A/N: Hello guys! I succeded in updating faster than the last time! Yay! And I hope you like the chapter. Please tell me if you do and don't, of course. And tell me if you'd like to read a sequel. I'd like to thank Carmilla, for she is a wonderful great and patient beta. Thx! Your Dela

CHAPTER FIVE

How could he do this to her? How the hell could he do this to her? This was so not appropriate. He was a damn telepath, he should know what she was feeling. God, he should know what happened last night. Nice girlfriend the Professor had. Flirting bold with another guy in the middle of the night she only knew for, what, barely one day. Drinking with him till dawn. What kind of woman was that?

And now that. Wonderful, just peachy. Marie stopped suddenly dead in her tracks to take one or two steady, calm and deep breaths. Although she was able to control the different personalities in her head most of the time, the Wolverine and Magneto inside of her made it hard not to burst out a scream, a shout of anger, pain and fear. Every now and then Eric mocked her and told her that Logan could never look at the Untouchable like he looked at Jean or Isobel. Unsuccessfully she tried to calm herself, to shut the voices up, and resumed her angry pace through the corridors of the big mansion.

She thought back to the morning hours when she had been working on her arts assignment. The Professor had approached her, talking to her about her mutation and that he recommended to meet with "Mrs Young", as he had refereed to her with a slight and barely visible smile.

Marie's heart ceased to beat for a second. She rose her already clenched fist and knocked at the door that lead to the room of "Mrs Young". Marie waited, her anger growing with every passing second she had to wait in front of the room.

"Oh, hello!" Isobel said suddenly, ripping Marie out of her raging reverie, obviously confused. She held a towel in her hand, rubbing her wet hair, her other hand on the doorknob. She wore a bath robe, evidently not expecting any visitors right now.

"I thought we were supposed to meet in one hour!"

Rogue didn't know when she had started to be jealous. She had never been jealous before. She wasn't the type for it. At least she thought so until last night. She wasn't jealous when Jean was still around and Logan's look seemed to darken every time she was around. Because Jean had Scott and Marie somehow always had the feeling that Logan flirted with Jean mainly to irritate Scott. But for some reasons this woman was different. Again Marie took a deep breath hoping to release some of her anger. It worked just as well as the last time. Not at all.

"Rogue?"

Marie turned to the young woman in front of her and closed her eyes.

"Listen." she began. "I'm here because the Professor had asked me to. But I'm not sure this is going to work. I'm trying for a very long time now to get this mutation under control and I don't see how you could possibly help."

"I see." Isobel lowered her towel and head. "We'll try nonetheless." Her head snapped back up and she took a step aside and gestured Marie to enter.

Reluctant Marie went inside and immediately sat down, looking everywhere but Isobel.

"Okay, give me a minute. I just want to get dressed before we start."

"No need to. As I told you. Whatever you want to do, it's not gonna work. This won't take long."

"Mhh, I'm not surprised that nothing worked so far."

"What do you mean?" glowering at her, as she saw it, opponent Marie got to her feet, crossing her arms defensively.

"Darling, your attitude ain't the most positive one I've seen in my life. You should work on that before we start." Isobel shook her head.

'Who is she to judge me?' Marie thought and her anger reached another high.

"Fine."

And with one turn Marie was on her wait out. With an anger furiously rushing through her whole body Marie almost broke the door when she slammed the door shut behind her. The blood streaming fast and loud through her that she didn't hear Isobel following her out into the corridor. Only another loud bang brought her to turnabout and find Isobel breathing just as hard as herself.

"You are probably the cockiest girl I've ever met." Isobel shouted at her.

She couldn't believe it.

"What?" she was so furious she wasn't even able to form a coherent sentence.

"You heard me right."

"You don't know me. You have no right to..." Marie began but was cut short by Isobel.

"No I don't. But I know your kind. You're drowning in self-pity."

Until now some students were gathering around the two women in rage, watching the whole scene. Scandals were very rare in this school. Now they had one.

"So, my kind? I don't know many who haven't been really touched for over four years now."

Isobel smiled a thin and not really happy smile. "That's just what I mean." She marched over to where Marie stood and was merely inches away from her.

"I tell you what Missy. You're not the only one suffering because of her mutation." Closing her eyes Isobel took a raging breath. "I know how you're feeling." Isobel tried to get this conversation or whatever it was onto a more civil level and looked back up, some of the fury in her eyes gone.

"You don't know anything!" Marie hissed.

That brought Isobel once more over the edge. "You think? But you know just as much of me as I know about you."

