Before, it seemed like the worst they had to face was Logan taking Jean away from Scott, and Rogue leaving Bobby for Remy. Both of those incidents caused a lot of furor and fighting and turmoil at the mansion, and at times it seemed like the X-Men might break up because of one or the other. Either Scott would leave or he would force Logan and Jean to; either Rogue would leave with Remy or their relationship would drive Bobby away. In both battles, everyone took sides. Ororo took Scott's, Kitty took Bobby's, Jubilee and Hank took Rogue's, Kurt supported Logan, and Jean thought Remy was in the right.
As usual, as in everything, Logan took Rogue's side, and Rogue took Logan's.
Time passed and everyone began to get it through their thick heads that Logan and Jean were in love, and Rogue and Remy were in love. That was just the way it was going to be. People even started to say, nothing could stand in the way of True Love. Not Jean and Scott's engagement, and not Rogue and Bobby's adolescent devotion. Every obstacle that stood in the way of What Was Meant to Be had been overcome.
Sure, there was some guilt to bear over the fact that people had been hurt in the process. Every so often, Logan and Rogue went on long drives together and comforted each other by saying, "We're with the people we belong with. We did what we had to do." They were happy in their relationships; they just hoped in time everyone else would accept them.
And they did. After about a year and a half had gone by, Scott and Bobby were no longer threatening to move out, and all of the exes – Jean and Scott, and Rogue and Bobby – could speak civilly, even kindly, to one another. The X-Men were as solid as they'd ever been. In some ways, they were even stronger, for having gone through such difficult trials.
But that was Before. Before the War. Magneto had always said a war was coming, and he was right in the extreme. The first strike was made by the humans, with the Mutant Registration Act. After that, the Brotherhood gained an enormous following, many mutants fearing the coming worst and wanting to defend themselves. When registered mutants began to be rounded up into camps and then killed at random for crimes they may or may not have committed, the Brotherhood executed their plans for insurgency. Terrorist action became the order of the day. Thousands of United States soldiers died, along with tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. That was when the government launched their wide scale offensive against mutants. Registration became a euphemism for suicide. Every mutant who filled out government paperwork on their powers was either assassinated singly or rounded up and exterminated as part of a group. A million mutants were dead inside of six months. It was Erik Lensherr's most horrible nightmare come true. Then, when it became apparent that mutants were no longer going to report themselves to the government willingly, the military started to send out killing squadrons. Mutants clustered, trying to find safety in numbers, and soldiers infiltrated their hideouts and destroyed them where they hid. Another million, gone in another three months.
Xavier's wasn't invaded right away. Professor X used all his political connections and a good deal of his fortune to keep the school safe. But at last, after months of bribes of favors, the best that the Professor's friends in Washington could do was warn him of the exact date and time of the planned strike.
Rogue and Logan volunteered to be the defensive line. It was a kamikaze mission, and Jean, Remy, and others protested loudly against their sacrifice. But the Professor agreed; it made sense. Rogue and Logan were the strongest and the most invulnerable. They would be a formidable first line, and if the team only had to spare two X-Men to stave off the soldiers, the rest of the adults could evacuate with the students and protect them in the safehouse. "Our priority must be the lives of the children," said the Professor when he announced his decision. "I don't want to lose anyone, but if we must pay a price for the children's safety, better two of us than twenty. Thank you, Logan and Rogue, for your bravery."
Jean and Remy screamed and wept at the decision, but Rogue and Logan were steadfast. In the end, the Professor was compelled to use his psychic powers to convince Jean and Remy to hold to go along with the plan.
The Professor told no one that he would stay behind and be the third point on the front line, right alongside Logan and Rogue. The three of them fought off four platoons, one after the other, in a battle that raged for more than thirty hours. The Professor's mind tricks, Logan's military expertise and instantaneous healing, and Rogue's powers of flight, absorption, super-strength, and imperviousness to weapons managed to keep the engagement at a stalemate. What turned the tide against them was General Harker's announcement, over a bullhorn, that all of the mutants who had attempted to flee Xavier's School for the Gifted had been found and killed. The Professor broke his concentration just long enough to try to mentally connect with Jean or one of the other teachers, but that break was long enough for a soldier to fire a bullet into his heart.
"NOOOO!!!!!" shouted Rogue, and started to go berserk on their opponents. Logan did the same; he knew this was their last stand, and they intended to take out as many enemies as they could when they went down fighting. But when the soldiers closed in around the two mutants, something surprising happened: the uniformed men put away their guns and took out tazers.
*They want us alive*, was Logan's last thought as he was shocked into oblivion.
It wasn't easy for the government to hold onto the two of them. That first time, when they woke up in the back of a military transport truck after the battle on the school grounds, Logan easily clawed them free of their restraints. They jumped out the back and flew away, Logan on Rogue's back.
They managed to go undetected for two months, but the men who wanted them must have guessed they'd be heading for Canada. They got to the Rockies easily enough, setting up house in a small cabin deep in the woods, but they had gone into town twice for supplies, and eventually someone at the General Store must have ratted them out. They were ambushed on a windy Thursday as they were hauling firewood into their cabin. After that capture, it took Rogue a good five days of flirting with their guards before she got close enough to touch their faces with her bare hands.
They tried to make their way to Washington, then, to see if they could find any of the Professor's old contacts and secure fake papers that would get them to Europe or Asia. At one time, they'd scoffed at the idea of escaping the war, like cowards – but that was when they thought they'd be able to give their lives fighting the good fight. When they saw that their only option was imprisonment, torture, and most likely experimentation, the notion of fleeing became more appealing.
Washington wasn't in their destiny, however. Three months after the assault on Xavier's school, Logan and Rogue were finally brought in to General Harker's military compound, beaten and exhausted but alive.
The General threw them into a holding cell and told them he'd return shortly.
Rogue took off her gloves and began testing the door and walls. She made some dents in the concrete, but after a bit of it crumbled away she saw that the concrete was reinforced. With adamantium. She looked at Logan. "They've been expecting us," she said.
Logan nodded. He sat on the lower of the bunk beds, frowning. Rogue sat down on the floor in front of him. "Listen," he said intently, "I'm not gonna let them work on me again. If it starts ta go that way, I want you to take me out."
"No," said Rogue immediately. They had both known for a long time, since the first time Rogue touched him, that she was probably the only being on the planet who could kill him. A lot of people, mutants, and creatures would be able to hurt him badly and put him down for a good long while, but Rogue could do worse. If she turned on her skin's natural power and held on to him long enough, she'd be able to drain his life completely. But there was no way Rogue was going to kill her friend and comrade. "Forget it, bub," she said, using one of Logan's favorite expressions. "I'm not doing it. There's nothing you can say to make me."
"What if I promise to tell Remy about that bar in Juarez?" Logan joked. Rogue almost smiled, remembering how she'd gotten so plastered on tequila that she'd gotten on top of one of the grimy little tables in that flea-ridden joint, taken her top off, and danced for the hollering crowd. Logan had had to carry her out – she kept pleading to stay longer.
"Not even for that," Rogue said, nudging his boot with hers, and refusing to weep at the mention of Remy's name.
Remy was most likely dead. She and Logan had asked every trustworthy source they could find about the group that escaped from Xavier's, but all the rumors only backed up Harker's story: the group had been tracked down, and massacred. In their three months on the run, Logan and Rogue had not much discussed the fact that they'd never see Jean or Remy or any of their friends or students again, that they'd failed to protect them.
Logan heaved a sigh. "If they start with the tests..."
"You'll make it," Rogue said. "You'll find a way. You won't let them get you." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're too stubborn for that."
"You better make that a `we,'" answered Logan. "*We're* gonna make it. *We're* gonna find a way. And God knows, you're stubborn enough for both of us."
Another nudge of her boot to his, and a half-chuckle, tinged with dread. Logan decided to give up on the idea of Rogue helping him to die, not because he didn't still want it, but because he knew what it would do to Rogue. He wouldn't force that guilt on her.
They talked for a few more minutes, then the door swung open, and they were face to face with their captor, who had a contingent of twelve guards. Six for each of them, heavily armed.
"Okay, let's go," said the General. "Take `em to the lab."
Logan growled and unsheathed his claws, and Rogue got into fighting stance, but Harker's men were ready. As soon as the two X-Men rushed the crowd of soldiers, four cattle prods assaulted them at once, and they went down.
Rogue had not fully lost consciousness, but she pretended to be passed out when they dragged her into the lab. They lay her down on a narrow table and put fastenings on her wrists. She braced herself for the worst, but was surprised and relieved when all they did was take her vital signs and draw some blood from her right arm. The room was silent for another fifteen minutes or so, and then she heard Harker's voice.
"Is she ready?" he asked.
"Not today," said someone else. A middle-aged man, from the sound of it. "I'll have to take readings for the next several days to know exactly when."
"She healthy?" asked Harker.
"Yes. Very," said the other voice. "I've looked over the files you sent me, and her medical history gives me no cause for concern."
"But will she pass down her mutation? Or will it just get the male's healing?"
"The prevailing theory is that mutation is only transmitted through Y-chromosome, but there haven't been any studies that show conclusively that a mother's mutated genes are not also inherited. This will be the first, ah, breeding experiment of its kind," said the other man.
Harker said a few more words about timing, and then Rogue felt herself being released from her bonds and dragged back to the cell. The soldiers laid her on the cold floor and she felt Logan's hands on her immediately, checking for injuries. But as soon as she heard the door close and lock, she opened her eyes.
Logan scowled. "Don't you fuckin' play games with me," he grunted, his hands freezing in her hair. He'd been searching for head trauma. "I was fuckin' worried."
"Just wanted to hear what they had to say, sugar," said Rogue, sitting up. She scooted over so that her back was to the wall opposite the door. Logan sat down next to her.
