1"What happened?" The voice that pulled him out of meditation was filled with ice, and it took him a moment to let reality reassert itself, remembering that everything wasn't perfect in the world. Remembering that he didn't have a training session with Remy to look forward to this evening, because everything between them had been royally screwed up. He opened his eyes to Ororo's stormy face.

"What happened where? When?" He asked, confused. The woman knew better than to pull him out of meditation with a question. At a shout for help or an angry threat he could jump from calm to alert in a second, but anything else took time.

"You and Remy went out two days ago, and today he is talking about not returning to us once his time at Leadenhall is done. What happened?"

Oh that…

"Perhaps he's just realised that there's nothin' for him here anymore." The look on Ororo's face was pure fury.

"How can you speak those words? We cannot simply throw him out of his home because he can no longer fight." Logan held his hands up, placating.

"I didn't mean it like that, 'Ro. Stop jumpin' down my throat."

"What precisely did you mean then?"

"I meant that he hates ta feel useless, an' if he's found something he can do someplace else maybe he'd rather be there than here." This seemed to assuage Ororo's anger for a moment, but a frown quickly replaced calm understanding.

"What happened that night that made him feel useless?" Logan flinched internally. He had really hoped Ororo wouldn't pick up on the flaw in his excuse.

"Look, what happened is between us, alright?" Logan responded, immediately on the defensive.

"So something did happen?" With great inner strength, Logan resisted grinding his teeth together as Ororo picked up on another unspoken implication.

"'Ro, the kid…" He flinched. "Remy's an adult. He has ta make his own choices."

"Not when that choice leaves him depressed. I will not have it."

"OK, look. I'll talk ta him, see if I can say anythin' ta cheer him up, find out what's goin' on. That satisfy ya?" Ororo held Logan's eyes for a moment, as though trying to read the answers there.

"What happened Logan? Just tell me that. I wish only to know which of Remy's demons we are battling here."

"We went out for a drink, he got plastered, I took him home."

"How drunk was he?" She persued.

"Pretty gone."

"And then?"

"I took him home and… some things were said that shouldn't have been. I left. And that's it." Ororo found his eyes again, boring into him as though she could find the truth hidden deep enough. Remy was a thick-skinned individual, a state of mind born of too many years of isolation. There were only a few things that could really offend him or hurt his feelings to the point that he would show his pain freely, even when he was intoxicated.

"Did you accuse him of manipulating your emotions?" Logan's eyes answered for him. Ororo threw her hands up in the air in an uncharacteristic show of anger. "How can you defend him against the others and then make the same accusations yourself? You know he is more emotional when he is drunk."

"First hand." Logan said under his breath.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, hearing more than the implication that Logan often saw Remy drunk.

"I was too close when Remy fixed his shields back up. I've been connected ta his empathy since then, feelin' what he's feelin'."

"No wonder you've been so sensitive lately." Ororo nodded with new understanding.

"What d'ya mean, sensitive?"

"You have been showing an uncharacteristic amount of… of empathy towards Remy lately. Hank noticed it too, and we were both grateful. Remy does not have a lot of support at the mansion at the moment, and he needs it most now when he is so vulnerable. Logan... things will not go well for my brother if he is separated from our support now. Whether he will admit it or not, he needs us." Logan remained silent, but averted his eyes, filled with guilt. "If you are connected to his emotions, how would you know if he was manipulating you on purpose or accidentally?" Ororo asked after a moment's thought.

"I know it wasn't on purpose, he was drunk, he couldn't help how he was feeling. I just hated being dragged along for the ride. Neither of us knew what we were doing until…"

"Until what?" Logan didn't seem to hear Ororo's question, deep in thought.

"But I knew what I was doin'… I just wasn't…" Logan trailed off. "How do I know if it was what he wanted or what I wanted?"

"Logan, you're not making any sense." Ororo said softly, wondering whether Wolverine ranting was a bad sign.

"Ororo… Look, say I hated Scott."

