It was a birthday gift. Hunter green, padded so thick she thought she’d expire just trying it on. August in Meridian, and it was 100 degrees outside, a swelter of scorching heat and relentless humidity. But she’d twirled for Mommy and Daddy, did up the shiny horn toggles, and beamed with delight at the thought of needing a proper winter coat. For exotic places like Boston and New York and maybe even Vancouver and Alaska. Red dots on her map marked the ones she just HAD to see, and blue for the ones she’d like to see. After high school, before college. She turned 17 that day, joyous and bright and full of expectation for her senior year, about to start. Soon, soon, she’d be heading north.

Rogue could taste the bitterness in her mouth as she remembered that girl. Fingers compulsively worrying the loose thread on her sleeve as she hunkered down in the back of the trailer, bounced along like a carnival ride. The guy drove like a maniac. She shivered, again, and wondered about frostbite, or hypothermia. She’d never imagined a cold like this, bone deep and inescapable as the wind found every crevice of her body. Never imagined that a coat would be the only thing keeping the world safe from her magnolia-blossom skin.

So beautiful, they’d said, the boys back in Meridian. So deadly, the men had discovered as they tried to take what she had no power to give. She was torn between hate and a weird sort of thankfulness. If it wasn’t for her skin, she would have been raped long ago. If it wasn’t for her skin, she might not be here in the first place. If it wasn’t for her skin, she would be sitting in school, slaving over some paper or another, or maybe bouncing around on the football field as all the guys watched her tits in that tight little t-shirt.

Not hiding away in the back of a trailer, two months after her birthday. Not hitching a ride with a man that had claws in his hands and eyes that flashed yellow with anger. Not a mutant, not a mutant, not a mutant.

August 29 seemed so far away now. Marie’s birthday. It had been the highlight of her year, even better than Christmas, each one outshining the last. Momma’s little angel had become Momma’s beautiful young lady, and she was proud of that. Rogue wondered what her parents thought now. Cody in a coma. The rumours, tearing the family apart. And finally, the cross on the lawn. The Klan had found a new cause to champion. “Die, mutant!” the red scrawl on their front door had said. The whole family had been shaken, unbelieving. Daddy couldn’t believe his friends in the Klan would target this house, this family. Good, upstanding Christian folk. He kept shaking his head, but Marie could see the doubt in his eyes, the dread. Never directly, of course: sidelong glances, full of questions.

She left that night. Four weeks to make the border, washing dishes along the way and sticking to private cars, mostly women drivers. Once she got into Canada, truckers began to dominate the highways and she was forced to hitch with them. Older guys were usually less vile, especially if she asked about their family, rhapsodised over the photos of the grandkids, always kept somewhere handy. Lonely, most of them.

Horny, some of them. But if she pitched in for gas money, they let her go. Watched her hungrily, but kept their hands and their sick fantasies away from her. Mostly.

Her money had run out as she rolled into a dump called Laughlin City. It was 10 below, full winter, snow already a foot deep by the side of the road, and they weren’t even in November yet. She had one of those little calendars gas stations gave out, and marked the days off religiously. Didn’t know why, but it seemed important.

Today was October 17, she remembered, fighting the urge to close her eyes and retreat from the cold. She wondered if she was still 17, and what her name was now. “Some sort of rogue gene in her makeup … not fully human,” she had heard the doctor whisper to her Momma.

“Rogue?” Momma had repeated, still glassy with shock. “Is she … a mutant?”

The doctor had nodded, and Momma’s scream had reverberated through the house.

*

“What sort of a name is Rogue?”

She had smiled, using all the kittenish charm a southern belle was taught from birth, and retorted with a sharp-edged sass she’d learnt on the road.

“What sort of a name is Wolverine?”

He’d said Logan, and she’d said Marie. It had felt like a lie in her mouth, but he seemed to like it, and this guy might be rough and a bit scary, but she had wanted him to like her. She hadn’t been sure why, but she suspected it had something to do with the way her mouth had gone dry, watching him in that cage. Or the spike of panic that had pushed her into action when that guy pulled a knife.