"So? What'd they say?" Logan asked.
"Let me ask you something first. Did they do any tests on you, just now?"
Logan shook his head. "Nah, just blood work. Took my temperature, blood pressure, that kinda thing. You?"
"Same," said Rogue. "Logan, they..." she paused nervously. "They said something about a...a `breeding experiment.'"
"What?" Logan frowned.
"That's what they said," Rogue said. "Harker asked if I was `ready,' and someone else, a doctor, I guess, said that I wasn't yet. Then they asked about whether I'd pass my genes down, or whether it would just get `the male's healing.'"
Logan's eyes widened. "You and me?"
Rogue nodded, her eyes wide with anxiety.
Logan went still. He was thinking about what breeding might entail. "You think they'll do it...medically?"
Rogue knew what he was asking. Would it be in-vitro fertilization? "Don't know," she answered.
Logan gripped Rogue's hand and held it tightly. It was familiar and reassuring, as it had been since she was a teenager. "Okay. It'll be okay. I'm gonna take care of you," said Logan.
"We'll take care of each other," said Rogue, laying her head wearily on Logan's broad shoulder.
Five days later, with the same innocuous examinations taking place every day, and the doctor apparently thought Rogue was `ready.' Logan and Rogue found themselves led out of their cells, their wrists and ankles bound with what felt to Logan like adamantium chains. They were blindfolded and loaded into the back seat of a Hummer, electric wands shocking them every few minutes to make sure they didn't even attempt to escape. Just thirty minutes later, they were taken out and led into a building. When the chains and blindfolds were removed, they saw that they were in what looked like a normal room in someone's apartment.
That was when they found out how Harker expected the breeding process to work.
Harker entered the small, comfortably furnished room with his usual company of twelve soldiers. Where the hell are we?" asked Logan.
"New breeding center," said the General. "Doc says we've got a three-day window, starting tomorrow. That means you've got tonight to get ready. If you don't mate tomorrow, we'll beat you both unconscious. If she isn't impregnated three days from now, I'm gonna take you," he said to Logan, "and do a number on you so bad you'll wish you were torn apart by wild animals instead."
"Mate? We're not animals," said Rogue, indignant.
Harker just looked at them with contempt. "That's what you are to me," he spat out. "Now, you're gonna do this the natural way, because we don't know what fertilization treatment's gonna do your genes and we don't want to fuck with those. The psych team thought this, uh, *environment* would be more *conducive* to conception. But don't get excited, it's just another cell. Security is just as tight here as at the prison, and there's a force field around this room. You both have been getting pretty good treatment so far. If you try escaping, or if you fail to achieve the objective, your treatment's gonna get pretty shitty. I promise you that."
Harker and his men left. Rogue and Logan took their first good look at their space in the `breeding center.' It was a small room that was taken up mostly by a double bed that had a metal frame. There were paintings on the wall, and fresh flowers on the metal nightstand. There was a small bathroom adjacent, which was a vast improvement over the chamber pot they'd had to share in their cell back at the prison, that was emptied twice a day. The bathroom had, in addition to a working toilet, a cramped shower stall. It smelled clean to Logan – never used. They would be the first mutants forced to become parents in captivity.
Both Logan and Rogue took the opportunity to shower before they talked over their situation. To their surprise, the tiny chest in the bathroom held clean things for both of them. Just a white nightgown for Rogue, and a pair of loose white cotton pants and a white t-shirt for Logan, but they were far better than the tattered jeans and shirts they'd been wearing for almost two weeks.
When they were washed and wearing their new "clothes," they sat on the bed cross-legged, facing each other.
"Why us?" was Rogue's opening question.
Logan shrugged. "It's a good deal for them, if they get a kid with both our powers that they can control from birth. I dunno if they picked us because they ran into us at Xavier's, or if they had us targeted before."
Rogue nodded sadly. "Harker had my medical files. They must have had us in mind, before." She knew Logan was right – if their gifts could be combined into one mutant, the government could train him or her to be an incredible killing machine. "We're only the first they're trying this with. If this works, they'll want a lot more."
"Super-mutants," said Logan. "Who can help them get rid of all the other mutants in the country. Or the world." Logan paused, then leaned closer to Rogue and muttered in a quiet voice, "They've got surveillance in here. They've got to have cameras, at least, to make sure we're...`achieving the objective.' Mikes, too, probably."
Rogue understood. They'd have to talk in faint whispers if they hoped to have any secrecy. She uncrossed her legs and inched towards Logan. He opened his legs and they moved closer until their torsos met, and their legs were wrapped loosely around each other's hopes. Rogue rested her arms on Logan's waist, just because there was no other place to put them; he returned her comfortable embrace. Positioned like that, they could talk into each other's ears very softly. But Rogue was aware of what it probably looked like to their observers.
"I think this is a famous tantric posture," Rogue joked in a murmur. "Maybe the guards think we decided to start early."
Logan gave a small `humph' that meant he was partly amused and partly exasperated that she was resorting to comedy in a crisis. Rogue had gotten that `humph' many, many times over the last seven years.
"What do you wanna do?" asked Logan.
"I know what I *don't* want," Rogue replied. "I sure as hell don't want them to start experimenting on you again, or beating you or trying to kill you a hundred different ways." She was sure Harker had implied that kind of agony lay in wait for Logan if they failed to cooperate with his scheme.
Logan was silent for a moment, then he said, "If you get pregnant, that means at least nine months of safety for you. They won't fuck with you while you're growing their little project." He was absolutely sure that whether or not he complied with Harker's directives, he'd be dead or heavily brutalized very soon. If he didn't impregnate Rogue, they'd come for him; if he did impregnate her, then he wouldn't be useful anymore and they'd come for him. But if Rogue got pregnant, at least she'd be safe for a good long while, maybe long enough to find a way out. That made the pregnancy the better plan.
He didn't tell Rogue that he thought he was done for, either way. He knew her well enough to know that anytime his life was in danger, she went a little nuts, started doing irrational things, started acting desperate. He was the same whenever she was threatened, so he didn't fault her for it. But right now, he wanted her rational and calm. It was her best chance for survival.
"So...I guess...both of us think we should...do it?" Rogue asked hesitantly.
Without meaning to, Logan tightened his grip on her. Now that they were facing it straight-on, it was an earth-shattering prospect. Have sex with Rogue? He and Rogue? They'd never been that way, in all their seven years of friendship. There was nothing like that between them. Sure, there was something incredible and rare between them, a level of closeness that was impossible to explain to anyone else. Hell, he found it impossible to fully explain it to himself. All he knew was that he and Rogue were bonded to each other tighter than anyone he'd ever seen. Even the other X-Men, even Jean and Remy, had never known how strongly they felt about each other, how much they depended on each other. How much they needed each other.
But he and Rogue making love? And more than that...making a baby? Logan just couldn't get his head around it.
Suddenly, Rogue sniffed a little. It was so quick and so quiet, but her mouth was right up against his ear, and he did, after all, have excellent hearing. And he could smell the sadness on her.
"What is it?" Logan asked, worried.
"Oh, it's not that I think you'll be bad in the sack," Rogue said flippantly, but Logan pinched her for trying to be funny, and she stopped kidding. "I guess, it's just that...Well, you know how important touch is to me. There were years, a lot of them, when I thought I'd never be able to be intimate with anyone, not fully. And then when I could, I made a promise to myself." Rogue was ashamed to feel herself choke up a little as she spoke, but she couldn't help it. "I promised myself that I would never, ever have sex with someone unless I was in love with them, and they were in love with me. I swore I would never, ever take it lightly. And now...to think I'll be *forced* to, forced to...just mate, like it was just mechanics, just biology, a fucking *experiment* -- ha! Literally, a `fucking experiment'! –" Rogue bit out a hard laugh at her own joke, "I don't know if I can take that. I mean, they can beat me, and cage me, and kill me. But the promise I made to myself...to always honor my own body, to only give myself out of true love...it's worse, somehow, if they make me trample on that. Worse than if they took my head off. And for God's sake, the *last* thing I would *ever* want to do is conceive a child without love."
The tears ran in thick rivulets from Rogue's eyes when she was done. Logan felt them drop onto his thin t-shirt, and soak through the cloth till they wet his skin. Rogue took in a shaky breath, but her voice was like steel when she spoke again. "They can kill me, Logan, but I don't want them to break me. I don't want either of us to suffer, but if they make me use my body like that...I think that might break me."
Logan knew what she was saying. She was defending her own honor. For Rogue to touch, or be touched, that way without love would be a great dishonor to her, and Rogue wouldn't be able to live with that. Both Logan and Rogue valued their honor more than their lives, it was one of the million reasons they understood each other so well.
"I know how you feel, darlin'," Logan said, hoping his tone would soothe her, "but let's not give up so fast, huh? We've got a good chance to get at least one of us out of here alive, and I wanna take that chance. So...here's the thing." Logan paused, and carefully held her body even closer to his. This time he did it purposefully. "Why don't we give ourselves a day to fall in love?"
"Wh...what?" Rogue stammered. "You me an...like...pretend?"
Logan stroked her back and whispered against her ear, "Why don't we talk tonight, and tomorrow, and see if we can't find a way to make sure it's love. Not just...not forced. See if we can do it right. Then, tomorrow, if you think we can't do it without you breaking that promise to yourself, then we'll just tell `em no."
Immediately, Logan felt Rogue grip him harder with gratitude. "Really? You'd do that for me? If we can't do it right, we can say no?" Rogue was overwhelmed with Logan's generosity. She was pretty confident they wouldn't be able to generate feelings in each other in one night that hadn't been there in seven years. And here Logan was offering to basically give himself up to God-knows-what, to what would most likely be worse pain than he'd ever experienced in his whole life, just to help her keep some promise. "Oh Logan..." Rogue said, starting to weep in earnest. "I feel so...stupid and foolish...asking you to give yourself up for something so petty..."
