About five years ago - Rogue

She's only ever absorbed him twice before.

Well, no. That's sort of a lie. She's absorbed him a couple of other times, but only ever on accident, for mere seconds. It's more accurate to say that he's only ever had to force her sorry hide back to life two times before. And really, that means the count was already higher than it should be.

They aren't even on a mission when it happens this third time. They're actually supposed to be on a date. She's wearing her favorite mini skirt and and he's actually not wearing clunky old work boots or flannel for once and today is there one year anniversary.

One year. It's been a long and bumpy ride but they made it a whole year.

And after everything that's happened, after every dangerous mission they'd both been on, after every other scary or terrible or just plain weird thing that had happened, after making it as a couple for that whole lovely year even, the thing that threatens to do them in now is some drunken teenager who's too busy trying to feel up his girlfriend to watch the road.

The little red sports car slams into the side of Logan's truck at about ninety miles an hour. The impact sends the truck rolling. Marie's got her seatbelt on, of course, but her head bashes against the window next to her, which ends up shattering explosively in the next moment. A showering of tiny glass darts embed themselves in her neck and cheek, and her arm, which is already bent at an angle it should not be.

She remembers nothing for a long time afterwards.

(The kid that had been driving the sports car stumbles out and collapses in shock. Wolverine works free of what's left of his truck and comes damn close to beating the kid senseless, but the teenagers baby cheeks are streaked with tears that fall from eyes wide in horror. Logan leaves him be.)

.

Rogue wakes after a day. Logan does not.

.

"Storm said you should be taking it easy while -"

"You geeks would jump offa cliff if Storm told yah to, Icecube. Mind yahr own business."

"Is that you or him talking?" Bobby scowls. "The fact that I can't tell - yeah, that's a little scary, Marie."

Marie. He doesn't call her that altogether too often. That's him trying to remind her who she is. Problem is, he doesn't really even know Marie anymore either.

But he deserves some points for trying.

She blows out a breath and forces the accent that accompanies her words to sound a little more Mississippi. "Ah'm fine. Ok? Ah'm restless but fine. His mutation does that and it jus' ain't fadin' as fast this time. Ah'm just gonna go blow off steam. Ah'll be back by mornin'."

"Well - look, maybe you just shouldn't be alone." Bobby's got a thinking face on. "You could let me come with you."

A scowl contorts her features. She instantly loses herself again. "Like hell, boyscout. Go play kissy face with Kitty, why don't'yah?"

"Kitty?" He crosses his arms. Angry. "Kitty gave me back the ring two months ago. Also, she's not even here. Were you always this self-absorbed?"

No, she didn't used to be. But she and Logan...she shakes her head. "Shit. Ah'm a bitch these days." She admits, quiet and contrite. "Ah'm sorry."

"Let me come with you. We can go wherever you want."

"I got a lot o' Logan swimmin' around inside mah head." She warns. "Yah probably won't like what I got in mind."

"Probably not." He concedes. "But I like the idea of you going off on your own even less. We're all family here, our first job is to look after eachother. You're not yourself. Please let me come with you."

She sighs.

.

"This. Is a terrible idea." Bobby mutters, clearly to himself.

Rogue hears with Wolverine's ears and scowls at him anyway. "Are yah really always this much a wet blanket these days? No wonder Kitty left yahr sorry ass." Where did that come from? She doesn't even have anything against Bobby, there's no reason she should want to hurt him. The angry wave of utter bitchiness doesn't let up, though. She'd bite any head off just at the moment, wouldn't matter who was standing next to her.

His blues eyes scrutinize her closely. "You're lucky I know you don't mean that." He answers calmly. "Is the attitude just because of Logan?"

"I don't know." She answers honest, and darts off to the bar to grab a drink. Rogue thinks double tequila, no salt, her usual order, but what comes out of her mouth is Logan's shot of bourbon and a beer. It hits the spot just perfect. She orders another shot for good measure and decides to stop thinking so hard. She'll be better off if she stops pretending - Marie isn't really here. Be easiest if she just hands the reigns over to the one who is in charge right now.

Only problem is that doing so leaves her with a different kind of craving. She'd meant to just come to the bar and watch. Really, she shouldn't even know about this place. Logan had never told her or anyone else at the mansion about it. And the rough hewn chicken wire cage set at the back of the room is no place for a little thing like Rogue to be trying to get her kicks, and she knows it. But resistance is simply futile. She tips the beer back to chug it some and before she knows it her feet are carrying her over and right to where she needs to go.

