snorted. "Nah, makes me the hot blonde with the nice rack."

"Logan!"

"Heh." He gave her a look. "We're lovers, darlin'. Partners? Yeah. Friends? Yeah. But lovers first."

Her brows knitted together in what he thought of as her thinking face. "I like that," she said after a while. "I have other friends. But only one lover. There's only one you."

He didn't smile but his eyes were fierce and glowing. He kissed her hard and then turned her loose. "Yep, so don't fuckin' drop me."

"Never." She giggled in his ear and stepped up behind him. His body responded to her nearness, like it always did. Not with a full rush of blood, but with that tingle of awareness when a new lover comes close. It felt warm and good. His stomach tightened as she slid her hands along his sides and up under his arms before locking her hands together at the front of his powerful chest.

"So?"

She could feel the tension in him. He really wasn't looking forward to this.

"Relax. Breathe out when I push off and we rise. It'll help. I'll take it nice and easy, but if you bear down and tighten up the muscles in your midsection, that will help counteract the Gs."

He nodded. "Hey, this ain't my first rodeo." Granted it was the first time not in an aircraft of some sort, but the theory was the same. The retort was humorous, but Marie could feel the tension in his body as she gathered herself and prepared to push off. She knew he could feel it, attuned to her as he was.

"Above the tree line or below?"

"Does it matter?" he said tightly.

"Sure. Below the tree line, we're less visible but the vertigo is worse. More bugs, too. Above, it's better but anyone can see us."

"Above," he grunted. "There ain't anyone but ghosts here anymore."

"Sure. Ready?" She waited for his nod and pushed off. They rose quickly. Marie smiled as they emerged above the trees and she felt the heat of the sun on her face through the cold wind.

"You said breathe out, woman."

"You did. I felt it. Did it not help?"

"I did. You didn't."

"Oh." That made her smile wider as the trees sped in a blur under them. "Sugar, I was always that girl who had her hands up on the rollercoaster the whole time." She felt his grunt of amusement. "What do you think I do at night when I go outside to give you space to meditate?"

He was a little surprised. He kind of thought she sat on the porch with a cup of coffee most nights. They didn't talk much about her flying and he hadn't realized she liked doing it. Really liked it.

He tried to appreciate the experience but his stomach was protesting. A man with this much metal in him was never meant for the heavens. It wasn't so bad if he looked at the horizon and not the trees rushing under him with sickening speed. It was better when she twined one leg around his to lock him to her as they leveled out horizontally.

"How's this compare to your top speed?" He knew her too well. She always had to find the boundaries of everything. She'd know her limits.

"Hmm..." he could tell she was hesitant to tell him.

"Spill it, kid."

"Let's compare it to riding a bike. Imagine top speed as one of those crotch rockets that annoy you so much."

Another grunt.

"All flash, no substance." He preferred the heft of a touring bike. Less speed, more power.

"So if that's where I top out, this is like... a four year old on a bike with training wheels."

He whistled softly and then used his head to nudge her chin over toward the west. "There..."

She saw it. In the distance there was the glimmer of a lake through the trees. Steep ravines and snow swept craggy ridges passed by with alarming speed. Logan fought to keep from closing his eyes.

As the lake loomed closer, Marie's eyes swept the terrain below and she smiled as she saw a keyhole formation in the cliff face where a chunk of rock had fallen and caught on the way down. Her lips twitched. "Wanna thread the needle?"

"Christ, no." She felt him shudder. "Would you? If you were alone?"

He could feel the excitement ripple through her.

"Oh yeah."

"Heh." He took a deep breath and let out as they drew closer to the shore of the lake, thoughts spinning through his head as fast as the ground rushing under them. "Hey, kid?"

"Yeah?"

"I wanna."

"Wanna what?"

"Shoot the moon."

"The needle? Really? Why?"

"To lean into it. Like you said." To embrace all of it, even the things that scared him. She was right about that. He wanted that, with her. Now. Before Alkali Lake.

Her whole body warmed.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He could feel her smile even if he couldn't see it. She held him tighter, more intimately.

"We need to jettison the cargo first. You wanna drop it by the shore if I swing us low enough?" The snow would soften the fall. He nodded and she brought them closer.

"Bombs away." The packs dropped easily into the soft snow and they gained altitude again. He covered her hands with his and squeezed gently.

"You ever do this before? Fly with someone?" He felt her nod but she didn't elaborate. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Somehow he didn't think it was with Jubilee.

"Once."

"And no one died?" His voice was bone dry.

She snorted in amusement. "Not yet, but the day is young..."

"Great."

They flew closer to the craggy, windswept rocks. The trees loomed in sickeningly and Logan couldn't quite believe he'd agreed to this. As the keyhole got closer, he could see he'd misjudged the size. It was a few meters at best. Despite his best efforts to be completely present and force himself to experience the moment, he still closed his eyes as she shot them through the stone arch.

Her cry of sheer exhilaration as they rocketed through made him smile despite the uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. Her laughter was pure joy as they evened out and curved back toward the lake. It made him feel good to hear it.

"More," he growled, caught up in her enjoyment of the moment.