"Right, and I'd like to keep it that way." Marie spat and turned to leave again, having enough of this.

"What about Scott, Rogue."

Confused about what Scott could have to do with this Marie stopped. "What about him?"

"Oh, do I have your humble attention now?"

Marie faced the still wet woman.

"You have never ever wasted a thought about how he lived before he met Charles... Professor Xavier, who helped him and give him that glasses?"

Questioning Marie looked at her, her forehead wrinkled by a frown.

"I thought so. Well I know how. He lived in fear, everyday, that when he dared to open his eyes he could kill someone he loved. He had tied a shawl over his eyes to make sure that he wouldn't be able to open them. He hasn't seen a red rose's real beauty since he was thirteen. Thirteen, Rogue. Think about it. And he still can't control it. He needs the help of the glasses. Or let's take Storm for example. It took some years and a house she'd blown up with a lightning to finally learn how to control this. No one here has a simple life. No mutant does. I know you're bitter. But don't you dare to think that you're the only one who suffers." A tear ran down Isobel's cheek, the anger gone only hurt was left. And with that Isobel was gone and let her door suffer once more, and bashed it shut.

Hard breathing Marie still stood in the corridor, staring at the place the other woman had been only moments before, being observed by her fellow students. Then she left, too.

"Did you really have to shout at her like that?"

"It was time someone did, Charles. You know that."

Charles and Isobel were once again in the invented dream plane, though it was not as beautiful as before. It was a barely lit, dark room, with only the two of them standing in the middle.

"I can understand that you want to protect her. Like you always do." Isobel lowered herself to the floor, crouching and resting her head in her hands. "She just, I don't know, pulled the right trigger." Her head rose. "But I'm not sorry. Someone had to bring her around."

Slowly Charles sat down opposite from her. "She doesn't know what you've been through."

"She doesn't know what anyone has been through. She is way too self absorbed."

"Yes, I know. That's why I asked you to help because you were just like her!"

Here she was. At his door. For over half an hour now! He probably knew she was there the moment she turned into the corridor that led to his room.

Why was she here anyway? It was ridiculous. She should be standing in front of her boyfriend's door, wanting to talk to him. But she didn't.

It was Logan she needed right now. Not Bobby but Logan.

Slowly she rose her hand and dared to knock. It was a soft, shy knock but she knew that he had heard her.

She heard a gruffy "C'min!" and opened the door.

"What kept you so long kid?" he asked and referred to her waiting outside his door.

She didn't say a word. She just slid the door shut, walked over to him and sat down on his bed next to him.

"Can I ask you something?" Her voice was low, sad. He smelled salt on her and found that she had been crying.

"Marie, what happened?"

"I... she. She said I... do you think I'm arrogant? Do you think that I'm egocentric and don't care about other people?"

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's right."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Young."

"What has she to do with this?"

Logan was so confused by now he had no idea what was worrying her nor what that strange girl, woman had to do with it.

"Kiddo, I have no idea what you are talking about could you please start from the beginning?"

A secret tear escaped her eyes which she angrily wiped away.

"The Professor asked me to meet with her. He said that she might be able to help me control my powers. I didn't think so. I mean she's only a little older than me. And no one knows what kinda mutation she has. And I was so mad... and... then we started arguing and then she said that I only thought about how much I suffer and that I didn't care about what others have gone through. Am I really like this?"

Her face was full of hurt. He hadn't seen her like this since the day she tried to run away and got kidnapped by ol' Magneto.

God, how he ached to take her in his arms and wipe those tears from her face and hold her. But he knew that once he had her close to him, closer than she already was, he wanted more of this. More of her next to him, near him, with him.

He shut his eyes tight to fight the urge to do so anyway.

"Marie. She is wrong. You're a wonderful person. And you care. You don't want to hurt anyone. And you watch out for others. You take care of others. Maybe too much sometimes. Don't let her tell you something else."

"But I think she might be right at some point."

"Why?"

"I dunno. I just need time to think it all over." This was so embarrassing and she didn't want to think about it anymore but she knew she had to. "God!" It hurt to think about it and to think that that stupid brat was right. She drove one hand trough her hair and the white streaks in her hair fell over face.

And he understood.

"Hey, kid. Marie. You wanna stay some time?" he almost only breathed the question and she nodded.

He took a deep breath and lay back against the head board. The arms crossed behind his head.

But to his surprise she didn't lay down beside him, no. She slid up and rested her head on his chest.

