She didn't always retire to her room so early – it was only eight o'clock – but she had some things to think about, or rather, things to try very hard not to think about. Either way, she felt like having quiet time away from curious glances. The mansion was a little island sometimes, insular, co-dependent, everyone knowing the business of everyone else. It was comforting at times – she suspected even Logan was being drawn slowly into the cozy familiarity – but right now, when she had something to hide, it was a trial.

The quiet knock at her door roused her from her jumbled thoughts. Upon opening, she found Logan standing on the attic landing. "Yes?"

"Hey, 'Ro," he said, and she wondered at the slight awkwardness of his stance. He's never seemed that way before. "I was going to play a little pool downstairs and was looking for a partner." His eyes traveled to her neck, exposed now that she had changed into a light t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Her left hand moved to cover it once again.

She gave him a skeptical look. "Since when have you needed a partner to shoot pool?"

The hackles rose on the back of his neck, either from having his view obscured or from the needling character of her question; his lip curled in response. "Since I felt like it." His muscles tightened and stance shifted ever so slightly as if he were about to forget the whole thing and march down the stairs in a huff. But he didn't. He stood there watching her. She had no interest in playing pool or anything else at the moment but the thought occurred to her that perhaps a distraction was just what she needed to hold back the temptation to peruse her memories. "All right," she decided. "Let me get my robe."

Logan's demeanor changed quickly once she consented. He became relaxed, almost jovial as they made their way down to the rec room. He shooed a couple boys up out of the room telling them to go study, and began racking the balls, grousing about teenagers scratching the felt. His skill outmatched everyone else's in the house, but it didn't matter. Ororo was there for a diversion and concentrating on getting her shots just right, the grasp on the cue, the chalk on the tip, did keep her mind from other things.

Logan also seemed to be in a rare mood to chat about aimless things, an unusual but welcome additional distraction. Over time, since Logan first arrived, his initial meaner-than-thou attitude had softened to a loyal grouchiness. He had become more comfortable interacting with, if not Scott, everyone else in the mansion, and had even revealed an elusive talkative side, one which Ororo supposed was making an appearance tonight.

"So I was at this bar the other night..." Logan said.

"Clyde's?"

"No, it wasn't as nice as Clyde's."

"It wasn't as nice a place as Clydes? I hope you sanitized yourself afterwards."

Logan gave her a wry look but continued. "Anyway, I was talking to this guy at the bar, and he was hung up drooling over some pregnant lady at one of the tables."

"There was a pregnant woman in the bar?"

"She wasn't drinking," he said with a huff. "At least I don't think she was drinking. So the guy says to me, 'The great thing about women with kids is that you know they give it up.'"

Ororo shook her head. "Sage wisdom."

"It's kind of the same thing with Jean, you know?"

"And how is this?" Ororo leaned down to line up her next shot. A smooth snap of her wrist and the orange thirteen ricocheted into a side pocket. The glow of self-satisfaction tickled her for an instant, but went unnoticed by Logan.

"Because I knew - I know - she gives it up; she has One-Eye here. You can smell the sex on her when she comes out of her bedroom. I mean, you can smell One-Eye, too, but still. It's like this reminder every day, a couple times a week anyway. You know what I'm saying? It's like an advertisement saying, 'I HAVE SEX.' It's kind of hard to ignore."

"Especially for you," Ororo said with a conciliatory tone. Logan nodded as if he had just gotten an 'Amen' from the choir, and she had to laugh.

"Logan," Ororo laughed.

"What?"

"Your infatuation with Jean. It's…cute." She gave him a maternal smile, but he looked offended.

"No it's not."

She chuckled. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's not cute."

Logan crossed his arms and leaned on the table to give an impression of calm when in fact Ororo could tell his tempers were warming. "What about what I just said was cute?"

She laughed again. "Your crush on Jean is cute sometimes. That's all I'm going to say."

"Yeah, well." Ororo could tell he was dissatisfied with her response and tempted to continue arguing, but he let it go, pushing the idea of his cuteness away like rotten fruit. "So what I was going to say before you insulted me is that with you it was different. You were never having sex. I could tell."

