(disclaimer in first part)
Author's Note: Many thanks to Khaki, who helped with the sticky parts. And to Megan, who has probably read parts of this fic two dozen times by now.
A Harley that screamed 'big bad and ugly' roared up to the stone house, and Mystique went out to meet it.
"Mystique."
"Sabretooth," she replied as dispassionately. Definitely no love lost there. They might be associates, but they would never be friends. The same went for Toynbee. Many times she'd wondered if that was how the X-Men had bested them over the years, using that tie of friendship that seemed like such a weakness.
The three of them were careful to stay apart, knowing that Xavier kept watch on them. On occasion, however, one or the other would stop by and check up. They hadn't all three been within a thousand miles of each other since Liberty Island.
*Damn the place*, she thought in loathing. *None of this would've happened if that night had ended differently.*
Sabretooth followed her to Magneto's room. He was doing badly today, and she'd given him tranquilizers to get him to sleep.
"Sorry you can't talk to him," she said.
The huge man shrugged. "Better that way. Most of what he says is nonsense nowadays." But his stance as he knelt by the bed and took the old man's hand was respectful. Sabretooth was outwardly scornful, but he was as loyal as Mystique herself. And why shouldn't they be? Hadn't Erik taken them each of them in during their time of greatest need? Exactly as Xavier did with the brats. Their techniques were more similar than either noticed. What a world they could create, if only the other man would be persuaded!
She sighed with regret. Those days were over. Now they were just trying to keep out of the public eye, forced to flee whenever some goody-goody got wind of a hideout and phoned the police. And Magneto, the strategist, the planner, the idealist, the true and undisputed master . . . he was nothing more than a crazy old man bent on vengeance.
Glancing down the hall, she could see the shamaness floating around. As far as Mystique knew, the woman did nothing but float and meditate all day. Just watching her made a person itch to find some useful task.
Sabretooth was watching her as well, a plan taking shape in his black eyes. Mystique was trying to decide if she would agree or not when he spoke.
"Let's get rid of the stranger now, while he sleeps," Sabretooth growled.
"He'll be furious when he wakes," she said.
"If he's in a sane mood at all," he countered.
Truth be told, she was sick of the foreign presence in the house. She could handle Magneto on her own, and for so long it had been just the four of them that any outsider just plain got on her nerves. Especially one as weird as the shamaness, who refused to even tell them her name (she'd told Magneto, but it was something different every time Mystique asked him).
So she strode over to the woman and snapped, "Wake up."
Gray eyes opened slowly. "What do you wish?" Her voice sounded like bones rattling; it made Mystique shiver.
"We've decided to end the spell. Release the girl and leave this house."
"There is the issue of payment."
Mystique snorted. "I'm not paying you shit, old woman. Get out!" Sabretooth stepped behind her and bared his teeth. He was always good for threats, at any rate.
For a moment the shamaness merely stared at them. Mystique felt a chill wash over her body, but she did not look away.
Finally the old woman spoke. "The spell is dissolved. But I will not forget." And she disappeared.
Sabretooth snorted. "Old bitch don't scare anyone."
Mystique agreed. Never mind the uneasiness she felt.
~~~~~~~~
Jean was in class when it happened. The faint buzz that was Rogue's mental process suddenly jolted as though it had been given an electric shock. Papers falling from her hands, she excused herself from the puzzled summer school students and bolted out of the room.
Professor? I felt--
I know. I'll be down presently.
When she reached the med room, she was treated to the sight of an awake Rogue and a deeply grateful Logan.
"What happened?" she asked.
He shook his head, looked dazed. "Don't know. She just sort of convulsed, moaned a little, and opened her eyes."
Those eyes focused on Jean now. "Hey," she managed to get out. "I can't move. Why can't I move?"
"You've been unconscious for nearly two weeks," she said softly. The fingers clasped in Logan's twitched briefly. "It'll take time for you to recover."
