ENDING STARTS WITH ANSWERS



“Our acts are not self-generated, but conditioned. We are at once acted upon and acting, and our 'responsibility' lies in the juncture between the two. What can I do with the conditions that form me? What do they constrain me to do? What can I do to transform them? …

In a certain way, and paradoxically, our responsibility is heightened once we have been subjected to the violence of others. We are acted upon, violently, and it appears that our capacity to set our own course at such instances is fully undermined. But only once we have suffered that violence are we compelled, ethically, to ask how we will respond to violent injury. What role will we assume in the historical relay of violence, who will we become in the response, and will we be furthering or impeding violence by virtue of the response that we make?”


“Explanation and Exoneration, Or What We Can Hear,” Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Judith Butler.


*


“The greatest risk is run at the very moment when one does have to try to know. Know what? Not what, but whom; not about what one speaks, but first of all to whom one says, ‘and me, and you.’”


On Touching: Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, trans. Christine Irizarry.


*


When they arrive at the mansion, her hand has still not left her pocket. It is now so numb she is not entirely sure it is still attached to the rest of her arm. Either that, or now it simply hurts far less than she thought it would; and she thinks that must be part of the woman’s power, too, a sort of extended, though limited, durability.

Not invulnerability, she thinks, trying to move her hand and failing.

Storm greets them, alone—and she is both surprised and relieved not to see the rat. She had somewhat expected that he would be there, waiting for her, wanting to know the results of the mission—waiting to see if she would be brought back on a stretcher.

Then, she is both surprised and relieved not to see Logan; though him, she hadn’t expected to be waiting. He never greets anyone in the hangar after missions.

She is already thinking of how she will have her hand treated—she knows she cannot go to a regular hospital, with her skin, but perhaps if she tells only the people in medbay and asks them to be discreet—and then, by the time some rumor finally does come around the rest of the mansion, she will have enough time to fabricate a story to tell about it—a dog that bit her, a—

But suddenly her hand is already outside of her pocket, being pulled from behind her.

She turns around to see Logan, who must have approached as if he were in hunting mode, because she hadn’t even had an inkling of his presence, not even his energy, which is always unmistakable, un-ignorable—

And before she can fight or even realize what is happening, he is ripping the glove straight off of her wounded hand.

And extended durability or not, the blood between her still-open flesh and the glove has since become like a glue—

So she cannot help herself from shouting, with all the agony she had been silencing on the jet from Kyoto to New York: “MOTHERFUCK!”


*


And as everyone begins to fret and cry out in horror and dismay, she can only see Logan’s face. Logan’s panicked and horrified and uncomprehending face.

The way he looked when he stabbed her the first time, staring at the injury as if looking would erase it. Unable to believe it, unable to understand it; that he could be responsible for such a thing, that he could do such a thing with his hands, to a girl like this, a high school student, an innocent girl—

And then again, utterly believing it, utterly understanding, as if he had always known that his hands could do such a thing; that his hands had been made for it, that they were only biding their time, his voice barely able to moan, “No, no”—

Meanwhile, his grip on her wrist is now actually awakening all the previously-numbed pain in her hand, swiftly and sharply.

She tries desperately to wrench herself away, yelling, “Logan, let go!”

He barks, “So is this the fuckin’ souvenir you brought back for me?”

At this point, through the pain, she can barely understand speech. She only hears the word souvenir.

She closes her eyes, thinking of the souvenirs she has brought back from Kyoto. Harada’s words, Harada’s creased face, Harada’s shaking hand; and Logan, Logan, Logan—

Logan in the sixties and seventies; Logan in a dark room forcing confessions out of people’s flesh—

And she is not ready to see him yet, not ready to see his face yet, not now, not now, not after—

But he is still squeezing around her wrist, the same way he did before she left, and she thinks she is going to have to push him again. Only this time, with her wounded hand, she won’t be able to break any doors.

So she just bites out, “Yeah, that’s it, now fucking let me—”

But as she speaks, she realizes—

—and why the hell didn’t she realize this from the moment she saw him, why the hell didn’t she realize this from the moment she saw him, she must have been already delirious from the pain—

—that he is going to touch her.

“I’ll take it, then,” he barks, and pushes up her sleeve to grab her bare arm before she can stop him.

She is too weak, too frantic, to control the connection at first, so for a few seconds, until she can rush down to stop it—once again, once again, all over again, before she is ready, before she has even been able to deal with everything she has just learned—he is inside her, giving her yet another portion of his life.

And she had said she would never let this happen again.

She can feel all the cut flesh, the severed nerves and muscles—everything fastening itself, gathering itself, back together, back together. And it hurts more to heal than to be wounded.

Finally, when her hand’s self-made sutures are starting to disappear, she regains just enough strength so she can shove him away, his grip already loosening with his lost strength.

He drops to the ground—and this is now the third time she has seen him fall over before her like that—

She can barely see through her furious tears, as Storm and Hank rush to Logan’s prostate form; she can barely feel Piotr’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her back from the scene.


*


Logan’s anger and confusion and horror in her head; Logan’s warmth in her body—

And she can hear herself shouting, with fury that is not entirely hers, “If he doesn’t die, I’m gonna fucking kill him!”


*


It takes both Hank and Piotr to carry Logan to the medbay. Storm stays behind, in the hangar, looking at Rogue’s perfect, whole hand.

“What happened to you,” Storm says softly.

“None of your business,” Rogue replies, and turns to leave. In her voice she can hear Logan’s terseness, his brusque manner.

“Rogue,” Storm calls out after her, but she doesn’t look back.