"Hey, hey now," said Logan. "Nothing that's important to you is petty to me. Got that?" He felt Rogue nod against him. "But you have to try, darlin'. Can you promise me, just for the next twenty-four hours? We have to try, okay? It's still our best chance." What he was thinking was, *It's still –you're- best chance*, because he still didn't think he stood a chance either way, but he didn't tell Rogue that.
"Okay," said Rogue. But she had no idea what Logan thought they were going to do. Surely, people couldn't fall in love overnight, just by trying.
They'd turned the lights off and lay underneath the covers. The white sheets were cool to the touch and soft against their skin, much to Rogue's relief. Sleeping on an uncushioned metal slab in that concrete cell for five days hadn't done much for her back. She and Logan lay on their sides, facing each other. Their faces were close together, so they could speak in whispers. She felt Logan's breath against her face every time he said something. But up until now, it had been Rogue who'd done most of the talking.
She was talking about Remy and Jean.
"The thing is, I just don't know how we can make this work if we're both in love with other people," Rogue said. She didn't say their names, but she didn't have to.
Logan frowned. He'd given up on Jean, and the rest of them. When he and Rogue were in the mountains, he'd gone off by himself for a few days and mourned, in his own way. He didn't tell her that's what he was doing. He wanted to be alone as he put the thought of him and Jean to rest – it was something private. He'd always remember Jean, and think of her as a beautiful woman who'd helped him find real passion, but he couldn't and wouldn't let himself be crippled with grief. He'd dealt with his loss. He wondered if Rogue could do the same.
"I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, darlin', if it sounds cold," Logan said. "But I think we need to put our pasts away. They're gone. I don't know if you've faced up to it, but I have." Logan took both Rogue's hands in his and held on. "They're gone, and we're here. And I'm not losin' track of you, not if I can help it. Whatever future I've got left, I want it to be with you. It's you and me, now."
"Okay. Okay," Rogue whispered back. Her eyes were sad, but also determined, like Logan's were. Logan was such a fighter, such a survivor. He was doing what he had to do: moving on. Rogue knew that he was right. Holding on to lost love wasn't going to do anyone any good. It certainly couldn't help Remy and Jean anymore, and perpetual mourning would only handicap Logan and Rogue in their battle to live. Logan was doing what it took, and Rogue told herself to follow his example. "Okay," she said again. "Me too. Whatever time we've got, I want it be with you." She blinked nervously. "How...however that turns out to be."
"Let's see if we can make it more than it is," said Logan, going back to the mission at hand. He badly wanted Rogue to agree to try to get pregnant, since that was the clearest shot they had at buying time for her. If the only way to get her to agree to that was making sure it was out of love, then he would find a way to do that. "What does it mean to you, to be in love with someone? What do you have to feel, and what do they have to feel?"
"Logan, you make it sound like I can order love off of a menu at a burger stand, with an order of fries," Rogue chastised with a smile. "Um, I guess..." Rogue thought nervously. This was making her nervous, the whole situation. She'd never talked like this with Logan, and she'd thought she never would. "I guess, to be in love, the other person would have to really care about me. Not just feel kindly towards me, but really feel a lot of affection for me, and care how I feel, and what I think. They'd have to want me to be happy, and want to actively try to make me happy. And I'd have to feel those things about them."
"Well, all that's covered already," said Logan. "I care about you, and have affection for you. I care what you think and feel. I want you to be happy. Don't you feel that way `bout me?" Rogue realized he still hadn't let go of her hands. They were clasped together between his. Logan slowly ran his thumbs back and forth across Rogue's knuckles in a way that made her jittery. He'd never done that before.
"Sure, sure I do," said Rogue, her mouth dry. "But it's more than that."
"Like what?" Logan asked.
"Well, they'd have to know me. They'd have to know me deep down, know the person that I really am inside."
Logan almost scoffed at that. "Who knows you better than I do?"
Hmm. True. "No one," Rogue admitted. "But it's more than that, too." She bit her lip nervously. She felt Logan's hands tighten around hers all of a sudden in response. "They'd have to want me, too," Rogue said. "As a woman. And that's something you've never felt about me."
Logan just breathed in and out for a few moments. He considered her statement. "I wouldn't say I've never felt that about you," he said finally.
Rogue's eyes grew confused. Logan could still make out the slightest variations in her expressions, even in the dark. "Huh?" she asked. It was not an elegant question, but Rogue was blown away but what he'd just said.
"You think I've never wanted you as a woman?" Logan asked. His breath hitched at the end of that sentence. He was about to step into territory that he had never been willing to discuss with anyone. He didn't even let thoughts on this matter break the surface of his own consciousness, ninety-nine percent of the time.
"Logan," Rogue said in her yeah-right, completely disbelieving voice, "when have you ever wanted me as a woman?"
"Lotsa times. Just didn't tell you," Logan said. He sounded a little scared to his own ears, but he was gonna be honest if it killed him.
"Like when?" Rogue challenged.
Logan considered what to tell her. He had the strangest sensation of letting memories, thoughts, and feelings flood him, things that he had always fiercely repressed. Things about Rogue. About how Rogue looked, felt, smelled. About how she might taste. How she might touch him. Logan was taken aback by how much of that there was, shoved down into the black box in his mind labeled, "Don't Think About It, Bub." Now that he was trying to reach into the box and pull some things out to tell her, he found an enormous mass of stuff of that nature, just waiting for him.
"Well," Logan began, "first off, you look damn good in your uniform." A part of him inwardly licked its chops at the mental picture. *Mmmm,* that part growled, *Rogue in tight leather.*
"Thanks, but *everyone* looks good in their uniform," said Rogue, sounding far from convinced.
"You look good the rest of the time, too," Logan hastily added, before Rogue could doubt him any more. "I like that grey sweater you wear, in the fall and winter. The turtleneck, that doesn't cover your belly button."
Rogue giggled softly. "*You* notice what people wear?"
"I know what *you* wear. I pay more attention to you than to other people," said Logan.
That much, Rogue knew. Logan had always been very alert to her. He knew her daily schedule, her various moods and how they manifested, when she liked to train, when she did her lesson plans and her grading, all her major life events. Why wouldn't he notice what she wore? They'd always been hyper-aware of each other, in different ways.
Logan's voice interrupted Rogue's thoughts. "I like that red dress, too. The one that you wore last New Year's, with your hair up."
"Ah, yes. The dress-I-saved-up-for-six-months-for. I'm glad it paid off," Rogue said, smiling.
"It did." Logan smiled, too. Thoughts of the times that Rogue's looks had made him take notice were happy thoughts, however unsettling they were. "I like it when you're in your shorts and one of those little t-shirts and you're washing your car and listening to that noise in your headphones."
"What is it with men watching women wash cars?" Rogue said. But she was touched that Logan had looked at her that way. She didn't think he ever did.
"I like your hair when it's loose and it curls up at the ends. I like the way it falls across your face when you're reading, and you have to push it out of the way all the time. I like the look on your face when you're not sure what to say, and you just get all quiet and look at someone right in the eyes. Your eyes say it all, you know. And," Logan let go of her hands and reached out to stroke her cheek, "your face is real beautiful. Real expressive. Lots of emotion, there. And your body..."
Logan stopped, tightening up at what his what about to say. That was the part that was hardest to let out of the box. It was one thing to see that Rogue had pretty hair, pretty eyes, a pretty face, or that she looked good in cute clothes. All her girlfriends would admit to noticing as much about her. But only a man who looked at Rogue like a woman would notice the curves and swells of her body. For seven years, Logan had firmly refused to admit to himself that he had such thoughts, and it was hard to break himself of the habit of stomping them down with an iron will.
"What about my body?" Rogue asked breathlessly.
Logan's hand moved from her cheek down to her shoulder. Just touching her that much made him incredibly hard. Maybe it was because she was the most forbidden fruit to him – more forbidden than Jeannie, even, because he'd let himself think those kinds of things about Jean from the start, but had clamped down against such ideas about Rogue. His mouth began to water, and his hips began to move closer to her, just touching her shoulder.
"You have terrific breasts," said Logan huskily. His dick stiffened even more as he let his fingers trace the tops of her lush mounds, where they peeked out over her nightgown.
"I do?" Rogue gasped out.
"Yeah," Logan said, staring at them, wanting to fill his hands with them, but just barely running his fingers over her décolletage. "They're so ripe. They make a man just want to touch `em. Bite `em."
Rogue blushed at his frank language, but Logan didn't see it. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he started to tug down Rogue's nightgown, as if he was ready to demonstrate just how the touching and biting was done. Rogue, not ready for that, brought Logan out of his haze by saying, "What about the rest of me? Anything else about...um...my body?"
Logan laughed just a bit, almost ruefully, mostly to himself. If only Rogue knew all the time he'd spent *not* focusing on her body. He slid his hands down along her side. "You've got the neatest little waist," he said, his palm skating into the dip there. "And then your hips," he said, his hands going lower, "are perfect. They flare out just right." After caressing her there, his hand moved around to her buttocks. He squeezed and gripped her sweet backside, unable to stop once he started. "And you have the most gorgeous ass I've ever seen," Logan ground out. He shut his eyes against the intensity of the want that ravaged his insides. He couldn't believe how rock-solid his cock was. He realized he was in serious danger of coming without even taking his dick out of his pants. He wasn't totally conscious of his actions when he got a secure hold on Rogue's derriere and clutched her to him, so that his erection was pressing hard against her pussy through their nightclothes. He ground into her a few times, helpless to stop his body from seeking relief in hers.
They both moaned heatedly. "Oh...Logan," Rogue said in a voice so drunk with lust that Logan's desire ramped up even more.