"Well, look who's awake," Hank remarked cheerfully as he slipped through the door, the Professor behind him. He began to check her vitals, which Jean had been too dumbfounded to do. She let him take over and watched Logan. The other three might as well have been vapor for all the notice he took of them. As he stroked the back of her hand with one finger, Jean could feel the joy radiating from him -- coupled with love, it was the purest emotion she'd ever sensed. She almost expected him to start purring.
Rogue was confused and disoriented, upset that her muscles would not obey her commands. But her fever had gone down considerably, to just over a hundred. She didn't need to cough, vomit, or otherwise exhibit the symptoms they'd grown so used to.
"We still don't know who did this?" Logan remarked, never taking his eyes off the girl.
"No," Xavier said. He wheeled to her other side and smiled at her, just about eye-level. "Welcome back, Rogue. We've missed you."
She felt his familiar kind presence and smiled in return. "I didn't like being away."
"May I . . .?" He raised his hands to either side of her head.
"Sure. I don't remember anything, but you can try."
The contact lasted only a few moments. He shook his head. "No, I didn't learn anything."
Logan glared at Xavier, clearly of the opinion that he was bothering her. "Why does it matter, now that she's better?"
Rogue looked up at him. "Maybe I'm not."
"We still have tests to run," Hank interjected, "but your temperature has cooled and there are no outward signs of infection." Logan frowned. She was terribly pale, eyes dark and bruised in a tired face, and weighed ninety pounds if she was an ounce. Her recovery would be long even if the illness was over.
*But I'll be here*, he told himself, vowing to share the words with her when there weren't so many spectators. *I'll be here to help every second of every hour of every day. *
*And so will Jeannie, and Hank, and 'Ro, and Chuck, and old Scooter.* He thought suddenly, with a note of surprise, that she had a devoted family despite the lack of blood. Maybe one of these days he'd thank them for taking care of her while he was off chasing the past in Canada.
~~~~~~~~
As he'd predicted, it took time for Rogue to recuperate. Several weeks of vigorous physical therapy left her able to take a few halting steps around the room, Logan hovering by her side, prepared to catch her. She was moved upstairs, to her delight -- she'd inherited a dislike of hospital conditions from Logan. Keeping food down was something of a struggle, but one that improved by the day.
There was one mark of the illness that she wished very much to keep: her ability to touch. For weeks she held her breath whenever someone touched her, but still nothing seemed to change. She'd been conscious for a month when her mutation began to sluggishly return.
Dozing lightly with Logan's hand covering hers, she felt the dreaded pull and woke up, yanking her hands away.
Logan took a deep breath, fighting dizziness. It had been open for only a second, but the connection was as powerful as ever. Rogue turned her face to the side and he watched her shoulders lift in the beginning of a sob.
Desperately he tried to get her to look at him. Gloves -- but he hadn't used them in so long, he didn't have them here. "Marie," he pleaded, "come on, darlin', don't cry. Let's think about this." He sent a silent message to Jean.
"What's to think about?" she said darkly. "I should've known. Just being sick isn't enough to make me stop."
"Stop what?" He wanted to keep her talking, keep her from shutting him out. One more hurt added to so many others might be the last.
"Being who -- being *what* I am. A mutant. A *freak*."
He hadn't heard that acid self-loathing in her voice for a long time. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "You're no different from me or anyone else here." She didn't respond, and there were no tears to thicken her speech. He didn't know if that was a good sign or bad.
Jean arrived then and his eyes turned to her, 'help' written in them with hazel letters.
"Rogue," she said with all the authority of a woman who'd spent years in medical school and hours in Senate committees. The girl reluctantly turned her head. "When did your mutation kick in?"
"A few minutes ago," she whispered, still not looking at Logan. Jean felt panic and anger boil in him -- not at Rogue, but at the situation. She didn't have to read his thoughts to know them: hadn't she been through enough already? What god or force hated her so much that they persisted in making her life miserable?
But they could get through this with logic. Jean was nothing if not thoroughly logical. "And how long had you been touching?"