"Marie." Bobby calls after her, worried now. "Marie, you cannot possibly be thinking about doing what I think your -"

But she's already talking to the lady with the banged up clipboard housing a list of names on a piece of notebook paper. The girl seems skeptical, but Marie all but snatches the clipboard right out of her hands, and that's that.

Bobby looks almost angry. "This is why I thought it might be a good idea if I come with you, you know, you really shouldn't be -"

Marie orders more shots of bourbon and shoves one at him. "Drink with me."

That gives him pause. He stares down at the small glass full of amber liquid. "You know I don't..."

"I know Kitty didn't and didn't like you to. She's gone now, so yah can do whatever yah want. Or had that thought not occured to yah?"

"We can't drive all the back home drunk, Marie. Or had that thought somehow not occurred to you?" He throws it back at her.

A familiar name is called out from a guy with a speakerphone back near the chicken wire cage. Marie grins. "So we'll get a room somewhere."

"With who's money?" He challenges. "Cause I sure as hell am not paying."

Feeling extra reckless, she removes her sweater and shoves it at him. "Oh, just give me about - aww, I'll be generous. Ten minutes. Be back soon, peaches." She sashays off through the crowd to step in the cage.

Thankfully her exposed skin isn't a problem. Her opponent goes down for the count in all of five minutes. The small crowd is stunned into utter silence for a short while, but then erupts into frantic cheers and a low chant for more.

Marie spies Bobby, who looks away quickly. His cheeks look to be flushed, assuming her eyes aren't decieving her, and he's ordered himself another drink.

Rogue smirks. Now Bobby Drake. I thought yah didn't approve.

.

"We were fightin'."

"What?"

"Logan an' Ah. The night of the accident. We were havin' a fight."

"Oh. Uh..."

"He proposed. Had a ring an' everything."

"And that lead to a fight?" Bobby asks slow, clearly confused.

"Ah said no." Marie answers, quieter. "I don't know why. Maybe..maybe because Ah've had him in my head a couple times, there's somethin' there, it just doesn't feel like his hearts in it. Ah tried to point it out, ask him if maybe there was somethin' Ah's missin' an' he just got angry."

"I'm sorry." Bobby answers, quiet and clearly sincere.

She shakes her head. "You know what? Ah'm not. Ah don't know if it's what I really want either. Mean Ah've only ever been with him since -"

Bobby glances at her, curious now. "Can I ask..."

He's probably drunk. This conversation may be about to get interesting.

Marie shrugs. "Ask away."

"...how do you and him...uhm, I mean..."

She giggles a bit. "Very carefully. Well, least at first."

"You can control it that well now?"

"Well, no. There don't seem to be a real 'off switch', it's just that Logan can handle a little more contact than anyone else could so Ah haven't needed to worry too much. But there is a way Ah can cheat it."

Bobby nods. "Ah. I see. The Doc gave you some of his magic elixir."

"Yeah, a little. Haven't used it much so far, he made me promise it would only be for if it was like, really necessary. But..."

"But..what?"

"Well before you insisted on comin' with me tonight, Ah had been thinkin', just maybe..."

"Oh. Well. My apologies, I guess."

"No, no, Ah'm glad yah came with me. Ah'd've done somethin' real stupid if yah hadn't."

There's a pause, quiet and contemplative.

He trails a hand over to gently take up her gloved one and squeeze.

.

Somethings wrong this time. She can just feel it.

She's not hungover in the slightest when she wakes the next morning. She'd drunk enough that she should be, but she feels fine. No, better than fine. She feels like she could go at it in that cage again and still not break a sweat. But it's been days. The extra energy from her newest dose of Logan should be fading quicker than it is. In fact, the generally enhanced senses it came with should also be fading quicker, shouldn't they? Or maybe she's just imagining it.

Whatever the case, she wakes far earlier than Bobby, and is frozen for a long while, just staring down at his sleeping form.

He's not wearing anything. And she's wearing nothing but his shirt. His scent will be all over her, and hers all over him. She abruptly hopes to God that today won't be the day Logan decides to grace the world with his presence again.

.

Unsurprisingly, she receives a phone call some time later as she and Bobby are eating breakfast at some greasy spoon diner off the highway.

