Author's note: Sorry, folks. RL is continuing to kick my ass. However, I have some good bourbon and a copy of the Rogue Cut (freaking finally!) in my possession. Bring on the muses!

"You really named your dog Red?"

Logan looked over at Marie, reading the guilty flush before she even replied, but her answer was pure Rogue.

"Well, I figured Jean was a little too on-the-nose, even for me." He chuckled for a moment until she added, "I picked the biggest, ugliest, mangiest bitch I could find at the pound." Her tone rubbed him wrong and he growled at her. "Hey, I take my victories where I can find them, sugar." Marie smiled at him then, eyes glittering. "And I did enjoy yelling at her that one time she shit on the carpet."

Logan laughed in spite of himself.

"I probably enjoyed kicking her out of the bedroom every night a little too much, too."

There was still a lot of tension between them and he recognized the exchange for what it was. He could have taken offence, but instead he forced himself to let it pass, sitting back against the tree and wishing he had a cold beer with something stronger as a chaser. Something to brace himself for what was coming. This was the only the warm up.

"I'm namin' my next dog LeBeau."

"Fair enough." Her smile faded and he could see then that the shadows had never really left her eyes.

They fell silent. Around them and among the thick trunks below, fireflies began to flicker and wink in and out.

"Talk," he finally said, too uneasy to wait patiently.

"Because I owe you?" she snapped, an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.

"Because you need to."

He was surprised when she bristled.

"You don't know shit about what I need."

"I know you need her." His gaze drifted back up to the little girl now curled into the dog's side, sucking her thumb and combing the fingers of her other hand through the animal's thick pelt in a rhythmic, soothing way. "You need to be down there, with her, and you ain't." Marie was gaping at him. "Some bad shit musta gone down for it to shake out that way. And for touch to scare you so fuckin' bad you'd agree to watch me instead of—" he hesitated there because what came next was: instead of takin' me for yourself.

Marie nodded silently, some of her stiffness melting away at the truth in his words. An indication of the internal shift from defensive to resigned.

"I asked you once if someone needed killin'." She'd told him no.

Marie nodded again.

"You needta change your answer?"

"Maybe." Her sigh carried on the wind, licking at his ear. "But you won't like it."

"Try me." He was ready to kill for her — always, but especially now if need be.

"It's me."

"What?" He looked at her in confusion.

"It's me, sugar. I'm the one who needs to be out of this picture for the rest of the pieces to fit."

His eyes softened. He wanted to take her hand in his, but he kept a respectful distance, aware of her intense dislike of being touched. She was twirling the rumpled stem of the dandelion in her fingers. They were stained green slightly with the bitter, milky fluid. The puff was gone, leaving just the broken stem behind.

She saw him looking and held it up. "No more wishes left, I guess." She was wrong about that. There were a few random seeds caught in her hair, but he understood what she was saying applied to more than just a crumpled flower.

He shrugged. "Don't matter. Wishes don't do shit for ya." He'd know. Marie looked over, but didn't seem surprised by his gruff response. He wasn't the sort of man who sugarcoated anything. "You want things to be different, it ain't wishin' that'll get the job done."

"Brute force can't fix everything, Logan."

"You think I don't know that?"

"Some things can't be fixed."

That, he knew. All too well.

"Those're the things you share, kid. Otherwise, they'll break ya."

Tears glittered in her lashes, but she was still angry. Still defiant.

"Oh, like you do, you mean?" she scoffed. Her tone suggested that was the pot calling the kettle black.

"I do, with you." It wasn't entirely the truth. He wanted to, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew she wouldn't have it. But then you didn't get this close to a wounded animal and not expect to get bitten.

"You share your orgasms with me, sugar. Not your feelings," she snapped. "But you share those with anyone who has a nice rack and a willing hole. Just a big swingin' dick, spreading its seed, right?"

"And you share jackshit!" The dog picked its head up off the porch and looked their way, ears pricking warily at the angry tone. "Vague bullshit and lies you twist up to keep everyone at arm's length because you're a coward, Marie. And then you sit up here cryin' and wishin' and doin' fuck-all about it."

"I could kill you right now," she hissed.

"Try it, princess. 'Cause if you think I'm gonna shut up in your head any more than out here—"

"I almost killed her."

The words died in his throat.

"Because that's what I am. What I do. What I'm made for." She twirled the dandelion stem in her fingers absently and then pulled the naked head off and tossed it away. "Maybe you should kill me. Maybe one of these days I'll push you too far and you'll snap for real."