Logan stared at her, understanding immediately.
"I don't know," Rogue muttered sullenly. "A while." As the words left her lips, she realized what Jean was getting at.
"Delayed reaction," the redhead said. "I don't know if it's permanent, but there's good reason to think it might be. Now do it again," she ordered.
Logan reached for her hand and she pulled back in fear, seeing the hurt look on his face but unable to stop herself.
"Trust me," said Jean. "At the very least, we know it won't kill him."
A grudging smile, remembering earlier times. She let him take her hand and when the connection didn't take effect at once, she relaxed at bit. Rogue closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his skin on hers: rough, warm. Logan. Home. She traced the delicate pattern of his adamantium-laced bones, his tendons, the knobby bone at the base of his wrist. If this went away, she wanted to have his touch committed to memory.
It didn't go away. For several weeks they conducted similar tests with different people. Logan could touch her for three hours with no effect; others, lacking a healing ability, lasted a half hour less. It slowly decreased from three to two to one, filling her with despair. At approximately thirty-four minutes, it settled.
When they had gone two weeks with no change, Jean declared twenty minutes her limit with the average human or mutant, thirty-four with Logan. It was also found that Rogue could speed it up when she wanted to, absorbing someone in a matter of seconds as she had for the past three years.
Logan was the volunteer and when he woke from the process, he grinned and said, "Thirty-four minutes is plenty of time."
~~~~~~~~
Dark. It was so dark, so very, very dark.
And cold. Why was it cold? Why didn't Mother come with blankets and hot tea? He didn't like being cold.
Please, please, make the cold go away. Make it go away.
He heard drumbeats. He was frightened and forgot about the cold. It didn't matter that it was cold. *They* were coming.
She kept a constant watch over him now. Ever rarer were the moments he recognized her or seemed to know where he was. It might have been explained by his insanity, but he was also physically ill. His temperature, last time he'd been calm enough for her to check, was 102.
She touched the metal of the lamp, saddened on a deep primal level. Such power as Erik's was never meant to be stolen by fools who had no idea what they were do. Of what they were depriving the world.
He moaned in his sleep and Mystique went to get another blanket. She'd made the decision. Much as she hated to do it -- and she had perhaps hated nothing in her life as she would hate this task -- it was time.
She picked up the phone.
~~~~~~~~
"'"When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor in a house that I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond in Concord Massachussetts, and earned my living by the labor of . . .' -- Marie, what *is* this?"
"It was on the suggested reading list. Keep going." He growled softly but continued.
Rogue yawned and stretched her toes. She and Logan were lounging on a bench in the courtyard, her head in his lap. Closing her eyes, she felt the sun slowly warm them and smiled. Sunlight was something she'd missed dearly. It was depressing to know that in early September, it was already beginning to lose the strength of its rays.
It would be a hard winter for her. Even now she required long sleeves and pants while everyone else was still in shorts. *I can finally wear skimpy clothing and yet I **can't**,* she thought with cheerful irony.
Logan was the exception to the mansion's warm weather rule. He always wore jeans, khakis if the professor had some important visitor to impress, and a t-shirt. Both items fit like skin, providing her with a satisfying view.
So far it was just a view. She'd taken on the role of pursuer, Logan refusing most of her advances. *'You're not well enough,'* she chanted silently. *'You're still tired all the time. You still need to put on weight. Your muscles are still recovering. You can barely walk across the lawn.'*
Oh, she knew he was right, but badgering him was fun. The man had probably never turned down sex in his life.
Rogue shook herself mentally and concentrated on Logan's voice again.
"--and the big bad wolf said, 'I'll huff and I'll puff and--"
She thwapped his knee. "That's not Thoreau!"
"Thoreau is a pansy," he replied gravely. "You weren't paying attention anyway."
"Was too." She turned on her side, cheek pressed against soft denim, and watched some kids playing soccer. He stroked her hair and after a moment spoke again.
"You aren't even starting till the spring semester."
