Marie could feel Bobby getting closer to her as her fingers flew over the pages. Emptying her mind on the pale background, colouring it in a swirl of emotion and words that she'd read later. Automatic writing someone had called it, that she had the ability to write and to do something else at the same time.

Raising her head to see Bobby approaching her quietly and the look that passed from her to him said enough for him to back off again. She really wasn't *herself* right now, the amber sheen to her usually dark brown gaze told Bobby that. He just wondered when the hell she'd touched Logan again.

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

The house, Oh GOD the house! I mean 'middle america' or what? The way everything was set out, the way it was 'perfect' in form and grace. Even the damn cat had a doormat to step on when she came in, not saying that I don't like clean but there's an anal bent to that household. An the way they were trying to fob Bobby off spoke for itself in both Logan and me. They didn't want us here so when the cops showed up, well they kinda did us all a favour really.

Two things were a bonus from that disaster, One :- I learned that I can kiss someone, even if I was desperation driven, I just need someone who won't fall down straight away afterward.
Two :- I have *some* control over my skin. I know, huge thing right there, mind you I was trying to stop John from frying us all. Thing is I didn't take in his *mind* only his surface emotions and powers, so there could be a bonus to having this sucky mutation.

But back to the kiss, Bobby wanted to take me back from Logan, to claim his *rights* on me like I'm a 'thing'. Believe me I know what men think about and Logan is no slouch up there but even he doesn't think of me as a 'thing'. I'm *ME*, skin an all and the huge belt of fear and loathing I got from Bobby was enough to stop any romantic notions I'd been fostering for him. 'Leech' was the word I actually picked up on in those few moments we were actually kissing. Everything else was a kind of soft porn type thing, until my skin kicked in. Mind you maybe Bobby should have seen the stash under my bed, maybe his fantasy of me might have been a little different.

Anyway thats when the blackbird came for us and we met up with everyone, including my little life saver Kurt. All we could hear was the sound of beeping and Storm getting worried. Then when the explosion happened I just got sucked out, never was any good with seatbelts. You try it sometime with *silk* gloves on, everything you touch just slides out of your fingers.
I was out there ten seconds tops, there was a part of my mind that knew that, that knew if I hit the ground I'd never feel the death coming. I'd just splat like a bug on a windshield, thats when the words I'd never said to anyone came up. The whole shebang, and that led to the disaster that was to come.

Being next to Kurt, all that blue skin and leather, he really didn't care about my skin, he'd just acted. Mind you he hadn't known about it, but somehow I think he'd have done it anyway. I did catch a look going from Jean to where Logan was sitting though and the look on her face wasn't one of joy. She'd seen something Logan had projected to the plane, I heard his voice as I went past him into the freezing air. His deep screaming "NO!" and the look Jean sent him back must have been big because I heard his growl go through the air. Even over the engine noise and the fall, when Magneto actually lets us down I caught the way Kurt and Logan passed each other. They both just nodded to each other, something had been forged between those two. Kurt had saved me when Logan couldn't and that had been something for them both to think about.

Logan didn't actually talk to me until after we'd got the tents up, everyone else was getting food ready and I was on fuel duty (picking wood that wasn't wet). I turned to see Logan watching me, feet apart and eyes blazing. I almost dropped everything when he came closer, his bare hand reaching up for my skin.

What can you use to describe the things that passed between us two? Care, love, need? They don't describe enough, they're not powerful enough but I *did* feel the wrench of hurt as he watched me get sucked out of the plane. It was like he'd been ripped in two only to be put back together when Kurt got be, he was confused of that I knew. Someone else had done what he'd promised to, they'd saved me and brought me back from death.
This touch was to see if I was still alive, still *his*.

So many things are said without words, just wrapping myself around him told us both what I felt. I'd nearly lost my chance to tell him how *I* felt, about the future I think he deserved and the part I'd like to play in it eventually. It was John who caught us but he was in no shape to challenge Logan, especially after seeing Logan get up after being shot in the head. Cowardly and selfish he may be, but stupid....never. He just turned his back on us both and went back to the camp, leaving us together.