Logan is, in fact, awake.

.

"He might decide he wants your head on a sliver platter." She points out quietly as they close in on the school.

"I know." He answers with a sigh.

"Yah could get lost for a while."

"I could."

But he won't.

.

Logan smells it. He has to. There's no way he doesn't smell it. Marie positively reeks of stale sweat and alcohol..and sex, and Bobby Drake. She'd showered, but the smells stuck in her hair and clothes, there'd been nothing she could do.

Logan seems to be more in shock at first. The anger takes hold but slowly. Bobby takes note of it and is prepared - a cold chill sweeps through the air all around him. His hands and arms begin to coat themselves in ice, and it goes downhill pretty quick from there. Thankfully, Logan had met them outside, so there's no one else around to get caught in the crossfire. Just Rogue, who steps out of the way calmly. She's worried some, but Bobby can look after himself well enough, she's seen it before. He doesn't try to really go on the offensive anyway. Just dodges. It only takes about five minutes for someone to notice something wrong. The sky above turns dark and electric as Storm comes out and threatens, quite pointedly, to fry Logan like a fish stick.

Thankfully, that seems to bring him to his senses some.

He leaves the school that night.

.

Rogue remembers herself after a few more days. Logan's mutation fades, though it takes much longer than usual. Once she's got her head screwed on straighter, she and Bobby talk, and come to the conclusion that 'it' was honestly nothing. There's very little awkwardness in the end; they're both adults who had just been in need of a distraction.

Logan stays gone for months.

.

She actually liked him better the way she first met him. That's part of the problem. She liked him better when he was this wild, untamable thing just drifting around from place to place. She liked him better when he was more Wolverine than he was just Logan.

Now he's usually just..Logan. And it's not that she wanted to see Bobby hurt or anything, far from it. But catching a glimpse of her Wolverine again, seeing the rage and jealousy put that fiery light in Logan's eyes, and all over little old Rogue..she suddenly remembers every reason why she wants nothing more than to be his mate.

Maybe she can make this work. Maybe it'll all be ok.

As it is, actually. He comes back and they just talk and she apologizes because that's what she should do and they agree to take start over a bit because that seems like what they should do and...

She asks him again, just once. Logan, what am Ah missin'?

He never tells. And she eventually learns to live with it, because what else should she do?

.

He'd put a ring on her finger just before this other woman showed up. This pretty, thin little wisp of a woman with the crooning alto and a body that belied her actual age. This pretty, mild mannered, perfect little wisp of a woman and her daughter that looks just like Logan (except smaller and even more full of attitude for it).

.

Two weeks ago - Rogue and Logan

"Do yah think I just don't notice?"

She's in the Danger Room, pausing briefly between solo sessions when he enters. "Notice what, Sug?" She faces him, hand planted on her hip.

"Used to be you'd ask me to come down here with yah." He leans causually on the wall, hands in his pockets. "We can't avoid this forever, Marie."

"Ah'm not avoidin' anythin'." She answers, waving him off flippantly. "Just stopped seemin' appropriate, is all."

"Appropriate? Since when was spendin' time with a friend not ok?"

"Since we stopped bein' just friends a long time ago and then yah ex showed up." She answers, a little more tightly. "Say, is she still yah ex? Or do yah still not even know?"

He rakes a hand through his hair. The look in his eyes is answer enough.

"Nope, not yah ex at all." She answers for him. "That's good for you, Sug. I really mean it."

He eyes her up a minute. "No you don't."

She sighs. "Ah just..don't know her well enough to have an opinion, then."

Logan moseys over to hover over Rogue a bit now, eyebrow raised and arms crossed over his barrel chest. "I know you better than that, Marie. You don't like her much, do yah?"

Rogue scoffs, but he gives her one of his looks and Jesus, she never could resist him, could she? "Ah just ain't sure you an' her are the proper fit for each other. She seems a little too..quiet, is all. Bet she can't even shoot whiskey, bless her heart."

Logan lets out an 'oof'. "I know what it means when you pull that one out. 'Bless her heart'." He mimicks the Mississippi accent, to amusing affect. "That means 'trouble'."

Rogue huffs. "Alright. Fine. Yah right. Ah hate her. She acts a 'saint' but Sugah, you an' Ah both know folks like that tend to have an agenda of some kind, and it's never nothin' good."

Meloncholy softens his features. "Yah didn't used to talk like that."