His hand moved underneath the hem of her gown, and he reached for the place that her thighs met, stroking her long legs on the way. He ran two fingers into her most womanly place and let her moisture collect on his digits. Then, he withdrew his hand and brought it to his nose. "You smell so fuckin' good. It's makin' me crazy," he said more roughly than he intended.
But Rogue, far from put off by his crudeness, brought his wet fingers to her mouth and proceeded to suck her essence off. "Mmmm," she hummed as she moved her succulent lips up and down his two fingers. Her eyes never broke contact with his. His cock became impossibly harder at the look and feel of Rogue giving his hand a blow job.
"Stop, you gotta...you gotta stop, darlin'," Logan managed after holding his breath for several long seconds. He tried to take his hand back, but Rogue only let him take it out of her mouth, then she just cradled it in her hands.
"Why?" she asked, curious, but teasing, too.
"I'm about five seconds from losing control, Marie," said Logan. He only used her name when he was very serious about something.
Rogue went still. She was wet and aching for him. She knew he wanted her badly – she could feel the huge length of him pressing against her mound, seeking her out. His hands on her felt better than anything she could remember, but then she couldn't remember much besides his name and hers at the moment. Even their desperate situation, their confinement and subjection to the General, the loss of all their friends, the months they'd spent running, seemed small and insignificant compared to what was happening between her body and Logan's.
She would have said words if she could remember any. Instead, she just reached up and stroked his hair, and pulled his mouth closer to hers until they were kissing. The first touch of their mouths made her lightheaded. The instant their tongues intertwined, she let out an intense moan, which his moan drowned out completely. Marie let her hand wander down to his heavily muscled arm, then down his back all the way to his firm ass. She clutched his buttocks and thrust her hips against his in a rhythm that he couldn't mistake.
Logan kissed her endlessly, but he reached for the delicate bodice of her nightgown. He broke away, panting. "Are you ready for me?" he muttered dangerously.
Rogue still wasn't sure they'd met the terms of her promise, but she knew that she was more ready for this then she'd been for anything in her life. She summoned up all the courage she had, and rid herself of every ounce of hesitation, fear, and anxiety.
Her eyes just as wild, her voice just as hungry as his, she barely had time to whisper, "Fuck me, Logan," into his mouth before he tore the nightgown from her body.
Many times that Logan was extremely excited, afraid, or aroused, he hit a flash point where he completely lost all his restraint. He'd hit that point already with Rogue, since he was all three at the same time – excited, afraid, and very, very aroused. He barely registered that he was ripping off her nightdress until she lay nude beneath him. Then, even though his mind told him to slow down, his body was on top of her, shoving his own pants down his hips, just far enough so that his aching dick sprang free, and he was positioning his large erection at her entrance, which was already dripping with want for him.
"Marie," Logan groaned against her mouth. He gripped the front of her thighs, hard, his powerful fingers digging into her flesh, and pried her legs wide apart. He settled even more firmly against her, his cock insistent at the entrance of her soaking pussy. "Can't...can't wait."
He wanted to wait. If he could have savored the pleasure her body was giving him, and reveled in the warmth of his skin sliding against hers, he would have. But it was impossible to hold back, and with Rogue's hands running up and down his sides, clutching him to her, he stopped fighting his inner wolf. He took her mouth in a savage kiss and rammed his dick into her cunt every bit as hard as he wanted to. Marie screamed beneath him; he swallowed the sound whole and continued possessing her mouth as, lower, he was taking possession of her body. Logan pulled out and thrust himself in again, and still she hadn't taken all of him in.
"Come on, baby. Give it up," he said harshly, through gritted teeth. There was no way he was going to settle. He was going to keep pushing until he'd buried himself to the hilt. "Give it up, come on. Give it to me." He urged her on with words as he pumped deeper and deeper.
Rogue felt like she was being ripped in two, and like she was being completed, all at the same time. She'd never felt terrified and joyous all at once. She realized Logan was demanding something of her: that she give up control completely. Rogue had never been able to do that with Remy, control of her body being so precious to her given her mutation, but she trusted Logan almost more than she trusted herself. As Logan pulled out one more time, preparing to thrust once again into her, Rogue closed her eyes and relaxed every muscle in her body. Sensing his need to dominate, she even threw her head back and arched her bare throat upwards, in the ultimate sign of submission to the alpha.
Logan growled and seized the flesh on her throat with his teeth as he forced himself all the way in side her, his dick finally, finally encased fully in her wet heat. He released her throat and concentrated on fucking her with all his might. He drew her arms above her head and pinned her wrists down with one hand, then used the other to roam between her taut, sensitive breasts. As he pawed her luscious tits, he bucked into her again and again, rubbing against her each time at an angle that he knew would grind against her clit. Rogue began to moan loudly, and he could sense she was close. Her soft, sweet cunt was gripping him so tight, so tight and it was the hottest, wettest, best pussy he'd ever had, and to know it was Rogue's hot little cunt, that it was Marie's tits he was pinching and mauling, that it was Marie he was fucking so hard, at last inside her, at long fucking last...
"Fuck!" Logan cried, unable to stop his cum from shooting into her. "Marie!" He pounded her hard as he came, prolonging his climax as long as he could and shuddering with the force of it, and he felt Rogue underneath him explode in a series of shivers as she called out his name.
Afterwards, he pulled out slowly, his body hating to leave hers so soon. Logan was shaken. Shaken to his core. He was overcome; he couldn't begin to process all the emotions and thoughts and sheer sensations swirling inside him. So he just gave in to his instincts and folded his arms around Rogue. She sighed, and yawned, and nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist. It felt just like it always did when he held Rogue: like he was safe, like he was home. But he'd never held her naked body after a coupling that astonished him with its intensity.
Logan, who very rarely wondered about the meaning of things, found himself awake long after Rogue fell asleep. *What the hell was that?* he asked himself silently, in the dark.
They had no idea of knowing for sure how long they'd slept, because their chamber had no windows, but they agreed it was probably a good long while, maybe even seven hours. They awoke wrapped up in each other, but immediately separated in a mutual disengagement, and took turns in the shower. Logan went first; when he came out of the tiny bathroom, he saw that Rogue had made the bed. It looked like no one had touched it. All traces of the night before had been smoothed over.
Rogue emerged after showering with just a towel wrapped around her. There wasn't another nightgown in the small chest, and the one she'd been wearing was...no longer usable. Logan felt himself harden at the sight of her in almost-nothing. He took off his t-shirt and handed it to her, knowing it would be large on her and would cover all the important parts. He thought it would be an improvement over the gaping towel, but then when he caught a whiff of her scent mixed with his, and saw his shirt covering her bare flesh, he realized he was dead wrong. A heady possessiveness mingled with the lust, and he found it hard to look at her.
Rogue sat on the floor against the door. There wasn't any other furniture to sit on besides the bed, and she didn't want to sit there. It was...too much. She didn't know what to think about what they'd done. So she sat on the floor, and Logue sat next to her. She tried not to look at his well-muscled bare chest, or feel his arm when it brushed against hers.
She leaned close to him, and he inclined his head so she could whisper in his ear.
"I'm pregnant," she said.
Logan almost had a seizure. His head whipped around so fast to look her in the eyes that he almost clocked her. But Rogue's quick reflexes helped her avoid an injury. "How do you...?" he whispered, his eyes grown huge.
"I just know," she whispered back. "I can feel it, inside me. And I have a plan to get us out of here." Logan nodded at her to continue. "It's the oldest trick there is – I'll fake like I'm sick. I'll double over with cramps, and then the guards'll come, because they'll be worried I'm pregnant and my body's fighting it or something. Then you can use your claws to slice into the bedframe, and make us some weapons, if you work fast enough."
Logan thought it over. It was a good plan. Now that they'd had sex, the soldiers would think there was a chance Rogue was pregnant, and they'd do what they had to protect the pregnancy. They'd come in at the first sign of her pain, and Rogue could distract them while Logan diced up the metal legs on the bed. If he tried carving the furniture into weapons before the guards came in, they'd know what was being planned. That meant he'd only have a few moments to make his move.
There was a huge possibility of failure. They didn't know how many guards would come in, or how many soldiers there were on the compound, or how big the compound was, or if it would even be possible for them to exit the compound once they get to the perimeter. Everything was an unknown.
Except that Rogue was sure she was carrying Logan's baby. That suddenly tipped all the scales for Logan. He wasn't going to die; he was going to live, to protect his child. He and Rogue and the baby were all going to get out. They would make it.
Boosted by his newfound will to live and be free, Logan agreed to the plan. They bided their time, waiting a few hours and meditating together, and then Rogue doubled over in the middle of the room and screamed, "Oh! I'm...I'm cramping...Oh! Someone, help! Help me!"
Luckily, only four guards burst through the doors of their chamber after Rogue's little ruse. Logan and Rogue didn't need any weapons to take out the four of them. Logan carved up the bed's metal frame anyway, knowing a good length of steel could be helpful if they ran into trouble later. They took the guard's electric batons, and were dismayed to see the soldiers weren't carrying any arms. Harker probably hadn't wanted to take any chances with Rogue's safety while she was carrying their little experiment.
They fled the room, steel and batons in hand, and immediately encountered a group of twenty armed men in the halls of the complex. Logan knew he could take out a good number of them, but eventually someone would get him with the electricity and, although it wouldn't harm him permanently, it would render him unconscious. But the ceilings were just barely high enough that Rogue thought she could make a break for it, so she flew up over the men's heads and landed on the other side of the contingent. That divided up the squad, and also surprised the hell out of them, which gave Logan the couple of seconds he needed to go wild. Rogue and Logan each took out their ten in a few minutes. They got a couple of shocks in the process, but it wasn't bad enough to bring them down. They dropped their batons, took rifles, handguns, and extra clips off of the defeated men and ran. Rogue had longed to strip one of them of shoes and clothes, but knew they didn't have time.
