Author's note: Happy New Year, y'all. If you're anything like me, then your social media is a sea of comments about the New Year (some more relevant/inspiring than others) so I will simply say this: To anyone who had a rough year and stuck it out, well done. While there is the temptation to be envious of those folks who seem to sail effortlessly through life, no sword was ever forged without heat and pressure. I don't see the New Year as a reset or a blank page as much as a chance to build on everything that's come before.

Also: It's pretty damn easy to raise a glass to a New Year that includes a new X-Men film, Captain America: Civil War, Star Trek Beyond, Batman V Superman (Affleck? WTF?!), Rogue One, Deadpool (hey, it can't get any worse) and Ghostbusters. Now, I am off to FINALLY catch Star Wars because I have managed to avoid all spoilers thus far, and I think it's highly unlikely my perfect streak will continue. May the Force be with you.

Logan thought Marie would sulk and he was right. She did. Took off for more than a week. Nobody knew where.

Typical.

He almost felt jealous. He wanted to get in the wind, too, but he didn't want to give the appearance he was running, even though that's exactly what he felt like doing.

He stuck it out instead, making everyone's life miserable. Running the team into the ground. Extra Danger Room sessions. Extra homework for his students. He took long drives on his bike that weren't long enough because he eventually found himself back at the school.

The face of the girl he'd screwed in the bathroom haunted him. She'd been more fragile than he imagined. Losing her husband that way— with a little one at home, too. Jesus. She should have had softness and instead he'd twisted her need to forget and to connect with another human being with his desire to make Marie see he needed her to give up more. The girl had wanted it, and it had been damned hot, but probably not what any of them had really needed.

Hopefully whatever few minutes of blissful blackness he'd given her were enough. Maybe she'd wake up in the morning feeling his touch on her skin and between her legs, and for a minute, she'd forget that she wasn't going to wake up alone.

Logan was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn't hear Marie approach until her shadow fell over him as she sat down next to him on the dock one sunny Thursday afternoon.

He said nothing.

It was Marie who broke the silence.

"You owe me a twenty, cowboy."

"Mmph." He grunted. "Kinda hard to collect from the Big Easy, though, ain't it?"

N'Orleans, she'd said, like a native. One of the first secrets she'd given up. The others didn't know, but he did. He knew where she ran. He just didn't know why. Or what had happened in the time that he'd been away. What the hell had she been through that had made her so afraid of touch that watching him fuck a woman was preferable to actually feeling him touch her himself? They both knew she was thinking about it. It was his touch she was imagining. What the hell was keeping her from making that fantasy a reality? Her silence on that matter was infuriating.

"So they're only handing out free passes for taking off to Alkali Lake or Japan now?"

"You gotta mouth on ya, darlin'."

He dug out his wallet and handed over the twenty anyway, eyeing her as she shoved it into her jeans pocket. He always paid his debts and the unspoken dialogue there was that he damn well expected her to do the same.

"Bless your heart, sugar." She said it with the same inflection one might give to: You're a fucking dumbass. "You could start an argument in an empty house. You're gonna call me to the carpet after what came outta your mouth the other night?"

Clearly she was still smarting from his little lecture about the difference between getting off alone or with a partner. He hadn't exactly been subtle in his attempt to hammer that point home. He'd wanted her to feel the difference. To reach orgasm and to be acutely aware of that hollow, empty feeling. To remind her how much better it could be, coming stretched wide on a thick stand of flesh. Feeling a heart race against hers; the echo of a roar in her ears and a deep wet throbbing inside her. Strong arms around her, pulling her close. A painful reminder of everything she was missing. He hoped she'd felt that keen sting all too well.

"Didn't hear no complaints."

"As if you would, between all the orders."

He ignored her.

"The scent you left behind don't lie, baby. You liked it, and the orders — including the one to get off in my truck — just fine."

"You're an asshole."

"So I've been told."

"Repeatedly."

Something about the way she said it, a blend of exasperation and admiration struck him as amusing and he chuckled, in spite of himself and the tone of their conversation.