"Ah ain't a kid anymore, Logan."

"Yah're not a kid at all." He agrees. "But yahr still young. You've got all the time in the world but that doesn't mean there's any sense in yah wastin' that time bein' stuck on me. I was never worth it, Darlin'."

"Clearly Ah'm not the only one who thinks that's not true." Rogue reaches up to brush her bare fingers just lightly against his cheek, her tone softer now.

He leans into the touch. "Guess the universe decided to cut an old man a break or two." He murmurs. "Hasn't happened too often before, I don't think."

She tugs her hand away just as she starts to feel the pull of her mutation, but rests it on his shoulder instead as she studies him. 'Old man'. Sometimes, when she really looks at him, she can see the years on him. She tilts her head and reaches up to run her fingers through his dark hair. He'd grown it out longer recently but somehow that had only served to make the grey hairs at his temples a little more prominent. There's shallow lines making themselves known in places on his face, too. He is getting old, and the thought that even the big bad Wolverine won't be around forever is enough to make her stomach do summersaults. She blows out a breath. "Ah'm sorry. Don't be worried about meh, okay? Ah'll be fine as long as yahr happy, Sug."

It's a lie and they both know it.

He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead, but before he can say anything the sound of a ringing phone fills the Danger Room.

He slips his phone out of his pocket and presses the green button, his eyes lighting up. "Joanie."

Rogue turns away and reaches for her water bottle, thinking to give him some privacy but...

"What is it?" He's asking. "Somethin' wrong...? Oh...well what then?"

She's halfway out the door, but time seems to slow. She hears him but only just barely past the sound of her pounding heart.

"Yah're...yah're serious?" His voice. What's that in his voice? "You're...actually serious?"

Rogue's frozen in place. She suddenly has a feeling she's not gonna like this.

"Jesus Christ." He mutters, sounding in awe. "H-how far...? Yah're really sure?"

If Joan Fletcher is telling him, she must be very sure indeed. Rogue can't move. She feels as though she might throw up.

"Well I...I guess I'd better come up there, then. We'll have to...oh. Okay, well, just, ah, tell me how that goes." He stutters through a goodbye and all goes silent.

It's all over now.

"Fuck me." He mutters. "An'..an' there's gonna be three of 'em!"

Rogue's not even sure she can feel her legs, so she doesn't really know how it is they carry her along down the hallway, but before she knows it she's got a bag open and ready to be packed with her essentials.

She doesn't know where shes' going. She just knows she can't stay here.

.

She shouldn't be here. Nope, she really should not. She's asking for trouble. She's asking for trouble so hard it is not even remotely funny. She should leave right now, leave and get back in her car and just keep driving until the Logan in her head...

But this isn't Logan. It's never Logan anymore when the urges hit her. It's just Marie and her own bad temper and impulsive tendencies. Marie and the vices she enjoys. Marie and her own need to say screw it and just do something bad.

It's only ever been Marie. Having Logan in her head was just an excuse, and that's the truth of it.

Her fingers drum the bar. She's nervous, not because she can't win up in the cage currently occupied by a different pair of hotheads, but because this isn't her, she shouldn't be giving into this, this is wrong and she knows it. Her other hand clutches her cellphone; she keeps hoping to feel it vibrate. She wants to look down and see Logan's name splashed across the screen. She wishes for the consolation that he'll notice her absence and think to call and check on her. She wishes desperately for the consolation of the knowledge that he still cares.

But he doesn't call. And that's fair enough. He's got other things on his mind. It's not his fault.

Actually, oddly, it's Jamie's voice that echoes in Marie's head as the night progresses. And that voice isn't scolding, either, because Jamie wouldn't be scolding, would she? She'd be encouraging.

Logan can shove it. You're free, girly! Do what yah want!

She tucks the cellphone away in a pocket of her jacket and doesn't take it out again.

.

Days pass in an utter blur. She's only sober when she first wakes up, and even then only barely. She takes a man back to her hotel room several nights. Not the same man, that is. Just randoms. A different partner each night and she never even asks for a name, doesn't care to.

On the sixth night she fights a man who doesn't take kindly to being beaten. That's ok. Jamie had talked about this being part of it. Marie breaks a bar stool over his head and manages to shut him up but only after half the bar is trashed. There are blue lights approaching and fast by the time she leaves and tears out of the bars parking lot. Thankfully she's not the only one booking it (it's an underground ring after all), and it doesn't appear she's being followed. Her knuckles are white as she clutches the steering wheel, adrenaline has her heart pounding and her ears ringing, she's half drunk and can hardly think straight to start...