Finally when Logan let go he held my arms and looked through me again and by the look of him he needed to hear me say something but I couldn't, still can't.
"We okay?" I knew what he was asking, did I mind that he hadn't been able to get to me, hadn't been able to throw himself after me.
I think I did my first 'adult' act then, I just met his gaze full on and nodded. The relief in him was overwhelming, you'd think I'd just named him God or something. But then he takes his promises seriously.
"Yeah Logan, we're *fine*." I even touched his arm a little then, backing up words with touch, something he knows I don't do easily. If he's read everything about me he knows how much touch means to me and that I was doing it *willingly* and the short smile that came with it was worth the butterflies in my blood.
"Good."

Never in the scale of human existance have I wanted to be able to touch more than *that* moment, to be different from the 'untouchable girl' I am. But the moment passed and Logan just walked away from me without a backward glance. Even then I could tell he was worried, instead of taking us away from danger we were heading into it.

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

Switches had been pulled, flicked and ready, amchinery that had been shut down when they'd all left was now humming again, drawing power from batteries that were just barely hanging on. They'd have enough for two take offs, that was all, after that they were toast. Bobby was at the communications panel trying to see if he could listen in to the base just over the crest. Looking at him Marie felt her heart go out to him, they were on a downward slide even before they'd started. Pulling her own mind back to her preperations as her hand flicked through the ever filling pages, the pencil in her hand flying across the thin skin of wood.

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

Watching Logan get dressed for war was something I won't forget in a hurry, all purpose, all his strength being poured into that leather. Reminding me of the last time I saw him like that, then the blue bitch and her master made their 'quip'. I'm glad for Bobby, I really *don't* want another dose of that bastard but it did sober him up when I pulled my glove free. I'd have killed him and he knew it, I wasn't the little girl he'd tried to kill up there a year ago. I was *Rogue* and as such I listened to the plan they had, the one that has us waiting here like idiots. A target to be found, a thing to be picked off, all I can hope is that they get back here soon.

*****************************************************
AFTERMATH (home journal)
***********

Pain, not like the memories from Logan, oh no this had a reminder to it, I'd felt this before, this was The Professor. He was using cerebro to kill us, Bobby was writhing next to me, his hand gripped mine, his eyes were screwed tight shut. Wave after wave ripping through our minds flaying us bare, he ripped out John and Bobby's presecences from my mind. Logan held on, Wolverine fought every onslaught makng me grit my teeth as the battle waged through us. Then as soon as it had started it stopped, Bobby just laid there but Wolverine was screaming at me to move, to get the plane in the air and over the crest. They'd need to get out quickly so I did what the voice was telling me to do. When I actually got the damn thing airborne Bobby was screaming at me to put her back down and what the hell was I doing?

He didn't know what I *knew*, something was wrong, dead wrong and we had to *act*. Only when we saw them on the ridge did Bobby shut the hell up, I was panicked enough without him screaming at me.

Later when I'd talked to Storm did she tell me that my landing was almost as good as Scotts, he'd crashed a few times himself. I don't know whether to believe her or not, maybe if I hadn't damaged the landing gear maybe Jean would be still with us.

Jean died at Alkali.

Thing is so did a part of Logan too. It was where they made him into 'Wolverine', he'd gotten his answers and what they were had made him shut off from everyone. Even The Professor.

The strange thing was being stood there in a uniform in the oval office felt 'right'. I held my head up high in there, the documents from the desk of Stryker dropped into the lap of the President. They were clear enough, experimentation on mutants, on children for fucks sake! Stryker had been the man who'd made Wolverine and I think we all knew what he'd been made *for*.

Just think about it, a mutant who can't die? Who can kill anything, who'll never stop until his prey is dead, a human version of a Terminator. Metal skeleton and all.