Strange the liking hadn’t been killed by the sight of the claws that slid from his hands. Or the threat to leave her by the side of the road. But he hadn’t, and he might have even smiled, once. Smiled for her – the Rogue, the mutant.

And later, as the flames had leapt around her, and she had seen his frenzied attempt to fight his way clear of the snow monster and rescue her, the warmth had grown, and spread. She was thinking of him as a friend, that night, when his groans had woken her from not-quite sleep. She had stood over him, aching for his terror, while trying to think what to do. Her hand had hovered over his heaving shoulders as she called his name in an attempt to wake him up, safely.

When he leapt up with a roar, her first thought was that she’d caught bare skin. Hurt him. And then his claws were sinking into her ribcage, slicing through that magnolia skin like the silk it was. Sliding deeper into her, through bone and into the fleshy pulse of her lung. She tried to breathe, and not think about the pain. He was inside of her, and as she watched her blood began to smear the adamantium, she wanted to wipe the beautiful blades clean. See them shine again.

And then he was withdrawing them, and the horror in his eyes was all the explanation she needed. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind if she kissed him, just as she died. She hadn’t wanted to touch anyone since her skin betrayed her, but this man … her eyes raced over his face, and down his neck to the corded biceps, the heavy muscles of his chest as he pushed air in and out. One hand wavered over him, and settled on his cheek. She felt the pull even as her heart slowed, and that prompted the other hand to trace the magnificence of his chest. Down further than her virgin’s touch had ever wandered, to the hard curves of his abdomen, and the top of his sweatpants. Lingering there, afraid to go further, afraid she never would.

And then, life returning to her in a blaze of heat and memory. His healing, racing through her like a silver tide, mending her punctured lung and then the wounds themselves healing over, first to shiny new skin, and then nothing. Nothing at all, except his mind shouting its concern inside hers, his memories, his thoughts. Dark, delicious torment, the pinprick of desire met with revolted guilt, horror at what was happening. Fading visions of surgeons and champagne glasses, the reality of an innocent in white. Bleeding. Hurt. Pain – and relief. Astonishment and joy as her wounds closed, as blackness danced at the edges of his vision and then wrapped him tight. But he knew she would live, and was thankful. Not in vain. His sacrifice.

Everyone else chattered about his selfless act on Magneto’s machine a few nights later. Sure, being brought back to life was pretty special. But by then, he had loved her. She was humbled he would give his life for her, but she had known they were that way. She had known since that night.

October 19, 2000. Two days after they met. The first time he penetrated her, loved her. The day she was born.

*

“So Rogue, when’s your birthday?”

The question had been asked in good faith, in the teasing back and forth of teenage getting-to-know-yous. Poor Bobby wasn’t to know it was one of her no-go areas. Past conversations had already screeched to a halt when they asked her name, where she was from, and how she had ended up with Logan. She’d walked out, that time.

But she’d been at the mansion two months, now. So she cocked her head and smiled at him. “October 19,” she’d said. And it became her new truth. The day you were born held nothing that deserved to be celebrated, but the day you were reborn, reshaped: that required remembrance.

Bobby and John and Kitty were curious about the newcomer – who she was, where she’d been – and she understood that. Didn’t mean to be so … private. But she was still finding out, too. Sometimes, she would answer a question, without knowing how she knew it. Or follow a scent, half thinking. And then there were the nights when his memories turned her inside out. Nights of shaking, screaming; of pain so deep and endless it must surely kill him. Her. Whatever. There were no boundaries on those nights.

She would crawl from her bed and pull her coat from the closet. It still smelt of his cigar smoke, and the jerky she had stashed in the pocket. Road-worn, tattered where she’d pulled threads and burnt holes. But safe, familiar. Her substitute skin.

More time passed, and a new scent worked its way into the fabric. Mothballs. At the mansion, she could walk around without the coat. Sometimes even without a scarf, or gloves if she was being particularly brave. And she was. Rogue was.