Logan realized they probably wouldn't make it out as they were, though, so they worked fast to make two silent kills – a pair of guards who didn't appear to have any backup, and weren't looking in their direction. They removed the men's clothes quickly, managed to duck into a supply closet and change into the uniforms, then scurried to the compound perimeter and talked their way past plenty of soldiers, complaining about having to check the infrared scanners outside the gates for faulty wiring. It was a miracle they didn't run into more resistance than they did, getting out. Rogue thanked God and Logan thought they got lucky.
The complex they'd been held in was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by land that wasn't even being farmed. They traveled by night and slept outdoors for a week – since it was summer, they didn't freeze to death – and when they finally got to a town, they stole some clothes, food, supplies, and a truck and took off. Rogue felt awful about the theft, but Logan didn't. He was certain by then that he'd do anything to protect Rogue and their baby, and he would have done a lot worse than steal a truck and some stuff.
They realized they were somewhere in western New Jersey, and they talked about where to go from there. They could run for the woods again, but they'd have the same problem as last time: they would be noticed, remembered, and talked about to any government types who happened by the local store. Plus, there was the baby to think of. They needed medical supplies, access to doctors, and all the specialized baby goods that would be hard to find in the mountains. They agreed to try their luck in Manhattan. They would risk being seen by more people, more often, but they also had a better chance of disappearing into crowds. And if they could find some sympathetic people, they'd have a chance to work and get all the products of modern living that the baby would need.
They talked about all this, but they didn't say a word about what they'd done back in captivity, and the baby was discussed as if it had come out of nowhere, one day, without warning or explanation.
When Logan and Rogue got to Hoboken, they slept in the truck at night in a deserted run-down parking lot and commuted to the city by day to look for an apartment. Logan wanted someplace non-descript, definitely not rich but not too shabby, either, that had a lot of couples with had young kids, who worked a lot and would be too busy to ask too many questions. He wanted them to blend in completely to their surroundings. Rogue wondered aloud if she should dye out her streaks. Logan loudly forbade it.
"Might not be good for the kid," he said. He didn't really know if it would be harmful, and suspected that the little amount it would take to cover her streaks wouldn't do any damage. But for some reason, he couldn't bear the thought of Rogue's streaks being gone. "Lotsa people in the city have hair that's two or three colors," Logan added.
"But if they're looking for us, my hair is the easiest way to recognize us..." Rogue protested.
"If it's a problem, we'll reconsider," said Logan with finality. He wanted the streaks there, period. They'd given up enough of their damn lives to this fucking war. He wasn't going to lose this, too. The beautiful light strands at the front of Rogue's dark chestnut hair were a treasure to him. They reminded him of a time that she'd been in the greatest possible danger, and he had brought her back from death. It was one of the most powerful victories he'd ever won. And he was more than a little superstitious about them. "For now, they stay."
Rogue just nodded, and they went about finding their new apartment.
As soon as they found a place that suited them both, they sold the truck for a good sum and used it to pay the deposit and the first month's rent. Before the war, renting an apartment would have taken weeks, if not months, not only because of how tight Manhattan real estate was, but because of the endless credit checks, reference checks, and employment verifications that had to be completed before landlords felt secure enough to draw up a lease. But the war had affected New York just is had every city in the country: mutants and humans had fled, trying to escape the violence, and that drove real estate prices down and vacancies up. Rogue and Logan were able to find a place and sign the rental agreement in a week, without any reference to their financial situation except the $6,000 they handed over.
When they were alone in their new one-bedroom place on 9th Avenue and 18th Street, they sat down in the middle of the hardwood floor in the living room, facing each other. They were cross-legged, and it was just like they'd been when they were on that bed in the breeding center, discussing whether or not to follow Harker's directive.
For more than two weeks, they'd avoided discussing what had happened between them, but there was no more time for either of them to stall. There was one bedroom. There was a baby. There were seven years of friendship behind them, along with one heated night. There were friends and lovers dead, millions of mutants dead, millions more living in fear for their lives, and the government trying to capture them. There was a war that was really more like a planned series of slaughters: the Brotherhood and the X-Men, the two best chances for mutant survival, had both been decimated.
There was Rogue, and there was Logan, and there was what they were to each other.
"How are we gonna be, sugar?" asked Rogue. Logue smiled crookedly, always amazed at how straight Rogue played it. He was a straight-shooter himself, but when it came to hard talks about feelings, Rogue was by far the braver of them, he knew.
"Well," Logan said after taking a deep breath, "We talked about how you felt about, you know, being with someone if it, uh, if it wasn't love," he said, hating how clumsy he was saying it, but not being able to be calm about this topic. He was totally wound up, not having processed or come to a conclusion about anything that had passed between them on that fateful night. "So, I guess I'm, um, kinda concerned about how you feel about...what happened."
Rogue thought seriously about the question. How *did* she feel about it? She'd been a master of not thinking about difficult things since she was a girl. It was how she survived all that time on the road after she ran away from home, when she was seventeen. Her ability to filter her thoughts had improved considerably during the years she worked with the Professor on trying to control her mutation. So she'd scarcely let herself ponder the night she and Logan had spent in that "breeding center."
Finally, Rogue said, "I guess I feel...No, I *know* I feel okay about it. I mean, first of all, I'm determined to love this baby, no matter what. I don't care how it came to be. It's part of me, and part of you, and that means I'm going to love it and be happy about it."
Logan nodded. He'd thought much along the same lines about the baby. "Me too. It's not the kid's fault how it got made. And I'm gonna make damn sure those government fuckers never get their hands on him."
"Or her," Rogue corrected. "So, the baby is something I think I actually am getting pretty excited about. But as for what we did to make it, well, I have to say, I'm okay with that, too. I mean, I wanted it. And you...you wanted it, too."
Logan nearly blushed at that simple reminder of how fiercely he'd taken her that night. To say that he'd wanted her was the biggest fucking understatement he'd ever heard. "I know that we...that we were both willing. It wouldn't have happened if you weren't," he said. "But what I wanna know is, how do you feel about, uh, what you said? You said you didn't ever wanna do that without being in love, and I respect that. I just want to know that you're okay with, um, how it happened. That you feel like you didn't break a promise that meant something to you."
"I'm okay. I am," she said, reassuring him. "I'm alright with how it happened. I mean...." She smiled a little and shrugged. "No one falls in love overnight, right?"
"Right," Logan said. *No one falls in love overnight.* Something about that sentence gave him pause, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
"My question is, what do you wanna do now? We've got a one-bedroom apartment without furniture. Are we buying one bed or two?" Rogue asked.
Logan was amazed at what he saw in Rogue's eyes. It was a look she'd never, ever given him before. In Harker's prison, he'd seen desire on her, but this look was...flirtation. Plain and simple. He was getting invited to share a bed with this beautiful woman, who also happened to be his closest friend. As for whether he was going to accept the offer, well, Logan was not a stupid man.
"I know what I want," Logan said frankly, letting his gaze burn just a little, returning some of the heat she was sending his way. "And I think I know what you want, too."
Rogue's eyes flared up with want momentarily, then her look turned mischievous and teasing. "Yeah, I say, forget it," she said. "I mean, the sex was just so bad..."
Logan rolled his eyes, and Rogue burst into peals of laughter.
They found jobs easily enough. There was a church just around the block from their apartment, and when Rogue went to mass the Sunday after they moved in, she noticed an ad in the bulletin for a fourth grade teacher at the church's school. The pastor, Father Pat O'Malley, and the school's principal, Sister Juanita del Santo, were impressed by Rogue's degree from Sarah Lawrence and the amount of teaching experience she had for someone who'd only acquired her certification two years before. Rogue asked with some trepidation if they'd be willing to hire her without reporting her employment to the Social Security Administration or the IRS. They both gave her kind looks and Father Pat said, "We've counseled many who are...different...in these hard times. We'll be happy to keep your employment, er, unofficial."
Logan secured two jobs that paid pretty well and were strictly under-the-table. During the weekdays, he worked on a construction crew that was run by a guy who seemed decent enough. The men talked a lot as they labored, but it was rarely personal, and the most that Logan told about himself was that he and his "wife" were expecting their first. On the weekends, Logan had the days off but worked as a bouncer on Saturday and Sunday nights at a crowded club about six blocks from their place. Rogue kept saying she wanted to go with him to the club with him, because why should she be all alone on weekend nights, but Logan only said, "There's no way I'm gonna let a bunch of yuppie horn dogs get their sweaty hands on you," and that was that.
Friday night was their favorite time to be together, because Rogue came home at 3:30 in the afternoon and Logan usually arrived no later than 5:30. Neither of them had to get up early the next morning, and Logan didn't have to be at the club till midnight on Saturday, so they could spend all Friday night together, and sleep in till noon.
One Friday, about a month after they moved in, Logan came home to see Rogue standing in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, scrutinizing herself.
"Am I starting to show?" she asked, frowning and standing in profile, patting her still-flat tummy.
Logan came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, his hands covering hers over her stomach. "Darlin', you're only about seven weeks along."
Rogue sighed. "For all the trouble this baby's giving me in the mornings, you'd think I'd at least have a little bulge to show for it." Logan tried to keep himself from grinning, and it didn't work. He felt badly about Rogue having to suffer morning sickness, but something primal inside him puffed up with pride at the unmistakable evidence that she was carrying his child.
"So what do you wanna do tonight?" Rogue asked, turning suddenly in Logan's arms and clasping her hands around his neck. "We could go to the movies. Or we could catch something on TV. There might be a game on tonight."
Logan brought his hand up to her face and rubbed his thumb along the sweep of her cheekbone. "Let's go to bed instead," he said seriously, although it was just a quarter till six.