And then he just let the silence stretch out. He knew she'd fill it, given enough time. Just as surely as she'd known he'd be game for trying to convince the woman she'd suggested the other night. Neither of them wanted to appear as if they were unwilling — or afraid — to toe the mark.

He was right, but it took her the better part of an hour to screw up her courage.

"It's not always better with someone, you know."

"What isn't?" he asked, knowing damn well what she meant, but wanting to hear her say it.

"Bakin' cookies. Jesus, sugar. Sex." She twirled a shiny curl of hair around her finger. "You're off like a herd of turtles today," she observed, laying back on the dock and covering her face with the straw cowboy hat she'd liberated from him a few years back.

"Thanks." He ignored her sniping commentary on his mental acuity, mostly because it pushed her buttons. And because he kinda liked it.

When she crossed her ankles, he could see dark dried mud caking the heels of her favorite boots. Wherever she'd been had been off the beaten path. That didn't come from walking down Bourbon Street.

"Sometimes it is better with someone, I guess. But sometimes it just hurts more," she murmured from beneath the hat.

Logan grimaced, thinking of the girl from the other night. She might have come twice, but he'd bet she didn't go home feeling anything close to good. He hadn't been feeling too sunny afterwards, either, despite the intensity of his orgasm.

He'd come hard, staring into Marie's eyes while filling the condom buried in someone else. Long sustained spurts that had left his legs shaking and the world fuzzy around the edges. Christ. Actual sex with Marie would be incandescent. He'd known that from the beginning, though— felt the immediate, electric connection buzzing between them. That's why he hadn't wanted her to get into his truck. She was trouble, slipping in under his defenses all too easily.

"How would you know?" It was less an accusation and more an invitation to tell him what had happened after things had crashed and burned with the iceprick.

And, apparently, after she'd given it up to someone older at the school. The not knowing was really getting under his skin, but he'd be damned if he was going to ask her who it had been, mostly because he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of telling him to get fucked. It ate at him though. On missions. In his downtime. Playing poker.

He tried not to dwell on it, but the idea that he might be shoulder to shoulder with someone who'd felt Marie orgasm in their arms, free and wild and full of joy— that just ate at him. Not that she'd done it. He didn't begrudge her that experience. It was more the terrible dichotomy between then and now. And the knowledge that in the years that followed, he'd been absent for something that had affected her so profoundly. A watershed moment he'd missed. Maybe even one he could have prevented.

"Right, because hormonal teenage girls on the rebound are known for making stellar choices with men."

"So you did take advantage of the Cure?" He'd wondered. He sure as hell would have.

"Let's just say that wasn't my first time knockin' boots in a bathroom, cowboy."

That ate at him, too. Was she trying to relive moments in her past? Rewrite them? Replace them altogether? "Mmph."

"Most of it was the usual teenage bullshit. Drama. Sexting. Flirting and innuendo and experimentation with alcohol and sex. It's pretty tame compared to what's up here." She tapped her head.

"Up there?"

"Come on! Erik screwed a shapeshifter for decades— imagine the possibilities, huh? And that's not even the wildest thing he's ever done. You're not exactly a schoolboy either, sugar. Between the showgirls and the cage bunnies and the barflies—"

"Shit."

"— And Jean-fucking-Grey." She hadn't raised her voice, but there was some real heat there.

"Watch your damn mouth."

It was a warning Marie ignored, and he couldn't help but admire that a little.

"I'm just saying I made a few pretty spectacular fuckups, but I managed to make a handful of good memories, along the way."

Logan peeled off his tank, wiping the sweat from his face before laying back on the dock and blocking the strong midday sun with a thick arm flung over his eyes. The breeze off the lake felt good. He could feel it ruffling the hair on his chest and under his arm.

"Along the way to where?" He was done being the focus of this conversation. It hurt too much and it was her damn turn.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Do I look like the kinda man who asks shit he ain't interested in?"

She lifted her hat, marginally, and gave him a look from under the battered brim. To her credit, she kept her eyes on his face. Not too many women did that when he had his shirt off. Most women looked at him like a side of beef or a stallion they wanted to ride hard and put up wet. Dropping the hat back over her face, she settled back against the dock, squirming a little until the uneven boards were more-or-less comfortable under her back.