*

She coughed at the acrid scent as she pulled her coat from its spot on the top shelf of her closet. She had almost forgotten it was there – last winter had been mild, and she had the coolest leather trenchcoat Jubilee had helped her find at the mall. But today was ‘Closet Cleanout Day’, apparently, and if Dr Grey felt they had to check everything was happy and moth free, she would.

No moths, check. No holes that needed mending, check. Back into the plastic bag and onto the top shelf. But she lingered, stroking the fabric, immersed in the last days of a girl called Marie. Who had parents, and a house, and a normal life. And left it all behind for the road, and a man who fought in a cage.

The phone in the hall rang. She tried not to run to answer it, but failed.

“Logan.” Thirty two phone calls, and still her hand trembled on the receiver. Every time.

“Hey kid. What you up to?”

“The usual. School. Training. More school.” She tried not to roll her eyes, because, really, it was good of the Professor to take her in, and all. She should be grateful for the opportunity. How many teen runaways got to live in a fancy mansion while they finished school? She could even go to college if she wanted, Dr Grey had said.

“Learning anything worthwhile? Hand-to-hand? Weapons?” Logan obviously hadn’t been to school in a while. She laughed.

“Uh? Trig? Chemistry? History?” His snort was unimpressed.

“What you need that stuff for? Their job is to keep you safe! But maybe,” he paused, and Rogue could just see him, hazel eyes thoughtful, calculating, “chemistry – get ‘em to teach you to make bombs. That could be good.”

Just as well he couldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Logan. They’re trying to turn me into a useful member of society. Not a terrorist. We do a little bit of self-defence in training, but none of that other stuff. I doubt the X-Men even do that stuff!”

“Yeah, kid, and that’s their fuckin’ problem. Bunch of stinkin’ do-gooders, want the world to change just because they say so. It ain’t gonna. Remember that, Marie. Don’t get sucked in by their little fairytale.” His voice was sober, serious. He meant every word.

She leaned closer to the phone, glanced down the hall. Lowered her voice, just in case. “Logan. I know. I’m not like them. I’m with you.”

But she wasn’t. And as his phone calls trickled to a halt, and the postcards came less and less frequently, she could feel their connection stretching thin like old elastic. She studied, she trained, she tried not to think about him. Sometimes, she succeeded – when her second birthday in the Mansion rolled by without any word, she was unconcerned. He had asked once, in passing, when her birthday was, and she had pretended not to know why he was interested. It had never been a big thing. But in October, she cried.

*

Shivers rode her spine as they raced to Scott’s car. John wanted to drive, as always, but Logan’s dry rasp ordered otherwise. Maybe the goosebumps on her skin were from the cold. And if her nipples were poking hard at the black silk, it was because she had been forced to leave her coat hanging in the hallway as they escaped into the lower levels. She saw Logan trying not to notice, and smirked at him. Men.

She shivered again, and Logan flicked the heater onto high. Last night, she had been snuggled down inside her coat, hands stuffed deep in the pockets, head on Bobby’s shoulder, as they saw the last of the Summer Series movies in the park. Had it been only this afternoon that Logan had waltzed in?

He looked the same. She couldn’t believe it. Three goddamn years, and he looked the same. She wasn’t expecting him to have aged or anything, but – it was a concentration camp, for Christ’s sakes. A hellhole in the jungle for dangerous mutants that the government needed to disappear. And he’d been in there for more than a year before he was able to slash his way out.

No one knew but her. His letter had been long and painful and revealing: all the things Logan usually wasn’t. But he knew she’d understand, that she needed to know. And she had bled for him. And when he returned - swaggering in, hugging her a moment too long before shaking Bobby’s hand and directing his usual leer at Jean Grey – she knew it was time to pretend it had never happened. For now.

In the end, their time never came. It would become one more atrocity he had to bear alone, with not even a scar to mark its passage. She had been wandering the halls that night, ready to force him to talk about it, when Siryn’s alarm rent the air, and suddenly, there were new horrors to confront. To flee, as they took to the night in a borrowed car and tried to take back a bit of Bobby’s borrowed life.

