The air smells good. Like trees and the lake and a little like squirrels. The dirt feels good. Cool and ancient and a little like freedom under his bare feet.
But there is no freedom. Not from the metal that weighs down his every step. Not from the man inside him who feels torn between two worlds. Not from the girl in the room above his who watches from her window and pretends not to care.
She says she doesn't believe in him, but he knows she does, and it is the single biggest heartbreak of his life. Her hold on the human part of him is strong, and once upon a time he found it soothing. Once upon a time, she let him love her.
Now she won't let him go, but she won't give him what he needs to stay. So he lingers, half in and half out of her life. The ghost of her dead dreams.
His legs carry him in a wide loop, toward the far side of the lake and back. He startles a stray cat under the boathouse and gives chase, just to see if he can keep up. It feels good to run, and to feel the damp air on his bare arms, in his hair.
Panting, he crouches at the edge of the woods and looks up at her window. The tip of her cigarette flares bright orange as she inhales, and the white streak in her hair is luminous.
She's still pretending.
He can wait.
She barely acknowledges the knock at her door before it opens. She doesn't have to turn around to know who it is; the soft red glow that seeps into the shadows of the room tells her it's Scott.
He holds up a book as he joins her at the window. Another one of many he's let her borrow, despite the fact that she never asks for them. Sometimes she reads them anyway.
They watch the moon for a while, the light behind his visor flicking on and off as he blinks. It reminds her of a hotel room in Chicago, and the way the stoplight flashed outside the window all night.
They've done this before, stood here together and looked out over the grounds. Scott knows that Logan is out there, and that he'll come in after Rogue goes to bed.
She knows Scott disapproves of the situation, and thinks they are foolish to waste precious time like this, when they could be together. A lesson hard-learned when Jean died. She suspects Scott's repeated presence at her window is his way of lecturing her without actually saying anything.
But Logan can't die, and he won't let Rogue die, either, if he can help it. Scott's sense of urgency means nothing to her.
"Rogue. . ."
She grits her teeth, irritated. He can't resist the urge to lecture after all. "We're not you and Jean," she says, examining the tip of her cigarette so she doesn't have to see his reaction to her blunt words.
"Whatever he did, you should forgive him," Scott says. He sounds completely calm, and not at all like she just poked him in an already bleeding wound.
"He didn't do anything."
"Then why didn't it work out?" No one's ever asked her that. Not even Jubilee. Logan is a subject most of them avoid around her.
"You'd have to ask him," she says, as neutrally as she can manage.
"Huh. I thought you ended it."
"I did. Because I knew he wouldn't." The cigarette trembles a little as she raises it to her mouth.
"Ah," he says, as if he finally understands. He turns away from the window. "I think you underestimate him."
She says nothing. He leaves the book on the bed, and closes the door behind him.
A stray cat streaks across the lawn like the devil himself is on its heels.
Her hand is steady once more as she pulls the smoke into her lungs, holding it until her chest aches.
She can feel him out there, waiting for her.
She pretends not to care.
The End
Spellbound
Emily Brontė
The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Trying to hammer away at my WsIP is making me crazy, so I went searching for a little writing exercise. I didn't find anything that appealed to me at 15minuteficlets, and eventually ended up at contrelamontre. Since this story is not slash, it doesn't qualify, but I thank them for the motivation. The word is "earth." Date Completed: March 9th, 2004.