It had seemed so perfect, that moment when you finally let someone in, when you finally admit that maybe, just maybe someone in the world actually *loves* you when the past reared it's head and ruined it all.

Looking back on it now as she was sat in the blackbird, her fingers tapping on the small notebook on the console. *That* had been the defining moment, even now as she watched Bobby pace the long interior of the plane, only a few hours before she'd been sucked out of the thing. Falling to her death and her only thoughts hadn't been that her death was going to be painful, oh no, it had been about what she *hadn't* said to Logan.

Putting the pen to paper she attempted to clear the last few hours from her head, the return, her conversation with him, the attack on the school and her near death exeperience and now being left behind. Snorting through her tight closed mouth she just let her hand do the talking over the small lined book.

**************************************

It hadn't been much to start with, only a few touches I suppose, a grab after class, brushing up against me as I passed by. But it had been enough to catch my attention, to let me hope for more. But Bobby was a *boy* and the person who came back up the drive had been more than that, *was* much more than that. Remembering the smile that had covered my face as I caught the sound as it tickled into my ears. Then Bobby was forgotten, I treated him like an empty soda can, left behind as I'd flown to see Logan.

He'd looked tired, worn, embittered almost when I'd finally laid eyes on him. An when he saw me his hand dropped the bag he was carrying to hold me told me enough about what it had been like out there.

He'd been alone.

All alone, lost, looking for answers that he felt he needed but as his grip went round my back I could feel him unknotting. He was here for *me* as much as he was here to rest, then Bobby appeared, bringing me crashing back to the reality that I'd spawned when he'd been out there all alone.

I must admit though Bobby did try to impress him but the look he got was more of 'Don't try to piss higher than me kid'. Logan was too tired to even try to retaliate or maybe Bobby wasn't important enough but when Jean appeared it was like I wasn't there.

*That* hurt like a bitch but thing was even as Bobby dragged me away I noticed he didn't hold her, didn't pull her close to him. Instead he picked up his bag and shouldered it again, I called out and he answered that we'd meet after dinner. His eyes said more than his face did and if I'd have expected him to wait that long I'd have been as dumb as Bobby.

*************************************************

Marie looked at the communicator, the static that was coming over it was steady, John had left nearly an hour ago, they were being forced to be on the sidelines and she really didn't want to wait. But there was the warning that the Logan in her head was giving her, this was a dangerous place to be in. To be still for too long was a death sentence, and her gaze dropped to the console in front of her. As her fingers wove over the paper oblivious to the hand that was still writing a part of her mind was telling her exactly what to do and how to get the heavy plane airborne.

*****************************************************

Bobby *had* said to meet him so they could go to dinner together yet when she got there he'd already gone. Just another little annoyance that he seemed to love doing, as if he was trying to push me into another foul mood. So it really was an accident when I'd run into Logan, he was sitting on a window sill smoking a cigar. The window open to the summer air, his body looking relaxed but there was something wrong.

I could feel it, like the smoke rolling out of his lungs, he was hurting so I went over, not realising that he'd followed me. Sometimes I can be dumb, just because someone's got a resident pass for your head doesn't mean you know everything about them.

So I sat there, let the air between us deepen a bit until he just stared at me, his question half spoken in his body even before it reached his lips to break the silence. "Ice kid huh?"

Three words.

Seriously, three words to wrap up a relationship that I'd been trying to understand ever since Bobby made a move on me a month ago. It just smashed through the whole thing as if I was understanding all the subtext for the first time. That annoying way Logan has of speaking without speaking? Well he was doing it now and he didn't approve of my choice. It'd take me until later to figure out why but then I'm getting ahead of myself.

So trying to calm my heart from beating out of my chest I just answered him, "Yeah, Bobby. Why, don't ya like him?" The look that came back said enough without him even trying to give those thoughts words, he just bored through me. Looking past everything I'd pushed up inside my head, seeing into the truth of the matter. Bobby had been the first (apart from Logan) to actually try to touch me in any way at all. Learning that what you're doing to yourself is desperation led kinda sucks no matter who tells you.

He moved softly, quietly from his perch and just pushed the cigar into his skin, the stench of the burning skin making me gulp. He watched my reaction, I know why; he knew I had his dreams if he got my letter and when my face went pale he just reached out to me.

All he did was shift and put his arm around my waist, friendly, brotherly to everyone elses gaze but they wouldn't understand the subtext. Not the way his feet moved with mine, the way he swayed as we strolled to dinner. Every face he met straight on, everyone we met looked away first and each time the grip on my waist got stronger until I could feel the metal under his skin digging into mine. When we got to the doors he made sure everyone saw us, he even waited until Bobby saw us. An I *know* why Bobby tried to kiss me at his house later, he wanted me back. Thing was I never was his in the *first* place, Logan had put his mark on me the first time he'd touched me, the first time I'd taken him in.