She could almost laugh at the irony when October 19th that year added two more souls to her inventory: Bobby and John, stolen as they faced down the Boston police. The chaos in her head – Bobby’s excited exclamations, Pyro’s sarcastic grumbling, Logan, of all people, trying to keep the peace – made the rest of the day a blur. Which was saying something when you saw the man you loved shot by the police, fell out of a jet only to be rescued by a teleporting blue demon, and bedded down with your worst enemy.

She wondered if his return the day before had been coincidental, but had never got the opportunity to ask. It didn’t seem right to say, “so, did you remember our anniversary?” when Jean had gone and died and all. Marie was selfish enough to hate the fact that October 20 would forever be the day Jean died. She didn’t want to know if that outranked the day Logan had saved her life. Nor could she bear it if he looked at her, puzzled and asked “October 19?”

*
Jean came back in May. At first, she thought it was jealousy, that whisper of unease that twisted in the pit of her stomach whenever the telepath was near. But when it turned to pleasure, like a million fingertips tracing softly across her skin, she began to wonder. Jean would smile, and Rogue would hear a song inside her head, rich and haunting and so fucking powerful she wanted to cry. And Jean’s eyes, once a flat caramel, followed her everywhere. They were near black now, heat and invitation lurking in those depths. And something else – an immensity that was coiled and hungry. At the time, Rogue never thought to wonder for what, and then she took the Cure, and Jean’s eyes were just cold and dead. Looking past her, to Logan.

He had told her, later, about the Phoenix. How she had wrapped him in Jean’s endless legs and taunted him with echoes of the woman she used to be. Goodness and morality abandoned for pure desire. How want and need were the currency of the Wolverine, and the man was nearly lost.

Rogue had collapsed at that, her knees giving way as she realised she, too, had come close to being a victim of the Phoenix. As she shook in his arms, he had shushed and smoothed her hair, rough hand on the skin of her cheek, her bare feet warm on top of his. Tears, thankfully, were mute, requiring no explanations as her pain streaked his chest in seeming innocence. As he murmured platitudes of better places and the noble sacrifice of a good woman, she cried for that loss of divinity, that chance to be his perfect counterpart. The Phoenix had wanted them both, and unlike Logan, Marie would never have had the strength to resist. A rose of apology on each grave, and one for Logan’s bed, and she left.

Four-year-old jeans, long-sleeved shirt that still stunk of too many smoky bars, and a worn green coat. Too hot for May, so it stayed rolled up in her duffel bag, but she knew it was there, and if her ride got too fresh, or her spot for the night too damn depressing, she could stroke the felt and take comfort from her own strength.

She reached Meridian in the fall.

*

It felt like some sort of weird alternate reality. Up at 7, at work by 9, and cursing the boss by lunchtime. Not for something worth spending that energy on, but for little things: the boredom, the monotony, the endless creep towards 5pm. Letters to type, papers to file, customers to bare her teeth at in some semblance of a smile.

Combat training and the ability to fly a super-stealth jet were not qualities she could list on her resume, and upper-middling results at a mysterious private high school barely qualified her for an entry-level secretarial position in a small law firm in Montgomery. When they asked why she had no job experience at 21, she had donned a tragic smile and directed sad brown eyes at the floor. “My momma. She was ill for a long time, and … there was only me. Now that she’s gone …”

Momma, of course, was hale and hearty, three hours away across the state line. She was the one who might have been dead. “I had you in a ditch, Marie. Or maybe frozen under a bridge somewhere. For the first year, I had hope. By the second …” her hands had sketched sad trails in the air, and their meaning was unmistakable. Mourning her dead, mutant daughter was easier than being forced to talk to the live one.