"You do hate Scott, Logan." She told him warily.

"That's not the point, and no, I don't. Just… Imagine I hated Scott, and you were connected ta me, so because whenever Scott's around I'm hatin' him, you hate him too. But maybe ya hated Scott before I did, so I hate Scott because you hate him. How do we know which of us really hates Scott?"

"I don't hate Scott."

"Imagine, 'Ro, please."

"Well… if I saw him without you there, then I might know. But I might have learned to hate him, because you do. And then I hate him, despite not being the original… hater. So to speak."

"So it might still be my fault you hate him…" His brow crinkled.

"I think the real issue here is… do we have good reason to hate him?"

"Hate who?" Ororo looked up, still frowning as Scott looked around the doorframe curiously, having been drawn by the sounds of conversation.

"You." Scott looked a little taken aback at that.

"Who hates me?"

"We are trying to work out whether it is Logan or I." She answered blandly. Scott blinked, baffled.

"I love him." Logan decided quietly, standing with his mind still far away and still not acknowledging Scott's presence. Scott's eyes widened at this new statement, and he took a step back out of the room before asking.

"Excuse me?"

"I don't care if it's his or mine, because I don't feel him when I'm this far away from him, and I feel it anyway." With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Ororo and Scott staring at one another completely bewildered.

o

Logan knocked again, more heavily this time. He knew Remy didn't have classes, because this was the time of day they'd been using to train in the gym. When there was no response, he pressed his ear up against the door to listen inside. The sound of a hand on a door handle reached him, but he quickly realised that it wasn't Remy's door but the one next to it that was opening.

"Logan, that you?" He looked up to find Jamie at his door.

"Hey Jamie. I'm lookin' fer Remy."

"Damn, I'm glad to see you. Remy's been a miserable git the last few days. Figured you two got in a fight when you were both plastered the other day."

"Yeah, we fought. I need to apologise to him. D'ya know where he is?"

"He's out on the running track. Don't ask me where that is, though. I've never been down there."

"Thanks, I'll find it."

"No worries. And hey, good luck. You two make too sweet a couple to break up." A flash of a grin and the door was shut before Logan could correct him. Bemused, Logan made his way through the campus and out to where he had seen the athletics track on the way in.

He quickly found the track, but had to walk around the wire fencing that surrounded the area. Reaching the only gate in, he settled down to watch Remy through the chain links. There was a camping stove set up on each of the four corners of the track and the still afternoon meant that the flames were tall and unwavering. When Remy came to the sweeping corner of the track at a gentle run, he veered away to follow the track round, and Logan realised that he was using the heat flare of the flames to mark the points on the track where he needed to turn. There was another person stood by the track, patiently watching Remy run with a stopwatch in his hand.

With very little noise, Logan moved away from the gate and joined Remy on his next circuit. Remy just kept running as his supervisor started shouting.

"Thought ya hated track runnin'." Logan said as he matched his pace, ignoring the other man.

"Dere ain' anyone here who'll run out wit' me." Not many people could, Logan registered with a grimace. At 6'2, Remy's long-legged gait was enough to leave most people behind him after a few minutes. The supervisor who had initially tried to run after them was now sensibly waiting on the track for them to come back round, heaving for breath. Scott could probably match him - the man was an obsessive runner - but the leader of the X-men tended to prefer track. Perhaps they could convince him. But first things first. He stopped as they drew level with the waiting supervisor.

"You can't come in here!" He shouted, still a little out of breath. Logan glanced over as Remy continued to run. No help there. He popped his claws.

"Give us some privacy, will ya?" With fear written all over his face, the man bravely persevered.

"I can't let you threaten our students."

"I'm not threatening him, I'm threatening you." Logan growled. "Look, I just need ten minutes and I'm not gonna to hurt him. Ya can watch us if ya like." The man eyed the claws once more.

