To all my lovely reviewers, do you know how much I appreciate you? You have no idea how much I appreciate you at all. I want you to know that I do. Thank you.
Selena Gomez - Bad Liar
Imagine Dragons - Bad Liar
Sarah Hartman - Monster Lead Me Home
The Chainsmokers - Something Just Like This
5 Seconds of Summer - Easier
lovelytheband - maybe I'm afraid
OneRepublic - Rescue Me
Ella Henderson - Ghost
Chapter 7, Bad Liar:
Her morning headache was one for the ages. At least she wasn't hooked up to a beeping machine with an IV line. She woke up in bed, alone, still in last night's dress. Oh great. She probably looked like she'd just done the walk of shame. She breathed in and felt the blood crusting in her nose begin to flake. The kids. She pushed out of the bed and caught herself with one hand on the wall.
"Hey," Logan's voice came from the doorway, then suddenly next to her, "easy." He put the mug down on the nightstand while wrapping the other arm around her. "Easy, you had a serious bleed last night."
"Tommy and Jamie." Holly managed.
"Are with your dad and Pepper."
Immediately she relaxed and leaned on him. "This is not how I expected last night to go."
He chuckled, a low rumble in his chest, "Thought I'd at least get to second base."
She smacked his chest playfully. "I was thinking about it." She held onto him for support and set herself back on the edge of the bed. "My head feels like they hit me with a freight train."
"What did you see?"
Holly looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.
He indicated his head. "I remembered you'd done that before."
"Is that how you got the privilege of being here when I woke up?"
He grabbed the tea off the nightstand, "No. Had to pull rank for that one." He settled it in her hands. "Watermelon strawberry."
Her eyes lit up as she wrapped her hands around the cup. She sipped and made that small satisfied sound that he distantly remembered. Last night, her passing out, that brought back a hell of a lot. Like most of the time, he was one of three people who could touch her regularly without making her pass out. The other two being their twins.
"What does pulling rank mean exactly?" She asked after several sips and downing the liquid advil he supplied.
"Husband." He told her simply. "And I remembered what to do, who to call. Didn't lose my head when you started to bleed heavy." He wanted to brush back her hair and tuck it behind her ear, but refrained. Her power was always more sensitive right after she saw the future. "You didn't answer, what did you see?"
"A little girl."
Logan's stomach flipped and his adrenaline immediately kicked in. "You're pregnant?"
She gave him a scowl. "I'm still on birth control."
He knew that was supposed to mean something, but he just didn't remember what yet. "Not pregnant."
"No. I'm going to have a little sister." She sipped from the heavenly, if steeped a bit longer than she liked, tea in her cup. "Her name is Morgan, and she'll be conceived a few weeks after the twin's second birthday party." She brushed the hair away from her face. "Why? Did you want me to be pregnant?"
"I don't know." He told her honestly. "The part of him that's waking up, did, maybe."
She put the cup down on the nightstand. "Babies only highlight what's wrong with the relationship, not what's right. You are remembering things, though, right?"
"Pieces. Last night I just knew what to do. I caught you before you hit the floor, called Doc Mcoy, stayed up to check on you every thirty minutes."
Holly darted in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Or at least she meant to. He saw her coming and caught her lips with his. It happened fast. One moment they were sitting there the next she was pulling at the t-shirt he wore and he had her flat on the bed. Long fingers slid up her thighs, found the top of her pantyhose and began peeling them down. She raised her hips to let him. Nude stockings were off and forgotten on the floor a breath later. His shirt joined them after another moment.
While kissing her again Logan tasted blood, fresh blood not old. A small trickle of it had reached her upper lip. "You're bleeding." He sat back.
Holly grabbed a tissue off the nightstand. "It's fine, you probably haven't touched me since last night so," she indicated her nose. "I told you, if you want to be with me, this has to happen."
The words maybe we should stop, were on the tip of his tongue. He didn't enjoy hurting people. He didn't enjoy the idea of hurting the woman that was supposed to be his wife.
She pressed one hand against his stomach and slowly trailed it to the top of his pants. "If you want to stop, we can stop." She told him before flicking the button with her thumb.
"No condom," he told her, his voice rough. It gave him a good excuse to hit pause and attempt to think past the haze of - christ she smelled like she was ready to go.
"Birth control." She reminded him curling her fingers around the top of his pants.
In a nearly gargantuan effort of self control, "Best we stop before we do something you regret later."
With a sigh Holly flopped back onto the bed. "How exactly are you the voice of reason right now?"