“I’m sorry, Momma. For everything. I shoulda called, but …” her voice trailed off, admitting there were no buts that were acceptable, and too many to explain. But I was afraid you might not want me. I was afraid you just might. She lifted her head, straightened her spine, and refused to lie. “I had to find out who I was. Who I could be. My name is Rogue now.”

And she was surprised to find it was still true.

*

She had taken an apartment on Royal Street with two other girls. They had asked if she was a smoker, a drinker and if she had a job, but didn’t bother to enquire after a mutation. That possibility was so far from their white-washed reality that Jessie and Kate would have never considered it; they thought “Rogue” was the slighty wacky choice of blessed-out hippie parents.

“It’s kinda funny, though girl, ‘cause there’s no way you’re a Rogue,” slurred Kate, one night after a home-made Margarita too many. “With your looks and that bod, the men’d be lining up for you if you just noticed they existed, hun. Ya gotta get yoursel’ out there.” Kate fancied herself a party girl, but there was a sadness to her too-tight smile. Jessie was quieter, but more observant, which was unfortunate. Rogue could have done with a friend, but the years of Logan in her head made her suspicious of anyone so watchful.

They were spring cleaning, that day, when Kate pulled Rogue’s green coat from the furthest corner of the hall closet. “What, in Jesus’ name, is this?” She brandished it with an expression that slid between distaste and incredulity. “Ah mean, jus’ look at the state of it! There’s moths! And it smells,” she pronounced, her nose wrinkling like Aunt Beth’s beloved pug.

“It’s mine,” Rogue snarled, her tone as feral as the Wolverine had ever managed. Kate blinked, astonished by the venom. “Sor-ry!” Jessie had jumped into the uneasy silence, running her hand over the felt with a slow smile, a dreamy look in her eyes. “It’s seen a good few miles, hasn’t it? Did you see snow, Rogue? I’d love to see snow.”

“Miles and miles of it. Up north, it’s nothing but snow and trees. And sometimes you can’t see the trees.” Her mind cast back, days of hunger and pain and loneliness. And a bar, a cage, a man.

“It’s the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see. So white your eyes hurt, but everything looks … pristine. Walk a few metres away from the town, and there’s nothing. No footprints, no dirt, no ugliness. So pure, so clean.” Her voice broke, hardened. “Course, walk too far and it’ll kill you. There’s a price for so much beauty.”

Tears? Where did tears come from? Rogue ignored them, thought of the times Logan had comforted her. She was a normal girl, with a normal life, now. She was paying the price.

*

Jessie had opened the door. Her strangled yelp floated out to the back porch, where Rogue and Kate were stretched out, trying to catch any breeze that dared to stir in the late afternoon heat. No one in Alabama went visitin’ on days like today, but that was just another rule Logan had never bothered to learn.

His eyes followed a bead of sweat as it rolled from her hairline, down the side of her neck, and then hesitated on her collar bone. They darkened as it wavered there, seeming to urge it forwards, salivating at the dizzying plunge into her cleavage. Her mouth went dry, and the polite greeting she had honed over the past year fled her brain.

“Quit staring, Logan. It’s just a bikini!”

“It ain’t your bikini I’m lookin’ at, darlin’.”

Her heart thumped, and she wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like. It thumped again, proving otherwise, but the beat seemed slow, as unreliable as those parts of her body that were revelling in the attention. Not interested. He’s not interested. He’s not. The litany didn’t help when the green in his eyes was vanishing into gold, and Rogue’s memory was fishing deep. She knew what that look meant. That intent. He wanted to fuck her.

Thump. Thump. Her heart agreed. Her blood sang. Her brain tried to object, but she’d already been pulled into what some people might have called a hug.

Want. Need. Desire. Rogue should have known they would catch her in the end.

*

It wasn’t what she expected. It wasn’t quick, or hard, or anonymous. He didn’t leave, afterwards. He might have made her cry, but the tears came as her body shuddered with joy, not abandonment. He had cried, too, as he moved over her, long slow strokes dragging out the pleasure, the fulfilment. “Marie, Marie, Marie,” he said, her name a metronome.

