Logan was looking at his glass of sweet tea like he was trying to will it to morph into a bottle of Molson. It was blatantly clear how uncomfortable it was for him to be sitting across from Rogue at the kitchen table. Both had a glass of iced tea nestled in their hands. As he continued to glare at his non-alcoholic beverage, Rogue studied the waves of condensation forming on her own glass. Her bare index finger flicked a droplet of water off of the outside of the glass, sending the globule skidding across her scotch guarded table cloth. They both watched as she mindlessly moved the aqua blob around in circles, her fingers playing a merry dance with the droplet to a tune no one could hear.
After a couple minutes of sliding the pearl of water around and around, Rogue eventually flattened her palm hard against the liquid. It broke into a number of smaller beads that she finally brushed off the table with the side of her hand.
Rogue stood and set her barely touched glass of tea on the counter next to the sink. She then turned to face her visitor, vaguely aware of the shadowed bags under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping well. She wondered why a healing factor would neglect circles like that.
“So are you going to tell me why you’re here or am I supposed to guess?”
Logan moved his glass to the center of the table. “Jean and Scooter are finally gettin’ hitched next weekend.”
“I know.” She tried to disregard the quick look of surprise, and hurt? that Logan cast her way. She continued to look at him, stealing her determination to remain calm and detached. She had nothing to feel guilty about. “So what’s the big emergency?”
He looked away first. “Uh, so yeah. The wedding date is next week. At least that was the plan. Maybe still is. I dunno.”
“Why wouldn’t that still be the plan?” Another attack on the mansion? More Friends of Humanity making a stink and interfering with the love lives of mutants around the world? This was all pretty commonplace stuff at this point. “Scott needs to grab Jean by the engagement ring and find himself a Justice of the Peace somewhere.”
“I’m sure he would. If we could find her.”
Ah. And there it was. The one thing that would bring her back to the mansion. Jean Gray, one of few people in the world that she still considered family, was missing.
“Cold feet?” she offered by way of explanation.
The expression Logan gave in return was one of skepticism. “Doubt it. It’s disgustin’ how in love they are.”
“So why come out all this way to find me? What can I do about it?”
“You’ve touched her. Gotta piece of her up in your head somewhere. Scooter thinks you may be the key to getting her back.”
“I---I don’t see how. It doesn’t work that way. I don’t have a, a psychic connection with her or anything. Just a few feelings. A few memories.” Logan winced at the word. Her voice only slightly faltered at his reaction. “What has the Professor said about it? Hasn’t he tried locating her with cerebro?”
He cleared his throat, readjusting himself on the chair. “Chuck’s missin’ too. About the same time as Jeannie.”
“Shit,” she breathed.
“Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.” His head nodded in agreement with her sentiments.
“How long since they both went missing?”
“Four days.”
Rogue reached across the room and picked up Logan’s glass of iced tea, dumped the contents in the sink and then set it next to her own glass on the counter. Then she dumped the contents of that one as well. She turned to face Logan, who was still sitting at the table but who had straightened his back a little more in alert to her movements.
“I can be ready in 15 minutes,” she said.
Logan looked a combination of relieved and satisfied when he said, “Good.”
She was out of the kitchen and almost out of sight in the living room when she stopped and added, “Oh yeah. Winston’s coming with me.”
Logan peered down at the massive dog sprawled out on his back on the tiled floor. One back paw, the size of Logan’s own hand, was wedged against the front of the cabinet behind himself, suddenly thumping loudly in a running sleep against the wooden door like a rabbit in of those old cartoon movies. His tongue hung to the side, inches spread out on the floor atop a growing puddle of drool.
“I don’t think—“
“That wasn’t a question.” Rogue cut in, then disappeared in search of her needed belongings.
Logan looked down at the dog once more. His nose twitched. The dog stunk.
“Guess you’re comin’ with us, Fluffy.”
The sleeping dog didn’t respond.
***************
***************
***************
Twenty minutes later Rogue’s green duffel was packed. Logan’s eyebrow inched upwards when he spotted it being dragged at her side, but he didn’t say anything until he reached for it and swung the heavy bag over his broad shoulder and groaned.
“Fuck. Sure you didn’t forget anything? Kitchen sink, maybe?”
Rogue rolled her eyes. “It ain’t that heavy you big baby. And be careful with it!” she scolded as Logan tossed the canvas duffel carelessly into the bed of the truck.
“What about the mutt?” Logan thumped his finger over his shoulder. “He come with a cage or somethin’?”
Rogue looked horrified at the thought, and not entirely pleased with the derogatory reference to her canine companion. “Absolutely not! Winston will ride inside. There’s plenty of room.”
This time it was Logan who rolled his eyes but he wisely kept his mouth shut. With Rogue’s bag tossed in the back, the dog taking up more space on the backseat than there was cushion, and with he and Rogue strapped in the front seats, Logan started the engine and circled out of the driveway.
They were barely five miles down the road when Rogue turned in her bucket chair, her eyes as large as saucers. “We’re not driving the whole way are we??”
He glanced at her worried expression. “That a problem?”
“It’s an eleven hour drive. I can’t, I mean Winston can’t, you know. Handle a long drive like that.” Her hands, which were now gloved, nervously writhed together.
Logan took in the worried look and the spike of fear in her scent. His knuckles tightened around the steering wheel as he refocused, rather intently, on the road ahead.