"No goddamn clue," he muttered, his hands just did not seem to want to leave her parted knees though. Thumbs slowly working back and forth over the cloth that hadn't fallen. Maybe if he went down on her they wouldn't cross a line. Maybe she'd return the favor.
"I know that look. You're thinking about what we can get away with." She slid back, withdrawing her body from his. "You gave me that look every day of the waiting period after I gave birth."
Waiting period?
"Couples are supposed to wait a full four to six weeks before engaging in intercourse after having a child because of gross things and possible complications that I'd rather not remember." She slid off the bed. "We made it three and a half."
He leaned down and grabbed his shirt off the floor. "Yeah, then what?"
Holly stepped into him, took one of his hands and placed it firmly on her bottom. "Then we experimented with some new techniques and positions."
His mouth went dry. Bone dry. Logan's brain misfired repeatedly as he squeezed that cheek once, twice. "Get back on the bed." He croaked.
"No." She put hands on his bare shoulders and held him at arm's length.
"Holly," he almost sounded like he was begging.
"I'll get back on the bed," She took one step back, "and you can do exactly what you want to do to me as long as you want if you can answer one question."
He groaned. Logan tried to pull her closer but she didn't budge. "What question?"
"I'll even give you three, all you have to do is answer one of them."
He gave her a look of warning. The tether he had on his self control was frayed as it was and he was ten seconds from snapping.
"What is my middle name?"
It was like ice dousing him. He had no idea.
"What are Tommy and Jamie's middle names? Our sons. Tell me what they are?"
Logan's hand dropped from her. He, again, had no idea.
"When is my birthday?"
He silently pulled on his shirt.
Her hand came up, cupped one side of his face. "When you remember you can have me again." Her hand left him and she walked into the bathroom without looking back.
A cold shower helped them both get the hormones under control, but neither knew the other took one. Holly went upstairs to get the boys, Logan tried to figure out which tin had the shampoo in it. Come on. He glared down at the oval and round tins sitting there on the shelf of the shower like they'd answer him if he waited long enough.
It was something he should have known. He knew that much.
They both, despite the water, smelled faintly like her. Jasmin, lemon, agave and-
He was looking down at the white on black hand written sign. 'Eleven dollars for two ounces of shampoo. Darlin' there's gotta be something cheaper.'
Gloved fingers reached for a multicolored, multi tiered cut bar of soap labeled with a price tag reading seven plus dollars. 'There are, but remember what Hank said. The less chemical stuff I use the better off these two are.' She patted the small bump of her stomach.
He was still kind of floored that he actually got her pregnant. Two hundred plus years and he'd never, not once, gotten any woman he was with pregnant. And they'd gone and done it on the first try. Which was impressive by most people's standards.
Logan still remembered Holly stammering out to Hank and Doc Mac Taggart that previous to the afternoon driving back from JFK, she'd never had sex before Logan. She wasn't even sure she could take birth control and be okay. Holly had gripped Logan's hand with her smaller one and blushed a bright, furious red.
Hank pulled off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose and Doctor MacTaggert frowned deeply. Neither of them were an OBGYN. Holly had never even seen a gynecologist because she couldn't risk sitting on an exam bed a thousand other women had been on before her.
'I won't lie to either of you.' Hank told them. 'This pregnancy...if you choose to go through with it.'
Holly damn near crushed his hand with her grip. They hadn't had that conversation. He'd thought of bringing it up a thousand times since the morning in her father's kitchen in Malibu. The selfish part of him wanted her to go through with it. But, if she wouldn't, maybe couldn't do this then-
'It won't be easy.' Hank finished with a solemn glance to Logan.
'Your diet alone Holly barely sustains you.' Doctor MacTaggert picked up from there. 'You're going to have to eat more and frequently. The reason you've lost weight is your body is attempting to sustain the lives of the twins with what resources it has. Gain five pounds by the end of next week and I want ten more by mid-June. Eat a gallon of ice cream if you have to. Cake everyday. I don't care. Get your weight up.'
Holly lifted the bar to her nose. Her eyes closed and she sighed that soft slow sigh of hers. The one Logan heard when she was happy or content. Her dark hair loose in waves down her back. She grew it out because he liked her hair long.
She held the bar up to him, not under his nose knowing his sense of smell, but out enough that it wouldn't mingle with everything else in here. Plums, apples, oranges.
'Could you live with me smelling like that all the time?' Holly asked him with a small tilt of her head, dark strands falling into her green eyes.
He took the soap from her. 'Course I can.'
With the store watching, he could feel the eyes on them, Holly pushed up on her toes and pressed a brief kiss to his lips. 'I love you Logan.'
