The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
I know it has been a long while. A very long while. I'm sure that floggings will commence once you realize I'm back. But give this a chance, okay? Final chapter here, and then an epilogue. See, I can finish a WIP after all!
Rogue spent the next couple of days in bed recovering from her ordeal. As she lay there, friends brought mansion gossip as well as news of what was happening with Jean. Jubilee told her that the Professor was investigating whether they should press criminal charges or if he would be able to help her along with a trained psychologist. Ororo assured her that they would do everything they could to make sure that Jean paid for what she had done, former friend and team mate or not. Logan didn’t visit, but then Rogue thought that their new truce might be too fragile still to hold up under a get-well visit. Finally Scott appeared in the doorway. He looked exhausted and strained, much like Rogue felt despite the hours of bed rest.
“Hey there,” he said quietly from her doorway.
Rogue smiled at him a little. “Come on in and pull up a seat if you want. Seems like everyone’s stopping by to make sure I don’t go stir crazy stuck here in bed.”
He closed the door behind him and sat down in the arm chair Jubilee had pulled up next to her bed during her earlier visit. “How are you feeling?”
With an exasperated sigh she replied, “Ah’m fantastic. Ah’d be even better if Ah thought y’all would let me out of this bed sometime in the next century.”
With a chuckle he replied, “I don’t know about the next century, but how does tomorrow sound? The kids have been dealing with me as a substitute art teacher and, well, you know how great I am at art.” What an overstatement that was. She laughed just like he wanted as she remembered the day he’d stopped in her classroom for a moment only to be roped in to showing one of the kids how to draw something. Rogue had found an excuse to get him away before too much damage to the child’s appreciation of art was done, and then she’d had to show the student herself.
“Tomorrow sounds good,” she admitted with a smile for him. Then the smile slipped away, and she looked away and sighed. “Ah’m sorry about everything Ah said the other night. Ah’ve had a chance to do some thinking cooped up in here with nothing better to do, and maybe Ah’ve been wrong-headed over a lot of things lately. Ah expected everyone around me to be perfect when they’re just human—mutant or not. It’s time to grow up and admit that my opinions and feelings in things aren’t the only ones that matter. Ah think it’s even time to…forgive.” It was so difficult to admit aloud to him, the man who had helped her through so much of her pain. After a few moments of silence she turned back to find out his reaction and was surprised to see a small, sad smile on his face.
“I think forgiving will be easier for you than for me, but I also know that you’re right. What Logan did to save the baby, I can’t ever thank him enough for that. I know it made you angry, but it’s the truth.”
She nodded, “Ah know.” She took a deep breath. “Ah think Ah still love him, Scott, even after everything that happened. Ah just don’t know how to deal with him as anything other than a friend right now.”
His eyebrows raised in surprise, Scott reached over to take her hand. “You’ll deal with it one day at a time, maybe a little slower now than you tried before, and eventually things will start to make sense,” he said with a shrug.
“How can you sound so sure?”
He frowned. “I’m not. Only I don’t think they can get much worse than they were the last few months, and if you’re ready to put the past behind you both and start over then that almost has to mean things will get better. And love isn’t something we can really control. It’s just something that we do. We love the people in our lives if we’re lucky, and I think that makes all of us better,” he replied slowly, as if he was still trying to work out why he felt the way he did about the situation.
Rogue glanced down at the slight swell of her stomach. “You’re not angry with me? Ah said Ah never wanted anything to do with him again.”
Scott squeezed her hand. “You’re still my best friend, and I’ve already told you I want you to be happy. If you think eventually he’ll be it, and he can prove he’s not going to hurt you again…after he saved you both I don’t feel like I have the right to be angry. He could have just let the baby die, could have just let you die. He didn’t. He did what he felt he had to even though he knew it was going to piss you off. I guess that makes him braver than I am sometimes!” he joked in an effort to lighten the mood.
It worked. Rogue sat back with a small smile and a sigh. “Well, if y’all are going to force me to stay in bed another day, Ah might as well nap,” she hinted as a yawn stole over her.
Scott shook his head and smiled. “All right, sleepyhead, I’ll go. But back to work for you tomorrow!”
“Sir, yes sir!” Rogue snarked at him as she rolled onto her side and snuggled up against her pillow. Scott settled her blanket around her and then left, closing the door behind himself quietly.
Logan waited for Scott in the hall. He felt lighter than he had in months, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. Yeah, it was probably a crappy thing to eavesdrop on their conversation, but after what he’d just heard from Rogue he didn’t even care. He also had some apologizing to do himself.
The younger man almost jumped when he saw Logan standing there, but they both pretended not to notice. “What’s up, Logan?” he asked casually, only the slightest hint of strain in his voice.
Logan cleared his throat. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he replied gruffly. When Scott just stared at him in shock he continued irritably, “I took advantage of the fight between you and Jean because I wanted to hide from what was happening with me and Marie. It was the coward’s way out, and I’m sorry.”
Scott nodded slowly. “Thank you,” was all he said at first. Then with a deep breath he continued, “Just make sure that you don’t screw up this time around, okay? It’s not just you and her anymore, but even if it was, none of her friends want to see her hurt that way again.”
So he’d figured out that Logan had heard the conversation in Rogue’s room. Fair enough. “I’ll do my best. I’m only human, you know,” he said in a poor attempt at a joke. They both smiled slightly anyway. “Also, thank you for being there for her. I might not like some of the ways you were there for her,” and there Logan only just held back the growl audible in his voice, “but I’m glad you were at the same time. She deserved better than what I did to her.”
“She did. Remember that from now on and hopefully everything will work out.”
“Yeah. Hopefully it will.”
They parted ways at that, one to go to his history class, the other to teach the kids around there to defend themselves since everyone seemed out to kill the mutants whether they liked it or not. It wasn’t a perfect truce, and it wasn’t exactly a friendship. It was a start, though.
Chapter End Notes:
There. Do you forgive me for taking so long? I'm about halfway through the epilogue and might even get it posted today if you're lucky. Please don't hurt me for taking so long, and hopefully you enjoyed this ride.