Rogue hadn’t seen Logan in more than four years. The last time she’d been in the same room with him things hadn’t gone so greatly. There was a lot of yelling and a lot of crying and a couple of the Professor’s expensive art décor had met their untimely end by way of a quick flight and a hard wall. So things had not gone well that night. She had gone into her room ready to welcome wanted sleep but instead discovered Logan standing by the foot of her bed, waiting for her with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other
It would be fair to say that she lost it. The sight of him, so casually standing there, looking at her expectantly. Just standing there as he had so many times before. Before things had changed. It broke the last fragile string that was currently holding her together. He stuck the cigar between his teeth and took a step towards her with a reaching hand… and she screamed. It was enough to wake the senior staff at the end of her hall. Jean and Scott ran to her aid with Ororo not too far from their side. They all looked tired but alert.
Scott was the first to push inside of her room, and having instantly surveyed the scene of a crying Rogue and an approaching Wolverine, he quickly moved to shove Rogue behind him with one arm while the other reached for the button on the side of his night visor.
“Move outta the way, One Eye.” Logan’s speech sounded a little slurred. The bottle of whiskey in his grasp obviously wasn’t his first of the evening.
“I don’t think so.” Scott’s fingers tightened by his visor. He squared his shoulders and repositioned his feet, balancing his weight.
“Logan, please.” That was Ororo. “This is not wise. You should not do this.”
He hmphed in response and waved his hand dismissingly in the air. “I need to see Rogue. I need to talk to her.” He all but whined, “I need to see ya, darlin’.” He craned his head to look past the wall of blue pajamas blocking her and saw her retreat further behind Scott. She was shivering.
Jean wrapped her arms around Rogue’s shoulders and pulled her tight against her chest. She then steadied her eyes on Logan’s.
“You’re drunk,” she pointed out. “Go back to your room.”
“Don’t think so, Red. Me and Rogue gotta talk. She has to understand. She has to know that---“
“I think she knows all she needs to,” Scott interrupted. “Now leave. Before I blast you out.”
“Do what you got to do, Scooter. Cause I ain’t going nowhere. Not till me and Rogue are finished.”
“Oh, I think you’re plenty finished,” Scott snapped back. “Take another step and I burn a hole in your chest.” Logan stopped inching forward for Marie and seemed to measure the level of threat Scott was issuing. Maybe it was the alcohol still coursing through his system, or maybe he just truly didn’t find much deterrent in Scott’s threat. Because Logan completely ignored the man in the red visor and took a big step towards the girl behind him.
That was when Rogue saw the blinding red flash and felt the temperature of the room momentarily flair up. She could hear Logan’s howl of pain and Ororo’s sharp intake of breath. Jean held onto Rogue even tighter.
The howl of pain quickly turned into a howl of rage. His claws sang out in the air as they were released from their fleshy sheath. Peaking past Scott’s shoulders she saw Logan jump up, his insides now more on the outside, but knitting themselves back together rather swiftly. The charred skin around his wound was still flaking off as Logan took menacing steps towards their team leader. Jean used her mind to send a couple of heavy lamps flying across the room. One smacked against Logan’s right shoulder. The other clipped the side of his head. He barely registered either action even as blood poured downward from the scalp wound before it could heal, thin red ribbons weaving a path over the curve of his brow and pooling around his lashes and lower lid. When he blinked it sprayed a shower of tiny red drops across the expensive wood flooring. Logan paid no attention; his eyes were now focused intently on Scott.
Ororo took charge by calling upon a mighty wind to push Logan further away but his heavy skeleton helped to keep him grounded. Books and picture frames and small trinkets from Rogue’s desk were sent flying wildly around the room as the current of wind continued to drive at Logan. But he forged on. If it weren’t for his hair blown back and his clothes tight, it would look like he was walking in place. Every time he took a step forward the gusty gale would slide him back to his original starting point.
Despite the powerful wind Logan managed to hit the floor claws first. He used the adamantium blades to drag himself across the room. Had he not been so enraged he would have looked comical with his hands staked to the ground and his torso and legs flailing in the air.
He was now only a few feet away and Rogue could feel her whole body shaking with fear. Tears streamed down her face as she watched her once-upon-a-time hero making his way towards Scott.
