Title: Tryst and Contention

Author: Eightcrayondon

Pairing: RoLo

Rating: PG

Summary: Storm and Wolverine share a complicated romance. First RoLo. Beware fluff, melodrama and subtle grown up situations. One shot, not anymore. Chapter 3 is up! Please R&R.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns all know X-men character, I make no profit from this story or the use of the characters.

Jean knows; how in the world could she keep something like this from Jean Grey? Ororo is relieved that the team's psychics do not know, Jean reassures her that in the first trimester a fetus' brainwaves aren't strong enough for a telepath to pick up unless they were looking for these patterns.

Hank knows; he's the only physician that she has ever known, it would be odd for her to be examined by someone else. Strangely, he seems more jubilant about this than she could even imagine Logan being. Hank had enveloped her in a huge bear hug, forgetting himself and bending to pat her stomach, apologetically.

"Henry Howlett," he says, bending again to speak to her unborn child.

"And if it's a girl?" Ororo asks, smiling incredulously, absently touching her stomach.

"Henrietta," he responds, raising his eyebrow as though the answer were obvious.

"If you name her Henrietta," Jean interjects, "you better teach her how to cross stitch."

"I hope that Logan is as delighted as you two are." Ororo says, laughing.

She has not told anyone else; she feels guilty enough for not telling Logan when she first suspected but she wanted to be certain. Deep down she was already sure of it, she was never late, and she could predict her cycle better than she could predict the weather.

Why must I make everything so complicated? She asks herself, making her way back to her attic loft, Logan will be as delighted as I am.

And she is delighted; she hadn't ever pictured herself as a mother, her duties as an X-man had eclipsed any designs she may have had toward the maternal. She had actually convinced herself that Kitty Pryde is the closest thing to a child that she would ever have.

She is apprehensive though, she worries about Logan's reaction; she knows that this will not change the way he feels for her but they had not ever discussed children or family. Their tryst had not yet even inspired talk of marriage or anything concerning the long run, so she found herself daunted in telling him that they have now found themselves bound to one another in a manner that supersedes the title of teammate or surrogate family.

He was away with Scott and the rest of the team; a mission that she had not had the presence of mind to ask about. She decided to make him dinner, which only confused her more; she wanted to make something fancy, something as grand as the occasion called but Logan would not be caught dead eating something that he cannot pronounce. Then what about refreshments, champagne seemed best but Budweiser is the only thing he ever drinks.

"I don't even have ground hamburger," she says, scurrying around her kitchen.

Psychic projection requires a certain finesse for a non telepath, it took Ororo Munroe years to master the complicated skill.

JEAN!

Good God, Ororo, are you trying to send me into an epileptic seizure?

I need to make Logan a 'soft landing' dinner but he does not like anything in my refrigerator and I need beer!

You shouldn't be drinking.

Jean!

She can hear the sound of Jean laughing in her mind.

We'll go to the grocery.

It's difficult for her to make eye contact during their dinner; she drinks her sparkling cider and watches him eating his burgers.

Why does he eat so fast? She asks herself, looking from the candles to him. We aren't racing; I doubt he can even taste it.

He belches and if not for the noise she would swear he was yawning.

I did not know that he could get his mouth opened up that wide. She thinks, squinting at him.

"Well babe," he says, pausing to chug the last of his beer.

If he smashes it on his forehead I will throw myself from the balcony!

"I'm gonna go grab myself a shower." He says, leaning to kiss her forehead, still a little food in his mouth.

As soon as the bathroom door closes she starts to clear the table.

What have you done Ororo? Oh my Goddess, he is the most ill bred man I have ever met; how could I have thought this to be a true match?

She drops the dishes in the sink and looks down at her hands that already cradle her flat stomach.

Oh child, she sighs aloud, I do not repent you. It is just that your father and I, she hesitates. Were we driven by our ideas of one another? Had I fallen in love with what I believe your father to be, flouting the things about us that make us so different? Rapt in lust or loneliness?

She waits for the sink to fill with water, starring at the running faucet pondering the word "quandary". She finds the word to be inappropriate; she wonders if something this profound can be simply described with the use of a simple, minute word?

Epiphany; a better word.

She looks at the picture that takes the place of the window that should be above her kitchen sink and she's overtaken with embarrassment, silently asking her child not to share her stupidity. Logan and Ororo have been friends for years and it would be stupid for her to discount that time or the quality of their familiarity with one another.

The X-men are her family but she could not ever say that every member holds equal shares of her heart, along with Jean, Elizabeth and others Logan is one that she counts as immediate in the familial.

She runs to the bathroom, throwing the shower curtain open.

He stares at her in shock.

She looks down; he is urinating.

"I'm pregnant!"