He put an arm around her waist, tugged her closer and kissed her soundly in return. Forget the audience. The woman having his kids loved him and he loved her too. He made the decision to ask her. That stupid ring was burning a damn hole in his sock drawer and had been for weeks. He'd ask her today.
Logan, with freezing cold water pelting him, picked up the small round tin and opened it with a rough twist. Two memories for the price of one. Hell of a start for the day.
Holly kept hold of the stroller. Not that Logan didn't try, but he couldn't remember how to set it up, and then the kids were getting cranky from not moving and...it was easier if he let her do it.
He sipped from a coffee cup as they walked through Central Park and mulled over Tony Stark threatening him while Holly dressed the boys.
'I liked Logan, he was too old for her but he made my daughter happy and he loved his kids. You, I don't know. I hate not knowing things. Ask my daughter. Drives me nuts. I want you to keep this in mind if you start thinking my daughter is a booty call away just because the other you was married to her. Even if you get past me and Jarvis, she lives on the same floor as Captain America and The Hulk. Cap's a pretty decent guy, so he might not completely wreck you unless you get pushy but Banner's a complete rage machine. I don't care what your bones are coated with, you'd be lucky to survive.'
Gloved fingers tapped his chin. "Earth to Logan." He looked down at her, those green eyes held a bit of amusement as she looked up at him. "Where'd you go?"
He could lie, but if she touched him, she would know he lied. "Your dad and the other guy, they get along?" He had an inkling that they probably weren't going to get along through this. Whatever this was.
She sighed deeply, a familiar sigh. It said she was tired and annoyed. "My father needs to mind his own damn business is what he needs to do." She nodded to a bench across from a vendor, next to a large open field area. "No, you, the other you, puts up with Tony because he loves me. Tony lives with it because I'm his daughter and he cares about me and I love my husband. My grandfather doesn't like the other you much either." She turned the stroller around letting the boys face them. "But then grandpa doesn't believe my dad is going to stick around, and he is absolutely certain one day you'd leave me."
Holly's throat tightened involuntarily. In a way, her grandfather had been right. Logan did leave her. She busied herself unstrapping Tommy and handing him to Logan.
Logan took the silence as a change in subject and, equally as carefully as he had done almost a week ago, held his son. The boy with big dark eyes and chubby pink cheeks wrapped up in a lot of layers to combat the colder temperature of January. The little knitted brown bear cap covering his ears and forehead settled back into place as Logan adjusted it. He swiped dark brown hair out of the boy's eyes as the kid smiled up at him and chewed on his sucker. "They need a haircut."
"Well I was taking them to get one a week or so ago but the proverbial," she mouthed shit, "hit the fan."
"The day I woke up." When he changed the world, he literally fucked up everything for them.
She nodded. "Pepper has the guy that does my dad's hair coming on Monday. Tomorrow I'm taking them to my grandfather. He hasn't got much time left and seeing his great-grandsons is a big deal."
The grandfather that he didn't know and didn't like the other guy. He'd probably hate him now. "Who's going with you?"
She settled Jamie in her lap, "You do, usually. I don't think it would be a good idea now though. Maybe I'll bring Steve. They can swap war stories or something."
Steve. Steve was the guy from last night. The one with the blue eyes that followed Holly as she walked around the apartment. "I'll go."
Jamie laughed at a bird flying over them. "No. You won't."
"You don't have to do this alone."
Hardened green eyes met his. "What is my grandfather's name?"
He took a long couple of silent minutes to say, "I don't know." Tommy took that moment to yank on his hair. "Ow, kid, what?" The boy clapped both hands on his face and laughed wildly like it was the funniest thing he'd ever done.
Maybe it was. Logan had no idea. It wasn't just his wife he needed to get to know. He had two boys who were almost a year old that he knew almost nothing about. Logan, who until that moment had forgotten next Saturday he didn't have the kids, "Can I see them next weekend?"
Her head bobbed a couple of times. "I can bring them to the mansion. Storm wants me to fill out exit paperwork or something like that."
Exit paperwork. "What if you do decide to come back?"
Holly sighed, flicking lint off the top of the stroller. "Then I'll want to do it right and not have a mess left behind to come back to."
"The whole weekend." He pressed.
She paused looking at him. "The whole weekend? And where do I sleep? In the dorms with some of the kids?"
He gave her a familiar heated glared. The one that said she damn well knew where he wanted her to sleep. "I'll sleep on the floor," he relented after she watched him silently. "There's a blowup bed somewhere in the mansion."
"You know it won't work. You're what, two feet from me and you're hyper aware of every movement I make? I'm the same. We wouldn't make it through the night without torturing each other." She bit her lower lip, looking down at her gloves.