I saw Logan look my way and his eyes told me enough when we were walking back into the blackbird. Even his hand on my back as he walked me inside and strapped me in, testing the clasp with his hands. He wasn't going to lose me again, not after Jean, not after all this. Bobby wasn't even looking at me, he was lost in his own world of hurt. His family had shut him out, he'd been 'outed' and he didn't like it one bit. Torn between what I 'want' to do and what I 'should' do, theres too much going on around me to think of just myself right now no matter how much I want it. Southern upbringing still sticks, go figure.

Scotts a mess, hell the entire school is, Logan went into the woods, he's been there for three days now. He comes in at night to fix the bullet holes and damage he did, the blood must still be evident to him. But it's Scott who seems the most destroyed, seeing Jean get washed away by a wall of water wasn't the best way to go but she made *her* choice. Even Logan cried for her, holding onto Scott as he fought to get to her corpse, thing was there wouldn't be much left to find.

I'm sitting here on my bed where everything has changed, the school is no longer safe, a teacher and team mate has been killed, bullet holes are in the kitchen still and there are corpses buried in the woodland.
Logan did that, there were men that weren't taken away, those who'd been 'sliced' a little too thoroughly. I saw him dragging a tarpaulin out with him the first day.

Everyone is in shock still, life is turning and the world looks *real* but we don't feel it. Pete got the kids back the night after we left, they camped out for a while and when they saw the blackbird come home they did too. They didn't ask questions, they just filed back in quietly and when The Professor called them for a meeting the next morning he told everyone the news.

It was simple really, he outlined the attack, told everyone it was a man who was working outside his own governments knowledge (which was a lie). That the kids that had been stolen were back home and were okay (another lie - he couldn't hear Jubilee crying last night, she's *not* okay and she won't be anytime soon). I looked at Bobby and he was trying to do the 'fearless leader'look that Scott used to do. There was the future kids, a cookie cutter of the last one and we all know how that's ended up. The only thing that did change was that he told every senior member of the school that they'd be undergoing training with Ms Munroe and Mr Summers. Looks like my future has already been mapped out for me. As soon as it was over I went looking for Logan, didn't find him though. He found me later.

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

Marie went to the window, where the battered camper Logan had arrived in was being packed again. He was leaving. He couldn't stay here, he still felt responsible for bringing the death that had followed him from his past to here. He believed it was his fault Jean had died and no amount of words would convince him otherwise not even mine. Going back to her journal she picked it up and wrote as she watched Logan pack to leave.

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

He came to me though before he was going to leave, last night. I'd been sleeping when he'd crept into my room, Jubilee was dreaming with Prince Valium so he wouldn't disturb her. The man I'd seen only days ago filled with a fire that had reached out to me had aged. Now when I think of him I'll see his tired eyes, the pain in them and the lost cause he'd been chasing.

He sat on my bed watching me until I'd had enough of him staring at me, and I'd turned to see those expressive eyes roving over my face and I *knew* he was leaving.
"Don't go."
I still didn't say what I wanted to, that *I* needed him here, that *I* wanted him here. He just shook that huge head of his and turned his face to the window and the darkness that was coming through it.
"You don't need me here kid."

Kid.

As if after everything I'd been through with him made me a 'kid'. It shocked me into stillness and I think that had been his plan all along. Thing is you should never ask someone to help you pack if you don't want them slipping things into your stuff you don't want them to pack. Like a few letters perhaps?

They're hidden in his stuff, ones in his shirts, one in the food under the salted beef (he leaves that for last), another in the windshield sun visor (that one I think he'll get first). There is another one but if he finds that one I'll be surprised, it's under his bed. What's inside it well that was what kept me up all last night writing the damn thing. It's how I feel about him, he knows me now, the me I am right now. He's caught up with me as much as he can.

I promised to help him pack when he left but I didn't get much sleep afterward. Writing out your soul tends to tire you out I only hope he understands what I'm saying to him. If not I've just lost the only friend I've ever had.