When James’ tears had dried up Logan shifted him off his lap. "Come on, let's finish lunch," he suggested, not the least bit surprised that James immediately moved into Rogue's arms and clung to her, he doubted the boy would be leaving her side for days if given the option, he had done much the same after Sarah had arrived, eventually making an offhand comment that led Logan to realise the little boy was afraid Sarah was meant to be his mommy, because she was Caleb’s mommy.

As Logan went back to the kitchen to finish making sandwiches, Rogue sat down at the table with James on her lap, Ava wriggled under her arm from the seat beside her, as Caleb retook his seat opposite her, shooting a dark glare at Scott and Jean as he did. For their parts the objectors remained silent, appearing almost dumbstruck, like it was occurring to them for the first time that maybe there was more to this situation than they had initially assumed.

"Well, as far as I am concerned, congratulations are in order," Ororo announced. Normally she was a fence sitter extraordinaire, never giving away her thoughts on matters that didn't directly affect her, this was not an occasion she felt comfortable doing that. "Congratulations to the both of you, and to your family, I don't doubt for a minute you will all be wonderfully happy but I still wish you the best," she said, raising her glass of lemonade to toast the couple.

"Here, here," Sarah replied, following suit.

It turned out the argument had attracted a fair amount of attention from passing students, several of whom were brave enough to stick their heads into the same room as a pissed off Wolverine. Unsurprisingly, that crowd included several of Rogue's friends who took the opportunity to rush into the room, thankfully she saw them and slowed them down before Jubilee could hug the daylights out of her. She wasn't sure how James would have handled that right then and there, he was still quite tense, and from time to time would clench and unclench his fists almost restlessly.

"Roguey you had better have a ring and I demand to see it!" Jubilee announced, pulling out another chair and plunking herself down in it.

Rogue laughed. "You can see it if you promise no touching Jubes," she answered, without making a move to slide her glove off until Jubilee swore, on her school issue debit card, that she would not try and touch either Rogue or the ring.

What followed was several minutes of oohing, aahing, and excited, high pitched squealing as people crowded around to see the ring. At some point in the crush Scott and Jean disappeared, which Logan was thankful for, before he finally shooed the students away to the cafeteria for their own lunch so they could eat in peace.

"Well, that's one way to break the news," Logan said, with a sigh and a chuckle.

"I have to admit, when you said you were taking Rogue out for some downtime and dinner last night I thought that sounded an awful lot like a date but I never in a million years would have expected you to propose," Ororo said, her eyes sparkling happily showing just how truly okay she was with them being together.

"Well, I technically asked her to marry me yesterday morning, I got the ring yesterday afternoon, and just kind of presented it to her last night... I did do the whole cheesy, down on one knee, thing though, figured I better get that part right at least," Logan grinned, as planted a kiss in Rogue's hair when he leaned past her to hand Ava a plateful of roast beef sandwiches and potato chips. Rogue smiled back at him happily but at the same time he picked up a hint of unease in her eyes, he wouldn't mention it now, no need to reopen the just disposed can of worms, and definitely not in public.

Once they had finished eating, Caleb and Ava managed to coax James off Rogue's knee, with the promise of playing on the big obstacle course that was at the far end of the field. Caleb was a sensible kid, and both the little ones healed, so Logan figured there was no need to warn him to supervise them closely, as he watched all three race outside.

As soon as they were out of earshot Rogue turned to him, her worry increasing exponentially. "Are James' hands alright, he keeps clenching his fists like he's still hurting," she said, if anyone would know Logan would.

"It's possible they're still aching but at the same time, his hands are so small and his bones so soft still... there's no telling if the claws might have actually done some damage, I'd like to get him x-rays but there’s no way in hell he would let Jean do that now, I don't think he would at least," Logan admitted, thankful that that appeared to be all Rogue was worrying about.

"What if I stayed with him, do you think he would be okay then?" she asked, obviously as concerned as Logan was.

"I think we should leave it for now," Logan suggested, "He's not complaining about it so it can't be hurting bad, it might even be that he just got a fright, or maybe he's trying to figure out how to do it again I mean, we both know I have self-destructive tendencies maybe he does too," Logan replied, with a dark chuckle.

"And did you notice, he has six claws, Ava only has four, I thought maybe Ava only had four because she was younger, and the others hadn't grown in yet, like teeth, but James is younger still, so that sort of blows that theory out if the water," Rogue added thoughtfully.

"... huh, you're right," Logan replied, after pausing to think back over the respective claw incidents. "How many claws does Caleb have?" he asked Sarah, she was the only one that had seen his so far.

"Wait, Caleb has claws?" Ororo asked in surprise, from where she was finishing her salad. If he had claws how come they had come out during the fight days earlier? Seems the boy really was self-controlled.

"Yeah," Sarah confirmed, "He has six, same as you, same as James."

"I wonder... if that's a male-female thing, some kind of sexual dimorphism," Rogue hypothesized.