So when he walked away from me I felt like my legs had gone out from me, he didn't look back and he didn't faulter as he went over to the teachers table. Leaving me stood there like an idiot. Finally when my legs responded to my desperate commands to get myself inside and sat down did I see Logan watching me stumble across the space to my seat. He watched me choose to sit next to my roomates instead of Bobby, after that he didn't look at me once. Not until we were fighting for our lives in the hallways.

Exactly why they decided to attack that night I have no idea but Logan thought it was him, the way he went through the school. I saw the mess, I recognised the cuts, Jesus you can't dream about running out of a facility without dreaming about *killing*. And as sick as it sounds I wanted to help him do it, I wanted to feel their blood on my knuckles, still do even now. They took my *home*, destroyed my peace of mind and I don't get to do it to *them*. When Logan pushed us down that tunnel I just followed until Wolverine stopped me dead, I couldn't leave him with them again. If they were the same men....I couldn't so I used blackmail on Bobby, it would've worked on John if he wasn't more interested in Bobby than me.

Worked a treat though, even when Logan turned round to have a go at us for coming back I could see him torn in two.He *needed* to know so badly, it meant so much that he was willing to fall back into their hands, willing to suffer again. *I* wasn't though and even though words aren't his strong point he understood when I told him that we wouldn't be alright without him. Mind you the journey to Bobby's....that was another thing entirely.

****************************************************

Bobby paced up and down his hands clenching and unclenching as if he wanted to act but he was stuck following orders. Looking at Rogue he could see her hand scribbling something down while her other hand was flicking switches and noticing what they did. She seemed in a different world to him, lost, seperate and maybe she always had been. When she'd first come to the school he'd been intrigued by her, the way she didn't look you in the eye. The way she kept her distance, her mutation had only been rumour then, not until he'd seen Logan flopping like a dying fish on the floor had he understood what it had meant in reality. Now as she wrote in the small book he wondered if he'd ever known her at all.

***********************************************

Logan was just outside New York when he finally spoke to me, and I do mean speak, actual sentences and structure. Bobby was asleep in the back with John, I couldn't sleep I was navigating even though both of us knew that he could've gotten us to Boston with his eyes shut.

Thats when I found out he'd read my journal, the Rogue one.

"When were you going to tell me?"
"I don't understand Logan, about what? Bobby?" He'd just shaken his head and answered me in that terse way of his. The way he made each word sound like a knife blow.
"Your Journal, the *real* one, the one you cry over."

If he'd found that, then he'd been in my room, he'd seen the paintings too and that was a situation I wasn't ready for let me tell you. Not everything I painted was a horror show, some of it was damn pornagraphic in nature. So here we are, racing from the soliders and he decides to talk to me about everything while my *boyfriend* who knows nothing about the stash of porn under my bed sleeps behind my head!

"What about it?"
"Does it really hurt that much? To have me in there?" The way he was whispering the words he really didn't want me to tell him the answer but he'd made me angry. Made the piece of him inside me rise up because he'd invaded my space, my *private* thoughts.
"Yes." The wince he tried to hide made me regret the tone I'd answered him in but it didn't stop me. "Not always, it depends on where I am in my cycle."
"Cycle?"

Don't you just wish you could get men to download all the things you find embarassing to talk about into their heads? Logan wanted an answer but what do I say, 'My period' or 'my monthly cycle' or what? He got it when I just pointed below my waist and repeated the words 'My cycle'. Mind you he never squicked but then he's done worse than discuss period issues with a teenager.

"Does anyone else know what's in that journal?"
Oh sure like I'd show everyone in the entire house what I was thinking, feeling and doing. But then I realised that *this* Logan didn't know, the one I had in my head had been with me as I'd done things. This one had no clue about *me* apart from two letters I'd sent him.
"No, no-one else knows about it. I've got two, one that's real, the other one people look at." Logan nodded at that, he'd seen the other one but probably scented all the other hands on it and ignored it. He wasn't stupid and he knew how to keep a secret secret.

We drove in silence for a while accompanied by the snorts and snoring of the two behind us, amazing how boys can sleep even when under stress.
"Does *he* know?"
"What about?"
"About you, about *us*."
There was a definate there, unspoken in it's entirity but the weight of it definately pushed against the world we knew. So I tackled it as best I could at the time.
"No, Bobby doesn't even think about it I think, he just knows the surface. I think I'm lucky to even have a chance with him to be honest. I broke his hand in the spring, bent his fingers back till they broke." I looked over at him when I told him about that, knowing that if he'd read my journal then he'd know which part of him had done it.

He didn't smile or enjoy it but I could feel the sorrow coming from him, that I'd been tainted by him, by the darkness in his soul. He'd given me life but he'd also damned me too. I reached out and touched him then, rested my hand on his thigh for a second, my skin was bare and I didn't want to hurt him. He shifted toward me slightly as if I'd done the right thing, he knew where I was with him. I was *with* him, on his side and that had been enough for now.