*


All this time she has been wrestling with Logan’s memories in her head, she had forgotten what it was like to have him freshly there again; all his recent thoughts—

And once again she sees things she doesn’t want to see, knows things she doesn’t want to know—all his sadness over Jean’s death—and she had wanted so badly to let him keep that, at least—

But now she feels it, feels it as if Jean has died all over again: his guilt, his forlorn and heated longing, his recognition of her hidden fears, doubts; his desire to see her for who she was, and in turn be seen for who he was.

She thinks of Mariko—beautiful and beloved and dutiful—too good for me—

She closes her eyes.

Not me, she tells herself.


*


And then, something else. Something that is not about Jean. Something new, something barely even thought—something that is not a ghost; not sadness, not torment, not violence. Not even, exactly, longing. Something with her face on it, and no words.

Just a flicker. But the feel of it wounds her more than her hand; stuns her more than everything she has learned in Kyoto.


*


Also, inside these new thoughts: the revelation that the current Logan, Logan as he is now, truly doesn’t know; still doesn’t consciously remember what he used to be.

How she would like the current Logan to override the previous Logan in her head—how she would like the current Logan to replace the one who does know. The one who now remembers.


*


Her head a mess, she grabs onto the safest and most familiar part of Logan’s personality—his moodiness and suppressed rage. Only now, she doesn’t suppress it so much. That helps.

Yes—this is easier, this is better—this anger, this rudeness, this overwhelming desire to punch everyone and everything in sight—much better than what she had felt in Kyoto, looking down at her hands, not recognizing her own tears. What she felt, staring at Harada’s aged face and realizing she no longer wanted to look for the answers she had already just found.

Later, at the mission debriefing, everyone speaks but her.

Kurt, Piotr and Jubilee all agree that the mission was entirely successful and entirely uneventful; there were no signs of trouble, at any point.

Everyone carefully looking, and trying not to look, at her newly healed hand, in its changed glove.

Storm says, “Thank you, everyone.”

She stands to leave with the four of them, but, as she expected, Storm says, “Rogue, just a minute.” She turns back around, exhaling.

Storm indicates for her to sit down in the chair across from her desk. Rogue moves forward, but doesn’t sit down.

She can feel herself wanting to tell Storm everything—everything she went to Kyoto to do, everything she has failed to do, all the answers and lack of answers now in her hands—but she only presses her lips together, in an expression of Logan’s scowl. Accessing his reticence, his aversion to telling anyone anything.

“I’m not saying anything,” she says.

Storm’s face is stern. “If it endangers the people in the mansion or the situation with Hank—”

“It doesn’t,” she interrupts. “It’s my own stuff. It doesn’t have anything to do with him. He’s fine.”

Suddenly she is afraid that Hank might have already told Storm what he had witnessed, what he had subtly helped her do.

Storm looks a little relieved, but no less stern. “Well,” she says, exhaling. “That’s what Hank seemed to think, too.”

And she thanks Hank in her mind; though she calls him Furball, despite herself.

Storm continues, “So unless you’re lying to me, I’m just going to have to believe you’re telling the truth.”

Rogue snorts. “Aren’t those the only two options?”

The older woman looks at her. “No,” she says simply.

Rogue looks down at her shoes. Knowing—she should know—that there is, of course, something between lying and telling the truth. Thinking of Gambit saying, You think it’s honest enough to say only part of the truth and keep silent on the rest.

I’m keeping silent on everything this time, rat, she tells him in her head.

“I’m sorry,” she says weakly, in her own voice.

Storm is still seated, still staring up at her. “I know I said you don’t have to tell us anything about Manhattan until you’re ready,” she says.

Rogue’s head snaps to attention at the word Manhattan.

“But do you really think you can keep going like this?”

“Like what,” Rogue snaps, but it is Logan snapping, and she feels terrible, she doesn’t want to be rude to Storm, not to Storm, Storm who has given her kindness she didn’t know could exist in another person, aside from Logan, before meeting Gambit—Storm—

Storm’s lovely and sorrowful face, gazing at her. “You’re the only one carrying everything,” she says.

Rogue whispers—but because Logan is there, too, it comes out instead as a growl: “It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

Storm smiles slightly. “If it has something to do with you,” she says, “then it has something to do with me.”

She raises her shoulders, a little helplessly. “That’s how it’s supposed to work around here.”

Storm—Storm—Storm—she wants to say—she wants to say—she wants to say—

But Storm, now alarmed at the look on her face, stands up and is in front of her desk before Rogue can say anything, can even open her mouth.

“Hey,” she says. “Hey, hey, honey, hey.” She takes Rogue into her arms.

Fighting all of Logan’s instinctive discomfort at being hugged, she lets herself sink into the embrace, wanting it badly; wanting it more than she had wanted to fuck Jubilee in Kyoto, more than she wants to fuck anybody, ever, ever—

And she hasn’t thought of her mother in a long time, but now she longs for her, with all her bigoted religious fundamentalist hateful craziness. She wants the mother who gave her hugs before bed and hugs after school; embraces meant to soothe a child who does not yet understand anything of the world.

How often has she had that since, anyway—just an embrace, with no lust (or not that much; Storm smells amazing, and that opinion could easily be hers as much as Logan’s), no other pretense. Just the embrace and its comfort. Just the poverty and smallness of this gesture. Like the hand she gave to Harada to be wounded.

Then she thinks of Logan on the train, asking her to come back to the mansion. Telling her she would be protected. Holding her, not that carefully at all, around her hooded coat as she wept like a child.

Which is how she weeps now, into Storm’s shoulder, which smells just a touch like Logan, so she knows he has talked to her recently; and then, everywhere, just Storm, only Storm, herself—rose, amber, skin, dust, warmth, warmth.

She can feel Storm breathe on her hair, holding her, just as Logan did on the train, just as Gambit put her tights on for her: without enough concern or safety at all. As if her skin is not only harmless, but hospitable; as if she, too, can and should be touched.

