He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and turned to Marie. "You ready, darlin'?"

She nodded. She had doubts about so much exposed skin; she wasn't 100 comfortable with touching yet, but as Logan pointed out: she had to start somewhere. As usual, in his abrasive way he was right.

"You remember the old routine?"

Again she nodded, preparing herself for his attack.

He was deliberately slow. He started with his fists; she knew he preferred to use his upper body and she blocked accordingly. His second punch was a little faster to her stomach, and his third to her shoulder. She blocked easily each time, but didn't move to attack right away. He swung again and she arched backwards, flipping gracefully and landing perfectly in a classic defense pose.

"Not bad," he said gruffly.

"Yoga," she quipped and tensed as he circled her. They sparred easily for about half an hour before he decided to up his attack and force her to grab him instead of just block him. It was obvious that she was hesitant about skin-on-skin touching; it was her biggest weakness.

It didn't go very well. Every time he managed to grab her, his hand tight on her bare wrist, she stiffened and lost her focus. Every time she had the opportunity to grab him and take the attack, she froze and lost the advantage. Logan could tell she was just getting more and more frustrated at herself.

"Go grab the knives, kid."

Marie relaxed from a defensive posture but didn't lower her guard. "Why?"

Logan grinned. "I wanna play a game."

Marie tested the easy weight of the green apple Logan had tossed her and cocked her head at him.

"You want me to WHAT?" she asked again, just to make sure she heard him right the first time.

"Throw it at me, kid. As hard as you can."

Marie shrugged. She held the apple like a baseball and rolled her wrist; she was still getting used to the way the leather knife sheaths on her forearms affected her movements.

He was grinning at her in that cocky, wolfish way that was damn annoying. Suddenly the idea of throwing something didn't sound so bad.

"Whatever you say," she muttered, and hauled her arm back. She whipped the apple at him as hard as she could; a little green blur heading for his head.

The familiar sound of metal sliding on metal; the claws were out in a heartbeat and the apple was neatly skewered on them. With a smug smile he took a bite out of it before pulling it off his claws and retracting them. He stood there munching on the apple, enjoying Marie's look of disbelief. Her eyes traveled from the fruit in his hand to the basket of apples at his feet.

"Oh no," she said.

"Oh yes."

Marie moaned. "You have got to be KIDDING me."

"Ready?"

"What?"

Logan bent, grabbed an apple off the top of the pile in the basket. "Set."

Her eyes widened. He wasn't kidding. Her right hand went for the knife sheathed on her left forearm; held the knife awkwardly as she tried to remove the other one without slicing herself.

"Go!" He lobbed the apple at her, not fast but not slow either. It hit her in the thigh.

"I'm not ready!" The blades were unfamiliar weights in her hands that she had almost no control over. And more apples were flying her way. She stabbed at the air with both hands; managed to nick a few of the apples but mainly managed to get hit a lot by the flying orbs. By the time the basket was empty she had more than a few bruises on her arms and legs.

"You didn't have to throw them so hard," she complained as she gathered a handful of the cursed apples in her cardigan. She vowed to get him back when it was her turn to teach Yoga.

Logan was smoking a cigar by the woodpile and watching her limp around the yard.

"What are you doing?"

Marie glanced at him over her shoulder. "I can't let all these apples go to waste," she drawled primly. "I'm making apple damper."

"We don't have a stove, darlin'."

"You don't need a stove for damper, sugar." She started for the cabin. "Scott taught it to me the last time we went camping."

"Scooter n' you went camping?" Logan tried to keep the note of jealousy out of his voice.

"Oh, there was a bunch of us; Kitty and Jubes and Piotr and Gambit and Hank...it was fun. We took the Blackbird to Mexico and camped out on a beach. Scott's cousin lives in Australia and taught him about damper and then Scott showed us."

Logan started to follow her into the cabin when Marie stopped suddenly; he bumped into her from behind. She turned and glanced up at him, offered an apologetic smile. "Can you make a campfire while I get this ready?"

He could lose himself way too easily in those sinful chocolate brown eyes staring hopefully up at him. It wasn't fair; he wanted to be her friend, he wanted her to be a kid again so he could have a valid excuse to not touch her like he was thinking about…

"Logan?"

Shit, she was talking to him. "Huh?"

"Campfire." She jutted her chin in the direction of the woodpile. "You. Go. Campfire. Build. Now. Ung-owa," she mock-grunted like a caveman. Marie grinned at him and turned into the house. Dumping the apples into the sink, she began to gather the ingredients: flour, a pinch of sugar, and beer. She wasn't much of a cook when it came to gourmet meals, but this was a piece of cake. Mix the flour & sugar together with water until it was mildly doughy, then add beer until it was pasty so it would rise…once she warmed the apples over the fire she would roll the dough into a ball, stuff some apples into the middle, then wrap the entire thing in foil and stick it in the hot coals…it was a warm, semi-sweet meal.