"Ten minutes then. I will be at the gate, and I will not hesitate to call security if you threaten him." He responded stiffly. Stopping Remy to talk to him as he passed on his next lap, the man made his way to the gate. Remy stood and waited for Logan to join him. Together they walked to the side of the track and sat on the grass.

"What do y' want Logan?" Remy asked when Logan didn't immediately explain why he had come.

"I've been thinking, and I've come to realise some things."

"Some…"

"Shut up." Remy shut up and Logan nodded his approval. "Now this link thing we've got between us goes both ways, right?" Remy nodded once. "So we don't really have any idea who feels what, only that we both ended up trying to jump each other's bones…"

"I've said I'm sorry, mon ami." Remy interrupted whatever Logan might have said. "What do you want from me?" There was a hint of desperation in his voice, and Logan realised that he was perhaps just a little afraid of what he might have to say.

"Now, ya see, this is where it gets mixed up. I had nothin' against what we were doin'." Remy hesitated, obviously not expecting that.

"Th' disgust was all yours, homme. It kinda speaks fo' y'." He retorted.

"I don't think it was. I don't think it was mine." Logan said quietly, keeping his eyes on Remy and trying to read his expression.

"What d'ya…?"

"You had many male lovers, Cajun?" He didn't wait for the reply. "Far as I can see it, yer shit-scared of male intimacy, and I ain't gonna ask ya why. But maybe yer a bit disgusted too. And ya caught that reflected off me, and ya pushed me away before I had a chance to straighten things out."

"I don'…"

"Shut up." Remy shut up again. "This link has been screwing with me big-time, cause I hate having people in my head almost as much as you do. But all the reactions I'm having are automatic. If anyone else tried to touch my mind like you have, I think I mighta tried to kill them. I don't want ta kill ya, Remy. Not at all. I'm actually getting ta like ya in my head." He held up a hand to silence the question that was on the tip of Remy's tongue. "And it's not a mirror of yer feelings, or some manipulation. I know because as soon as ya left the mansion it felt wrong, bein' without you in my mind. Felt empty."

"What are y' tryin' t' say?" Remy's voice was soft, and filled with an emotion Logan couldn't identify.

"Give me another chance, let me take it slow. I ain't got anything against us together Remy. That wasn't me. I… I think I might be fallin' in love with ya. The real you, the one ya don't let anyone see. The one that feels."

"I…" Remy bit his lip and turned away from Logan. "I can' talk about dis here. Come back t' my room."

Remy didn't take the arm Logan offered him on the way back, instead, he headed back over to where the supervisor stood, collecting his waterbottle and his stick from him. After reassuring the man that he would be fine with Logan, he headed back to his room. Logan followed, seeing the physical distance that Remy was putting between them and staying quiet.

He hesitated at the door to Remy's room when they arrived, waiting for some form of invitation. He was still half-expecting Remy to turn around and laugh in his face. To blame that night on drunkenness and need, and tell him to get a life.

"Come in, sit down. I need a shower... I'll be back." The words were clipped, blunt. He wasn't laughing, but Logan wasn't sure this was better, as he wandered over to the desk and chair in the corner. Remy disappeared out of the room with a bundle of clean clothes and Logan was left to wait.

Looking through a wedge of paper embossed with row upon row of raised dots, Logan tried to look for some kind of recognisable pattern. Giving up, he tried meditation to calm his racing mind. It was then that he was suddenly struck by the quietness in his mind. His only emotions his own. Thinking back to the track, the walk back to his room… Remy had shut him out.

o

"Ya shut me out." He hadn't been able to think of anything else in the time he had waited. Why would he do that? What was he trying to hide? Or was he simply bored of him, tired of sharing his headspace.

"Logan, I need to tell you something." Logan started a little at the blank accent-less voice he spoke with, as though there was something that needed saying that was too important to risk misunderstanding here.

Remy took a seat on the bed, shoulders tense and head bowed. If his posture wasn't enough, the clear-cut, unaccented voice - so nothing, so impossible to place - told him that he really needed to listen now, because this wouldn't be said twice.