She wasn't kidding. He was intensely aware of where she was, and her movements without trying to think about it. It was like his senses had gotten so used to tracking her every moment, he just did because she was breathing. Being alone in a room with her, knowing he couldn't touch her would drive him insane.
Holly settled Jamie back in the stroller and Logan mirrored her. They got the boys back in together, and for him at least, it was a familiar sensation. Like he'd done it a thousand times. He didn't have to look at her for a confirmation on which strap went where. He was so wrapped up in it, he almost missed her watching him.
"What?" He asked, looking at her looking at him.
"Come on, let's walk some more. They're spending a lot of time at daycare now that I work for my dad. I feel like they're not getting out enough."
They got up and walked some, passing Belvedere castle in the distance.
"I know you don't remember," Holly said while they walked, "but you and me we don't know how to stop touching each other. This, right now, the seperation, I think this is the longest we've gone without having sex since I gave you my virginity."
He nearly spat out his coffee. "You were a virgin? You're…" Sexy as hell (though still not his type). Good looking. Then he thought about it. Really thought about it. "But you can't be touched."
"Before the school I avoided everyone. I had myself committed to a psychiatric facility where they kept me on drugs twenty four seven for nearly a year." Holly shook her head, thinking about those times. How out of control her abilities were compared to now. "You know how the Professor is. He's always searching out new mutants with Cerebro. I went a little too long without my meds one night and he said I lit up on Cerebro like a spotlight. I'm a powerful psychic, or so he says. He and Storm came to see me, convinced me to get off the drugs and come to the school.
"They sent you to pick me up from the train station. My train was early or you were late, I can't remember why we missed each other. I bumped into you in the hall that afternoon and thankfully that shirt was new because it touched my skin. You were a little flirty with me later. I shut you down fast. I wasn't a people person then.
"You touched me by accident at the Halloween party a few weeks later and I downloaded everything. I mean, everything in your head. I was out for nearly two days. When I came to, you were seriously pushing me to try to give you your memories back. I told you I wouldn't fry your brain.
"Eventually we went to dig up some information on who your family was, and had time to figure things out. You made it pretty clear you wanted me. Wanted to be with me. I told you that every single day you would have to hurt me, if just a little. That you would have to be okay with that.
"You weren't at first. But I started getting used to you, and you saw I was bleeding less and less. We compromised. You stopped pushing me to give you your memories, in exchange you got me. You wanted to do right by me, get a hotel room, light some candles, rose petals, all that romantic shit other women like."
"But you're not other women." He said it completely without thinking about it.
"No I am not."
"In a car."
"Oh yeah, you kept telling me to wait to get back to the school to make me feel good. This wasn't the plan. Etcetera." She sipped her own tea and gave him a knowing, almost devious smile. "But I know exactly which of your buttons to push and how."
He was fairly certain her breathing pushed one of his damn buttons.
"Sex was never our problem Logan. The emotional crap we were getting pretty good at though. Communication without using my power as a crutch, we were still working on."
"How was that?"
She unsnapped the glove on her left hand, peeled it off and held her hand out to him. "Pick a number between one and infinity."
"We should sit," he told her, remembering holding her body when she fell last night. Her eyes closed, body convulsing while her nose leaked arterial red. It wasn't a thought, reacting before she hit the floor.
"I'll be fine standing." She held her hand out patiently. "Besides, if I do fall, you always catch me."
He took her hand, lacing his fingers with hers.
Her eyes rolled for less than a second and she didn't bleed. "You didn't pick a number." But she saw his inner turmoil. Everything he was thinking. How much he wanted to bury himself inside her and not leave the room this morning or for the next week. That he wanted to remember. The other Logan, her husband, gave him a life to come back to. Something to hold onto. The hell if he was going to let everything slip away.
What did the other guy do to get her? What did he do right to make her stay? Women never stayed for him. He lost every single one of them. Or couldn't have them. How, how did the other guy get this lucky?
"He asked," she said softly, taking one step closer. "He asked me to be his. That's all you have to do."
It couldn't be that simple.
"It really is though." She told him with another step forward. There was a foot of space between them now. "Love me, and I'm yours."
She was reading his mind.
"And your emotions, how you're trying to wrack your brain to remember more about me." She brought his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. "Keep trying. We're worth it."
Saturday evening he returned to the mansion around seven. Dinner was still going, there were kids scattered around the cafeteria and hallways talking when he passed it.
"Logan," the cajun called out, "hold up."
Logan did no such thing. He kept walking. Still the other man caught up to him.
"How did it go?" Remy asked. "You stayed over, so it must have gone well, no?"