Holy Christ. Is that what she'd been doing?

"You wanna die?" His heart was beating very fast. Hers was eerily steady.

"No." She sighed. "I don't want that for her."

"But you do for you?"

Marie just shrugged.

"What I want stopped being important about a second after I peed on the stick and it turned blue."

"So, now what?"

"Now I figure out how to live with what I am."

"What you are?" Like she was a goddamn leper?

"Death." She blinked at him, those strange inhuman eyes wild and bright, shining in the darkness.

His hair suddenly sprang erect and he shivered with a grunt. "Mmph."

"What? Ghost walk over your grave?"

"No. I was thinkin' about somethin' that Voodoo girl said." With the mist beginning to roll in off the bayou, it seemed a fitting place to remember her. "She told me I was the spirit of the dead. Baron somethin' or other."

"Samedi?"

"How'd you know that?"

"Sugar, you don't live in Cajun country and not pick up a few things." He felt those strange eyes of hers take his measure. "I can see why she thought that. Death and resurrection and fertility..." Logan shifted uncomfortably. "You show her the claws?"

"Yeah."

"Before or after?"

"After the sex. Before the Voodoo lesson was over." He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn't let him. "She called you somethin' too. The eternal flame."

"Death's bride."

"Yeah."

He watched gooseflesh rise on Marie's exposed skin as well.

It was a topic that made them both uncomfortable, because if she was Death, they were a mated pair.

A firefly winked between them, a welcome distraction from the awkward silence.

"I used to think they were fairies." Her smile was sad. "A million years ago in a different life."

"I wonder what she thinks?" Logan nodded toward the porch where a sleepy little girl was watching the fireflies, her head now slumped against the dog's side, rising and falling softly with each breath.

"I don't know." He could tell the answer pained her. "I don't know anything about her now. Not her favorite food or book or song. Not what soothes her to sleep or makes her laugh, or— or…"

She stopped then, unable to go on.

"So tell me about the part you do know." The twilight was different here. Richer. Warmer. Marie's bare face shone with a soft nacre and for a moment, he saw the past. She was that girl young again, wild-eyed and skittish. In a flicker, it was gone. "She grew under your heart, darlin'. She'll never really be a stranger to you."

Marie let out a shaky breath, leaning back in the lush grass, but with her face turned so she wouldn't miss a moment of drinking in her daughter.

"She wasn't a mistake or a surprise. I wanted her. We wanted her."

Logan grunted. That hurt. He'd been expecting to hear that she'd been like most teenage mothers. That her birth control had failed or that the baby was a result of a night of drunken sex, or careless counting, or pure sexual abandon. He was not prepared for the knowledge that the pregnancy had been deliberate.

"You okay to hear this, sugar?"

No. But he'd been waiting for this moment for years, and he wasn't about to let the bloody ribbons of his own heart keep him from the answers he needed.

"Yeah. You go ahead."

He couldn't take too much more of these starts and stops. Like little hesitation cuts before the courage is marshalled to grasp the blade and cut deep.

She didn't see the flicker of hurt flare in his eyes because she was watching her daughter.

"I was in love. With Remy. With touchable skin. With the Cure. With the idea of love and being a mother. And babies. And happily ever afters." She was silent a long moment. "Stupid, huh?"

"Nah." He didn't think a man who'd wished on every star in the sky had much room to criticize.

"I wasn't in a great place when we first met. After Bobby. After..." She shrugged. "Just after. That's when Murphy's Law will getcha. The night I met Remy, I'd told Jubes I'd sworn off all men. That I was done. Ready to tap out."

"Mmph." A grunt of agreement.

"I think the universe took that as a personal challenge."

That made him smile.

"We got married pretty fast. Honeymoon in Paris. I was pregnant before we came back."

Logan closed his eyes against the burn.

"The Cure wasn't about some boy. It was my chance to have a baby. I knew that. And I was selfish enough to try. Because when you're nineteen and believe the power of your own bullshit, you can convince yourself that happily ever after really does happen if you want it bad enough. I wanted to create the family I'd lost. My father. Charles. Scott. You… It was my chance and I took it."

He let her talk without interrupting, afraid she'd stop if he even offered her a word of solace. The knife's edge sliced deeper with every word. She'd considered him her family. Once.

Christ.