“Stop! Please, oh god. Stop. Just stop!!” The terror in her eyes, in her voice, in the way her body convulsed, it was all enough to snap Logan out of his blind rage. He suddenly latched his eyes onto hers and in that brief moment he was drained of all the fight in him. He looked miserable. Defeated.
That’s when the winds slowed to a halt, the hovering objects hit the floor in pieces, Logan’s claws retracted back in, and when Scott let loose with one more beam of pure concentrated energy.
Logan flew backwards. A clean hole where his heart used to be. His body slumped downward and his head lolled back. He didn’t move. Didn’t twitch. His eyes were still open, however, and their dead stare remained locked on Rogue’s.
She let out another horrified scream.
Then she broke free of the red headed doctor. She ignored the calls of her name. She ignored the looks of concerned and confused faces popping out of bedroom doorways. She ignored the heaviness in her chest and the tightness in her throat and the burning in her lungs. She ignored everything.
She ran.
Seconds turned into minutes which rolled into hours. She had no plan of action beyond escape. Her legs pumped the ground, carrying her away from the manicured property, beyond Ororo’s gardens, and past the stretch of woods that were often visited by the mansion’s more youthful residents. She ran and ran until her lower limbs turned to jelly and even then she pushed on through the overgrowth of trees and thorny bushes. She pressed forward until finally the muscles and tendons in her legs contracted so fiercely that she was forced to collapse onto the ground. Her chest burned from a lack of oxygen. Each intake of breath felt like sharp ice scraping against her gullet. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat. With her back against the uneven grass, her hands roughly grasped either side of her head, holding tight against her pounding skull as her mouth worked opened and closed, trying desperately to breathe.
As she lay there, still taking ragged breaths, she closed her eyes only to be greeted by the mental image of Logan’s lifeless body staring back at her. Her eyes instantly ripped open. A new type of pressure built up from within her ribcage. Her heart seized at the memory and try as she might, she suddenly found that she couldn’t regulate anything. Not her tears, or her lungs or her heart. All bodily rhythm was lost as each started and stopped of their own sporadic timing. Every part of body felt like it was on fire and underwater all at the same time. Her body burned from the physical pain as the rest of her felt weighed down so deeply she knew this was what it must feel like to drown. A cold, slow motion death that boiled from within.
With the aid of the Professor, Scott was the one to find Rogue. He pulled back the curtain of leafy tree limbs to find her curled in on herself, weeping and struggling to catch her breath. He approached her slowly, both hands reaching for her as he crouched down to her level. His soft touch to her shoulder jerked her out of her reverie and a pained whine caught in her throat.
Scott wrapped his large arms around hers, carefully positioning them so that he was sitting with his legs sprawled out on the ground and Rogue leaning into his chest. He tucked her head against his torso and held her firmly with one arm, allowing the other to pet her head like one would a small dog. His hand ran from the top of her bangs down to the curve of her neck and back again, his other arm now rubbing warmth into the shoulder farthest from him. He was whispering to her, though she couldn’t concentrate enough to make out the words. Acting out of instinct Rogue’s fingers bunched the fabric of his shirt, curling themselves around his pajamas. She held onto him like he was the only thing keeping her grounded.
Time seemed to pass slowly as the two held each other. Gradually Rogue’s breathing began to normalize and her crying changed from a heavy flow into a sluggish leak. Without the sound of her own ragged breathing in her ears, she was able to listen to the soothing resonance of Scott’s voice.
“Hush. You’re alright. Sshhh.”
Her fingers loosened slightly from their tight hold of his shirt.
She tested her still raw throat. “S-Scott?”
“Yes, Rogue. It’s me.” He continued to run his hand over her hair in a soothing gesture. “You’re alright.”
She pulled back slightly to look at him. She had to see his face when she asked. “What about…” she swallowed another dry knot. “Logan? Is he…?”
Scott’s tone of voice was terse in his response. “He’ll live.”
“Oh.” Was that the sweetness of relief she felt? Or the bitterness of disappointment? She was too jumbled to decipher her own emotions. She lowered her gaze back to the blue fabric of his shirt.
“Jean moved him to the med lab,” Scott continued. “She says he’s healing. Slowly. But he should be fine. She’ll keep monitoring him in the meantime.”
“Oh.”
Her cheek rose with the deep intake of breath Scott took. His hand slowed of its petting of her hair. He was steadying himself.