“Try and trust us a little more, honey,” she can hear Storm murmur into her hair. “You don’t have to do everything alone.”


*


She goes to her room, expecting the Cajun to be there, waiting for her, since he wasn’t at the hangar, but then, he would have wanted to meet her alone, anyway, she reasons. But the Cajun—

(not the Cajun, she doesn’t call him the Cajun like that)

—isn’t there. Curiously, she goes to his room, knocks on the door; but he doesn’t answer. And when she puts her ear against it, there is not a single noise. She feels a little annoyed—but no, she is not annoyed; that is Logan, annoyed at everything, annoyed at her for wanting to see Gambit in the first place.

Then she goes back to her room, and when she sees it this second time, she remembers, suddenly.

The door is whole again. It is a new door. And when she turns her head to look at Kurt’s door, that one is new, too. As if nothing had happened.

She touches her door, and with Logan’s senses in her mind now, she can smell him all over it: his hands on the hinges, his hands on the lock, his hands on the paneling. Carefully and gently repairing and renewing everything she had destroyed.

Once again she bursts into tears.


*


She cannot enter her room; not now, when she smells him everywhere, when she hears him everywhere, when, once again, she hasn’t even yet let herself think of the things she has discovered, or rediscovered, in Kyoto. She needs a neutral place, an empty space, somewhere she can be alone.

She walks back down the corridor, enters the elevator. She goes down to the medbay level—hoping Logan will have already left by now.

Luckily, he has, but only just recently; she can still smell a fading trace of him.

She walks down the corridor that is now familiar to her, after a week of practice with Gambit, and enters the meditation room. She lies down on one of the mats, curls up into herself, still in her leather jump-suit.

The room still smells like her; like Gambit, a little more recent, and she thinks he must have come here, while she was away. The comfort of lying down unravels her. Before she can remember that she hadn’t slept at all the night before, or even on the jet—she falls asleep.


*


She dreams of what she now knows:

injections three times a day, two more times than the other members;

standing in front of a group of foreign soldiers, taking homeless people and prostitutes off the street to use them as examples, to show the various methods;

hearing the “ahh” of fear and admiration every time the claws came out for a demonstration;

inside a torture camp located inside an otherwise ordinary hospital, interrogating people who had no answers;

knowing how and where to put the claws in all non-vital points to maximize the pain;

teaching the soldiers how to cut a stomach open before throwing a body into the ocean, so it wouldn’t float;

dreams, dreams, dreams;

waking up and not knowing what time it was, what day it was, what century it was;

waking up, seeing his face, not knowing whose face it was;

just scenes of agony as if cut from a film, but in the film, he is the actor, the film is about him—

And she wakes up screaming, her fist punching through the air, until she looks down at her hand and sees there are no claws there.


*


She starts to vomit on the ground.

Afterwards she has to sneak into the medbay, for paper towels and disinfectant wipes, to wipe it all up.

Then she lies down again, still exhausted—but it is a long time until she can muster up the courage to venture back into sleep.


*


She does not know how long she has been sleeping in the meditation room; it feels like several hours. And indeed, when she finally awakens and goes back into the hall, the medbay is nearly silent, empty, most of the lights already turned off.

She takes the elevator back to her room. Fearing that Logan will be there, waiting for her. Fearing that Gambit will be there, waiting for her.

But neither of them are there, and so she enters her room, trying not to smell the door again.

She takes off her clothes, changes into old and unwashed pajamas. She doesn’t even have the energy to put on a pair of overnight gloves. She climbs into bed, falls asleep again.


*


The same dreams come.

This time she makes it to her bathroom before she begins vomiting.


*


And once again, just as in Manhattan, while she is on the floor of a bathroom, bitter saliva hanging from her mouth, tears and snot covering her lips and chin, the bathroom door opens and Gambit is standing there, staring down at her. But this time he does not have a cheesy line, a clever quip. Just the stare from his black and red eyes, which do not arouse her, now.


*


She stands from the floor, not daring to look at him. She flushes the toilet, moves to the faucet, washes her hands and face. She looks at herself in the mirror, doesn’t recognize her face.

It is still easy to access Logan’s rudeness—Logan, who doesn’t like Gambit anyway, and now she knows for sure, though she realizes that in his feelings there is also unmistakable and uneasy respect, which confuses her—

So she mutters, “What the hell are you doing here.”

Gambit doesn’t seem surprised by the particularly harsh tone in her voice.

“Stormy told me what happened in the hangar,” he says, and that explains it.

She wipes her wet hands on her hand towel, turns to him.

“Well, I didn’t come back on a stretcher,” she retorts, and pushes past him.

As in Manhattan, he blocks the door frame, staring at her. He smells heavily of tobacco, and not only because Logan’s senses have temporarily made her more sensitive to it. He smells as if he has been smoking nearly non-stop since she left.

Then he moves aside, before she can look up into his eyes.

Once she is back in her room, she sees that it is already four o’clock in the morning; she has been sleeping for over twelve hours.

“What’re you doing here,” she says.

Gambit follows her out of the bathroom. He leans where he always leans, against her desk. Gazing at her. He says nothing.

She sits down on her bed, mutters, “You better not make this a habit, breaking in here whenever you want.”

He still says nothing.

Then she suggests, a little desperately, “Well, since you’re already here, let’s fuck.”

Thinking of how she had wanted to fuck Jubilee, in Kyoto. How she hasn’t fucked him, or anyone, in over a week now. How good it would be, right now, to feel only that, only that self-effacing bliss.

“No,” he says, far too quickly.

She is startled. Then she raises an eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong, you going abstinent or something?” she mocks, remembering that he hadn’t wanted to have sex the night before she left, either.

