"Home, sweet home".

Yeah, not exactly.

Still, this was the closest thing to a home he'd ever had.

Not counting the trailer of course.

Logan parked Scott's bike somewhere near the garage and made his way to the Mansion's front doors.

There were kids hurrying up and down the hallways and he recognized some of the faces. They seemed even more hyper and annoying than usually and the distinct smell of hairspray, books and a not particularly wisely chosen cologne lingered in the air.

Logan made a face and took a quick turn into the kitchen to escape the hallway madness.

Of course there was still no beer in the fridge. Or anything else that wasn't either pink, water, or some flavor of Coca Cola.

In brief, not much had changed since he'd left - what, 3 years ago?

“Look who's back.“

“Scott....“ Logan responded to the greeting, giving him a nod. There was exactly one person in the Mansion he had no interest whatsoever in seeing again – figures he'd be the one to welcome him home.

“How's my bike?“

“Eager to see you, I'm sure.“

“Oh, absolutely.“

Logan wasn't sure whether Scott had caught the irony or not.

“You geeks been doing okay without me around?”

“Haven't been crying ourselves to sleep missing you, if that's what you mean.”

“Too bad,” Logan said, not really paying attention to Scott's attempts at insulting him. To think someone as smart as Jean would wanna be with him...but that was none of his business. What had once been a burning flame inside him was now a pile of ashes. Jean had somehow lost her appeal and Logan wasn't too sure what he had ever seen in her, when someone much more interesting had been around all the time.

“So where's the kid?”

“Which one?” Scott tried to joke but was silenced by Logan's death glare.
“Marie's outside with Kitty.”

“Marie, huh?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Changed her name once - ...well, I'm sure she'd rather tell you yourself.”

Even though Logan was sure that Scott was taking some kind of sadistic pleasure in knowing a secret he didn't, he dropped the subject and made his way to the back door, grabbing a Coke Zero on the way out – this was probably as good as it got. He would eventually have to put himself in charge of the beverage supply around the school, or the kids would never get anything besides diet soda. Yum.

Logan walked through the gardens for a while before he finally picked up Marie's scent and followed it to a small meadow amidst a group of trees. Her pearly laughter filled the air and he felt one side of his mouth curl up into a half-smile.

Quickly regaining posture, Logan stepped through the grass until he was standing behind one of the trees. He cocked his head to the side and finally laid eyes on the one person he was truly happy to be reunited with.

Only he hadn't quite expected to see...that.

Kitty and Marie were both wearing bikinis and had strategically positioned themselves on a couple of sun chairs in order to have every inch of their skin tanned.

They were loosely holding hands and Kitty occasionally turned the page of a magazine she was reading. Several bottles of sunblocker and two empty cocktail glasses stood on the grass between their chairs.

But Logan didn't notice most of the accessories and scenery; his interest was captured entirely by Marie...and Marie's black bikini...and Marie's legs...and his dogtags that she wore on a chain around her neck so that they were positioned right between her breasts....wait, when the hell had she grown those?!
The tags were shining in the sun and moving up and down just a tiny bit whenever she took a breath.

This easily exceeded all the mental images he'd had of her and what she might look like when he returned.

Logan blinked and gave her body another thorough once-over. It couldn't belong to the child he had once said goodbye to on the Mansion's doorsteps, could it? Time definitely had taken its effect on her; in all the right ways and places.

Finally tearing his eyes away from her cleavage, he tried to process the little piece of information that her left hand gave him: it was touching Kitty's and she didn't seem to be in any kind of pain.

Logan smiled to himself with mixed emotions. So she had taken the cure.

He'd heard about it in the news and Marie had immediately come to mind (not that she didn't come to mind at any other given occasion...like when he was driving or eating or, uhm, breathing...?). He had figured she'd take it as soon as she could, and even though she had lost a part of herself along with her mutation, Logan was happy for her.

This was all she'd ever wanted, to be normal. Judging by the happiness she practically radiated, she had made the right choice.

“Hey Marie,” Logan finally greeted her, stepping out of the shade between the trees. He was beginning to feel like a stalker, staring at her half-naked body from behind a tree.

“Hey Marie.”

Marie recognized the voice immediately and let go of Kitty's hand, pushing up her sunglasses and jumping up from the sun chair.

“Logan!” she yelled and threw her arms around his neck, practically launching herself at him.

“Easy, kid,” he laughed and hugged her back, his strong hands holding on to her small body. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and then let go of him, taking a step back and eyeing him appreciatively.

“You look great,” she said and smiled.

She could feel her heart hammering in her chest and knew that he could probably hear it, but what did it matter? After three years, long after she had stopped believing he would ever come back at all, he had returned and there was no need to hide her happiness about it.

The fact that she was only wearing bikini (this had been supposed to be a girls-only tanning session after all) didn't bother her. Ever since her skin wasn't a lethal weapon anymore, she hadn't been too shy about showing it.
Or touching everything and everyone all the time.

Her friends probably still found it kind of strange that she constantly needed to hold somebody's hand or be in some other form of random physical contact, but she had to make up for lost time.

“And look at you,” Logan said, not hiding the admiration in his eyes.

Marie laughed and plopped back onto the sun chair.

“Come on, sit. Do you want a drink? Not virgin, I promise. You have to tell me all about your trips. Oh and you remember Kitty, right?” she babbled away.