“Earlier tonight,” he began tentatively, “was he, did he…”
“No!” Rogue whipped her face up to look at his. “Nothing happened,” she added. And suddenly her attention was back on his shirt. One of the pearlescent buttons on his pajamas becoming instantly fascinating. The pad of her covered thumb ran light circles over the smoothness of the round button. She kept her gaze fixated on the shiny object. “Nothing happened,” she repeated.
Scott sighed heavily. “He shouldn’t have been there. Not after…” Rogue felt his neck tilt to face the back of hers, his chin lightly brushing her hair. “Not after what happened before.”
The burning sensation was back within her chest. The feeling of drowning, the cumbersome clenching around her lungs. She drew in a sharp intake of breath and tried to steady her nerves. Despite the unyielding pain, part of her, the small part that still clutched to rationalization, warded off the impending tears and helped her to steady herself.
Her fingers stilled on their exploration of the pajama button. “I think he came to apologize again.” Rationalization be damned, because a single tear escaped down her cheek.
Scott squeezed her tighter to him. “Sshhh, Rogue. Sshh. It’s over.”
Was it over? It was six weeks later and she still couldn’t be in the same room as him. His voice felt like razorblades to her ears, his lingering smell so pungent she often had to race to the nearest trashcan to retch her most recent meal. Six weeks later and ‘over’ sure felt a hell of a lot like ‘still happening’.
“I’m leaving.” Her sudden admittance was a surprise to them both. Neither moved for nearly an entire minute as they each absorbed her words. Finally, Rogue broke the silence. “I think it’s best. Logan, he’s a valuable part of the team. And his knowledge of fighting and self-defense are an attribute to the students. He’s important to the school.” She jabbed Scott playfully in the ribs when he snorted at her last remark. “He’s important, and you know it.”
Rogue pulled away from Scott’s comforting grip. She straightened herself into a sitting position and wiped at her puffy eyes with the back of one gloved hand. She breathed deeply before looking into Scott’s ruby visor. She tried looking past the quartz goggles and imagined peering straight into the eyes of the man before her.
“I’m leaving,” she reiterated, but this time with more resolve. “None of us can continue on like this. I have to go. I need to move on from,” she gestured vaguely in the air with her hands, “this. But I can’t do that if I remain here.” She reached out and touched the upper part of Scott’s arm. “Please tell me you understand.”
Scott’s eyes remained obscured by the red visor but she could see his jaw tighten and grind as he worked through what she had said. He thinned his lips into a straight line and then put one of his larger hands on top of her smaller one. He shook his head. “I don’t agree with you.” Rogue’s head dropped just as his hand squeezed hers a little tighter. “But I do understand,” he finished.
She gazed back at her friend with a weak but appreciative smile.
“But if you’re going, you’re going to go the smart way.” His tone was all business. “Take the F-150 from the garage. It’s got gas and an untraceable phone in the glove compartment. Under the driver’s side floor mat you’ll find an envelope with enough cash to get you started. Jean and I have some money saved; I’ll transfer it to you once a new account has been established. You’ll have my private cell number. I expect you to call. A lot. So that I know how you’re doing. I don’t know how long you think you need out there, but just know you always have a home here. Always.”
“Scott, no!” Rogue’s stared at him with her mouth open. “That money is for ya’lls wedding. I can’t take that.”
“You can and you will. Our line of work has pushed our wedding date back a few times already. Once more isn’t going to change the way Jean and I feel about each other. And right now you need it more than we do.”
“Scott, I…” That blasted lump was back in her throat again, but this time for entirely new reasons. “I don’t know what to say. Thanks, Scott. Thank you. How will I ever make it up to ya’ll?” Yet another tear trickled its way down the curve of her cheek as she fought not to break down into a mess all over again.
He pulled her to him for a hug that felt a whole lot like goodbye. “Just don’t stay gone forever.”
They soon stood, brushed the remnants of the earth from their clothes and trekked back to the mansion. Rogue quickly packed her green duffel bag and said her tearful so-longs to her friends before sliding behind the wheel of the truck and driving away towards her new life.
The more distance she gained from the mansion, the looser the tight hold on her chest became. So what if she had to pull off to the side of the road to cry three times before reaching the on ramp to the interstate? No one was around to see. No one was around to try to bring her back home.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
thanks for the reviews so far. they were really great to receive!