"I… didn't have the best childhood. You know all about the guild, about Jean-Luc. It's hard to keep secrets in the mansion, but there aren't many people I've talked to about the time before that. Before I was taken in off the streets." Remy fell silent, and Logan watched him collect himself, until he was a little ball of focus and there was nothing to him but the words. "At first it felt like punishment for crimes I had inherited. I was the Devil's child, cast out on the streets and people were quick to explain to me all the things the Devil had done to the earth. In my mind, I was there to atone for his sins against God.

"It's a strange kind of religion you pick up on the streets. Nothing is ever quite explained to you, nothing is clear, and there is no one to ask questions. But it's real, very real. In many ways, more real than the religion you can learn in a church. The Devil was a man, in my mind, and an important man. No one told me my eyes were what made me his, so I thought I had been lost, and that was why I was on the streets. When someone told me they could send me back to him… I didn't hesitate, not even for a moment. Who wouldn't, when offered a chance to get back to their parents? I just didn't count on the way… he… he wanted to do it." A thick weight settled in Logan's throat as Remy's words caught - to sharp-edged to come out easily. He desperately wanted to reach out, to offer some form of reassurance in touch, but he sat still and waited for Remy to continue as he choked down the painful words.

"I was thrown back out on the streets, when he was done, so ripped up I couldn't move. I thought I was going to die, and I spent every minute looking for the devil. Hoping to see him. I would have died, but someone took me in, took me to a doctor. They didn't look at my eyes, or if they did, they didn't care. As soon as I was conscious I was turned back out. I didn't even get their names. It happened again, later. A couple of times. I thought I was going to die every time. Sometimes I wished I would. Get it over with, and I still thought I might finally get to meet him. But I just couldn't let go."

'You were too strong.' The words were on the tip of Logan's tongue, but he didn't dare speak, for fear of interrupting the stream of words it was obviously costing Remy an awful lot to say. He swallowed the words down, and instead tried to emote strength, knowing that even if he couldn't feel Remy's emotions any more, the empath was more than likely feeling Logan's.

"When Jean-Luc found me, when he took me back to a house filled with men… I thought I would drop dead from fear. But he said… he said…"

The Devil will not reach you here. I will be your father now.

Remy's face went blank as he turned away, his mind lost in his past. Logan didn't need his heightened senses to know he was crying heavy salt tears. His heart was a solid thing in his throat and he had never felt more like a monster.

"I shut y' out of m' mind b'cause I didn' wan' f' y' t' feel dis." The accent back, Remy's voice was heavy with grief and made hesitant by tears. "It was my fault, an' I'm sorry I brought y' int' all dis shit. I jus'…"

"Don't ya say another word. Stop damn well apologising for somethin' that wasn't yer fault. I'll… I'll go." Logan flinched as his voice broke, and he stood unsteadily, backing towards the door.

"I don' wan' y' to." Logan froze, with his hand on the doorhandle.

"What?" His voice sounded weak in his own ears, disbelieving.

"I don'… I don't want y' t' go. I don' understan' it… But… I wan' t' try dis wit' y', Logan. I do… but dere are t'ings about me dat I ain' never told a soul. Dat was one of dem. I migh' not be able t' do dis wit' you." He shook his head. "F'get it, go on. Y' don' want any part of dis."

"Don't tell me what I don't want." He forced down anger borne of confusion, forcing softness into his voice. "Ya want me ta stay, I'll stay."

"I don' need y' pity." Bitter anger put an edge on those words.

"I don't do pity, Remy. I don't want ta leave, but I didn't think ya needed me around, takin' ya back ta all that shit."

"Stay." A whisper of a smile meant the world to Logan's shaky courage.

"Thank you."

"So." Rough hands scrubbed away watery stains. "You an' me, huh?" The room was a chasm between them, but those few words, and Remy's soft smile were a bridge across, and Logan had never felt stronger.