Well. She blinked at him a few times before finding her words. "I appreciate that, Logan. Thank you."

"I thought you were like Kurt."

"You thought I was celibate?" She held up his finger to him. "Now, I have definitely talked about men, and I know you've heard me."

He snorted and walked to the other side of the table to take his shot. An indigo four sailed into a corner pocket effortlessly. "Yeah, but in this way like some office lady talks about a guy on a soap opera. It was never gonna happen."

"Again, thank you, Logan," she said, her own arms now crossed defensively.

"I mean...I don't mean it was never gonna happen because you couldn't get the guy. I don't mean it like that. I mean, it was obvious in your voice that you knew - you had decided - nothing would happen. It was, you know, just talk. I don't know why. I mean, you're a good-lookin' woman. You're damn good-lookin'." For a moment, his eyes dropped away from her face to other parts of her body. "Maybe you were in the closet. Maybe you were uptight. Maybe you had some hang ups..."

"Logan, is there a question at the end of this?

He took a deep breath and looked at her seriously. "Yesterday. Where the hell did that come from?"

Ororo sighed. So is this why he came by the room? "Logan, surely by now you know that I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm not trying to find out who the guy is. I just don't know how you can go from being a year, maybe even two years without sex, to running into some guy on the trail and then bam, you come back with the state of Alaska tattooed on your neck."

"Well, I guess that's what it was. It had been a long time."

His eyes were suddenly intense, unnervingly so, and he stared straight into her eyes as if not wanting to miss any nuance. "So is that all took? Any guy would have done?"

What is this about? Does he disapprove? "Please tell me you're not being self-righteous."

He looked confused with her question, but shook it off and looked back into her eyes. "What? No. Hell no. I just didn't know you were that hard up."

Ororo felt her teeth grit involuntarily. "Well. You're three for three with the compliments tonight. Do you want to continue to insult me or would you like to get back to playing pool?" She picked up her cue to resume the game but felt Logan's remarks like a burr rubbing against her skin, and put the cue back down. "Logan, what is your problem tonight? At the meeting you didn't want to look at me. Don't deny it. And then you come by out of the blue to invite me to play pool only to make underhanded remarks at my expense. What did I do to upset you?"

He stared at her for much longer than she expected, and she began to wonder if his behavior was related to an ancient offense long forgotten by her. Maybe this has nothing to do with the weekend. In her mind, she ran through their past altercations, looking for actions that could have triggered a festering resentment, but found none. When he finally opened his mouth, she was almost fearful of what he would say.

"I want to see your hicky."

"What?"

"I know you showed it to Jean."

A geyser of laughter burst forth from her chest as the ridiculousness of the moment cracked her tension. "You're mad because I didn't show you my hicky? You're joking." She continued to laugh, thinking of Scott's similar request, not quite believing Logan's gravity. He stood for a while, glaring from a distance, but then something flickered inside and he bolted towards her grabbing her around her waist and pinning her arms to her sides. "Logan, what are you…" Before she could finish, he pulled the collar of her robe and shirt down over her left shoulder, far down, leaving her neck, shoulder, and a large portion of her chest bare.

A sharp whistle sang through his teeth, and she shivered. His face was close enough that the breeze of his breath dissipated on her chest. "He did a number on you."

"Logan, you stretched my T-shirt." She was angry but less so than she would have expected. Instead she felt a resignation toward the temporary insanity in the house induced by her escapade. And being this close to Logan, she couldn't help a slight thrill at the musculature rippling beneath his clothes. His eyes trailed from her collar down to the beginning curve of her breast where a light but long scab, an unintentional scratch in the heat of the moment, trailed toward the tip of a barely covered nipple.

"Did you enjoy it, at least?"

"Yes," she said, trying not to think of it.

He held her there for a few more breaths – she counted each one as it hit her naked skin – evaluating the marks left by the mystery man. "Well, good," he said releasing his grip. "'Cause if you hadn't, I would have had to go teach the guy a lesson."

***

That night she lay in her bed running through the code she'd learned. 20#*1583**7#8600#*#4, and then again, 20#*1583**7#8600#*#4, and then again, replacing the memories of Sabretooth's hands on her body with Logan's because she had to think of something.