Chapter One: Puzzle Piece Perfect
May 21st, 2010
I taped up the final box and glanced one last time around the small room I shared with Kitty and Jubilee. Now, I was alone: the last lonesome resident of our high school dorm room finally setting out into the world as a grown woman with a man to share her life with.
I glanced into the far corner, not seeing a neatly made up twin bed, but an explosion of color taking the form of altered clothing, and tangled often visited bed sheets. I could almost see the tilting smirk, the indulgent eyes, and the look of sheer mischievousness on her face as she all but tossed the current resident on his ass out the door. Unless she had enjoyed his company and wished to have him visit again. If he lived up to her standards, she said goodbye in the hallway with a flourish of pretty words and fluttering eyelashes, rolling her eyes when she came back into the room.
Jubes had gone off to be a fashion designer after graduating from Xavier’s. She still came back often to participate in missions if she was needed; usually in tow with a new and more gorgeous boyfriend than the last and often bedecked in the latest accessories and her own designs. She, of course, had her own leathers.
With an easy smile I turned my gaze to the wall Kitty’s bed rested against. Although the third in our trio of the inseparable, Kitty wasn’t like Jubilee and I. She hadn’t missed any school or been forced into Xavier’s because of a prejudiced home life. She’d finished a year of public school at the beginning of one summer and started private school at the end. She went home to her family on summer vacations. The last time, when she was 17 and Bobby was 18, he’d gone with her. They’d come back engaged. Kitty still had some senior classes to finish. I was catching up on my sophomore year. Like Jubes, a little time on the road teaches you a lot, but it doesn’t matter to the New York School Board.
I wasn’t starting my sophomore year any more. Jubes and Kitty weren’t those older more experiences girls anymore. Kitty was going on her second anniversary and toting her first child on her hip: a beautiful little boy named Andrew, with blond hair and brown eyes, a spitting image of his father with his mother’s eyes. She seemed happy, but almost shyer than she had been during my initial years at Xavier’s. Now she was, painfully so.
She didn’t go on missions anymore. But I still had lunch with her once a month. Little Andrew made weekly lunches… difficult. Bobby didn’t believe in daycare.
I was startled out of my thoughts when hands settled on my shoulders, and I turned back to look into Logan’s hazel eyes.
“Ready, Darlin’?” His voice rolled over me, and I smiled brightly at him before turning back toward my room. I closed my eyes and said a silent goodbye to the room where I’d spent the last few years of my life; the most important years of my life to date.
“Ready.” I told him. He lifted the lonely box up off of my neatly made bed, and I spared a moment to send a fervent hope into the room that the next occupants would learn as much there as Jubes, Kitty, and I had.
~*~*~
The house Logan and I had chosen to start our lives together was a quaint two story building with brown trim and white siding. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom and an eat-in kitchen and a living room with the most beautiful brick fireplace I had ever seen. I’d loved it immediately. I could see Logan and me growing old and raising children together there. Or, at least I would grow old. Maybe.
He carried me across the threshold, even though we weren’t married. We didn’t need a little slip of paper to tell us what was in our hearts. He carried me through the entire house, and I laughed the entire time as he used my feet to gesture whatever points he was trying to make about where the furniture would go. I was breathless and flushed when he finally set me down in the middle of the master bedroom.
“This,” he said, gesturing with wide hand motions toward the center of the far wall on the right side of the door, “is where our bed will go. We have to go to the furniture store at some point. But I wanted us outta the mansion, and into this house.”
“I know. I did too. Now it feels like we’re really us. What do you say we get these boxes into their rooms and head out to look at that big bed?” Logan responded in the affirmative by tossing me over his shoulder and carrying me back down the stairs to our new truck.
It didn’t take us long to get the boxes we had into the house. Mostly we had clothing and personal effects, a few things for the study, Logan’s big butter smooth leather chair, some pots and pans that Jean had given us, and a small white rose bush from Ororo. Logan had borrowed a shovel and a spade so we could dig up a hole next to the walk and plant the bush. It was my greatest wish to be able to graze my fingers over the delicate petals before I climbed up the porch steps and went into the house.