Puzzled, she reviewed his memories. A frazzled waitress, out back of a no-star diner. Nought to 200 in less than a minute, easy expertise on both sides. Or the fight groupie, Laughlin City, the night before she arrived. He’d pounded the woman for hours, draining away the aggression of the cage into a willing body. Too willing. He’d felt bad about some of the stuff they’d done, but regret had no place in a one night stand.

And there she was. Green coat. Glances from under her hood. Chocolate eyes straight to his soul. A face by Botticelli, or maybe Bellini. (Logan, an authority on quattrocentro art, Magneto mocked. She hushed him, and tried not to be amazed by the disclosure.) Innocence. A dangerous sensuality. The need to run, and run, and run, lest temptation catch him up.

But he lacked faith in himself. Faced with abandoning her to the snow, he couldn’t. Faced with abandoning her to death, he wouldn’t. So they had become one heart, one soul. She had thought. But now? He wasn’t being predictable. He wasn’t being the Wolverine. She wondered if she knew Logan at all.

*

“Marie? Where you goin’, baby?”

“Home, Logan. I’ve gotta work tomorrow. And get some sleep tonight.”

“Don’t go. Stay and keep me warm.”

“Its 104 degrees outside, Logan. You’re warm enough.”

“I just thought …”

“I gotta go. See you Friday, maybe?”

“Friday, as in the end of the fuckin’ week Friday? Why not tomorrow?”

“A week with you and I can barely focus, sugar. Not to mention walk. I need to rest up some. I’ll be all fresh by the weekend. See you Friday?

“Yeah, kid. Friday.”

*

But Friday turned into Monday, and Monday into Friday again. She was sick with what she was doing; the need to see him churned in her gut and made her ill as she listened to the messages he left.

“I’m missing you, baby. Call me.”

“Are you out of town, Marie? It’s Logan. Give me a call.

“Marie – where the fuck are you? Are you OK? Call me.”

“Marie. I’m leaving. Westchester. Maybe you’ll catch me there.”

She sat in the closet with the phone, replaying his messages over and over. Three in the first week. Two in the second. One in the third. And a final, lonely voice on her machine, more than a month later. She was running harder than he ever had.

He only called once after he went back to the mansion. Kate had moved out by then, but her replacement knew better than to wipe the machine. It was Jessie she hid from, though, those observant blue eyes full of sorrow and sympathy. And here, in the dark, she could curl up in her coat and let the smells take her back. To Laughlin City. To the train. To the mansion. Back when things were uncomplicated by things such as adulthood, and honesty, and truth. And the most painful of all. A word she couldn’t even think. A word he had said.

Her fingers ached to press the numbers, but her traitorous mind wouldn’t allow it. This wasn’t Logan, it insisted. That man wasn’t him. This was a man who could love her, and surely, that wasn’t him?

Her memories were holding her to ransom. Surely the present could be found in the past? She, who held the pasts of five men in her head, understood men better than most. They didn’t change. They didn’t.

She was terrified that maybe they did. He had. Because this man was had the body and soul of her lover, without the dark places and outsider’s rage. He was calm. Loving. Supportive. The ideal mate for any woman. Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy, screeched her demons.

*

Four years. Four years in the dark, four years of hot summers slipping into balmy winters, and nothing but moths and silverfish gaining the benefit of thick, green felt. Even comfort was beyond its reach, as Marie turned her back on Rogue, and everything to do with her past.

And one day, the scent of cigar smoke had faded to the point where none but a feral mutant would have been able to detect the hint of finest Cuban. But there was no feral mutant in her life, now, and there was no need to cry as the last evidence of their relationship slipped from her senses.

Marie d’Ancanto was too busy to regret the past. 40 hours per week as Brunner Braun’s best legal secretary, followed by 20 hours swotting for the LSAT. She had narrowed her preferred law schools to two, and now all she had to do was pass the entrance. Mid-October, she thought. And if work and study weren’t enough, she would find a man to distract her. He would be rough and treat her badly, and she would smile and take the punishment, for a while. Then she would smile and move on to the next man who had muttonchops and a motorcycle, never once even thinking his name.