She had given up on imagining what it would be like to see Logan again a long time ago and concentrated on trying to find another boy she might like. After a bunch of bad dates with various guys and two months with Bobby Drake, she was sure that there were no other boys she could ever have feelings for – not as intense as those she had for Logan, at least.

Bobby was by now happily dating her best friend Kitty and miraculously, there was zero awkwardness between the three of them.

“Why don't you tell me about you first?” Logan asked, taking her hand into his. “This is new.”

“Yeah. Amazing, isn't it? Did you hear about the cure? I went to get it and now...well.” She shrugged, a wide smile on her face.

“I'm glad to see you happy. Missed ya, kid.”

“I missed you too,” Marie said, positively excited.
She heard Kitty snort but ignored the background noise. Her friend knew all too well just how much she had missed Logan.

There had been the primary whiny phase after his departure, which had involved moping around, polishing the dogtags daily and reading werewolf romance novels.

Somewhere between that and Bobby, there had also been the extremely humiliating Ryan Atwood phase which had been characterized by obsessive The OC-watching and drooling over Ben McKenzie's wifebeaters, hoodies and cage-fighting skills (thank goodness for that little angsty twist, it had made Marie giddy for weeks) to the point of dehydration. Of course that had nothing at all to do with a certain other grumpy cage fighter with the fashion sense of an angry cowboy.

Eventually, Marie had started opening her eyes to examine other beauties, as Shakespeare would have put it. Sadly enough, there weren't many male beauties around to be examined, much less to be taken home to Mommy (or in this case Kitty).

Even cute Bobby hadn't made Marie happy – maybe because he lacked the grumpiness, belt buckle and facial hair.
Or those adamantium claws. She had always had a thing for those...

...a particularly embarrassing first date had been what Kitty had afterwards started calling the Facebook Claw-faker incident. Marie had talked to some guy on Facebook who was also a mutant and appeared to have metal claws very similar to Logan's on his (admittedly very blurry) picture.
On their anxiously-anticipated first date it had turned out that he was in fact just a horror movie fan who had a kitchen-knife fetish and carried a small collection of them wherever he went. Needless to say she didn't reply to any of his messages after that.

So, yes, it was finally time to get over all those episodes. Logan was back now and she was ready for the craziness to end. Or maybe it was just about to get started, you could never be sure.

But for now, Marie was happily sitting on Logan's lap (couldn't risk to sit in his shadow and get an uneven tan, and this was obviously the safest way to prevent that, right?) and listening to his travel reports.

Occasionally, she or Kitty threw in a random embarrassing story or crazy piece of gossip from the Mansion, which earned them a bunch of raised brows and eye rolls from Logan.

Kitty's comment about Marie's newly-discovered love for anything touchy feely was met with one more curious facial expression on his part and a bunch of occasional, seemingly accidental caresses of her exposed skin, hidden from Kitty's view.

Things really did look very promising.

When Marie had invited Logan to her room for some more catching up, he had right away been pretty sure they wouldn't just sit and talk. They better not just sit and talk, or he'd be pretty damn disappointed.

He ignored the small pang of guilt that hit him when he remembered how innocent she used to be and what kind of influence he would probably have on her...she was old enough to know what she wanted after all; and if what she wanted just happened to be him, he sure wouldn't complain.

“Hey Marie,” he called for the second time that day.

He wouldn't get tired of using her real name anytime soon. It suited her so well and it gave their relationship a more personal touch. And oh what it would sound like when he'd scream it in the throws of passion...okay, taking it slow here. He shouldn't get ahead of himself all too soon.

“I'll just be a sec,” he heard her calling from inside, seconds before the door was opened and her flushed face appeared.

Logan was overwhelmed by the mix of her beauty, the scent of her freshly-washed hair and the look in her eyes that made it all too clear what she had invited him over for.

“Marie...”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, locking the door behind them.

One batting of eyes and exchange of knowing smiles later, he had her pinned against the wall and moaning into his kiss.

When he broke away, they both took a moment to feel the afterglow of that magical first kiss. Logan had never cared much about magic and fireworks and butterflies, it was usually just all lust and claws and growling for him; but all the little things suddenly mattered when it came to Marie.

He hugged her to his chest and sighed deeply, inhaling her sweet scent.

But as romantic as it all was, Marie soon had other things in mind. Her hands were already starting to remove his shirt, touching and kissing every inch of skin she could find.

“I want you,” she whispered against his neck, sending shivers of excitement down his spine.

Logan kissed her once more, his tongue entering her waiting mouth and making her sigh in desire.

“And I want you,” he breathed into her ear, voice husky and rough with need. “But we're in no hurry here. Enjoy this.”

“I'm in a hurry,” she relied with a small chuckle.
“Three years are a long time, you know.”

“I know...sorry,” he said between kisses, feeling guilty yet again. This was becoming an annoying habit.

“Especially if you have to spend them with Ryan Atwood and the Claw-Faker,” Marie carried on, ignoring his apology. She seemed to have forgiven him a long time ago.

It was Logan's turn to laugh. “What?”

“Never mind,” Marie replied and helped him pull his shirt over his head before she pressed her lips to his in another hungry kiss.

If she kept going at this rate, he soon wouldn't have any capacity to think with left anyway.

He might have come back much sooner if only he'd known what would be expecting him.

Home, oh sweet home...