I died last week. My feelings on the matter? It was kind of interesting.

And I don't mean that I saw a white light or any of that crap. I didn't have any sort of enlightening experience; I didn't meet God or reevaluate my life. And actually coming back to life wasn't anything so special in and of itself -- that was pretty much like waking up in the morning, only a hell of a lot more painful.

Here's the interesting thing: I saw it coming. Hell, I pretty much killed *myself*, so I couldn't help but know exactly what was happening. And you know, not too many people get to live to tell about taking their last breath -- not honestly, not really. Not too many people can take that breath and evaluate it, in the sense that when it happened, I seriously wondered if it really was the last.

In a different life, it would have been. In *this* life, I just wasn't sure. I was okay with the possibility, though, because Marie was covered in blood, mine and hers, but I could hear her sucking in huge gulps of air and I knew she'd be breathing for some time to come.

It was a trade: my life for hers. It could have worked out better instead of turning into a huge, bloody, traumatizing mess, but sometimes you just deal with what life throws at you and that's what I did, gladly.

And it killed me. Jean says it was a pretty big deal, actually, 'cause she hadn't come on the mission and the other knuckleheads had so much trouble getting my heart started again, they nearly gave up.

*You* try doing CPR on a guy with a more or less metal ribcage. Way I hear it, they finally got Piotr to armor up and beat the shit out of me; he managed to get enough force into the chest compressions for it to actually work.

I'm grateful, really I am. Even if my chest does still hurt like a bitch.

---

Here's how it went down: just like it always has in the past. I said I'd protect Marie; I screwed it up; I saved her life.

Some people might find that a disturbing pattern. I could do without the middle step, myself, but the rest is fine with me. And frankly, I'm not going to put up too much of a fuss about any of it, so long as the result is always the same. Long as she's alive and kicking, I don't give a damn about much else.

And I mean that. Somehow, at some point, it stopped being a decision at all -- my life for hers. I knew damn well how badly I was hurt, and what her skin would do to me, and I didn't have to think.

I did have to convince her, though. That was the hard part, because she can be a stubborn fucking brat.

The mission was never supposed to be dangerous. Break in, sneak a peek at some documents, make some copies, get out. But apparently nobody told the guys with machine guns that they weren't fucking supposed to be there, and they really weren't supposed to open fire on us.

But they did, and the only thing I could do was grab Marie and block her body with mine, holding her against the wall as I felt a volley of bullets pepper my back. It didn't last long at all; Cyke managed to crank open his eye and blast the hell out of these guys, but it was long enough to turn me into a colander.

Which wasn't actually all that big a deal, or wouldn't have been under normal circumstances. Hurt like a bitch, yes, and made it pretty damn hard to keep my feet under me, but my body is usually of a 'shit happens, let's move on' mentality. I immediately shoved the pain to the back of my mind and looked down at Marie, who was wedged firmly between the wall and my body, my arms wrapped securely around her. "You okay?" I asked her bluntly.

She lifted her head and blinked at me, and seemed understandably rattled by the entire thing. I waited for her to catch up and nod at me.

But she shook her head instead. And then her mouth opened, and she coughed up red spittle, and I realized my chest hurt. A lot.

The rest happened pretty fast, actually. I lowered her to the floor and knew, I already fucking knew, that it was bad. I found three wounds, all of them high on her chest – two in the shoulder and one pretty close to her heart; that one was gushing out blood that I couldn’t stop no matter how hard I pressed my hands against it. She looked at me, her eyes brightened by tears and dulled by a dying glaze all at once, and she tried to smile at me. “Ow,” she said weakly, and coughed up more blood. “’m I okay?”

“Yeah, baby,” I told her. I lied through my teeth; I make no apologies for that. “Jeannie’s gonna take care of you.”

“Jeannie’s not here,” she murmured.

“I know,” I said stupidly, my mind racing with fury and fear and the dizziness of my own blood loss. I could feel that the wounds had closed, and I knew that there were a lot of them and that I needed time to totally recover, but I had to bank on having had enough already. “You gotta turn your skin on for me, okay?”

“No…you’re hurt.” She shook her head hard, a jerking motion. “Can’t –“

“Dammit, Marie, I’m fine,” I snapped. “You have to take a little. Just enough to get you back to Jean.”

Her eyes slipped shut, and I was afraid she’d faded away too fast. I hauled her torso up into my arms and held her, bleeding and dying and still, against me. “Turn it on,” I muttered in her ear. “Please.”