She caught his hand and held it. "I know. I just wanted to get a head start, and I get tired when I read it myself." She made her tone purposefully mournful and thought gleefully, *Here comes some sugar.* Sure enough, he pulled her gently up until she was close enough to kiss and then did so thoroughly. Pleased, Rogue stretched up to meet his lips, enjoying the kiss for a little while before letting her hand wander up his thigh.
As she'd known he would, Logan released her immediately. "Don't start," he rumbled into her ear.
She snickered and transferred the offending hand to his shoulder. "Prude."
"Tease." Pulling her close again, he rested his chin on the top of her head. Cynic he might be by nature, but even he had to admit it: life was good. Life was very, very good. And he owed it all to the girl in his arms.
Who deserved everything anyone could give her, and since -- contrary to popular opinion -- he could read, he'd grit his teeth and make it through this piece of horse shit.
But before he had a chance to delve back into Walden, he caught a scent that made his skin crawl.
Rogue felt her lover's body tense and straightened up. "What is it, Logan?"
Eyes narrowed, he freed himself from her embrace and stood. "Stay here," he ordered, bending down to grasp her hands and look into her face. In this way he caught the sulky, defiant look in her eyes. *No fighting with me today, baby. Gotta keep you safe.*
"I'm serious, Marie," he said more softly, cupping her cheek in one warm hand.
She sighed, knowing he was right. "Fine."
Logan stalked off. Old habits died hard; the idea of mentally contacting Xavier didn't even occur to him. Rogue, on the other hand, squeezed her eyes shut and thought as hard as she could: Professor!
His voice in her head sounded pained. A little loud.
Sorry. There's a --
An intruder, I know. She's here under my sanctions . . . for the time being. Will you go with Logan to make sure he does nothing rash?
Sure. Assigned a duty, Rogue felt much better. She got up -- still a little slow -- and followed Logan's path.
Additional Note: I'd like to apologize for how slowly this fic is going. I know I don't exactly churn 'em out, and I really appreciate those of you who've stuck with me :)
Author's Note: Many thanks to Khaki, who helped with the sticky parts. And to Megan, who has probably read parts of this fic two dozen times by now.
A Harley that screamed 'big bad and ugly' roared up to the stone house, and Mystique went out to meet it.
"Mystique."
"Sabretooth," she replied as dispassionately. Definitely no love lost there. They might be associates, but they would never be friends. The same went for Toynbee. Many times she'd wondered if that was how the X-Men had bested them over the years, using that tie of friendship that seemed like such a weakness.
The three of them were careful to stay apart, knowing that Xavier kept watch on them. On occasion, however, one or the other would stop by and check up. They hadn't all three been within a thousand miles of each other since Liberty Island.
*Damn the place*, she thought in loathing. *None of this would've happened if that night had ended differently.*
Sabretooth followed her to Magneto's room. He was doing badly today, and she'd given him tranquilizers to get him to sleep.
"Sorry you can't talk to him," she said.
The huge man shrugged. "Better that way. Most of what he says is nonsense nowadays." But his stance as he knelt by the bed and took the old man's hand was respectful. Sabretooth was outwardly scornful, but he was as loyal as Mystique herself. And why shouldn't they be? Hadn't Erik taken them each of them in during their time of greatest need? Exactly as Xavier did with the brats. Their techniques were more similar than either noticed. What a world they could create, if only the other man would be persuaded!
She sighed with regret. Those days were over. Now they were just trying to keep out of the public eye, forced to flee whenever some goody-goody got wind of a hideout and phoned the police. And Magneto, the strategist, the planner, the idealist, the true and undisputed master . . . he was nothing more than a crazy old man bent on vengeance.
Glancing down the hall, she could see the shamaness floating around. As far as Mystique knew, the woman did nothing but float and meditate all day. Just watching her made a person itch to find some useful task.
Sabretooth was watching her as well, a plan taking shape in his black eyes. Mystique was trying to decide if she would agree or not when he spoke.