"We'd already seen the heartbeat when we started hearing rumors that the Cure was wearing off. We cried and talked and prayed and fought and talked some more. He tried to convince me that everything would be fine. I tried to convince myself."

Her chest rose and fell as she drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes flicking over to him to see how he was taking it so far. He nodded, not trusting his voice.

"He had this theory…" Her face flushed. "That even if my mutation did come back, that my skin wouldn't hurt him or the baby. That because the baby was a mix of his DNA and mine, that my body wouldn't be able to tell their skin from my own, at least while I was pregnant."

Plausible theory. He could tell from her tone though, how that had worked out.

"One night when we were making love, I hurt him with my skin. Bad."

Logan winced. "He freak?"

"No. He was really good about it. Sad— sad about not being able to touch me like he used to anymore, but not upset at me. He bought some gloves and started talking about bodysuits but I could tell something had died that night."

A growl rumbled in his chest, low and deep.

"I could feel Elaine the whole time."

"Kickin'?"

"No. Well, yes. But more than that, too. Remy, he can manipulate energy, but he's an empath, too."

"Wonderful," he muttered.

"I could feel her. Her emotions. Her feelings. Impressions more than actual thoughts. She must have gotten that from him. And maybe I got it from her. I don't know. But I could tell when she was content or afraid or sleepy. Like that."

"Goddamn."

"Yeah. I never told Remy about that. By the time I figured out it was real and not, you know, wishful thinking on my part, well, I was afraid he'd feel left out. He'd probably have been able to feel her too if he could touch me, but he couldn't. Not anymore. It seemed cruel to tell him. Hey, babe. There's this awesome thing that you'll never be a part of, you know? So I just… didn't."

"Yeah. I get it." He didn't agree, but it wasn't his decision to make.

"Everyone was so sure that it would be okay. I had so many doctors. Even Hank consulted. They all thought that everything would be fine after I had her." Marie's eyes closed. "They were all wrong. She was born and it was the most amazing, joyous, powerful experience of my life. Holding her squirming body against my breast and hearing her cry and counting all her fingers and toes and seeing those big eyes open and close and I could feel her, too. The connection was still there."

Logan felt his own eyes grow wet.

"And then they cut the cord. The second she wasn't a part of me, my skin pulled her in. She wailed and I could feel her pouring into me. Feel her fear and then she was suddenly gone. Remy pulled her out of my arms and they got her— got her breathing again." Tears were sliding wetly down her cheeks now. "I never felt her again. The connection never came back."

"I'm sorry, kid."

She didn't respond to his words, but her body shuddered lightly as she breathed, fragile as spun glass. The dam had broken and it was pouring out now, unchecked. She didn't even swipe at the tears.

"Remy convinced me that we could do it. That it would be okay, that I just needed to make sure I was covered when I was touching her and we'd work out the rest. I wanted to believe him because the alternative was unthinkable."

Logan understood what the alternative was all too well. She was beside him now, mourning the loss of a child who still lived.

"I was terrified to touch her and she was only happy when she was being held. I couldn't change her or even feed her."

"Feed her?"

She was blushing again. "My milk came in, but I couldn't let down to the pump. I tried until I cracked and bled. I'd give in, hold her and she'd scream and cry and I'd have milk leaking everywhere but I couldn't nurse her and she'd smell it and cry and refuse the bottle. We had to put her on formula and it gave her colic. She'd cry for hours and hours. I'd cry too. Remy did his best to help, but over time all the sleepless nights took their toll."

Her eyes were fixed now, seeing the past rather than the present and he was afraid even breathing loudly would interrupt the flow.

"One night when I hadn't slept for more than about forty minutes in one stretch in about three weeks, I slipped. I was just too tired to notice and she touched me. Just the brush of a finger. That was all it took. She almost died, right there on the floor of our bedroom. I left that night. It was the hardest thing I've ever done."

"Darlin'— "

"Don't!" Her voice and swung from soft to sharp. "Don't you dare presume to tell me a damn thing. There's nothing anyone can ever say that will make this better." He thought maybe she didn't want it to be better; maybe she needed to punish herself. He understood that, too. When the pain was gone, all that was left is acceptance. And that hurt more.

"Marie—"

"You know, men look at me and see a piece of ass with blowjob lips. Women see weird hair and imperfect teeth. My dad saw a freak. Charles saw something even he couldn't fix. Eric saw something he could use up and throw away. I don't even know what you see. A challenge, maybe? Who fucking knows? I see a failure as a woman and a mother. It's like a cosmic joke that my breasts still tingle when I hear a baby cry that sounds like her. A reminder of all the things I wanted and will never ever have."