The sensation of feeling her weight on his belly hit him instantly. His heart made a jump and another part of his anatomy, too. This was no good. He knew that but she kept snuggling closer and after some moments he felt her breath even. What should he do now? He had now idea. Could he possibly wake her and tell her to leave? No. He still smelled the scent of tears and it hurt him that she was so sad. Nope, he would let her rest and tell her to get to her own bed later. Yes, he would do that. Yes, he could do that.

But all plans can go wrong. And Logan's plan did go wrong. Not terribly wrong, but it simply didn't take the turn he intended because the plan had a weak point: his own tiredness.

He fell asleep shortly after Rogue. His eye lids became heavier and heavier and soon he was sound asleep.

Some time through the night though without really noticing Logan's arms slipped from behind his head down next to him and onto Rogue and her uncovered elbow.

None of them awoke because of this little incident. Both slept, peacefully next to each other through most of the night.

A knock on the door in the middle of the night startled Isobel out of her sleep.

"Who the hell...?" she cursed under her breath when she got out of her bed after the person knocked again. Groggily she switched the light on and tied her bath robe tight around her body. She blinked a few times because of the sudden brightness. And like that, frowning and with tousled hair, she opened the door.

"Rogue?" Isobel exclaimed, now wide awake.

She asked the young woman in instantly after seeing the sad look on her face.

"Apart from the daytime, uhm... nighttime, what are you doing here. I thought I'd never see you again after our little disagreement."

"Yeah, well. That's something I wanted to talk to you about." Marie fumbled with the hem of her left glove, eyes cast downwards and it took a few moments for her to find her voice again. "I'm sorry that I..."

"No, listen Rogue. I'm sorry." Isobel sat down and gestured Marie to follow suit. She took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm going to tell you some things now I usually don't like to talk about. Especially to people I don't really know. Because the truth is I know you!"

Marie wanted to protest, took a deep breath to object again and start the whole discussion all over again, but Isobel rose a hand to stop the young woman.

"No let me finish." And Marie obeyed. "I know that I... don't know you personally but I know what you are going through because I went through the same thing.

"I know the feeling when no one is able to touch you. I know that feeling when you flinch away when someone tries to touch you, when the fear grips you whenever you pass someone who has too short sleeves and might brush a part of your exposed skin. I know the hunger for a real, I mean real hug. Skin to skin. No fabric between you and the other person. How you starve inside and become bitter because you envy those who think that touching is natural and nothing special because they do it everyday. I know how it is to feel isolated, untouchable and with that unlovable. I know all this Rogue."

By the time Isobel had finished her short musing Marie was crying silently. New tears were mingling with the scent of the already dry ones.

"My mutation was very cruel before I learned how to control it. My ability or as I saw it then curse is that I can control the aging or regeneration of cells and the stability of chemical connections. I can tell you it's not nice to see a person age many decades in a few minutes only because you touched that someone. Or the feeling of your clothes fall apart because something in your body destroys something on the molecular level. All this is a long, a very long time ago but I still feel the curious looks and the disgust in other peoples eyes. I don't want to feel like this ever again and I don't wish anyone on this planet to go through that."

Isobel looked away. Memories surfacing along with the pain. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"I'm telling you all this because I need you to trust me. I need you to trust me because I don't know if I can really help you when you don't."

Marie nodded. She didn't really know what to think. She wanted to believe that woman was able to help her. All the things she had told her... she felt exactly like that. But still, trust her? How? She didn't know her and it still bugged her that she seemed to flirt with Logan and the closeness that seemed to be between them. It was just... she still could feel Logan's heartbeat on her cheek. His breath that drove through her hair and tickled her face. It was stupid of her to fall asleep there, on his bed... no on him. Who knew what would have happened if he accidently brushed her face or part of her uncovered arms? He surely would be dead by the moment she felt the pull. But still, it had felt so good to be with someone like that. Logan was the only one she trusted enough to be that someone. She knew that. There was no point in denying that. Bobby would never be able, no matter how patient or careful he was, to get her to open up the way Logan did. What if Logan and Isobel...?

"Rogue?"

With a snap she returned to the woman next to her.

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to help you but you have to let me. Do you think you could do that?"

Marie watched Isobel for one more moment.

"I can't promise you that I'm going to fully trust you. But I wanna do my best. That's all I can give you."

"That's a start and a good one." Isobel smiled. "But I'd suggest that we start after another hour or two of sleep."

With that the two women part and left each for their own beds and both began to dream.

One about the man she thought she could never win.

The other about the man she knew she had lost.