"Hey, if you think I'm gonna give you chapter and verse of every guy, every failed relationship, every orgasm, every—"

"Nah. Just the highlights, kid."

"What, like SportsCenter?" He could hear the amusement in her voice and it made him laugh. It had been a long time since he'd cut loose like that.

"Sure. They letcha know who scored, right? Hail Marys. Fights. Blood on the ice. Number of penalties. Shit called on account of whatever-the-fuck."

Now she was laughing too.

It made the dock rock pleasantly under him. Rhythmically. Like breathing. Or slow dancing. Or sex.

"Sugar, I was eighteen and touchable for the first time in what felt like forever. I danced. I flirted. I took a man or two home." Man. Not 'guy'. Not 'boy'. He felt like that word choice was significant. "Hell, once or twice we didn't even make it home. Gawd, I was nearly arrested once once for doing a dirty bump and grind with Jubes on a bartop in this skeezy dive in N'Orleans. Overall, a pretty good mix of: Oh shit! and Oh my god!, you know?"

She was talking, but she wasn't really giving him details. He could — and had — guessed at everything she'd shared so far. Except the mention of New Orleans. There had to be more to that story. A compelling reason that pulled her south again and again.

"Good."

His response shocked her. The cadence of her breathing changed and she grew silent. Sure, he could be a possessive bastard, but occasionally there were things that overrode that instinctive response. Marie's happiness, for one.

"Really?"

He just grunted. He wasn't going to go there. This wasn't about him. It was her turn to be vulnerable.

"How'd you know that girl at the bar the other night would say yes?" he said instead.

He heard her sigh softly. "Because I've been that girl, sugar." She was quiet long enough that he grew impatient before she spoke again. "I've wanted to, like, just unzip myself, step out of that old skin and be someone else for a while. Someone else who didn't hurt so much." She was still clearly that girl, but now she was terrified of being touched.

Fuck.

He thought of the pixie girl's dead husband and frowned.

"How'd that work out for ya?" Had she hooked up with the wrong man? Opened her heart and been eviscerated? Had some asshole treated her like shit? Or was this ultimately about her skin? It annoyed him that he couldn't ask her outright. That was the quickest way to get her to clam up again.

She snorted in derision. "You can't work that one out for yourself?"

"Marie," he warned. She owed him more than innuendo and vague, shadowy hints.

"Sugar, I just watched you fuck a stranger in a stall and got off by myself after. What the hell do you think? Does that sound balanced to you?"

"I was there too, kid." Which was Loganese for: Hey, if you're gonna put yourself in that boat, better count me in, too. Thankfully, she seemed to understand the unspoken context there.

They lapsed into silence. The sun felt good on his exposed skin. Under his back, the boards of the dock radiated up the heat of the day. He couldn't help but feel like Marie had grown quiet because the conversation had ventured into a place that made her uncomfortable.

Well, that was just too damn bad.

There were moments he'd revealed that made him acutely uncomfortable, too. In the aftermath of a scorching orgasm, lust burned away— he felt it then. Her eyes on his spent cock with Cheyenne between his spread knees that first night when he'd come too fast. The way Marie's gaze followed every little movement when he peeled off a used condom. How exposed he felt when he was unable to suppress a growl or hide the shaking of his hands.

"Why the bathroom?" He broke the quiet, unable to keep the question in any longer.

"Huh?"

"Why there?" He was thankful he didn't have to look at her face. "You usin' me to take a walk down memory lane?"

He felt the dock shift as she squirmed uncomfortably and then shrugged. "Maybe a little." Logan didn't like that one damn bit. "But it feels more like just kinda living vicariously through someone else."

"If it's just about gettin' fucked, there's easier ways, darlin'."

She sat up, leaving her hat pulled low so he couldn't see her eyes. "Who says I wanna be the one gettin' fucked as opposed to doing the fucking?"

He couldn't quite bite back the husky grunt of surprise. He sat up too, because he could feel the tension in her and lying prone with her in that mood was just plain stupid. The Rogue was dangerous and unpredictable and that never failed to make the animal rise. In moments, they were both on their feet.