I barely heard her labored whisper of “okay.” But I did, and I gave her a second to do it, and then I gave myself away. Because the fact of it was that I knew I was hurt – bad – and that I wasn’t about to do a half-assed job and risk her dying before we could get her help. I didn’t even know how Cyke and Storm were doing, just that they hadn’t gotten to us yet and everything was still and quiet, just as it had been before the shots started, and Marie was about to disappear forever, right in front of me.

I kissed her. I kissed her hard and pried her slack lips apart with my tongue, and I tasted her blood just before she started eating me alive and everything was lost to the sucking drag of her skin, pulling my life out through that small focal point. Dimly, I became aware of searing pain spreading through my body, of wounds reopening and blood flowing, of her hands scrabbling for purchase against me – she tried damn hard to shove me away, to break all contact, but she couldn’t quite manage it. I had her and I had her good, until my vision finally went black and my arms gave out, and we fell apart into separate heaps.

I heard her crying, during my last few breaths. I heard her cursing me, and I felt her hands on my cheeks. I heard her begging me to be okay.

And then I drew in one final bit of air, and I died.

---

I was out for a week.

I woke up on one of Jean’s piss-poor excuses for hospital beds again, and my first thought was that someone really needed to mention the value of actual mattresses to her. And like before – like always, it was starting to seem – Jean was standing over me, checking on wounds that had finally faded from sight. “Hi,” she said softly, when she noticed that my eyes were open. “Ready to rejoin the living at last?”

“If I have to,” I muttered. “Rogue.”

“Not a scratch on her.” She didn’t hesitate, just cut right to the chase. I like that about Jean; she’s usually pretty good about knowing when not to fuck around. “Healthier than she was before the mission, even.”

I’d believe that when I saw it. “She around?”

“I’ll get her. Don’t try to move yet, all right? You’re getting there, but you’re not quite fully charged yet.” Jean smiled down at me and patted my arm. “Rogue is very lucky, I think. It’s not every girl that gets her own personal hero.”

“Not every girl that needs one so often,” I said lightly, and then I dozed off while she went to find Marie.

I woke up to the light touch of fingertips on the back of my hand, and opened my eyes to see Marie, standing at the side of the bed and watching me solemnly. “You’re okay?” I asked her immediately.

She nodded. “Better than ever,” she said quietly. “Good as new. Right as rain.”

“Good. Scared the hell of me, kid.”

She didn’t say anything to that for a long moment. Her eyes cut away, sweeping across the room, and she finally nodded. “I guess I did. Sorry. And thanks, for saving my life.”

“You don’t need to –“

“Yes, I do.” She looked back at me and smiled, but it seemed forced and melancholy. “Jean said I could only stay for a minute. You need your rest.”

“Come back later?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure where that came from. But the sight of her was a comfort, and I wanted her around. I wanted to see her, alive and well, and chase away the lingering sense of grief that had followed me through a week-long coma. She nodded slowly and backed away, and I let myself drift back to sleep.

---

She didn’t come back later. Jean told me something had come up and Marie was just busy and tired, and I was stupid enough to accept that.

Until she finally let me out of that damn room after three more days, and I went straight up and found Marie’s room empty, stripped of every single thing that had identified it as hers. It didn’t even smell like her anymore; it had been cleaned, made ready for some new occupant, wiped free of all evidence that she ever existed there.

Xavier, not surprisingly, didn’t seem surprised at all when I slammed into his office without knocking. “Where is she?”

He calmly hung up his phone. “Rogue decided the time had come to take her leave of us.”

“Take her leave to *where*?” I growled, barely resisting the urge to pop the claws.

Xavier just watched me for a moment, then began writing on a small pad of paper. “I helped her secure an apartment in the city. She’ll be quite comfortable there, I’m sure.”

I took the address he held out. “You’re just giving this to me. Just like that.”

“She gave me no reason to believe I shouldn’t,” he said smoothly. “In fact, I believe she may be expecting you.”

For some reason, that made me settle down. I stared at the paper in my hand, the words and numbers that said nothing less than that she had finally moved out, moved *on*, and I sank into a chair. “What’s going on, Chuck? When did she do this?”

Xavier’s eyes became hooded. “She came to me immediately after the last mission, and completed the move within a few days. She stayed here until you regained consciousness, however.”

“Why?”

“That is a conversation that you will have to have with her, Logan. It’s not my place to say.”

A conversation I’d have to have with her, huh.

Well, I damn sure planned on having it.

---

“Oh,” she said when she opened her apartment door to me. “Hello.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that; I’d never once gotten anything less than a warm, happy greeting from her, and this was downright cold. "*Hello*," I replied pointedly. “You gonna let me in, or do I start yelling right here?”