"Let's get rid of the stranger now, while he sleeps," Sabretooth growled.
"He'll be furious when he wakes," she said.
"If he's in a sane mood at all," he countered.
Truth be told, she was sick of the foreign presence in the house. She could handle Magneto on her own, and for so long it had been just the four of them that any outsider just plain got on her nerves. Especially one as weird as the shamaness, who refused to even tell them her name (she'd told Magneto, but it was something different every time Mystique asked him).
So she strode over to the woman and snapped, "Wake up."
Gray eyes opened slowly. "What do you wish?" Her voice sounded like bones rattling; it made Mystique shiver.
"We've decided to end the spell. Release the girl and leave this house."
"There is the issue of payment."
Mystique snorted. "I'm not paying you shit, old woman. Get out!" Sabretooth stepped behind her and bared his teeth. He was always good for threats, at any rate.
For a moment the shamaness merely stared at them. Mystique felt a chill wash over her body, but she did not look away.
Finally the old woman spoke. "The spell is dissolved. But I will not forget." And she disappeared.
Sabretooth snorted. "Old bitch don't scare anyone."
Mystique agreed. Never mind the uneasiness she felt.
~~~~~~~~
Jean was in class when it happened. The faint buzz that was Rogue's mental process suddenly jolted as though it had been given an electric shock. Papers falling from her hands, she excused herself from the puzzled summer school students and bolted out of the room.
Professor? I felt--
I know. I'll be down presently.
When she reached the med room, she was treated to the sight of an awake Rogue and a deeply grateful Logan.
"What happened?" she asked.
He shook his head, looked dazed. "Don't know. She just sort of convulsed, moaned a little, and opened her eyes."
Those eyes focused on Jean now. "Hey," she managed to get out. "I can't move. Why can't I move?"
"You've been unconscious for nearly two weeks," she said softly. The fingers clasped in Logan's twitched briefly. "It'll take time for you to recover."
"Well, look who's awake," Hank remarked cheerfully as he slipped through the door, the Professor behind him. He began to check her vitals, which Jean had been too dumbfounded to do. She let him take over and watched Logan. The other three might as well have been vapor for all the notice he took of them. As he stroked the back of her hand with one finger, Jean could feel the joy radiating from him -- coupled with love, it was the purest emotion she'd ever sensed. She almost expected him to start purring.
Rogue was confused and disoriented, upset that her muscles would not obey her commands. But her fever had gone down considerably, to just over a hundred. She didn't need to cough, vomit, or otherwise exhibit the symptoms they'd grown so used to.
"We still don't know who did this?" Logan remarked, never taking his eyes off the girl.
"No," Xavier said. He wheeled to her other side and smiled at her, just about eye-level. "Welcome back, Rogue. We've missed you."
She felt his familiar kind presence and smiled in return. "I didn't like being away."
"May I . . .?" He raised his hands to either side of her head.
"Sure. I don't remember anything, but you can try."
The contact lasted only a few moments. He shook his head. "No, I didn't learn anything."
Logan glared at Xavier, clearly of the opinion that he was bothering her. "Why does it matter, now that she's better?"
Rogue looked up at him. "Maybe I'm not."
"We still have tests to run," Hank interjected, "but your temperature has cooled and there are no outward signs of infection." Logan frowned. She was terribly pale, eyes dark and bruised in a tired face, and weighed ninety pounds if she was an ounce. Her recovery would be long even if the illness was over.
*But I'll be here*, he told himself, vowing to share the words with her when there weren't so many spectators. *I'll be here to help every second of every hour of every day. *
*And so will Jeannie, and Hank, and 'Ro, and Chuck, and old Scooter.* He thought suddenly, with a note of surprise, that she had a devoted family despite the lack of blood. Maybe one of these days he'd thank them for taking care of her while he was off chasing the past in Canada.