"Slept on the couch." Logan told him without elaboration. He went to shove his gloves in his pocket and found Jamie's soft block in there. He forgot to give his son back the toy. He squeezed it thoughtfully.
"But she still wants you, no?"
Logan reached the top of the landing and began heading for his room. "I don't know."
"Mon dieu," Remy held out his hands, "What did you do? I told you, you call me if you're not getting anywhere."
"I don't need to - why am I talking to you about this?"
"Because you, or at least part of you, loves your wife. Now what did you do!"
Logan threw open the door to his rooms. "I can't remember her middle name. Or the boys middle names. I can't remember and she's -" He let out a frustrated, angry growl. "She's the most frustrating woman I have ever met." He was nearly 200, that was a lot of life.
"Oui, that's how it feels to be in love. They know how to screw with your head and they aren't even trying to."
"Yeah," Logan said in sarcasm, "because that works for you with Rogue."
"My Marie and I have a different problem. Our relationship is based on fighting because she's young and scared of her power. One day she'll realize what we have and then she'll kiss the icicle goodbye."
"Good luck with that bub."
"Merde," Remy shook his head. This man. It was like hitting a bag of bricks with another bag of bricks expecting a different outcome than tired arms and powdered brick. "You and Holly, you don't fight often. You're stupidly happy together and it's infuriating for the rest of us. Right now, you are thinking about kissing or killing her, oui?"
Logan said nothing. Both. Either. Throwing her down on the bed and making her beg for harder, faster, more.
"The bike worked?" Remy went on. "She wrapped her arms around you?"
"The bike worked. The monkey suit worked. The restaurant worked. I'm out nearly two hundred bucks, thanks for the warning."
"It's Manhattan, you think you get a decent meal and drinks for two under that?" When Logan opened his mouth to yell at him again. "Listen, listen, those things worked, didn't they? I was right, wasn't I? Holly warmed up to you?"
"Yeah." More than warmed up. He closed his eyes and there she was letting him peel off those hose like he owned them. Why the hell had he stopped? Some part of him was a gentleman. Maybe that was the other guy.
"Then she does still want you. Why do you tell me no?"
It wasn't a voluntary thought. It just came to him with Remy's awful English. 'Did,' the ghost of a memory said in Holly's voice, 'why did you tell me no?' Logan hadn't realized he'd been speaking until Remy gave him a smug grin.
"Now I know that wasn't the new Logan talking." He crossed his arms over his chest. "The new Logan hasn't corrected my English once since he woke up." He reached out and tapped Logan's chest with a finger. "That's my old friend Logan. Being married to an English teacher changed him a little. You still in there, huh?"
Logan knocked the other man's hand away. "She's pissed off at you."
Remy shrugged. "Ivy already gave me shit for it. I'll buy Holly the new Charlene Harris. She'll get over it with some vampires and porn."
He didn't know how, but he remembered those. A whole stack of them in hard covers being removed from the library because kids kept trying to read them when they thought no one was looking. Holly removed them to the teacher's lounge when she caught two twelve year old girls giggling in a quiet corner of the library. He remembered it so distinctly he could almost see her walking around their room getting ready for bed.
'They're kids, they have questions.' He remembered laughing at her.
'I had questions too, but my mom did her job. I'm talking to Professor X about establishing a permanent sex ed class.'
'Who's going to teach it?'
She gave him that look. The one that went straight to his groin. 'We're the only ones having kids here.'
'We're not the only couple.'
Holly snorted and hooked her fingers in his belt loops. 'Logan, if any other couple knew what they were doing, our room wouldn't be the only soundproof one.'
He couldn't argue with that.
"Who took over the sex ed class?" He asked slowly.
"Me and Storm." Remy winked at him. "Until you two work it out. You remember anything?"
"Pieces," Logan muttered. That was the first time he'd thought about Jean in...days. He'd been so focused on other things he hadn't given her a single moment until then.
"Uh, huh, and you're keeping your word? No Jean?"
Logan wondered if Remy was a psychic. "Not until right now."
"Good. You keep your word on that. Holly and Jean, they're like oil and water. The combination is fun to look at but one puts out a fire and the other makes it worse."
Logan almost asked which was which.
I apologize for the delay. I've been trying to date again. Every so often I put faith back in the dating scene and then I run into one of two types. The stage four clinger who wants all of my attention and the horny horn ball who wants to poke me with his *ahem* stick.
Speaking of being poked with a stick, hehehe, did you like how close Holly and Logan got? Did you? Huh?
This story keeps leading me in different directions, so I'm working on everything and editing a LOT.