He gazes at her, still saying nothing. She concentrates, looks at him; she can see the tense heat radiating from him, which she knows is lust. He wants to; she can read it in his body, in his face.

“Come on,” she says, her voice softening. Reaching her arm out towards him. “It’s okay—I really want to—”

“No,” he says again.

She notices for the first time that Gambit is dressed the way he does for a mission. Shin guards and kneepads. His light armored vest, his black pants, his trench coat. He is carrying an envelope, which he now places on the desk, his hand on top of it.

He asks, “So he in your head again.”

She jumps back, drops her hand. “Yeah,” she grunts, and the grunting is proof.

The hand on top of the envelope clenches. Gambit doesn’t say anything for a moment. She squeezes her eyes shut; but through her closed eyelids she can feel him looking at her.

“You use the charming,” he asks.

She nods, but says nothing else.

“It work okay,” he asks.

She hesitates, then nods.

He smiles a little. “Good.”

Then he is silent again, studying her. She still says nothing.

“So you find the answers you were looking for,” he asks, finally.

She starts to laugh; if she doesn’t laugh, she’ll start screaming. “Nope,” she replies. “Found something else. More questions.”

The hand on top of the envelope unclenches. “Thought you would,” he murmurs.

She glances at him. “What does that mean?”

Without answering, he asks, “So what did Harada Kenichiro know about Weapon X.”

She stares at him. Why the hell does he want to know about that, she wonders; so she asks him. “Why are you asking.”

He studies her. Then he says, again without answering her, “So do you know now what it was about.”

Still staring at him, not understanding anything, she says, again, “Why are you asking.”

He says, again without answering her, “So do you know now what it was about.”

The hand on the envelope clenches again. He adds, “What he was part of.”

Warm countries, claws to the belly—

“Do you kn—”

“Yes!” she shouts, interrupting him. “I know what it was about.” She puts her head in her hands.

And just as in Manhattan, she feels the tears and vomit coming up; but she swallows it down, blinks it back. She keeps her face in her hands, feeling no wetness; just her own shuddering, just the heat of her own face.

“Okay,” she hears him say. Something falls onto the bed in front of her, and she moves aside two of her fingers, to see what it is. The envelope he had been holding is now next to her knees. She looks up at him.

He looks back at her. “Those might answer some of the new questions,” he says only.

“What the hell is this,” she snaps, picking up the envelope.

He says: “Agent report for James Howlett, code name Wolverine, senior operative for the Weapon X program. Later M-Ultra. Later Sagitta, later Hydra. Now, Nyx.”

She drops the envelope as if it is aflame.

Then when she touches it again, realizes it is, genuinely, warm. She looks at him, sees his entire body vibrating with heat and tension that he is holding inside, and she realizes it is not just lust that is clutching his muscles.

“Why would you have something like this,” she whispers.

He answers, “Stole some of it a long time ago. Some of it I just got from a friend.”

She looks at him, not understanding anything. “Where?”

He says, “Went to Québec on a mission for Storm. Just got back a couple hours ago.”

She stares at him. She remembers him saying he had been in Québec City, during the battle of Alcatraz.

“I don’t get it,” she says. “How could you get hold of something like this.”

He is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I didn’t get to Canada from New Orleans ten years ago by accident.”

She notices he is not referring to himself in the third person right now, as he so often does, to put some distance between himself and his speech.

Now there is no distance; he is standing deep inside his words, staring at her.

“There’s a record in there about a Remy Picard, too,” he adds softly.

She stares back at him. “What are you saying.”

He says, “A year and a half after I left New Orleans, I got in a fight in Virginia. I got picked up by two guys from a company called Sagitta. They were interested in my powers. They brought me to northern Québec, near James Bay, by the Eastmain River.”

He looks at her. “They were the ones who taught me to hone it so I could charge things mentally, from far away.”

She does not want to ask, Why would they do that, what are all of these tiny little facts adding up to. Already knowing, already not wanting to know.

He says, “They were training me and a group of other mutants to be assassins.”

She starts to shake. Thinking of Harada’s hands shaking, as he told her his story.

“What,” she whispers.

Gambit looks down at his feet, then swallows, and looks back up, into her eyes again.

He says, “You read that, you’ll know more. Not just about me. The Wolverine, too.”

She stares at him. “What are you talking about,” she says, and she can feel her voice rising in panic. “What are you talking about.”

He folds his hands in front of him. “The reason I went to Madrid wasn’t ‘cause I knew about anti-mutant things going on in Europe,” he states.

“Wait,” she says, holding up her hand. “Wait, wait, wait—”

His hands tighten around each other, and he speaks faster, the way he did when he was telling her about his orphan past; not wanting to give her the chance to silence him.

“I told Stormy I thought that the organization that used me back then—that used the Wolverine back then—was behind Hank’s house. Or at least related to it.”

He adds, tensely, “When I saw the bullets that shot me, in Madrid, I knew I was right.”

Not only is he no longer speaking in the third person, but his accent is also far less pronounced than it typically is. She realizes, he must usually speak like that on purpose, to sound more casual; once again, to put some distance between himself and his speech.

And she comprehends nothing. But Gambit is still talking.

He says, “I didn’t know Harada Kenichiro had anything to do with Weapon X until you told me. And I didn’t know how much you knew about what it was until then, either.”

She shakes her head. “What—what—”

He says, “I went to Québec for Stormy. See if I could dig up old files, and find out who exactly’s after Hank, and why. But.”

He unfolds his hands, lays them flat on his thighs, and exhales, shakily. “But I thought—if you were going all the way to Kyoto for answers, then—maybe I try and give you some, too.”


*


She is horrified—Logan and Gambit—both of them—both of them—

Then he answers a question she hadn’t even thought to ask: “I never met him there or nothing. He was out long before I got in.”