“No reason to yell,” she muttered, but stepped back and opened the door wider so I could step inside.

The apartment was nice, I had to admit that. Small living room with a couple of closed doors that I assumed were the bedroom and bathroom, and a kitchen set off by a dividing counter. Entire place came furnished, clearly, judging by the catalogue picture look of it. I went straight to an armchair and dropped into it. “Start talking,” I ordered.

“Please, Logan, make yourself at home,” she muttered. I just rolled my eyes and waited. “I don’t think I have anything to say to you.”

“No? How about what the fuck you think you’re doing?”

“I think I’m getting on with life.” She was still over by the door, watching me with a blank expression. “That all you need to know? Then thanks for coming, have a safe drive back. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Marie,” I growled warningly. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing much. I’m just not going to be on the team anymore.” She shrugged at me and then turned and headed into the kitchen; I got up and followed her and watched as she got a glass of water. “Professor Xavier hooked me up with a job through a friend of his, doing some political action stuff. I’ll start that next week, make enough to afford this place and all. I think it sounds like fun, actually. Quieter, fewer fistfights.”

“You like fistfights.”

“*You* like fistfights,” she retorted, a strange edge to her voice. “I like kittens and puppies and weekend movie marathons on Lifetime. I like the idea of my life not being full of violence and blood. Is that so wrong?”

“Yeah, actually, it is. You’re not all sunshine and lollipops, Marie, and you can’t blame all of that on me. Even if you could, it’s still part of *you* now.”

“Well, I don’t want it to be,” she said icily. “And I won’t be indulging it anymore. This last mission cut it a little close, okay? I realized I want to make some changes, maybe see what it’s like to have people *not* try to kill me all the time. I thought you’d be happy to have me out of harm’s way.”

“Think again.” I folded my arms across my chest and stared hard at her. “This isn’t out of harm’s way. This is you, running. That never works out well.”

“I always seem to land on my feet.”

“Yeah, when I’m there to *set* you on them.” Her eyes suddenly flashed dangerously, and I knew I’d scored a hit. “You are what you are, kid. Deciding to run away doesn’t force the rest of the world to stop chasing you. This isn’t safety.”

She gulped down her water and set the glass in the sink, hard. “I’ll take my chances on that, I guess. Are we done?”

“Not until you explain what’s really going on.”

“Nothing is going on,” she insisted. “This is something I’ve thought about, and I decided the time had come. And I’m not – I don’t do things halfway, Logan. If I’m going to cut ties, I prefer to cut them all. So I’m moving out, quitting the team. I’m leaving that life behind – all of it. So if that’s all –“

“Would you drop the song and dance and tell me the fucking truth already?” I snapped suddenly. I was irritated by her attitude, and by not knowing what the hell it was about, and by just about everything involved in waking up from being fucking *dead* and having the one consistent part of my life that I actually liked do a disappearing act. I was irritated by all of it, and it was too much to bother containing. "What the hell do you want from me?"

“I want you to leave,” she said calmly. “Don’t come back.”

No way in hell. “Try again.”

“Logan –“

“No fucking way, Marie. Sit your ass down and try again.”

“There’s nothing to try here, Logan. This is my home and I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you anymore. I accepted that I shouldn’t bother trying to hide, that you would insist on knowing where I am and that I’m safe, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go. Do us both a favor and forget you ever knew me, okay?”

“No, *not* okay.” I stepped forward without thinking about it, and something about my stance must have scared the hell out of her, because she actually took a quick step back, eyes widening. I forced myself to take a deep breath and hold still, but I went ahead and said what I was thinking. “You don’t just get to make that kind of decision on your own, Marie. You owe me more than that.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Owe you?” she said quietly, her voice chilly. “I *owe* you?”

I didn’t actually think so, never had, but pissing her off seemed to be getting closer and closer to somewhere productive. “Don’t you?”

“No, Logan. Debt’s paid."

I snorted. "How do you figure that? You saved my life recently without me noticing?"

"You're such an asshole, you know that?" She turned away but not before I saw her expression flicker, something hurt and sad flashing through her anger. "I'm asking you, okay?" she said, her voice trembling slightly. "Please get out of here. Leave me alone."

"I already said no. Not until you cough up the truth."

"What good would it do? You don't seem to believe anything I say."

"Because you're feeding me lines," I snapped, and sat down again. "You're obviously mad at me, and I want to know why."

"Not everything is about you, Logan."

"This is. Quit being a bitch and just tell me."