“No,” he supplied after a moment’s silence. “We ain’t driving the whole way. Ro’s got the blackbird gearin’ up waitin’ on us. We’re about a half hour away.”
“Oh,” she exhaled, and the worry seemed to evaporate with it. “Okay.”
Neither spoke as Logan steadied the truck along the winding stretch of asphalt. Both seemed lost in their own thoughts. Occasionally he would glance at the girl next to him, and his eyes would catch on the streak of white in her chocolate hair. He’d look back to the road when she began to squirm under his gaze.
The truck turned off of the road and headed down a path that Rogue hadn’t known existed before. It wasn’t a paved road or even a clearing, really. More like a narrow trail between large trees. She doubted if, before today, it had ever been used by anything other than forest animals. She was still admiring the wooded detour and hadn’t even realized she’d asked Logan a question until she heard herself repeating it, a little louder.
“Why didn’t Ororo come for me?” What she didn’t say, was ‘Why did they send you?’
His knuckles tightened then loosed from the steering wheel with minuscule jerking. He didn’t look at her when he answered, “She’s the only one of us who can fly that damned bird. She had to stay with it incase it was spotted and needed to get the hell outta there.”
That seemed to be enough for Rogue. She leaned into her seat just in time for the front of the truck to pull out into a large clearing. A few hundred yards away stood the blackbird. A metallic giant so very out of place in a green field of yellow poppies. Standing by the rolled out stairs was Ororo, looking very much the goddess her village thought of her as being. She wore a loose fitting white dress that popped against her caramel skin and matched perfectly with her wind blown platinum hair. From the distance Rogue could see Ororo smiling broadly, her arms outstretched in welcome.
Rogue didn’t even wait for the truck to come to a complete stop. She unbuckled her seat belt, flipped the lock on the door and was out of the vehicle running towards Ororo while the Ford was still in mid-roll. She heard Logan curse behind her and slam on the brakes, but she didn’t look back.
“Ro!” Rogue had forgotten how much she had missed the woman until this very minute. She was smiling so wide that the stretch of it hurt her mouth but she didn’t care. She was happy.
“Rogue!” Ororo returned, fully embracing her young friend, headless of any skin that may have been exposed. “Oh child, I have missed you.” Ororo pulled Rogue to an arm’s length away and looked her up and down. “You look well,” she praised. And it seemed Ororo couldn’t stop smiling either.
“Come,” she insisted, leading Rogue to the steps of the jet. “I trust Logan has discussed with you what has happened?”
Rogue’s smile faltered, the remembrance of why they were standing together was like a sharp needle to a taught balloon, effectively bursting the joyful reunion. “He gave me the gist of things. How’s Scott?”
Ororo’s own smile wavered at the mention of their team leader. “He is managing. He will be better once you are home though. He has missed you greatly.” She squeezed the younger girl’s hand. “We all have.”
Rogue was touched by her words. She, too, had missed them all dearly in return. Suddenly four years seemed like a lifetime.
The weather goddess turned and to Logan, said, “Hurry with her things. There is a storm coming.”
Logan let the blonde mammoth out of the back of the truck and then reached for the heavy duffel from the bed. He grunted as he tossed the bulky bag back over his shoulder, then he raised his eyebrow at her. “Ain’t you suppose to be a weather witch? Just hold the clouds back until we’re clear.”
Ororo just shook her head. “I find it best not to get in the way of the true Mother Nature unless it cannot be otherwise avoided. She has set the course of this storm for a reason. When she is ready, she will ease the squall and bring back peaceful skies.” She gazed thoughtfully at an unaware Rogue, who was currently running her fingers through the hair of a dog whose size and color reminded the African queen of the lions from her motherland. She watched the young woman a moment longer then turned her attentive eyes from Rogue to Logan and added, “Often, it is only after a storm that we can truly appreciate the beauty we blindly overlooked in the beginning.”
Logan rocked his head at the regal woman. “Sounds like a bunch of shit to me.”
Ororo only smiled as she ushered Rogue up the stairs of the jet. Winston followed quickly behind. Logan carried the duffel up the steps and pressed a pad on the inner wall to roll in the stairs and close the hatch. He dropped the bag into one of the cargo boxes, latching it securely into place for the ride.
Rogue walked the dog to the back of the plane and, figuring the emergency gurney bolted to the wall to be the safest place, she guided him on top of the table and told him to lie down. She wrapped the straps over his chest and waist and tightened them until he was firmly but comfortably controlled. She then kissed her gloved fingers and pressed them to his gorilla-sized nose. The dog was unsure of his new arrangement and softly pawed the metal gurney.
“You’ll be okay, big guy. I’m right here.” She used her knuckles to rub underneath one of his heavy flapped ears. “I won’t ever leave you,” she whispered. Pressing another finger kiss to his nose she turned and sat in the nearest seat on the jet. She adjusted her own harness straps and buckled the belt around her waist. And though she felt Logan’s eyes on her again, she found herself anxiously looking at anything but him.
Ororo began flipping the final set of switches and priming the jet for take off. Logan, who was still standing by the stairs and had been watching the interaction between Rogue and Winston with stoic concentration, grunted to himself before ducking his head under the low ceiling of the pit’s entryway and took his seated position next to Storm in the aircraft’s flight deck.
As the nose of the jet aimed skywards, no one heard Logan’s throaty growl of frustration over the first roar of thunder in the distance.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000