*


She looks down at the envelope again. There is a note on it that says REMY: HERE’S WHAT YOU WANTED. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. JACOB.

He follows her gaze.

“It’s not good,” he warns, softly again. “None of it.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t—”

“You know enough now,” he interrupts. “Time to know everything else.”

She shakes her head, again and again, pushing the envelope away from her, so it falls off the bed, onto the floor. “No—”

“Can’t hide behind your hands no more,” Gambit says, and stands up straight, about to leave.

“This is what we both did,” he says, and his voice is strangled and quiet. “This is what we both were. You don’t wanna know that, don’t look at any of it.”


*


She doesn’t go to class the next day; or the day after that, or the day after that—or all week. She figures Logan can teach judo on his own, and Storm will excuse her for having a mission-related injury, though her hand feels healthier than it was before the mission.

—And then she can’t stop herself from thinking of other things Logan has taught, other people he has trained—why Logan is so naturally good at training—

She stays in her room, mostly; going out only for food, after hours, then sneaking right back. Whenever he sees her, Gambit approaches her, asking if she has looked at the envelope yet—she always shakes her head, unable to meet his eyes.

Logan has an uncanny knack of almost always appearing during these moments. Staring at the two of them in silence.

When Gambit isn’t there to help evade any other accidental run-ins with Logan, she simply resorts to what is easiest—his capacity for irritated rage.

“Somebody get him away from me before I fucking destroy him,” she says, and it is his ferocity in her voice from which she draws.

But then, she thinks—maybe it’s not just his rage. Maybe she is angry at him, herself. Maybe she cannot forgive, or forget, what she now knows.


*


She doesn’t open the envelope.


*


She and Gambit are not fucking for the moment; when they meet in the mansion, he continues to give her tense and discouraged looks, which she answers by turning away. The only time he looks more tense is when he looks at Logan.

Once, he knocks on her door, and when she opens the door and sees him, she grins and says, hoping, “Finally wanna fuck again?”

Gambit stares at her and says, “Not yet, eh,” and it is not an answer to her question.

She freezes, her hand on the doorknob. Then she looks down, says nothing.

He tightens his jaw, turns around, and walks away.


*


She sees the envelope is still half-sticking out from under her bed, on the floor where she had pushed it. She opens the first unused drawer she sees, to stuff it inside, out of sight.

Inside the drawer, she sees Remy the bull, turned onto his side. Proclaiming his love for Madrid. She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.


*


The next day, she is eating alone, outside of normal cafeteria hours, when a newspaper drops directly on top of her pasta. “What the fuck!” she shouts, in spite of herself. And when she sees it is Logan, can only continue cursing. “Gross, Logan, fuck!”

It is not quite how she imagined her first actual confrontation with him since arriving from Kyoto. She looks at him—he looks the same as ever. As uneasy and determined and pained as ever. With, perhaps, something else behind it all, or weaved into it all; the look she saw on his face when she punched him through her door, the flicker in her mind that has her face on it, and no words.

He says, “Friday. Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up in your room.”

She has no idea what any of this means, and the Logan inside her responds before she does: “If you’re setting the date of your own death,” she says coolly, “that sounds perfect.”

Then wonders—why did she phrase it like that, why did she have to say death—but it’s all she can think about, right now, trying not to think about it—

“Movie first,” he says and walks away.

As she walks away, she sees him clench his fists, then unclench them; just as he did after she had thrown Warren across the cafeteria, when he looked at Gambit laughing.

In another world, another life.

What just happened, she thinks to herself.


*


And every night she has the same new dreams; dreams that make her wake up covered in sweat, her fist in mid-air.

Are the dreams coming so clearly because Logan has touched her again, reactivating them; or because now she knows enough to see them for what they are, for what they have always shown? She doesn’t know.

She still doesn’t open the envelope.


*


One late afternoon, a knock comes at her door. She doesn’t open it, terrified that it is Logan; but then she hears Gambit’s voice calling through it, “Gambit know you’re in there, minou.”

She opens the door. He is in his practice clothes, still a little sweaty. He must have just finished his last class of the day and come straight here.

He barges into the room past her, then turns around and looks at her, questioning. Once again, she does not meet his eyes.

“Not yet, eh,” he mutters.

“Here to fuck?” she asks calmly, not answering.

He stares at her. “This old thief getting tired of waiting for you to come by, minou.”

“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all.

“Gambit’s sorry, too,” he says, staring at her. “Look like you went all the way to Kyoto to get answers, but now you don’t want the answers you got.”

She stares at him. “Either we fuck, or you leave.”

He stares back at her. “So that’s really all you think you can give, huh,” he says harshly. “That’s how far you go, and no more.”

She clenches her jaw. “That’s right.”

He starts to laugh. “So what the hell we do this for?” he asks, throwing his hands in the air. “What the hell I help you for? So you could go sightseeing in Japan?”

“You have no idea what happened in Kyoto,” she hisses.

“I have an idea,” he snaps. “Gambit think you found out something that scared you, and now you back to running away. Maybe you run to Manhattan again.”

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” she barks. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me,” he repeats.

She presses her lips together, crosses her arms. “Either we fuck,” she says. “Or you leave.”

“I bet you didn’t talk to him, neither,” he says. “What happened to giving him back his past? Now you find out you don’t like his past so much, you don’t wanna deal with it no more?”

“Fuck or leave,” she barks.

“You don’t even wanna try to see it?” he asks angrily. “Gambit ain’t asking you to excuse nothing, forgive nothing—I’d never ask that—minou, you don’t even know!” he shouts; and he has never shouted at her like this before.

“You don’t even know, how I regret everything, how I wish, every day, I could take it back—how I hate it, hate myself, what I did—what I was part of—”

He fixes her with his eyes. “And he’s the same—you know he’s the same—if he knew—”

“Stop,” she says. “You don’t have to explain to me.”