"Christ," she muttered, and laughed harshly. "Seems like you've got it all figured out already. What's the point in saying a goddamn thing?"

"You want to know what I've figured out? Fine." I sprawled out in the armchair. "Best I can come up with is that you're freaking out about killing me, which wasn't your fault." She glanced at me, arching an eyebrow. "Never known you to take your guilt complex out on other people, but what the hell. Maybe you've finally gotten too much of me."

"Maybe I've…" she started to echo, then trailed off, staring at me with incredulity all over her face. "My god, Logan. You'd think I'd know better by now, but…you're really this fucking dense?"

That pissed me off. "Marie –"

"Don't 'Marie' me," she bit out, and I could tell she was close to snapping, "Here's a hint – I know damn well it wasn't my fault."

"Then what the fuck is your problem?"

“You made me kill you, you son of a bitch!” she yelled suddenly, and – and I admit, she threw me for a loop with that. “Do you have any *idea* what that felt like? Sitting there perfectly *fine*, with your thoughts and your senses and your memories, smelling your blood, waiting for them to give up on you – and knowing that I did it. You lied to me, Logan. You lied and you made a choice and you made me a goddamn murderer.”

“Marie –“

“*No*. I’m done, Logan. If it makes you feel better, I’ve still got your power, hasn’t faded at all. Maybe it never will. But either way, I won’t do this anymore, I won’t risk you killing yourself because of your fucked up need to protect me. And if that means not being around you anymore…fine. I can’t kill you if I’m not anywhere near you.”

I stared at her, letting everything she was saying sink in. As much as I wanted to tell her to stop being so fucking ridiculous, I knew I should take this seriously. She was pissed enough to move out, pissed enough to sacrifice everything familiar to her, including me, to avoid something that was such an easy decision for me.

Easy, when I hadn’t bothered considering what I was making of the life I saved. She stood there glaring at me and I suddenly saw the horror behind her eyes, the desperation and the fear and the love that fueled it all.

Love for *me*. It hit me, hard and all of a sudden, that it didn’t matter if I thought I was worth that kind of emotion. It only mattered that she felt it, and I’d been running roughshod over it for years. “I’m sorry,” I finally said simply. “Give me a chance to say a few things before you kick me out?”

She gazed at me warily, but then nodded slowly. “Fine.”

“I fucked up,” I admitted bluntly. She snorted and raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “But I want to know something, and I want an honest answer. If it had been the other way around, if I’d been dying right in front of you and you were the only one who could stop it – what would you have done?”

She clenched her fists at her sides and closed her eyes. “Anything,” she whispered. “I’d have done anything.”

“*Why*?” I demanded. My tone was harsh but I didn’t care; I knew her answer and I was determined to hear it.

She drew in a shaky breath, and a tear escaped one of her eyes, ran down her cheek slowly. “You know damn well why.”

“Say it.”

“Because I love you.” She opened her eyes, wet and shiny, and glared at me. “Because I love you and I can’t help it, and I’d rather be dead myself than watch you die.”

I just held her gaze and waited, and she started to cry in earnest. “Don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said enough,” she accused. “It’s not the same for you, I know it’s not. I wanted it to be for so long –“

“Things change,” I snapped. “Fucking Christ, Marie, didn’t you just suck up most of my thoughts?”

She stiffened and glared again. “Yes. And you don’t –“

“Do something for me, would you?” I cut in. “I’m going to do what you want; I’m gonna leave and I won’t come back. But I want you to take a good hard look at anything you picked up from me. Look at what’s actually there instead of just what I was willing to admit to myself. You decide what to make of it, then figure out what you want to do. You know where to find me.”

“Logan –“

But I was already headed to the door. “It’s a nice place, Marie. Glad you’re safe and comfortable.”

“Logan!”

I ignored her; I left and closed the door behind me on the sound of her frustrated cry and the crash of something glass shattering against the wall. I drove back to the mansion and I glared at everyone who crossed my path between the garage and the Danger Room, and then I spent a few hours beating the shit out of things that weren’t real.

It didn’t really help. Sublimation never has been one of my strengths.

---

Xavier didn’t say anything to me, about any of it, and I didn’t say anything to him. Nobody else said anything, either, but it was pretty clear that everyone knew Marie was gone, and that it had something to do with me.

I kind of expected her to show up before too long, ready for some long, sappy talk that I only even contemplated enduring because it would be what she needed. I expected her to *get* it, and to deal with it, and to want our friendship back at the very least.