Rogue laughed, but said, "Alright," much to Logan's amazement. He'd never been so forthright about how much he wanted her – he usually (though not always) waited for her to make the first gesture of interest in sex. But since they'd started sleeping together, his hunger for her body was a constant, and feeding that hunger only seemed to increase his appetite. He couldn't get enough of her.
To his deep satisfaction, it seemed that Rogue was the same way. She kissed him till he was hard and yearning to touch her naked skin, then she said, "You go shower, and I'll wait for you in bed."
Logan had never showered so quickly in his life. When he finished, he crawled into their queen-sized bed where Rogue was already under the covers, and he growled when he saw she was as naked as he. Rogue loved the way he just attacked her, every time. No working up to it, nothing tentative at all. She only had to show the very slightest desire to be intimate with him, and he was all over her. She loved how their lovemaking was so explosive, so intense and so joyous at the same time. She responded fervently to all his searing kisses and ran her hands all over his glorious firm body.
Logan hummed into Rogue's mouth as she caressed all of his skin that she could reach. He lifted himself off of her for a moment and threw back the covers, letting the golden afternoon sun play across all the planes and swells of Rogue's body.
As his eyes feasted on her and his breath grew shallow and rapid, Rogue blushed. "What is it?" she asked.
"Fuckin' beautiful," he said in a harsh whisper. The sight of her, all of her, spread out before him, welcoming his touch, drove him nuts. "Goddamn fuckin' beautiful woman." His eyes darkened as Rogue looked away, nervous or shy or something. "Don't believe me?" he asked. Then he crawled over her and got out of the bed.
"Logan!" Rogue cried as he lifted her into his arms. "Where are you taking me?" She kicked a little, but it was just for show. She was giggling, and Logan knew that if she really wanted to get away from him, she'd just punch him unconscious or fly into the living room.
Logan set her on her feet again in front of the mirror where he'd found her earlier. This time, they were both naked, and Rogue watched in wonder as Logan's hands roamed over her body appreciatively. First, his hands moved from her waist up to her breasts. He flicked her already-swollen nipples and fondled the rich fullness of her. She saw his eyes, his whole face, reflect how much he desired her. And her face mirrored back the want. Her mouth had widened into an "o" and she breathed in little sips of air, gasping every time Logan made her shiver with his touch, which was often. Logan pressed his enormous cock up against her backside and she became even more drenched than before. He nuzzled his face into her dark hair, keeping his eyes forward so she could see his _expression in the mirror. Then he moved his right hand down, away from her breast, down all the way to the dripping-wet curls between her thighs. His fingers sought out and found her hard little bud, and he diddled her clit as he pressed his dick against her ass cheeks rhythmically. His left hand kept working her tits as his right stroked her clit firmly.
"See what you do to me?" he said, his hands increasing their tempo. "See what I do to you?"
Rogue stared at herself as Logan played with her body. She looked...wanton. And, she had to admit, beautiful. She smiled. She'd never seen herself look more alive. *And why shouldn't I feel alive?* she asked herself. *I've got a gorgeous man making love to me and his baby inside me.*
Logan didn't know what she was thinking, but the smile she gave herself in the mirror touched his heart then shot straight down to his dick. He had to have her. "Spread your legs, Marie," he said. She did as he asked. "Wider." He reached down and clutched her thighs from behind, showing her just how he wanted her. "Good girl. Lean forward." Rogue put her arms on the mirror in front of her and braced herself against it as she leaned forward, arching her back and tilting her ass up in the process.
"That's it," Logan said, starting to sweat with need. "Just like that, baby." He stroked one of his palms down her bare back in a move that reminded Rogue of how a rider stroked his mare before mounting her. "I'm gonna ride you hard, baby."
"Mmmm," Rogue answered, arching her back even more and shaking her long hair, letting it glide against the sweep of her back like a mane.
"You like that, huh? Well, you better, `cause here I come." Logan thrust into her in one powerful move, making them both catch their breath. He gripped her tiny waist firmly and began fucking her like an animal. Rogue could barely remain standing. He was penetrating her so deeply, so forcefully, that she thought her knees would buckle at any moment or she'd pass out.
"Look at us," Logan commanded. Rogue willed her eyes to open and watched their lovemaking. Logan looked so very male; he looked like a man who was thoroughly enjoying a great fuck. His impressive biceps bulged as his arms worked to hold her in place, hold her body steady as he took her. Logan obviously loved to dominate during sex, and Rogue loved letting him; every time he rammed his cock into her cunt she pushed back against him and vocalized how much pleasure she took from his possession of her. In the mirror, she could see his thickness push into her over and over, and she saw his face and body, straining and relaxed all at once: he knew exactly what he wanted and he was getting it. Rogue suddenly felt the need to make him completely lose control, and she knew just how to do it. She locked her gaze with his and gave him a sensual smile. As Logan stared, she kept one hand braced against the mirror, and drew her other hand to her mouth. She licked four of her fingers slowly, looking into Logan's eyes via the mirror, and saw and felt him begin to thrust faster. Then she lowered her moistened fingers right to her clit, and kept staring at Logan as she began to get herself off. Logan started pounding her sloppily, then, clearly beyond any capacity to draw out their coupling, to hold off his orgasm. He lost his timing; he fucked her without any rhythm; he watched her touch herself and felt his huge cock actually lengthen at the incredible sight. Five seconds later he shouted and spewed his hot cum inside her, and Rogue shattered under her self-ministrations.
Rogue almost collapsed when Logan withdrew, almost as though she needed him to be inside her in order to stand. Logan caught her before she crumbled to the ground, and carried her to their bed. They lay embracing each other for a long time in silence. That happened almost every time they had sex: they seemed to lose the ability to speak for quite a while.
Logan thought Rogue might sleep, as she sometimes did after they were together, and he stroked her hair lazily, trailing his fingers through the long wavy strands. But Rogue wasn't tired. There was something she wanted to ask him.
"When did you first want me like this?" she asked.
Logan's hand froze. His brain froze, too. He knew this was important to her; it was a continuation of the conversation they'd had when they first made love, in Harker's prison. Rogue had believed until then that he'd never desired her, and he knew a part of her was still very surprised to know that he'd wanted her well before that night. But this was difficult to discuss. It was hard to think about; even harder to explain.
Rogue drew back, moving out of his embrace a little, so she could see his face. He looked pained. "I know you thought I didn't think of you...this way," he said. Rogue nodded. "That's because I didn't want you to know. *I* didn't want to know I had...these kinds of thoughts about you."
Rogue frowned. "Why?"
Logan sighed. "A lot of reasons. I...I can't say exactly...It was just really important to me that I didn't."
Rogue said in a patient tone, "Can you please try to think why? I'd really like to understand."
After a pause, Logan said, "Do you really want to know when I first wanted you?"
"Yes."
He touched her face gently. "Darlin', it was when we first met." Rogue gasped. Logan closed his eyes at the wave of horrible emotions overcoming him. "God, I hate that that's true."
Rogue shook her head. "But why? Why do you hate that?"
Logan thought about that, really thought about it. He'd never bothered to question why he'd been so insistent for so many years that Rogue was off-limits to him, sexually. He thought back to that amazing and terrifying time, when they'd first met, and replayed the sorts of thoughts he'd had then, as if at half-speed. It helped him to find the words that she needed. "It was such a shameful thing. I was so fuckin' ashamed," he said. He remembered exactly what she looked like when she was seventeen, when she gazed at him with big brown eyes and told him she didn't want him to leave the mansion. "You were so young. What would I have been, having those thoughts about someone so young and innocent? I would have been a fuckin' animal, and I wanted to be better than that. Meeting *you*, and everything that happened after, meeting Chuck and Jeannie and the rest, that made me wanna be better than that. I felt, in my gut, that there could be something between us. I wanted it, but I didn't *want* to want it."
Rogue began to understand. "So you just made yourself forget about it?" she asked.
"Sort of. I just kind of...put those thoughts away, I guess. Every time I thought something like that about you, I just shoved it deep down, like putting things in a box and putting the box on a shelf."
"But you couldn't have always been ashamed, right? I mean, I didn't stay seventeen forever," said Rogue. "Why was it so important to put those thoughts away even after I grew up?"
Logan let his mind drift back to when Rogue turned twenty-one, when her girlish beauty became dangerously appealing, when she started to walk like a woman, when she started to say "sugar" in a way that could make grown men faint. "Well, for one thing, I'd been like family to you," Logan said. "I was always looking out for you, teaching you stuff. It would have been hard, dontcha think, to switch out from being like my kid sister to being something else?"
"But we *did* switch out," Rogue protested. "We changed. When I grew up, you stopped trying to be my big brother and started to be my friend. We became friends."
That was true. When it was clear Rogue wasn't a little girl anymore, there *had* been a shift. It occurred to Logan that he'd had a choice. He'd been at a crossroads. He remembered that the months immediately before and after Rogue's twenty-first birthday had been some of his most troubled times. None of the X-Men knew it, but Logan suffered from a major bout of anxiety around then. He had confused, swirling dreams he couldn't recall when he woke up. He was jumpy, nervous. He even avoided Rogue a little, because he realized he got more anxious around her than around other people. He was glad she didn't seem to notice too much, being busy with college and caught between Bobby and Remy and spending time with all her girlfriends, and still having to be an X-Man besides all that. Then, a few months after she turned twenty-one, the bad spell seemed to pass and he and Rogue became closer than ever. They trained and drank and talked together, way more than they had before. He stopped being her mentor – anyway, she'd absorbed Marvel the year before and was his equal or better in speed and strength. He stopped trying to protect her and started just liking to spend time with her, just because she was Rogue, and not because she was his responsibility.
He remembered that was also the time that he started pursuing Jean in earnest, and Rogue began to give Remy serious consideration.
