Story title: Choices we make 4?

Author name: Aria

Rating: this part is PG-13/PG-15

Disclaimer : I own nothing, except the plot.

Summary: Rogue and Bobby escaped the tortures of the lab and try to
get back to Westchester. On the way, Rogue has to make choices that
will change the lives of many.

Life takes unexpected turns all the time. I started to write down a couple of fanfics last year, thinking there couldn't be a better moment in my life to take some time and finally put on paper (literally or figuratively, of course!) all these ideas that have been born in my mind while reading all those fabulous stories out there. Of course, it came to be that I never had so little time, and even more importantly, it never had been so difficult for me to focus on it. Anyway, let's hope 2005 turns better in that regard than 2004. Having finally acquired a computer for my home certainly should help...

Oh, and this is not a happy, flowery chapter. . You didn't really think that he was gonna fall for her and become romantic-Logan all of a sudden, did you?

Now on with the fic!

Rogue flopped in the armchair. She didn't know those places could exist anymore.

She wasn't even sarcastic. A few months earlier, she would have been. They were in a snowbound seedy motel in the middle of the wilderness of Canada. The jerk at the reception had spent the little time required to get the keys to their two connecting rooms taking an eyeful. The rooms weren't any better than the exterior aspect, and probably hadn't seen a vacuum in the last couple of years. She tried not to think of all the acarids hidden in the matress or in the bedspread. At least, the towels seemed clean enough, although they must have seen better days, and she had used them to finally clean Bobby's wounds once he had been laid down on the double bed. That, a roof, the heat, and, above all, the fact that she didn't have to look constantly over her shoulder, that she didn't have to mentally ready herself for whatever was coming, were luxuries she hadn't had the chance to indulge in for longer than she could remember.

Poor Bobby, no wonder he had passed out two days ago. He had been shot twice, once in the thigh and in the left upper arm, no counting the exhaustion and the tortures endured in the lab. He had bled badly, but fortunately, neither bullet had nicked an artery, of that she was sure, or he wouldn't have survived otherwise. She had winced many times doing this gruesome task, presuming she had hurt him as he moaned repeatedly, but she knew she had to carry on nonetheless to avoid risking an infection.

Whatever the pain may have been and how much it had registered, it hadn't roused him to consciousness, and she didn't know if she should be thankful or not. Without a phone, the only way to get help from the X-men was to be found by Cerebro; unfortunately, it couldn't locate unconscious people, or her...

She abruptly stood up. She needed to get clean. She needed to scrub her skin, her treacherous skin, until nothing was left of it.

Until nothing was left of her, and she could pretend to be someone else.

Her back to the connecting door, she started to undress hastily, and her clothes hit the ground at a fast pace. She was caught up in her own thoughts, something that happened to her frequently, and with the relative sense of security provided by the neutral environment, she had considerably lowered her guard. It was therefore only when she was about to remove her plain, soiled cotton panties that she felt the presence behind her. She turned her torso quickly, bringing up her arms to hid her breasts.

He stood there motionless on the threshold. Logan stood there motionless in the threshold.

She hadn't reflected on what to do when she had run after him outside the bar. She had followed her instincts, her instincts that had told her to ask for his name, to reach for his arm with her gloveless hand and to lay it on the leather of his jacket, just above the wrist. It had been her instincts that had her made this soothing gesture, that had her wait until he was calm enough to talk.

He had blurted only one word: Logan.

And it had been her instinct that had her whispering her name back, something that she would had probably never said had she listened to her reason instead. Something that no one else she'd met since she had been abandoned in the care of Professor Xavier had ever heard from her.

Marie

No more words were exchanged then, and Logan never totally turned to face her, but his eyes connected with hers for a brief second before he gestured for her to follow and he started to walk back to the truck.

His expression had been almost apologetic then. And his voice, the few times he addressed her while they got settled, had been the softest tone she had heard him use so far. But no trace of apology was there as she stood almost naked before his gaze, his eyes looking at her form lit by the bathroom's light coming from behind her.

For one, maybe two seconds, she stayed there, not knowing how his actions made her feel. And then it all came back in a flash. The deal. And all those mental images that she had had the time to conjure in his truck about what intimacy would be with this man came back to her in a hurry.

She blush furiously, and in the steadiest tone she could muster under the circumstances, she said:

"You have no right to look at me like that!"

"I think I have. We made a deal."

His voice was rough, and he was leaning nonchalantly with one arm against the door frame, a cigar in the hand. The other one was behind his back, obviously holding something pretty big, but the lack of light made it impossible for her to make out. Clad only in jeans and a too tight white T-shit, at that very moment, he was confidence personified. He took one drag, before adding:

"And I wanna see what's in my end of that deal, darlin'."

She knew exactly what he expected of her; she was torn between being scandalized at that and the feeling that his gaze fixed on her was slowly inducing. But in her current state, the rage won. Fuming, she violently hit the floor with her naked, delicate foot, and she shot:

"I am no whore!"

He didn't seemed the least impressed, which made her all the more furious.

"I didn't say that. It ain't the point, and you know it. Now lower your arms, darlin'."

Since she didn't bulge, he added.

"Now, you don't want to find yourself tomorrow back in the cold with Bob there hurting all over."

Her chin started to tremble, as the truth of their situation asserted itself anew. It had been so easy to forget in their warm room, located somewhere near the civilization, all the hurt, all the fear, all the humiliation, if only for a little while. Suddenly, it all came back like a slap on her face. She had believed that they had established a connection of sorts, that she had seen earlier, in the neon light of the bar, some sort of understanding, even of compassion. She felt like she had been dreaming and violently shaken up. And that hurt more than she thought it would be possible outside the lab

She tried not to think. Clenching her teeth and closing her eyes, full of unshed tears, she dropped her arms slowly and waited, preparing herself for his touch, her throat dry at the thought that it was going to happen in the same room where Bobby lied. This was all so wrong: it should have been with him; now he'll be the unconscious witness of it with another, and she felt like she was about to throw up.

She didn't know how long she stood there, blind to what was going on around her. Minutes, at least. And still, no touch.

It wasn't exactly true. She could feel a warmth irradiating from a source in front of her, slowly caressing her, wrapping around her body, sweeping through the pores of her skin. Her throat cleared and her jaw relaxed, and she let herself bask in this comforting sensation, until naturally her eyes opened.

First she could barely distinguish the human features behind the foul smoke, which dissipated slowly, and she offhandedly thought of a bride's veil that is lifted. Thanks to the light coming from behind her, she could finally make up perfectly every details of what was just before her. Eyes, that used to be hazel, but now were black and appeared dilated. At the back of her mind, there was this nagging knowledge that she should run from such an intense gaze. But her body didn't heed the warning, and she made a step towards him.

He then blinked once, and his pupils cleared somewhat. His impassable expression didn't change though. He threw dejectedly what he had been holding behind him all this time on the bed: blankets.

"I don't need those."

His voice was asdetached as she'd ever heard it, and he turned abruptly, and the coat of warmth vanished with him. Somewhere in the distance she heard the door close, but she didn't see.

Her knees gave up and the bitter tears that had been there for so long now run freely on the alabaster skin of cheeks. And she sobbed for a long time on the floor of this seedy little motel lost in the Canadian wilderness.