When November came, the firm called it a triumph. Top marks in the state. They couldn’t keep her locked up in Montgomery, heavens no. “You deserve the pay rise,” old man Braun said as he handed her the file on the New York office. “You’ll love New York.” There was no reason not to go, she told herself. Walking along Wall Street every day, Marie could feel the drag towards Westchester. One train. Less than an hour. Just curiosity, she told herself, only natural, she said, and walked faster.

That first week, still staying in a hotel as she goggled at the price of apartments, she fought the temptation to ring head office and explain she had made a mistake. The second week, as she unpacked her clothes in Mrs deLazio’s spare room in Brooklyn, she gave it a month. And shaking her birthday coat out to air, Rogue wondered why she’d even packed the old thing. It was too tattered to wear now, the kind of rag that even the Goodwill would reject. By rights, it belonged in the dumpster. But somehow, it found its way into a box under her bed.

Gathering dust, holding emotion, impregnated with memory.

*

October 19, and Marie was contemplating buying a new coat. Her leather trench wasn’t up to a hard winter, and she fancied something in cherry red. Shaped, no hood. She was still contemplating when the first snowfall of the year blew in, an early visitor from the frozen north. She couldn’t remember ever being so cold.

The coat under her bed was better than no coat at all. She sneezed at the avalanche of dust, and did her best to remove some of the lint. Slipped her arms into the sleeves, and tried not to breathe.

Surely it was just an allergy attack. Weepy eyes were a classic symptom, and she was just all sneezed out. Crumpling to the floor, crying, and crying and crying. Momma’s little girl. Marie, Rogue, Rogue, Marie. So confused, so tired of being confused.

Logan. Logan. Logan. You made me what I am, but I couldn’t handle who you were. Couldn’t handle the gentle man, the loving man. Couldn’t handle being loved. The pain wracked her body until it she heaved it out, one dry retch after another. Regret, regret, regret.

Hours later, work forgotten, she rose to her feet and stumbled to the telephone.

“Xavier’s. Wolverine.”

“Hello, sugar. Do you know what day it is?”

“Marie. Uh – October 19? Do you really remember?”

She held her breath. “Remember what?”

“Today. I stabbed you, ten years ago today.”

“Yeah. I remember. I never realised you did.”

His voice was quiet, and she could hear the shame pulse through the handset. “It was sick, but … all I could think was that I was touching you.”

She sobbed, incredulous.

“Jesus, Logan, I nearly … the feel of you inside me, I nearly came.” The silence on the other end of the phone stretched and began to ache.

“Logan? Are you there?”

“Yeah, baby. I never knew. I mean – the connection we had, sure, but I didn’t realise I fucked you up so bad that the pain … no wonder you didn’t want to be with me. I screwed you up something shocking.”

She shook her head, begging him to understand, before realising he couldn’t see her.
“Fuck no, Logan. No. October 19 is the day I was born, for God’s sake. The day Rogue was born. But … Rogue wasn’t enough. She couldn’t stop Marie hurting, couldn’t stop Marie hurting you.” She paused, dragged in a breath.

“My momma thought I was better off dead, Logan. Her baby, Marie, was dead. And when I took the Cure, I realised I’d thrown Rogue away, and Marie was dead, and … I was no one. Nothing. And if I had you, I had to be someone, someone worthy of your love. But I wasn’t. So I couldn’t – I couldn’t do that to you.”

He was crying, now, choked sobs echoing down the receiver.

“Stop, Marie. Just fucking stop. Wherever you are, just leave, and come home. You are enough. You’re fucking everything. I need you here.”

It took her a minute, maybe two, to hang up the phone, place it gently in its cradle. She stood, legs shaking, and looked about. She wouldn’t even need her bag. Cash in her pocket. Ten-year-old jeans. A long-sleeved t-shirt. A green coat. All a would-be, once-was mutant girl would ever need.

FIN