~~~~~~~~
As he'd predicted, it took time for Rogue to recuperate. Several weeks of vigorous physical therapy left her able to take a few halting steps around the room, Logan hovering by her side, prepared to catch her. She was moved upstairs, to her delight -- she'd inherited a dislike of hospital conditions from Logan. Keeping food down was something of a struggle, but one that improved by the day.
There was one mark of the illness that she wished very much to keep: her ability to touch. For weeks she held her breath whenever someone touched her, but still nothing seemed to change. She'd been conscious for a month when her mutation began to sluggishly return.
Dozing lightly with Logan's hand covering hers, she felt the dreaded pull and woke up, yanking her hands away.
Logan took a deep breath, fighting dizziness. It had been open for only a second, but the connection was as powerful as ever. Rogue turned her face to the side and he watched her shoulders lift in the beginning of a sob.
Desperately he tried to get her to look at him. Gloves -- but he hadn't used them in so long, he didn't have them here. "Marie," he pleaded, "come on, darlin', don't cry. Let's think about this." He sent a silent message to Jean.
"What's to think about?" she said darkly. "I should've known. Just being sick isn't enough to make me stop."
"Stop what?" He wanted to keep her talking, keep her from shutting him out. One more hurt added to so many others might be the last.
"Being who -- being *what* I am. A mutant. A *freak*."
He hadn't heard that acid self-loathing in her voice for a long time. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "You're no different from me or anyone else here." She didn't respond, and there were no tears to thicken her speech. He didn't know if that was a good sign or bad.
Jean arrived then and his eyes turned to her, 'help' written in them with hazel letters.
"Rogue," she said with all the authority of a woman who'd spent years in medical school and hours in Senate committees. The girl reluctantly turned her head. "When did your mutation kick in?"
"A few minutes ago," she whispered, still not looking at Logan. Jean felt panic and anger boil in him -- not at Rogue, but at the situation. She didn't have to read his thoughts to know them: hadn't she been through enough already? What god or force hated her so much that they persisted in making her life miserable?
But they could get through this with logic. Jean was nothing if not thoroughly logical. "And how long had you been touching?"
Logan stared at her, understanding immediately.
"I don't know," Rogue muttered sullenly. "A while." As the words left her lips, she realized what Jean was getting at.
"Delayed reaction," the redhead said. "I don't know if it's permanent, but there's good reason to think it might be. Now do it again," she ordered.
Logan reached for her hand and she pulled back in fear, seeing the hurt look on his face but unable to stop herself.
"Trust me," said Jean. "At the very least, we know it won't kill him."
A grudging smile, remembering earlier times. She let him take her hand and when the connection didn't take effect at once, she relaxed at bit. Rogue closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his skin on hers: rough, warm. Logan. Home. She traced the delicate pattern of his adamantium-laced bones, his tendons, the knobby bone at the base of his wrist. If this went away, she wanted to have his touch committed to memory.
It didn't go away. For several weeks they conducted similar tests with different people. Logan could touch her for three hours with no effect; others, lacking a healing ability, lasted a half hour less. It slowly decreased from three to two to one, filling her with despair. At approximately thirty-four minutes, it settled.
When they had gone two weeks with no change, Jean declared twenty minutes her limit with the average human or mutant, thirty-four with Logan. It was also found that Rogue could speed it up when she wanted to, absorbing someone in a matter of seconds as she had for the past three years.
Logan was the volunteer and when he woke from the process, he grinned and said, "Thirty-four minutes is plenty of time."
~~~~~~~~
Dark. It was so dark, so very, very dark.
And cold. Why was it cold? Why didn't Mother come with blankets and hot tea? He didn't like being cold.
Please, please, make the cold go away. Make it go away.
He heard drumbeats. He was frightened and forgot about the cold. It didn't matter that it was cold. *They* were coming.
She kept a constant watch over him now. Ever rarer were the moments he recognized her or seemed to know where he was. It might have been explained by his insanity, but he was also physically ill. His temperature, last time he'd been calm enough for her to check, was 102.
She touched the metal of the lamp, saddened on a deep primal level. Such power as Erik's was never meant to be stolen by fools who had no idea what they were do. Of what they were depriving the world.