But then two weeks passed, and she hadn't set foot on the grounds. Jean finally came to my room early on a Friday night; I was hiding out, more or less, since a house full of teenagers always gets a little insane on weekends. She stood in the doorway with her arms folded and a mildly indulgent, slightly amused, mostly concerned expression on her face. "Have you figured it out yet?" she asked gently.

"Figured *what* out?" I snapped.

She smiled and shrugged. "That you should go back and see her again."

I glared at her. "You been talking to her? Did she say that?"

"No. But – Logan, after the mission nobody could get her away from you until I could swear up and down that you were stabilized. And I…I picked up on some thoughts, before she left." Jean grimaced slightly; she'd had trouble blocking out strong emotions since she came back. "Maybe it's not fair. I can't say; it's not my place to judge what happened out there. But you hurt her badly, even if all you wanted was to protect her. She's not going to come back, not on her own. It's your move, and it will be until you fix this."

"I tried," I snarled at her, then rubbed the back of my neck roughly. "I said everything I could possibly say, Jeannie."

And she just shrugged again and reached for the door to close behind her as she left. "Somehow I doubt that."

As parting shots go, that was pretty weak. But it got to me and kept me from sleeping, and I wound up banging on Marie's door at three in the morning. I heard her curse as she stumbled against a table inside, and when she opened the door she peered at me through squinted eyes. Her hair was a tousled mess of tangles, and all she had on was a wife-beater and flannel boxers. "Logan?" she mumbled, frowning. "What time is –"

She couldn't really be blamed for not finishing, what with me grabbing her and kissing her hard. She made a startled noise but backed up easily enough as I herded her backwards and kicked the door shut, and by the time I managed that she was gripping fistfuls of my shirt and responding eagerly enough. "I'd do it again," I muttered against her mouth, and her fingers began fumbling with my buttons. I interrupted her, and myself, long enough to push her back and yank her shirt over her head, then pulled her back in and picked her up. "I'm sorry it's so fucked up for you, Marie, but I'd do it again. You either deal with that, or tell me to leave. Now."

"Can we talk about it later?" she mumbled, wrapping her legs around my waist and seeking out my lips again. Her fingers scrabbled between us, tugging desperately at my shirts, and when I felt her hands, warm and steady against the skin of my stomach, I knew she was already answering.

I made her say it anyway. "No, baby. We talk about it now."

She pulled her head back and frowned at me; her fingernails dug into my sides briefly. I was already walking towards her bedroom, my arms tight around her, but I was determined to have this out and I think she knew it. "You *won't* do it again," she said, her voice dangerous and low. "I won't let it happen again."

It was almost a dodge, her answer, and it would have been if I didn't understand. I could have heard, "I won't let you do it again," and called it all off because I already knew I couldn't accept those terms.

But what I heard was different. I looked at her and saw the Marie who would lie in a sweaty heap on the Danger Room floor and glare up at me, obviously committing to memory everything she'd done wrong and willing herself to *fix* it the next time; I saw the Marie who somehow always managed to do just that.

I saw the girl who decided she was going to be a fucking superhero and made that happen, and I knew without a doubt that she'd just decided never to get hurt again. Which – whatever the hell made her happy, so long as if she failed in that, she'd be willing to accept my help. "But if it does?" I asked, just so it would be said out loud.

"Just know this," she said darkly as I set her down on her bed. "You ever die on me, I'll hate you forever."

I took a second to get rid of my shirts and belt. "That's real mature, kid."

"Fine, strike it. You ever call me kid again while we're not fully clothed, I'll kill you myself." Her eyes were still narrow with sleep, but they sparkled as she looked up at me. "You telling me the feeling ain't mutual, though?"

I pushed her back and crawled on top of her, and I pinned her wrists to the bed and dipped my head to suck hard at the side of her neck. "It's mutual, all right," I muttered against her skin. "Real fucking mutual -- *kid*."

"Bastard!' she gasped, and was already laughing helplessly as she started struggling against me, trying to get the upper hand.

I let her have it, occasionally. One way or another she was moving against me with energy and enthusiasm, laughing and catching my mouth and helping me slowly get the rest of our clothes off, and though we both settled into something more serious when I finally pushed into her, she kept this silly smile on her face and I felt pretty goddamn pleased, myself.

'Cause, hell, I figured we had a pretty decent understanding. Granted, it was what I'd thought we had all along – she'd be as careful as possible, and I'd do anything to keep her safe – but I didn't think that mattered much.

But more than that, she was alive, and I was alive, and given the history of us, that was something of a miracle twice over.

No way to be anything other than happy about that. No way at all.

**end**