Friday mornings: Rogue hated them, and this one promised to be a killer. All the students would be antsy, frantic for the weekend to begin, and most of the teachers would have reached burn-out stage by this point. She got it from both sides: flake-out and burn-out, and padded with anticipation for the weekend’s freedom. And then there was Bobby knocking on her door very early. Rogue rolled out of bed, grumpy and disheveled since she’s slept fitfully.
“We need to work stuff out. Let’s have some breakfast on the terrace, or better yet, down by the woods where we can be alone and talk freely. Your classes don’t start for an hour and a half yet, right?” He still seemed tense and ill at ease, but less hostile.
She pushed the hair out of her face before regarding him with sleepy, frowning eyes. “Okay, give me a half hour - I’ll meet you in the kitchen and we’ll raid something.” She didn’t feel like eating, so she would take a token piece of fruit.
They settled on the grass at the edge of the lawn under a graceful maple tree, and of course a soccer game broke out in the area, forcing them to retreat to the deep woods. Walking along a hiking path, Rogue half-heartedly bit into the apple she’d brought. Bobby broke the silence first.
“Can we fix this?” He leaned against a tree trunk and watched Rogue step nervously back and forth, left foot to right foot, as she stood in front of him, keeping her hands busy with the apple. “I want us to have a chance, and it seems like everything’s gone wrong lately.”
“Yeah.... I dunno,” she mumbled in vague, partial agreement, still not meeting his eyes. “Everything’s weird now, and I don’t understand any of it, really.”
“You were right, I mean about some of the stuff you said last night. I know it ‘looks’ like I sort of lost interest in you after you took the cure, but that wasn’t at all what I intended. It just threw me for such a loop, that I didn’t know what to say, or do, or how to handle it.”
“You’re not the only one, trust me,” she bit the apple again to keep from having to say more.
“Did you kiss Logan last night?” Bobby asked bluntly, and expected an answer; it was written on his face.
“Yes,” Marie met his eyes, head held high, but offered no more.
“Did you... do... more?” Bobby’s confidence was getting shakier by the moment.
“No. My turn now: did you kiss Kitty that night when you froze the fountain?”
“No.”
“But I’ve seen you twice with your arms around her: the skating on the fountain, and the huddle in the Danger Room. It all piles up, especially since you’ve been backing away from me in a lot of ways.” Rogue realized that she’d been too specific, asking about him kissing Kitty at a specific time. “Have you ever kissed her, or done more?”
Bobby froze, and she knew the answer before he spoke it. “Once. I kissed her once, but nothing more, I swear.”
“So,” Rogue stated quietly, “we’re even.”
“Looks that way, I guess. Are we gonna do anything about it?”
“Like what?”
“Like, stop kissing other people, or stop dating each other, or start kissing each other? Unless you’ve got other suggestions, which I’d like to hear.”
“Bobby, you have to admit: we haven’t really been ‘dating’ since I took the cure. And apparently we’re both interested in other people. I don’t have any other suggestions, so if you want to try kissing me for a change, I suggest you do it now and we’ll see whether we have a chance at saving this relationship, or just becoming friends only.”
He instantly started toward her, pushing off the tree trunk and stepping closer. Rogue made one warning before he reached her.
“One thing, though: we’re never going to have another scene like last night. It was just too awful. I won’t do that again, the yelling and the accusations. There’s no room in my life for that now. Okay?”
“Okay,” Bobby’s arms went tentatively around her waist and she dropped the apple onto the forest floor before embracing him. Slowly their lips met, and Rogue found herself copying Logan’s style of kissing, the movement coming naturally to her since he was already in her head, and that coupled with the first-hand experience from the night before. They indulged in a few moments’ intimacy before breaking the kiss and looking each other in the eyes, soft smiles and entwined arms slowly separating.
“That was nice,” he smiled sweetly at her.
“Yeah.” Rogue thought to herself, ‘Dammit, Logan - get out of my head. I’m even repeating your words now.’ She realized how much of a carbon-copy the Bobby kiss had been to the night before with Logan.
“Got time to walk a while before the rest of your day starts?”
“Yeah, for a while, but I’ve got to be back before my ten o’clock class, and then I’m going to have a lunch conference with Storm and the new teacher Shelly-something, to talk about lesson plans for the classes we’re teaching.”
“No problem - we’ll just walk a while, and then go back.” He reached boldly for her bare hand, and she successfully fought the immediate instinct to draw away. The path would lead them in a circuit back to the side lawn of the mansion, and the day was warming nicely as they strolled.
As soon as they were out of sight and ear shot, Logan stepped into the pathway from where he’d been concealed behind trees. He shook a few leaves from his shirt, then shoved his fingers through his scrambled hair as he listened to their footsteps growing more distant. He’d spent the night in the forest, napping beneath a grove at times, wandering at other times. Their voices had drawn him on silent feet to where the couple had just departed. He’d heard every word they’d spoken, including Marie’s admission that she’d kissed Logan in his room last night. At least she’d had the brass to tell Drake the truth, and hadn’t offered an apology for it, either. His Marie had class.
His Marie. The thought shook him up. Things were, indeed, changing.
Picking up her discarded apple, he pondered the whole Garden of Eden/original sin concept as a symbol before dismissing it with a derisive curl of the upper lip, and hurled the apple into the brush with a snarl.
So, who was the snake in the whole mess? Him, or Drake? Or Rogue?
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Rogue and Bobby hammer out some differences. There’s a lurker in the forest, listening.