"I'm not what you think I am, sugar. Newsflash: Marie is dead. I'm not that green little girl. I never was. I'm not innocent or naive— and despite the cause I suit up for, I'm not really a good person most days. So burn down that dadgum white pedestal you have me on—"

"Or what?"

"Or I'll do it for you."

To her surprise, he laughed. "Any girl who lights out alone across the Territories ain't a fragile, special little snowflake. Newsflash for you, kid. If I really thought of you that way, if I didn't know you could handle every bit of what I dish out, do you honestly think I woulda invited you to participate in a sex act?"

She stood a little straighter, a little prouder, but her eyes were blazing. "Participate?"

"That what you tell yourself?" He shrugged, wondering if she was gonna come at him swinging. Wouldn't be the first time. "That you ain't a part of what's happenin' just as much as I am? 'Cause you fuckin' are."

"I call bullshit."

"Call it whatever you like, baby. Don't change the facts none."

She growled at him then, a pure sound of female frustration that shook the animal in her teeth and made him feel shivery and hot as fuck.

"You're impossible!" she shouted and he knew she wasn't truly furious because when she was, she spoke softly with a cold, flat voice that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

He shrugged again. "Yeah. But maybe it ain't me who's hangin' on so damn hard to the idea of bein' on that pedestal. Maybe it ain't me who can't let that little girl go."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure the whole damn school knows how easy it is for you to let her go," she hissed.

"Right, because puttin' these—" three blades sang into the charged air between them. "—through my own chest to get to you that night in the torch shows how little of a shit I give."

Stalemate.

But then, he was never much one for letting sleeping dogs lie.

"I'm goin' to The Church tonight." It was a fight bar in an old turn of the century rectory that had a well-earned reputation for being particularly brutal. "If you wanna come and 'not participate' in a sex act, be my guest."

"Ooooooh!" He winced when she screeched at him. She knew that made his ears ring.

"I'll be puttin' it to some pretty little thing whether you're there or not."

"Maybe I'm not in the mood for another lecture," she snapped.

"Then stay home with your vibrator. I don't really give a—"

She balled up her fist, just like he'd taught her, and hit him hard with a left cross to the jaw.

"Shitfire!" she muttered, shaking her aching hand while he licked the blood from his lip and just stood there, smirking. She must have been madder than he thought. She knew where and how to hit him to cause the most damage without hurting herself on his adamantium skeleton. Body shots. Kidney punches. Solar plexus. Nasty hit to the balls. Even he had weaknesses, and at present, the biggest one was standing toe-to-toe with him, breathing hard and looking like she wanted to rip his head off.

"Hit me again and I'll hitcha back, darlin'."

"Always such a gentleman."

"Baby, if you wanted a gentleman, watchin' me pound a man bloody wouldn't getcha hot." His gaze grew more predatory. "And if you were a lady, you sure as fuck wouldn't be humpin' your hand on the front seat of my truck after."

"Don't pretend that the thought of me with my hand down my pants doesn't get you off. If it didn't, you wouldn't have made that poor, desperate girl the other night into your puppet. How did it feel to have her acting out that dirty little fantasy for your viewing pleasure?"

That struck a nerve, but probably not for the reason she thought.

"Says the girl who wanted me to fuck someone in the bathroom for her viewing pleasure? You don't wanna want it, but you do. That's what really pisses ya off." He gave her a hard look. "So clean your own damn house before you come shittin' in mine, sweetheart."

For a minute she looked like she was considering shoving him off the dock, but she took a step back at the last moment. Marie gave him the finger and stormed off, hips swinging. He stared at her ass because he knew it would piss her off more.

Every one of these conversations were painful. Each secret, each confidence she revealed seemed to raise more questions than it answered. For instance, that little gem about doing the fucking rather than being fucked.

He wondered if that was her subconscious trying to reclaim her lost sexual self or if it was a way for her to feel more in control of a situation that scared her. Hell, maybe it was just some leftover fantasy about claiming him, specifically.

It certainly made him rethink what her desire to see him leave a mark had really been about.

Especially if in her head, she was casting herself as the one making them.

Up next: Flare. The pressure and heat continue to build. All they need now is a spark...