His face twists. “I ain’t trying to explain to you,” he says, shouting again. “I told you—I don’t wanna take nothing from you, minou, I don’t wanna—I just—I just—”

And she is not going to let him say it, not now, not now.

“Fuck,” she interrupts, “or leave.”

Crestfallen, he stares at her. “So that’s how it’s gonna go,” he chokes out.

“Fuck or leave,” she repeats. “Your choice. Last time I’m gonna say it.”

His entire body is still as stone. But she can feel the heat radiating from him, and she thinks the ground beneath his feet might catch fire.

“Well,” he says grimly. “I guess we should fuck, then.”

He gives her a small and bitter smile. “That’s all we had going on anyway, right?”

She swallows. “Great,” she says. She turns around and walks to the drawer for her tights.

“It’s okay,” she hears him say behind her. “You be naked. I keep my clothes on.”

She turns back around, then starts removing her clothes, slowly. First her shirt, her pants, her bra and underwear. His black and red eyes watching her every move, making her feel more naked than naked; transparent, rather, like a window.

When she is naked, he approaches her. He spits on his gloved fingers, then reaches between her legs and begins to stroke her, still standing, staring down at her.

After only a few minutes, she comes, fast, sharply, almost painfully, knees buckling slightly; she hasn’t touched herself or been touched since the last time they fucked—

(in her room, after the penultimate hypnosis lesson, Gambit joking about teaching her too well, about her being too good of a student; Gambit pinching her nipples, making her laugh with pride)

—and after she comes the first time, he doesn’t stop stroking her, and she nearly winces, she is still too sensitive, but despite that she comes again, crying out, grabbing onto his arm for balance.

He moves backwards, sits down on her bed. He reaches into her drawer for a condom. Then he opens just the button and zipper of his pants, slipping the condom on. He gestures wordlessly for her to sit on top of him.

Like that, they start to fuck, and it feels like it has been so long, too long, that she can’t help herself from shouting, and then he is shouting, too, loud even for himself, never the quietest of lovers, with his hands too tight on her hips.

She bites her lip and grabs onto his shoulders, closing her eyes—and then his hands are on either side of her face, holding her head in place.

“No,” he grits out. “Look at me, minou—look at me—look at me—”

She opens her eyes, just a fraction, and can see him staring at her, black and red eyes full of anger and hurt and something else she recognizes—

—from when he told her, when he told her, when he told her, before she left for Kyoto, that he didn’t want it to be the last time—

—and she shuts her eyes again.

She feels him lean his head forward, too close to her skin, and she backs away instinctively, opening her eyes just for a second, to look at him, make sure he is a safe distance away.

His eyes are closed now, too, and he rests his forehead on the back of his own hand, wrapped around her shoulder. She can feel the hand, burning hot, even through the glove; his entire body, burning through his clothes. Cigarette smoke and his sweat, penetrating her skin, into her blood.

His breath heats her breast; and she hears him whisper: “You’re cruel—you’re cruel—”


*


Suddenly, a knock comes at the door.

“Hey, kid, time to go,” comes Logan’s voice.

She freezes. What the hell is Logan doing here—but then she realizes, it’s Friday, it’s seven o’clock, and didn’t he say something about going to a movie?

Gambit’s eyes fly open, and he stops moving for just a second. Then, his face tightens, and he resumes his motions; harder, more deeply, and once again she can’t help but shout in pleasure, though she tries to quiet it.

And Gambit’s other hand finds its way into her hair, steadying her, while his forehead falls back against the back of his hand on her shoulder.

Whispering again: “You’re cruel—”

She shakes her head, tries to say No; but she can barely speak.

Then he lifts his head, and the hand in her hair presses against her neck, and she opens her eyes to look at him.

“So you don’t even want to look,” he chokes out, still moving. “Huh—you don’t even want to look—”

She shakes her head again, tries to say No again, but once more it comes out as a moan, and he matches it—

“It’s hateful, right—” he whispers, in between his cries. “What you know he used to be—ah—what I used to be—what we did—then—”

Shaking her head, feeling every word beneath her skin.

“Does it—sicken you—ah—”

The hand in her hair now comes down between them to begin stroking her again, and she starts to yell out, even louder, her eyes still squeezed shut.

“Look at me,” he barks, but she doesn’t open her eyes.

“Look at me—minou—look at me—I want you to see me—I want you to see me—”

She is starting to come around his fingers, so she squeezes her eyes shut even tighter, lets herself fall forward onto his shoulder.

“Don’t wanna know nothing, huh,” he whispers, still moving; so that after the tremors from this orgasm subside, he grinds up against her again and she yells out. “Still—”

She opens her mouth, but she only lets out another cry as his motions become more desperate.

“I was nineteen years old—” he pants out. “You were what, ten—”

She stares down at him. “Stop,” she says, but as her word is cut off by a thrust, it turns into a moan.

“My third mission—they sent me to Lebanon—blow up the French defense minister’s car—” he gasps. “But I didn’t know—they rigged the car with more explosives—”

She tries to cry out, but his fingers are stroking her again, the pleasure is undoing her—

“So when I charged it—it’d blow up the bus behind it, too—so it look like a random terrorist bombing—over thirty people—”

She wants to cover his mouth, but her hands are bare, she can’t touch him. She clutches fistsfuls of his shirt. “Don’t,” she whispers.

“Weapon X was the beginning—so he must’ve been an early one,” he goes on, both his voice and body shuddering. “In the sixties and seventies it was brutal—”

“Please,” she says, but doesn’t know what she is begging.