"And LeBeau? Whatcha think he sees?"

"Besides the woman who almost murdered his child? Isn't that enough?"

"He throw you out?"

She shook her head. "He begged me to stay." She was making it really damn hard to hate the guy. "But we both knew that would never work. I can't be what I am and also be her mother."

"You'll always be her mother."

"Like the woman who brought you into this world is yours?" The words were soft with despair, rather than sharp with accusation. "You don't even remember her."

He understood, then. Her daughter would never remember her, either.

"You're right, I don't."

His life was a patchwork of barely recalled moments; all of them hazy and most of them bad. He had no anchor. No people. No history. No birthday to celebrate, but he still lit a candle for his mother every spring. Time moved differently for him. He didn't do it to mark the passage of the seasons, but in acknowledgement. Phantom pain in a limb long severed. Acknowledgement that he'd had a home once, and a family, even if he didn't remember them. It wasn't the sort of thing he had ever shared, but he thought, now, that maybe he should.

And so he did. Slowly. Haltingly. Telling Marie how he honored a mother that he couldn't even remember. It was painful and awkward. She was right; sharing his orgasms was far easier. He'd rather bare his body than his soul, even to her. At least his body would heal.

He thought she might be too full of her own pain to truly hear what he was saying, but she turned to him then, eyes wet and luminous in the fading light.

"Does it help?"

His lips thinned, the truth locked behind them.

She heard it anyway, reading it in the set of his powerful shoulders and the way he wouldn't meet her eyes. "That's what I thought."

She closed her eyes then, strangely still against the verdant richness of the bayou buzzing vibrantly around them. It appeared to him she seemed to be willing her body to sink into the earth and that sent a chill slithering down his spine, despite the humid night embracing them.

On the porch, a lithe man unfolded from the shadows, his strange eyes burning purposefully into the darkness before he scooped the little girl up into his arms. She sighed and then plastered herself against him, chubby arm wrapped tightly around his neck. "Papa!"

Beside him, Marie flinched.

"Remy," she said unnecessarily, without opening her eyes.

Logan realized in that moment that of course a child of that age wouldn't have been allowed to play on a raised porch without supervision. Irritation followed, stinging like a red-hot lash. Even if he'd only had eyes for Marie's daughter, he should have known the man was there.

His lack of situational awareness was jarring. The tall Cajun moved like a ghost; silent as a shadow and just as sure. The urge to hit him, to force the Cajun to his knees and prove his primacy over him was strong. Blood roared in his ears and he could taste it in his mouth; rich and bitter with the tang of metal. This man had known Marie's body — and her love. The animal was restless within him, clawing and pacing; the presence of a rival enough to bring him howling to the fore.

A door opened, spilling an amber glow into the plummy twilight, the silhouette of a young woman thrown into vivid relief.

"His lover," Marie whispered, eyes on the small arms locked around her papa's neck. Marie deliberately ignored the pretty girl who'd taken her home and her bed and her family.

It caught Logan unaware, a fresh wash of something searing and uncomfortable rising up to choke him. His claws emerged, an automatic response. Her voice ached with longing. The beast howled.

Christ, anything but this. This was agony.

Marie looked at the wicked blades, gleaming in the dying light with the promise of terrible freedom they offered from a moment too painful to be endured.

"Yes," she said simply, understanding so implicit in her quiet reply that he was momentarily struck mute.

"It doesn't work," he returned finally, looking up at the sky and recalling the times that he'd bled the ground red in an effort to escape the reality of his existence. He was acutely uncomfortable. He hadn't felt this fatally exposed since he'd wrapped her fingers around his tags a lifetime ago. He managed to get the claws back in, but only just. They were there lurking barely under the surface, pricking at the sensitive skin between his knuckles and making him twitchy.

"I wish you didn't know that."

"Back atcha."

She sat up, making no effort to conceal her face from him as she indicated to the house nestled in the valley below them with a slow nod.

"So now you know." Her face changed. The mocking sing-song lilt to her voice disturbed him, invoking thoughts of a nursery rhyme written in blood. "This is the house of cards that Marie built."

Up next: Cauterize. Y'all know there's no way the Cajun is gonna stay on that porch, right? Gold star to anyone who can guess what comes next…