"How much more?"

"All you got, baby. I wanna feel what you feel. I gave you all of the Wolverine. I want all of the Rogue." He could feel her excitement, the thrill of sharing this deeply private thing with her lover.

She said, "Hang on."

He said, "Oh, fuck!" But it came out on a clipped laugh. The lake was getting closer. "Now what...?"

"Now we turn and burn, sugar."

He could feel the acceleration. They shot forward, turning and rolling; tight corkscrews and arcing barrel rolls. He groaned, but kept his eyes open as the horizon spun and spun. She liked to fly upside down. He was so disoriented, he couldn't even tell which way was up when she finished. They leveled out and she really turned on the speed.

The world started to go a little fuzzy around the edges.

"Bear down." She squeezed him tighter as they rocketed across the lake low enough and fast enough that Logan could see they'd kicked up a rooster tail of water behind them. It was scary as fuck but one hell of a rush.

"More," he shouted. The wind whipped away his words but she could feel the urging of his body. She banked hard and they shot upwards with frightening speed, beginning to climb at a steep angle. He could really feel the Gs now and wondered if they were more pronounced in his body because of the metal.

He was a little alarmed when they began to be buffeted pretty violently and he realized they were moments from breaking the sound barrier. The crashed through with a silent boom and everything became so much more fluid. Smooth. Silent. Supersonic. They climbed higher. It grew colder and the air began to thin. They slowed, a little at first and then a lot.

"Trust me?"

He could only nod.

The acceleration stopped and for a heart-stopping moment, they hung suspended before the freefall began, her body wrapped tightly around his as they spun back to earth. His body recognized the feeling. This wasn't his first air drop, but it was the first one with no plane and no ripcord to pull as the ground rushed up under them. He felt a little like Buck Rogers, spinning and spinning...

His heart lodged somewhere in his throat, a growl of pure adrenaline torn from him as they fell. Instead of the rough jerk he'd was accustomed to as a parachute deployed, she slowed their descent by degrees, smoothly with confidence and more grace than he imagined could be possible without actual wings. She was amazing.

They leveled off and she made one last, slow pass over the glittering water before they circled back around to where he'd dropped the packs. His legs were shaking as they rejoined the earth.

Her cheeks were pink from the cold and her eyes were bright and sparkling. His were gold and more than a little wild as he pulled her close and kissed her hard.

"Holy fuck," he panted as they parted.

"Good?"

"Hell yeah. Goddamn." He grabbed her hand and pressed it just under his buckle. He was rock hard. Logan could barely form a coherent thought in the wake of that experience.

"It happens to pilots sometimes. It's the rush." Her memories of Scott told her he'd felt the exhilaration like that as well. There were times pushing the Blackbird through the sky with his hair on fire had given him a hard-on too.

"That's a helluva thing, darlin'."

"It is." She was sort of smug and embarrassed.

"Thanks."

"For not dropping you?"

"For sharin' that piece of yourself with me. You're amazin', kid. Blew my fuckin' mind."

She flushed with pleasure.

"Thanks for wanting it."

"Always." He pulled her closer. "How'd it work out the last time?"

"You really want to know?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Marie grinned. "He threw up."

Logan wondered who it had been. Remy? Bobby? Hank? His money was on the Cajun. He was just glad that it had ended that way instead of with a membership to the mile high club. The thought made him chuckle.

"What?"

"Just thinkin' about the mile high club, baby."

She gave his erection one last squeeze and winked at him. "You definitely have potential, sugar. Maybe we should put a pin in this one too, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

She laughed and pulled a protein bar from her pocket. Logan was surprised to see her eat the entire thing in two bites. "Mmm..." He was even more surprised when she pulled out a second one and ate that too, slower than the first but still faster than usual.

"Takes somethin' out of you to that, huh?"

"Mmff." She swallowed. "Yeah. Something synergistic happens between our mutations. I wouldn't be able to do so much so fast without your mutation replenishing what Carol's takes out. She could fly but not like that. I have to eat after or I get pretty sick, though."

"You shouldnta-"

"Totally worth it." She unwrapped the third bar.

He shook his head. "How many more of those do you have in there, kid?"

"Two. And a Red Bull to wash it all down."

"Heh. And they say I'm an animal."

She rolled her eyes. "So, you liked it, huh?"

"Roger that, Mav."

That earned him a laugh.

"Even the arch?"

He just shook his head in amusement. "I dunno about that one, kid. It's a good thing I'm a Wolverine. If I was a squid, I'd have inked myself."

Her giggle turned into a full belly laugh. God, he loved that sound.

"Great. Now I want calamari."

"Heh. You know there's a really good tentacle joke in there somewhere..." he said, picking up his pack before dusting the snow from hers.

His smile was just a little too bright and they both knew the tension they'd been avoiding was beginning to seep back in.

Marie hefted her pack and squeezed his hand, just once.

"Ready, kid?"

She nodded.

"Ready, sugar."

Up next: The Lake. Fire. Snow. Adamantium. Old ghosts speak. Marie and Logan struggle with an emotional ground zero.