“They don’t do adamantium bonding no more—too difficult—they got enough humans—to be torture experts—now they lookin’ for assassins—and bombers—”

She winces at the bluntness of that; saying aloud what Logan was, what she already knows: that he had been a torture expert.

And each thrust, each word, hits somewhere deeper in her, near her chest, near her throat. Stopping her breath, stopping her speech.

“I don’t wanna know,” she gasps into his shirt.

She can feel his other hand behind her head again, gripping her hair in his fist. “Yeah, I know you don’t wanna know,” he pants.

He pulls her head back, makes her look him in the eye again. “You don’t wanna know—you don’t wanna know the things that made us—you don’t wanna see—”

She grips his shoulders, closes her eyes again.

“Look at me—” he says. “Look at me—minou—look at me—look at me—“

She closes her eyes more tightly, can feel herself buckling around his fingers.

“Look at me,” she hears him whisper. “I’m begging you—”

She opens her eyes, just a fraction again, and sees him staring at her.

“Minou,” he says, his eyes glassy. “Minou—minou—please—don’t—don’t turn away—”

She is starting to come once more, so her eyes shut as the scream pours from her throat, from somewhere deep in her chest. And then she can feel him coming, too, finally, roaring into her neck.

For a few seconds, they are both panting, wordless. Still gripping each other.

She moves backwards first, taking hold of the condom to keep it in place as she slides him out of herself. All without looking at him, still. He doesn’t move for a moment; then finally he stands, walks toward the bathroom to dispose of the condom in the wastebasket. She crawls back into bed, still naked.

He takes a little longer in the bathroom, and from the bed, she can see his profile, just his hands leaning against the bathroom counter, heavily, his head bowed.

Then he comes back, stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame. The way he did in Manhattan.

He looks at her. At first he is silent, and she stares at him, trying to think of something to say, some joke she can make about his vigorousness.

Then he rasps out, “You think you the only one who’s scared.”

Sitting naked in the bed, she stares at him. She can say nothing. She has never seen him look like this—this desperate, this anguished. He looks more naked than she does.

“Me and him are the same,” he whispers. “Want the same thing.”

He looks down at his fists. “Not just about you.”

She is still staring at him, still silent.

“Say something,” he pleads.

But she can’t think of anything to say.

He looks back up at her, and his eyes are glassy again.

“You really think you can’t give anything,” he says.

She swallows, lowers her eyes.

She can hear him moving and she looks up, just a bit, to see him doing the zipper, then the button of his pants. Arranging his shirt, brushing his hair back out of his eyes, rubbing his eyes and forehead repeatedly.

“Let’s stop this, yeah,” he says quietly.

She stares at him. But she still doesn’t respond. Then she nods, once. He laughs.

“What, not even gonna argue, eh,” he says, approaching the bed. “Cruel woman.”

His smile fades. Gazing down at her, he says again, his voice collapsing to a whisper, “You’re cruel.”

She looks up at him, and he leans forward to kiss her, on the mouth, with no barrier between them—and she pulls back, eyes wide.

He had expected it; so he pulls back, too. She half-expects him to kiss his staff and press it to her mouth. But his hands are empty. He does not have the staff with him.

He gazes at her for another second, then turns around and walks to the door.

She hears him open it; then hesitate. She waits, thinks he might come back inside.

Then she hears him say, loudly, “Later, minou.” She hears the word minou, hears—and the door closes, and there is only silence in the room.


*


She crawls back into bed, still naked, and lies on her back, gazing at the ceiling.

Thinking about the top of Gambit’s head in the meditation room after she touched the bare palm of his hand, hair in his face, hiding his shaking with a joke; of his bare hands sliding her tights up her damp legs. Of the way his face looked, every single time she called him an assassin, and he corrected her, smiling tensely all the time, saying, “Thief.”

Thinking about Logan asking her to go to a movie she didn’t even want to see; of the pure terror in his voice the first time he accidentally scratched her with his claws during sex, and she had defused the situation with a dirty remark; of the look of murderous annoyance on his face during that gala, when he never left Hank’s side, even for an inch, even for a moment.

Thinking, thinking.


*


But she doesn’t get to think for very long, because suddenly the door opens, and she thinks it’s Gambit again, breaking his way back in—but it sounds like a lock in the keyhole.

And Logan is in her room, breathing hard.

Genuinely panicked, she shouts, “What the fuck,” covers herself, then shouts out again, “How the hell did you get in here?”

He has the audacity to say only, “Made myself a key.”

“Jesus Christ,” she says. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Not even safe in my goddamn room, she thinks. She starts to wrap the sheet around her, for coverage, while she hops out of bed and tries to retrieve her sweater off the ground.

But faster than she would have thought him capable, he is next to her, finding his way into her outstretched arms, enclosing himself in an unintended embrace.

“Wha—wh—hey,” she says. He is too close to her skin.

She snaps, “I haven’t forgiven you yet, asshole.”

For what, she wonders. For healing her when she had never wanted him to do something like that again; or for the things she has no right to forgive anyway; things only the dead can forgive. Forgive him for the person he was, back before she was born; back before she knew what a person was. As if she knows what a person is now.

“I don’t care,” he mumbles, his body entirely still.

“Logan—” she says, pulling her arms away and trying to push him back. “Hold on—wait. Just wait.”

“No,” he says, and buries his face in her hair.

She can feel his hands against her body, on top of the sheet, realizes they are totally bare.

“You don’t have any gloves,” she reasons.

“I don’t care,” he mutters.

She cares. He is not going to touch her again. Not again, not again. He is sniffing her hair deeply, again and again, breathing her in.

Then she realizes, with his nose in her hair, he must smell everything—must smell Gambit everywhere, fresh, immediate—and must smell her, too; her arousal, her orgasms; everything, everything.