Yes, Logan could see it clearly now. He spoke his thoughts aloud to Rogue as they occurred to him. "When I look back at that time, right around when you turned twenty-one, I think that we had a choice. I think a part of me knew that I'd have to decide how it was gonna be with me and you, because I couldn't treat you like a kid forever. And eventually, I decided we were gonna be good friends. Great friends. And not...the other thing."
"Why not the other thing?" Rogue asked calmly. She didn't blame him in any way, she'd always been happy with her relationship with Logan. She just wanted to know, if he'd thought there'd been a decision to make, why he'd made the one he did.
Logan frowned. It was only now he was allowing himself to admit to his reason, to realize it fully. "I think...it was...because," he said slowly, letting the thought creep to the surface of his consciousness, "I didn't want to lose you." He looked at her, and it was clear to Rogue how surprised he was to gain this new understanding of their situation. "I was damn scared of your growing up. I knew it would mean a big change in how we were together, and a part of me didn't want it to change. It was so good, when you were young and I was just lookin' out for you. A part of me wanted you to stay a little girl. Because I thought...if you grew up, what if I tried to have you, as a woman, as *my* woman? What would happen then?"
Rogue blinked, amazed he'd even considered something like that back then. "So what did you think would happen?" she asked.
"Well, I knew if you became mine, then I'd just fuck it up with you. That's what I was afraid of. See, the thing that maybe you don't get, darlin', is that I couldn't lose you. I knew that if I lost you, I'd be nothin'. And if we got together, and I fucked it up, and made you walk away from me, then that would be the worst. That would be...the absolute worst fuckin' thing that could happen. So, I wanted to treat you like a grown-up but also to make sure you didn't walk away from me. I wanted you, darlin', a part of me, deep down, really did. But what I wanted more was to make sure I'd never fuck up bad enough with you to make you go away."
"I see," Rogue said, starting to put it all together. "You thought, if we ever got together, you might mess up and we'd lose each other permanently. But if we didn't get together – if you didn't even want me that way – than we could be real friends, grown-up friends, and you probably wouldn't mess *that* up."
"Yeah, somethin' like that," Logan said, giving her a lopsided grin. "Sounds pretty complicated when you say it. And it *was,*" he added. "It was pretty fuckin' complicated. My nerves felt like they were shot for about six months. I guess I wanted you pretty bad, and it took me a lot of time to put that away, and change it into somethin' I could manage."
Logan wondered, for a moment, if it meant something that right after he'd suppressed all his desire for Rogue, his desire for Jean flared up higher than it had ever been before. He didn't mention that thought to Rogue.
"Wow," was all Rogue could say. "I never knew." All of a sudden, she grinned up at him. "I had a *huge* crush on you, you know. When we first met."
He'd known. Of course he'd known. That was something else he'd tried to never think about. "Why didn't *you* do anything about it?" he taunted.
"When I was seventeen? Please," Rogue scoffed. "I was so out of your league it wasn't even funny. I got over it eventually."
"And you never thought about it again?" asked Logan.
Rogue reflected back. "You know, I sorta think I did wonder about it, maybe about that same time you were talking about, right around my twenty-first birthday. I already knew by then that I'd break up with Bobby eventually. I guess I did have some thoughts about you, you know, in that way. But I never did anything about it, and then we became such good friends and I was really happy about that, and then you and Jean, and me and Remy..." Rogue trailed off, lost in her own thoughts.
"Maybe you were afraid of the same kindsa things that I was," said Logan softly.
"Maybe," said Rogue.
"What about now? How do you feel about us now?" Logan asked.
"Well, I'll tell you, I never expected things would turn out like this!" Rogue laughed, rubbing her naked body up against Logan's. She'd meant it jokingly, but Logan growled a little and she could feel him getting excited. "I'm glad, though. I'm glad we're together now, this way, after everything that's happened," she said more seriously. She ran her hand along Logan's strong chest and down his abs. "And you know I love you, Logan. Always have, always will."
Her hand reached his hardening cock. He stiffened completely at her first touch. Even as he guided her hand up and down his shaft, he pondered her words. He knew she was saying she loved him in the same way they'd said they'd loved each other over the years: as friends, great friends. He felt the same way. He loved her, as he'd always loved her, and he was glad they were together.
And he was even more glad he could wrap his hand in Rogue's curls and guide her head down to his burgeoning dick and feel her deep-throat him better than any woman ever had. When he thrust his cock up between her lips and felt her take him all the way in, he moaned and then whispered, "I love you too, Marie."
The day came when Rogue reached the end of the first trimester of the pregnancy. Logan asked his crew boss for the afternoon off so he could plan a surprise for her.
He called their favorite pizza joint and asked them to deliver an extra large pizza that was half-Meat-Lover's-Special and half-Vegetarian's-Delight. He lit candles all over their apartment. He opened a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling cider and put it in an ice bucket. Then he sat down and waited for Rogue to come home, a tiny box sitting on the table in front of him.
When Rogue walked in the door, Logan knew right away she wasn't all right. Her face looked ashen, and her eyes were red – evidence of a bout of hard crying. She was so distraught it even took her a moment to notice the candles flickering around their living room.
"Oh, Logan!" she said when she saw how the apartment was done up. "What...?"
He went immediately to her and took her hands in his. "You've been crying. What's wrong? It's the baby, isn't it?"
He looked as scared and sad as Rogue had ever seen him. Seeing him so terrified threw her off balance, and it took her a moment to remember how to speak.
It was the longest moment of Logan's life. He was dreading what she'd say.
"No, no," she reassured him. "The baby's fine. It...you're right, I was crying, but nothing's wrong with the baby. Physically, I feel...I mean, *we* feel great." Rogue hadn't seen a doctor once since getting pregnant, because she and Logan agreed it would be dangerous to let any institution have evidence of the baby. But she thought the baby would probably be pretty healthy, since they were both healthy and the baby might even inherit Logan's mutation, and she was so aware of the life inside her that she was sure she'd be able to tell if even the slightest thing went wrong.
Logan visibly relaxed, but then realized she'd still been crying, even if it wasn't about the kid. "Then what is it?" he asked. "What's got you so upset?"
Rogue sniffed, the tears threatening to fall again. "God, it's just that...Logan, did you know that today would have been the Professor's birthday?" Logan shook his head. "Well, he didn't like to make a big deal out of it. In fact, I'm not even sure he ever told me what his birthday was; I might have learned it from Magneto, when I got some of him in my head. But you know, I always got him something, every year, because...I don't know, partly because I owed him so much and the least I could do was get him a birthday present, and partly because I admired him so much, how he gave everything he had to us, and he never asked for a thing in return, not even a party on his birthday, I..." Rogue began weeping as her thoughts returned to what had been haunting her all day. "I just miss him," she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. "As long as he was around, I knew everything would be okay. And I wish he were still here, so he could tell me it would be okay, and I'd believe him."
Logan took Rogue in his arms. He didn't know what to say, so he just held her close while she cried.
"And...and it's not just the Professor, either. I miss them all. Remy. Jean. Ororo. Kurt. Scott. Jubilee. Kitty. Bobby," Rogue said the names like a litany in a low, anguished voice. "All our friends. And all our students. God, Logan, they were just children! I can't...I can't help but wonder how they died, what happened....Maybe the Professor was lucky to go so quickly..." Rogue couldn't speak anymore. Her words trailed off as her sobs grew louder.
Rogue hadn't really let herself feel the full extent of her grief before. And she knew, as the Professor would have said, it was her repressed emotions surfacing. The force of her sorrow was proportionate to the amount of time she'd denied it. She knew intellectually that's what it was, and it was natural, and it was all right to miss them, and it would be better after she'd expressed her grief. But as she wept and wept in Logan's embrace, she just hated it. She hated feeling so bereft. She hated feeling guilty for being alive when they were dead. Most of all, she hated feeling pain when she thought of her friends. She just wanted them back. She just wanted them all back, safe and sound.
Finally, she quieted, and Logan walked with her to the bathroom where she blew her nose and washed her face. When he thought she'd be okay without him, he went into their bedroom and changed his t-shirt – the one he'd been wearing was soaked through with Rogue's tears. When he went back into the living room, Rogue was sitting at the table, her eyes huge and filling up with tears once again, although this time they were a different kind of tears.
She'd opened the tiny box. She was staring at the gleaming ring inside.
"Logan...?" she asked in a whisper.
Logan got to one knee in front of her. "Marie, this isn't how I meant it to be when I asked you, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. Will you marry me?"
Marie's mouth fell open.
Logan said, "I know that we didn't...get together under the most romantic circumstances. I know that what we have together is...a lot of friendship, and comfort, and companionship, and it's not the kind of love that most people want to have when they get married. But it's still somethin', dontcha think? Even if it's not *that* kind of love, we've still got a lot to build on. We're gonna have a baby, and we know each other better than anyone else has ever known either one of us. I wanna make my life, what's left of it, a good one, and that involves having you and my kid around for it. I promise I'll be a good husband. I promise I'll give you all of me, all I've got to give. And I can say for sure, keeping you safe and keeping you with me are my number-one and number-two priorities."
Rogue smiled, touched to her core. She sniffed and wiped away her tears. "Oh, Logan, thank you for asking me." She cupped his cheek with her hand. Logan nuzzled his face into her palm. "I appreciate it, I really do. But you don't have to do the noble thing, you know. I'm alright with how things are. I know you won't leave me in the lurch, and you know I'll always be here for you, no matter what. No one's gonna judge us harshly for having a baby under these circumstances. Even Father Joe and Sister Juanita understand; I didn't tell them the whole story, but I did tell them that the baby was the result of...certain conditions that were beyond our control. They don't look down on me for being pregnant out of wedlock. So why bother with getting married?" she asked with a mild shrug.
"It's just that..." Logan huffed in frustration. He didn't know why he thought it would be a good idea to get married, he just did. He couldn't find a way to explain it. "Why shouldn't we?" he finally countered. He dimly remembered the Professor saying that the most important question was often not `Why?', but `Why Not?'.