He moaned in his sleep and Mystique went to get another blanket. She'd made the decision. Much as she hated to do it -- and she had perhaps hated nothing in her life as she would hate this task -- it was time.
She picked up the phone.
~~~~~~~~
"'"When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor in a house that I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond in Concord Massachussetts, and earned my living by the labor of . . .' -- Marie, what *is* this?"
"It was on the suggested reading list. Keep going." He growled softly but continued.
Rogue yawned and stretched her toes. She and Logan were lounging on a bench in the courtyard, her head in his lap. Closing her eyes, she felt the sun slowly warm them and smiled. Sunlight was something she'd missed dearly. It was depressing to know that in early September, it was already beginning to lose the strength of its rays.
It would be a hard winter for her. Even now she required long sleeves and pants while everyone else was still in shorts. *I can finally wear skimpy clothing and yet I **can't**,* she thought with cheerful irony.
Logan was the exception to the mansion's warm weather rule. He always wore jeans, khakis if the professor had some important visitor to impress, and a t-shirt. Both items fit like skin, providing her with a satisfying view.
So far it was just a view. She'd taken on the role of pursuer, Logan refusing most of her advances. *'You're not well enough,'* she chanted silently. *'You're still tired all the time. You still need to put on weight. Your muscles are still recovering. You can barely walk across the lawn.'*
Oh, she knew he was right, but badgering him was fun. The man had probably never turned down sex in his life.
Rogue shook herself mentally and concentrated on Logan's voice again.
"--and the big bad wolf said, 'I'll huff and I'll puff and--"
She thwapped his knee. "That's not Thoreau!"
"Thoreau is a pansy," he replied gravely. "You weren't paying attention anyway."
"Was too." She turned on her side, cheek pressed against soft denim, and watched some kids playing soccer. He stroked her hair and after a moment spoke again.
"You aren't even starting till the spring semester."
She caught his hand and held it. "I know. I just wanted to get a head start, and I get tired when I read it myself." She made her tone purposefully mournful and thought gleefully, *Here comes some sugar.* Sure enough, he pulled her gently up until she was close enough to kiss and then did so thoroughly. Pleased, Rogue stretched up to meet his lips, enjoying the kiss for a little while before letting her hand wander up his thigh.
As she'd known he would, Logan released her immediately. "Don't start," he rumbled into her ear.
She snickered and transferred the offending hand to his shoulder. "Prude."
"Tease." Pulling her close again, he rested his chin on the top of her head. Cynic he might be by nature, but even he had to admit it: life was good. Life was very, very good. And he owed it all to the girl in his arms.
Who deserved everything anyone could give her, and since -- contrary to popular opinion -- he could read, he'd grit his teeth and make it through this piece of horse shit.
But before he had a chance to delve back into Walden, he caught a scent that made his skin crawl.
Rogue felt her lover's body tense and straightened up. "What is it, Logan?"
Eyes narrowed, he freed himself from her embrace and stood. "Stay here," he ordered, bending down to grasp her hands and look into her face. In this way he caught the sulky, defiant look in her eyes. *No fighting with me today, baby. Gotta keep you safe.*
"I'm serious, Marie," he said more softly, cupping her cheek in one warm hand.
She sighed, knowing he was right. "Fine."
Logan stalked off. Old habits died hard; the idea of mentally contacting Xavier didn't even occur to him. Rogue, on the other hand, squeezed her eyes shut and thought as hard as she could: Professor!
His voice in her head sounded pained. A little loud.
Sorry. There's a --
An intruder, I know. She's here under my sanctions . . . for the time being. Will you go with Logan to make sure he does nothing rash?
Sure. Assigned a duty, Rogue felt much better. She got up -- still a little slow -- and followed Logan's path.
Additional Note: I'd like to apologize for how slowly this fic is going. I know I don't exactly churn 'em out, and I really appreciate those of you who've stuck with me :)