Logan’s old traveling trunk was in the entryway as a placeholder for wayward coats, keys, and hats. I mentally tried to envision the mirror I’d hang on the wall over it and a dozen little intricate details flew through my brain, visions of the home that Logan and I would create together.
After planting the rose bush and feeding and watering it, we loaded the pots and pans into the lower cabinets next to the stove, at Logan’s insistence. He said he didn’t feel like running in and fetching something from the high shelf every time he wanted it. He wouldn’t listen to reason that eventually something would be placed on the top shelf. I suspected that he didn’t want me trying to pull down a cast iron skillet if I needed it, and he wasn’t home yet.
We hauled all the other boxes into the bedroom and study. Logan’s chair proved the most difficult, as heavy as it was, but he loved it and I wasn’t about to make him leave it. Besides, he carried most of the weight being on the bottom end going up the steps. All I had to do was walk backwards.
~*~*~
The furniture store was a treasure trove of wants and needs. We bought three things: a tall bookshelf that spanned half of the living room wall, a soft cream colored couch with mahogany wood accents, and a large ebony sleigh bed. We didn’t get a king size as Logan prefers when the bed limits how far I can travel from him in my sleep.
We made three trips from the store to the house and didn’t spare any time to set any of the furniture up before going to a small vintage linen store. ‘Stitches and Squares’ was the only place I could think of that Logan would actually appreciate and cooperate in the selection of sheets and blankets for our bedroom. The man has a soft spot for worn and comfy blankets.
When I’d gotten him to agree to three baby soft quilts and four sets of sheets, all white, we headed back to the house. We didn’t need any help assembling the furniture, or carting around the mattress and box-spring. It was nice to do these things together, without outside help, just the two of us.
After the bed was set up, we had a clichéd dinner of pizza by candlelight, complete with upside down box for a table and a six pack between the two of us. If I had had a picture to show everyone, they still wouldn’t have believed me.
We crawled into our new bed and I took the time to really enjoy the feel of the age softened sheets and Logan’s hands on my bare skin. My graduation had been punctuated with a breakthrough of finally getting my powers under control. Everything was finally falling into place, and it was bliss. Until the next day, when I had lunch with Kitty.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
I blame my beta, Hidden_Relevance. She’s a mean terrible person who hears a song and just has to let me hear it and tout how perfect it is for me, knowing that I won’t be able to not use it for inspiration. After that it’s just a matter of hammering out the plot and shaping it into a story. This is all her fault. And then, when I’ve finally given in… It turns itself into a Multi-Chapter story. Stupid plot-bunnie fueled by best brined betaness… I wish I could hold it in.
This feels a lot to me like ‘Last Call’ did at first. Except it’s not a story that got created after I wrote the first chapter. This one came fully formed with no chapter breaks, but way to long for me to churn out in a one-shot.
So here it is. My new Rogan fic. It’s a lot in the same line as all my other fics, as far as genre, so be prepared for it. Thanks for reading. This is AU. It figures that Marie is 19 when this starts. I’m giving it a date so we can keep up with the time as it passes. I don’t know how much of it there will be, but it’ll make things easier.
This feels a lot to me like ‘Last Call’ did at first. Except it’s not a story that got created after I wrote the first chapter. This one came fully formed with no chapter breaks, but way to long for me to churn out in a one-shot.
So here it is. My new Rogan fic. It’s a lot in the same line as all my other fics, as far as genre, so be prepared for it. Thanks for reading. This is AU. It figures that Marie is 19 when this starts. I’m giving it a date so we can keep up with the time as it passes. I don’t know how much of it there will be, but it’ll make things easier.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the beginning. Let the story roll.
Chapter End Notes:
Btw, I totally want to gobble them up in this chapter. And hate myself for the plot of this particular fic.