"Fire's goin'." Logan stood behind her with a raised eyebrow, watching Marie knead the dough. The eyebrow went even higher when he saw her pour a bottle of his beer into the mixture.

"I hope you know what you're doin'."

Marie tossed him a look over her shoulder; winked. "Trust me, sugar. Do me a favor and stick the apples over the fire for a minute or two to soften 'em up." She cocked her head at the apples, which had been rinsed of all dirt and germs. She smiled gratefully at him when he gathered them and headed outside, shaking his head and mumbling about wasting good beer.

When she peeked out the window over the kitchen sink, she saw him standing by the fire, the adamantium claws of his right hand released. The apples were skewered onto his claws and he was holding it casually over the fire while smoking a cigar and looking bored. The entire picture was so comical that Marie laughed out loud. Logan heard her and tilted his head in her direction. Chomped down on the cigar, raised his left hand, and extended his middle claw in a rude salute. It only made her laugh harder, until tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to lean against the sink. It felt so good to laugh that she couldn't stop. She was still giggling when he came inside, sporting four very warm and softened apples.

"What the hell is so funny?" But her laughter was contagious; he was grinning good-naturedly.

Marie waved her hands at him, trying to catch her breath. She wheezed in between giggles, wiped the tears from her eyes. Logan rolled his eyes at her and set the apples on the miniature kitchen table. Out came the claws again; he sliced them neatly as she got a hold of herself.

"It's good to hear you laugh, kid," he said a little too carefully to be off-hand. It helped Marie sober up enough to talk.

"You just looked so…silly. You could rent yourself out at dinner parties as Wolverine, the human shish kebob."

"Ha ha, very funny."

"I'm sorry. But you really should have seen yourself. It was better than when Bobby got a cold and sneezed icicles for a week. And that was pretty damn funny."

Huh," he snorted, and left the sliced apples on the table. He watched with interest as she stuffed the apple slices into the center of the balls of dough, and then wrapped each ball in its own tinfoil casing. There were five silver packages in all; she handed him three and headed outside with the other two. With a stick she raked the red-hot coals of the campfire, nestled all five foil balls into the coals and covered them.

"Can't stick it directly in the flames. It's gotta be in the coals for it to rise without burning." She headed back into the cabin to wash her hands; he followed close behind. She busied herself with rinsing all the dough from beneath her fingernails.

"Want me to make something else?"

"Nah. Trust me; these things are filling." Marie wiped her hands on a dishtowel and finally looked at him, really looked at him. "You've got some black stuff on your shirt."

"You've got flour on your face," he countered.

"I do?" She touched her fingers to her cheeks. "Where?"

She tried to find the smudge without much success. Finally he leaned close and smoothed his thumb across her temple, wiping off the errant flour. At his touch she unconsciously stiffened, relaxing only when he leaned back to observe her critically.

"What?" Marie didn't like the way Logan was eyeing her, like he was assessing a specimen of cattle at an auction.

"Why do you do that?" he rasped.

"Do what?"

Logan sighed and deliberately leaned in close, less than an inch of space between them as he reached around her for another beer. Her eyes were wide, frozen on him. Again she stiffened when his skin brushed hers.

"That. You tensed up whenever I touched you today. It could get you killed, kid."

She shrugged, looking a trifle unhappy. "I guess I'm still not used to...you know. Touching." Letting him touch her was more like it.

"You're gonna have to get used to it, one way or another."

Marie scowled and poked him harder than necessary on the arm with her bare finger. "Touch touch touch. There. I touched you. Whoop-dee-doo."

"C'mon, kid, I'm being serious."

"So." Poke. "Am." Another poke. "I." One last poke for good measure. Quick as a snake, he grabbed her index finger in his big fist, squeezed it tight. Her scowl turned into a wince.

"Let me go."

He growled. "Are you gonna poke me again?"

"I'm not promising anything," Marie said mock-sweetly.

Logan sighed and released her finger. His promise that he would keep her safe and look after her was rattling around in his head like a handful of beans in a glass jar. Teaching her how to fight was a priority, but it wouldn't work if she froze every time she was faced with the idea of touching or being touched. She could play it off as a joke all she wanted; it still wouldn't help her assimilate the sensations of touch into her life.

"I'm going to check on the damper." She hightailed it back outside, away from the overwhelming feel and scent of him. He must've picked up on her wavelength; this time he didn't follow.