And if he is still here after he had knocked; then he must have heard everything, too; her cries, Gambit’s cries. Maybe not Gambit’s whispers.

“Just let me get showered, at least,” she says tightly.

“No.”

The sound of his voice is starting to frighten her.

“Come on, Logan.”

“No.” And his body is tight and stiff around her; stiff muscles, metal, unmoving bones.

“Logan,” she says firmly. “Just let me take a shower.”

“No.” And she can feel him inhaling, trying not to inhale, inhaling again.

She closes her eyes in frustration, finally snaps, “I know you can smell him.”

He is still inhaling, trying not to inhale, inhaling again. His face burying itself deeper into her hair, his arms around her, now. She can feel him trembling, even more uncontrollably than he did after they had sex the first time; can feel the anger vibrating from his entire body.

Trying to calm him, she says, more gently, “Come on, Logan. Five minutes.” Jokingly, “Then we can have some fun, too.”

And yet he doesn’t move, doesn’t take the bait. “No,” he says again, like a mantra.

She feels something break inside of her. “Logan, I know you can smell him,” she says finally, frustration clouding her voice. “It makes me feel weird. Just let me take a shower. You must not like it either.”

“Yeah,” he bites out; it seems to choke him to speak. “I fuckin’ hate it.”

That much is obvious. She tries to extricate herself from his grasp, saying, “So let go of—”

“No,” he says, pulling back, only to yank up the bedsheet, cover her mouth with it, kiss her.

And it is the first time he has ever kissed her, and she feels the sixteen-year-old girl inside her split apart.

Then he tugs the sheet down for a moment, so fast she doesn’t realize it, and then his uncovered mouth is on hers—only for a second, not even fast enough for the pull to begin, just long enough for her to feel it, to know that he did it—

And then the bedsheet is on her mouth and he is kissing her through it again.

And every old fantasy, every undreamt dream—Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan whom she loved as a child, like a child, and now, now—

He breaks free from her mouth and moves down, kissing her through the sheet, her breasts, biting her nipples, doing too many things, far too quickly—

And then she thinks of Logan in a helicopter; Logan throwing a slashed body into the ocean; Logan stabbing Oyama Yuriko in the chest; Logan stabbing her in the chest—

And she says, “Stop, stop, shit. Stop.”

“No.”

“Stop,” she says again.

“That’s not the safe word,” he says, and she feels something else split apart in her.

“Logan, st—”

“That’s not the safe word,” he says again, and now he pulls himself back up to face her, so his eyes are directly across from hers.

She closes them, whispers, “Stop.”

“That’s not the safe word,” he says again, and he lowers himself again to her stomach, and she can feel his mouth, his saliva wetting the sheet, making it transparent. “Say samurai, and I’ll stop.”

“Logan,” she says, but she knows her voice is weak, it is taking up too much energy to keep from crying.

He moves down, settles between her legs. “Say samurai. Or banana. Fuckhead. Sushi. Karaoke.”

She starts to laugh, despite herself. He has remembered all the other words—all the other words.

But none of those words are safe—there are no safe words—there are no safe words—there are no safe words—and the tears are already on her face when she makes one last effort to stop him, saying, “Logan—”

He looks at her; and once again it is that look she didn’t recognize before, a look that matches the flicker in her mind, the flicker with no name, and her face.

“If you want me to stop,” he says simply, “then say any of those words.”

Her face wet, she shakes her head, again and again, over and over, now unable to speak, until she feels his mouth on her, and her head is still shaking, still shaking, over and over, over and over.


*


They fuck silently. She is still sore from Gambit, so she doesn’t come, and he barely even moans. Just his breath against her neck, all his clothes still on, his hands in her hair. Breathing, breathing, breathing.

And this time he is not the only one, shaking and shaking, shaking and shaking.


*


Afterwards, he says, without looking at her, quickly before the words run away from him, “I want to know how you got your powers. And I want to know what you saw in my head.”

And here it is. She goes completely still. The request she hadn’t ever wanted to hear from him. She wants to say No, now, immediately. Wants to say, No, never, never, never.

But she asks, “Which times?”

He looks at her and says, “Every time,” in the same way he told her the claws hurt when they came out, and she feels sixteen again.

But she doesn’t feel sixteen again when she thinks of what she would have to tell him, if she were to do as he asked. How she would have to hold those stories in her mouth; how she would have to say every word.

She breathes out, already ready to refuse, “Jesus, Logan—”

But he interrupts her. “There’s time. I’ll give you time.”

“Time to what,” she asks.

Then he isn’t looking at her anymore, but at his hands. His hands, his hands, what his hands have done, taught—

“Time to not be afraid of whatever you’re gonna tell me,” he says, and she stiffens, hardens.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” she says starkly; and wants it to be true.

He still doesn’t look at her. “It’s not just for you,” he says.

And she hears Gambit’s bruised voice telling her, You think you the only one who’s scared.

She closes her eyes. “Logan—”

“Don’t say no,” he says, once again in a voice that breaks her; the way he said I can’t remember, when she asked him in the car who Stryker was; already knowing, herself.

“Don’t say you can’t,” he says, staring at her.

She cannot look at him, so now she looks down at her own hands, feels dread and fear coming over her; it feels like the first time she had his memories, just after he had stabbed her; and she didn’t know what to do with any of them then, either, no more than she knows what to do with them now—

—souvenirs from Japan, Alkali Lake, Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, New Orleans, Madrid, northern Québec, Lebanon—

His mouth is on the top of her head so fleetingly she wonders if she has imagined it. Then there is space between them again; but the stare he gives her seems to have a body, seems like flesh between them; flesh that is his, flesh that is hers. Flesh she could touch, if she tried.

“I’ll give you time,” Logan says again, in that same voice. “And then I’ll ask you again.”