And that's when it finally happens.

Logan calls.

If she answers, he'll know right away that she's buzzing hard. If she doesn't, he'll know somethings wrong anyway, because she always answers him.

She hits the green button. "Hey Sug."

"Hey yourself. It's, ah, it's been a few days."

Are those - are those sirens? She might be hearing things. She doesn't see any lights, but she can't afford to..she swerves hard, screeching into a turn down an unfamiliar side street and switching off her lights. "Oh, Ah know, Ah'm sorry Sugah, Ah's just, ah, stealin' a lil' 'me' time is all."

"Look, I'm not blamin' yah, Darlin', an' I'm real sorry. But somethin' serious has just come up. 'Ro wants you back, now."

She did hear sirens. They turn off but the blue lights are there now, distant, and Marie's moving slower without her headlights on. They might not see her yet but they will soon, assuming they don't accidently slam right into her tailgate. Her eyes scan the treeline, frantic, looking for a space between that's big enough...

"Marie? Did yah hear me? I said 'Roro wants you back tonight. Playtimes over, we might need to suit up."

"Suit up. Right." The words don't register. She finds an opening. It's not ideal, there's a bit of a ditch between and getting the car back out past it will be a bitch but at least she'll be... "Sugah, I might just need to call yah back."

"Are you even listenin' to me?" He's angry now. "Jesus, are you drunk? Yah're not drivin' are yah? What the hells gotten into you?"

"No, no, Ah'm not drivin' Sug." Nothing for it. She cuts the wheel hard. The car shoots off over the small ditch, jumping the gap entirely. It lands hard and rolls fast; instinct has her dropping the phone entirely in favor of gripping the wheel as her foot slams the break.

She love taps a very large oak tree. Well, maybe its a bit more than a tap. She hears a crunch.

There's no street lights out here. She can only see because she's looking with eyes that are halfway feral. The cops roll right past her. The blue lights fade slowly away. They hadn't seen her.

Her heart could not possibly beat faster.

Shaking hands reach out slow to open the glove compartment and retreive a cheap cigar and a light. She lights the smoke and takes a long, slow drag, and then swears. Loud.

Logan's still there when she picks the phone back up.

"Marie? Are you ok? What the hell just happened? Answer me, damnnit girl!"

"Ah'm here Sugah! I just - I hit a nasty lil ole pothole is all, phone went flyin'."

"Where've you been? You don't sound right, yah need to come home."

She's only half listening as she gets out of the car. Oh boy. She did a lot more than just tap the thing. The bumper is lying on the ground, one of the headlights is smashed and utterly useless now, and the hood is partially folded up and inward at the corner. Adrenaline had kept her from fully feeling the impact of it but she's starting to feel it now in the form of a nasty headache and a soreness radiating out from her neck and down through her shoulders.

"Marie!" Logan barks, his voice low and growly as ever. "That wasn't a suggestion."

Since when does he get to talk to her like that? "Excuse meh? Listen here, bub," where did that come from? She's not thinking straight, "you might wanna think twice 'fore takin' that tone with meh 'less yah want a certain someone findin' out some of the things Ah know about yah. Ah get the feelin' she may not be as forgivin'."

Silence for a long moment. He huffs a growl but his tone is more respectful when he answers. "Alright. Jus' calm down. We have a situation here. I said we might need to suit up, you understand? 'Ro wants us all here and ready just in case."

Marie scrubs a hand over her face. She gets the picture and would already be on the road headed home under normal circumstances. But the fact is, these aren't normal circumstances, and the X-Men can probably live without her in reality. Besides, the Juniors might be a motley bunch, but Marie has faith enough in the kids, they should be help enough if it's needed.

She sighs. "You know what? Goodnight, Logan."

"Don't hang -"

She hangs up.

...

~Twenty-four hours later~

...leave meh a message I guess...

Beep

Miss Rogue. Uhm. It's Sarah. I don't know...I don't know if you'll ever even bother to listen to this message but please, something's going on. The other X-Men are all missing, Jake and Jamie are still gone, and I just don't know what to do. I need help. I really, really need help.

Please...

Click.