"You know there's only one way to find out right," Logan replied, a cheeky grin sliding onto his face.

"How's that?" Rogue asked, obliviously.

"Make more baby girls," Logan replied, chuckling when Rogue blushed furiously, before slapping his shoulder playfully.

"Yeah well, I'll leave you to work out the logistics on that one," Rogue replied, as she stood and began clearing the dishes. She missed the conspiratorial look Sarah and Ororo shared, so she was completely blindsided by the next question, to the point she dropped one of the glasses she was carrying, smashing glass across half the kitchen.

"So, have you two really not 'done it'?" Ororo asked innocently. She could have sworn Logan blushed, just a little, at the question before he busied himself taking a sip of his drink, a really long one.

"Gee thanks Logan," Rogue said, amused as she caught him avoiding answering the question, as she began to carefully collect the broken glass. "No, we haven't 'done it', also, how old are you Ro? You can say ‘sex’ you know."

"Why not?" Sarah asked, skipping over the attempt at obfuscation.

Rogue turned fully to Logan then. "Well?" she asked, making it clear it wasn’t her that was the reason for that state of affairs, followed quickly by a sharp, "Ow!"

"You okay?" Logan asked, rushing immediately to her side, thankful for the distraction from the gossip mob. There was a thick stream of blood running down Rogue's hand, and he at first thought she'd sliced it clean open, until he turned the bloody area towards himself to make sure there was no glass still in the wound. "What the hell!?" he exclaimed, running her hand under the cold water tap to wash the blood away before inspecting her hand again. There wasn't a scratch on her, if not for the spots of dripped blood on the floor, one could have been forgiven for thinking she hadn't even hurt herself.

Rogue looked, dumbfounded, from her hand, to the spots of blood on the floor, and the blood smeared shard of glass. "But ... how?" she asked.

"It’s been ages since I touched you, you shouldn't still be healing," Logan said, searching her hand again for even the slightest knick.

That comment drew even more attention from the pair at the table, and they engaged in a brief conversation, before Ororo announced, "There's only one thing for it Logan, test it."

"I'm not testing it," Logan snapped, "I'm not cutting her up just to see if she heals." That idea scared the shit out of him for obvious reasons, the most obvious one being what if she didn't heal.

"Fine, I'll do it," Rogue said, pulling a knife out of the nearby block, she held it poised over her arm before she balked and froze. "Shit, I can't do it, Logan please, I need to know!" she looked to him pleadingly.

"I don't want to do it," Logan replied, almost whining as he looked uncomfortably at her hand. "God damn it," he muttered a moment later as she turned up the puppy-dog eyes, before carefully sliding out a single claw. Very gently he pressed the point into her skin along the top of her arm, it split the skin easily as blood welled to the surface. Immediately he withdrew, the flesh sealing as the blade vacated the space, leaving just a smudge of blood behind.

"Oh my god! Why am I still healing!?" it was Rogue’s turn to exclaim, in excitement bordering on panic. She took hold of Logan's wrist, of the hand that still had the exposed claw, and swiped her arm across the blade before he could pull away, the second cut was deeper and longer but again closed up immediately.

Logan yanked his hand away with a glare and sheathed the blade, before Rogue could think to try it again. "As much as this is bad timing, we probably need to take this to Jean," he suggested, double checking that she had indeed healed.

"What about the Professor?" Rogue suggested instead, "He could at least act as intermediary."

"Assuming he doesn't take issue as well," Logan pointed out sourly.

"Relax Logan, even if the Professor has his reservations, he'll at least give you the benefit of the doubt to see where this goes," Ororo assured him.

Logan grunted, whether it was in agreement or not wasn't clear but he agreed they approach the Professor first. "Do you know if he's back from D.C. yet?" he asked Ororo.

"His plane should have landed an hour ago so I assume he's back, do you want me to go check?" she asked.

"Nah, we can, when Caleb has to head back to class tell him to drop the kids back to either Chuck's office or the med -"

"Caleb doesn't have to go just yet but James is done playing so I can drop him off now, you want Ava too?" Caleb interrupted with a grin, as he carried James back inside. The little boy looked miserable, until he saw Rogue, brightening up a little as he reached for her before telling her how he fell over and bumped his knee.

She smiled good naturedly through his explanation, while Logan and Caleb tried not to laugh, before she gently reminded him, he healed, there was no boo-boo left to kiss better. "If you just want a hug James it's okay to ask for one, you don't need to make an excuse, I will cuddle you anytime, so will daddy," she told him, watching as he grinned sheepishly at her. "Do you want a hug?" she asked, getting a vigorous affirmative nod as James cuddled closer to her.

Caleb went back outside to supervise Ava, he seemed to be enjoying his new role as big brother, plus having a little sister got him into the girls’ comfort zone when she was doing things with them. Like right now, Flora was trying to teach Ava how to hula hoop, he didn't want to miss that. He promised to find them and drop Ava off before classes started again as he took off back outside.
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