"Well, for one thing," Rogue said, "what if one of us meets someone else someday, and really falls in love?"
Logan clenched his teeth and growled at the idea of Rogue ever meeting some strange guy and wanting to go off with him. The mere thought made him feel as if he'd taken a serious blow to his midsection, delivered by an adamantium pipe.
Rogue caught his reaction and said, "It's not such an impossible thing, you know. When this war's over, we won't have to keep to ourselves so much and hide away from the world." Afraid of being detected by the government or the military, Rogue and Logan had taken to going outside only when it was absolutely necessary. They got to work and back without making any stops and without looking anyone in the eye. Whenever there were men in uniforms around, they ducked into a building to hide. Even when he was working as a bouncer, Logan avoided contact with other people as much as he could, preferring to hang out in a dark corner of the bar unless he was needed.
However, Logan had gotten used to his whole world consisting of him, Rogue, and the baby. It occurred to him that he didn't even mind it so much. It didn't even feel like hiding. It felt...natural. Safe. And good.
"Look," Logan said, "maybe you're thinking that we're not committed to each other, as a man and a woman, because of how...because we were forced to...get together like this. But I *am* committed. I'm in this all the way. Even if it's not the perfect romance, or anything close to it."
"Even if I'm not Jean?" Rogue asked very seriously.
Logan nodded. "I'm committed to *you*, Marie," he said without hesitating. "I've laid my ghosts to rest, and if you can do the same, then marry me."
Rogue closed her eyes, and in her heart she said a loving goodbye to Remy. She'd been gradually letting go of him, but now she knew it was time to really close that door. *A part of me will always cherish you, but now I have to live the rest of my life,* she told Remy's spirit. When she opened her eyes again, they were clear and confident.
"Okay," she said. "Okay, I'll marry you."
They were married by Father Joe, with Sister Juanita and Logan's crew boss, Vic, as witnesses. It wasn't a legal marriage, since they couldn't report it to the county clerk's office, but Father Joe said it was sacred and binding in the eyes of the Lord, and that was more important than any law.
After the brief ceremony, for which Logan put on an actual suit and Rogue wore a sleeveless long white dress and white flowers in her hair, Father Joe said in his Irish lilt, "I think you will make lovely parents for the little one, and now it seems you have decided you will be good companions for each other as well."
Rogue smiled brightly, clutching Logan's hand. "I guess that's why there's that line about `mysterious ways,' Father," she said, not taking her eyes off her new husband.
Rogue was six weeks away from delivery when trouble showed up.
The first sign of it was something that Logan's boss mentioned to him during the lunch break one Wednesday. "I don't know how what to make of this," Vic said, "but I heard some Army types have been looking around for a woman in her mid-twenties with white streaks in the front of her hair."
Logan's face went grey.
Vic added in a grave voice, "I heard the soldiers were saying the woman they were looking for might be pregnant."
Logan ran out of Vic's office and down into the first subway station. He got to Rogue's school and pulled her out of her classroom to tell her they had to go. Rogue panicked at first, but then told Logan they should talk to Father Joe before doing anything.
Rogue finished out her day of teaching while Logan waited nervously, pacing the school grounds. After the three o'clock bell rang, the two of them sat down in Father Joe's office and explained the situation. Logan made it very, very clear that he felt it was urgent they get Rogue out of the city right away. Rogue made it clear she wasn't going anywhere without Logan.
Father Joe calmed them down by saying he thought they could both escape danger without having to separate. "It may be a hard life for you, especially with the child coming soon, but it may be the best choice," he said.
He explained that there was something of a mutant underground being run by people who opposed the MRA. There were four safehouses in New York, where mutants in desperate situations were in hiding. Mutants who looked too different to blend in with the rest of the population and mutants who were in imminent danger of being arrested were the majority of the residents. Father Joe said he knew some of the people in charge of the safehouses and that he was helping them as much as he could; he was sure at least one of the houses would take in Logan and Rogue.
"Why the hell didn't you tell us about these places before?" Logan demanded.
"Logan!" Rogue blushed, embarrassed that he would curse in front of a priest.
"It's a good question, my child," Father Joe said kindly. "The reason I never told you was that I have sworn to keep my knowledge secret. But given your situation, I feel it is necessary for me to offer you this option."
Rogue and Logan agreed it was their best option for now. They returned to the apartment and packed up some clothes, as much food as they could carry, all their cash, and everything they'd bought for the baby that could fit into their bags, which wasn't much. They didn't have any time to dispose of the rest of their things, so they decided they'd give the key to Sister Juanita, and she and the other sisters could take anything they wanted for the school, and give the rest to the many families who depended on the church for charity.
Before they left their tiny apartment for the last time, Rogue looked longingly at the wooden crib Logan had built with his own hands for their baby. It stood, empty and waiting for their child, in the corner of the living room. She walked over to it and ran her hands over the unfinished wood. Logan had been planning to apply the finish that weekend.
"It's so wonderful," said Rogue. Logan had carved the panels himself, with outlines of animals and trees and mountains and clouds. She frowned. "I hate that our baby won't have the chance to sleep in it. It's so fucking unfair," she said, her heart tightening with bitterness.
Logan embraced her from behind. His hand automatically went to her swollen belly, as it often had since she started to show. "It's not as wonderful as our kid is gonna be," he said. He kissed her cheek and smiled against her temple as he felt his son kick hard, right underneath his hand. Logan didn't tell Rogue, but he was completely sure the child was a boy. He didn't know how he knew, it was just instinct.
"You see?" Rogue said. "The baby doesn't want to leave its crib behind, either."
"Why don't we ask the sisters if they'll hold onto it for us? Maybe we'll be able to come back for it someday," Logan suggested.
Rogue laid her hands over Logan's where it rested against her stomach. "The baby might be too big for it by the time we can come back. If we ever come back." Rogue hated how her voice sounded so desolate.
"Don't say that. Don't even think that," Logan chided. "We'll come back. I promise." He turned Rogue around in his arms so she could see the certainty on his face. "If the crib's too big for this kid by then, it'll still be the right size for our next kid."
Rogue reached up and planted a warm kiss on Logan's mouth. He always gave her hope. Physically, she was super-strong, but when it came to this, to fighting off despair and finding the will to survive, she depended totally on his strength. "Thank you. I couldn't do this without you," she said.
"Yes, you could," Logan countered. "But you don't have to. Come on, let's go."
They met with one of Father Joe's contacts at the church that night and made it to a safehouse without incident. It was in an old abandoned warehouse close to the river on the Lower East Side. About a hundred mutants lived there, barracks-style, and a network of non-mutants supplied them with food, fresh water, and other supplies they needed from the outside world. Logan and Rogue were uncertain about whether it was a good idea to try to deliver the baby there; the conditions were less-than-ideal and there weren't any mutants with medical training among the residents. Not seeing any other way, though, they settled in and began to help out with the community chores.
One of the most common topics of discussion among the mutants was how long they'd have to stay in hiding. Would the war really last for years? Could they depend on the non-mutants for help for that long? Surely the government would discover them eventually, wouldn't they? The prospect of living in secret for years terrified Rogue. In the back of her head, Erik Lensherr's voice whispered a dire warning. *We hid, but they found us,* he reminded her. If the war didn't end quickly, one way or another, Rogue was certain the warehouse would be attacked.
And it was. Rogue and Logan had been there only there for a week when the head of the community announced that they'd gotten word soldiers were on their way. They'd have to evacuate to another safehouse, north of the city, near Westchester. As the residents panicked, Rogue immediately turned to Logan and said, "I'll stay and fight. You go with the others. I can hold them off."
Logan looked at her like she had three heads. "Are you out of your fuckin' mind?" he yelled. He couldn't help but be angry with her for even suggesting such a thing. Did she really think he would leave her and his son to die in combat? "I'm not lettin' you fight the fuckin' Army. Jesus Christ!! No fuckin' way!!"
"I can still fly," Rogue protested, thinking only of Logan's life being spared. "And I have my strength. I can stall them for at least...."
"NO FUCKIN' WAY!!" Logan repeated. "Fuck, if I lose you and our kid, Marie, if I lose you...." Logan thought he'd lose his mind, he was so terrified. If she really intended to go out and fight those bastards, he couldn't physically stop her. "You might as well pull my fuckin' heart out of my chest," he said, desperate and crazy scared, tears filling up his eyes. If Marie and the baby died, he would pull his own heart of his chest, and he was deeply afraid that that might not do the trick. If he still had to live, having lost them...that would be the very definition of hell.
Something in Logan's tone shook Rogue out of her blind frantic thoughts of making sure that Logan got away. "Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry," she said, finally registering the utter panic on his face.
"You damn well better be. Come on. We've got work to do if we're gonna evacuate in the next coupla hours."
Logan and Rogue helped the leaders of the safehouse organize the group for the move. As they guided the other mutants to pack up as quickly as possible, Logan silently mulled over what Rogue had tried to do, and couldn't believe it. Of course he was furious with her for even suggesting she put herself – and the baby – in the line of fire just so he could get away unharmed. Didn't she know he would never accept such an offer? But his anger died down some when he realized she just had the same protective instincts about him as he had about her. Logan shook his head. They had always been that way, right from the start. He remembered the first time he'd woken up in the medlab at Xavier's and wondering, Where's the girl? Where's the girl? He'd only just met her and his first thought had been to find her, quickly, and get away. He also remembered that the next day, when Magneto had him in an iron cross on that train, Rogue screamed and wept for him, horrified he was being hurt.
Yup, that half-crazed need to defend each other had been there always. It looked like they were only getting more fierce about it, as time passed and fate brought them closer together.
The leaders decided it would be best if the community could break up into groups of no more than six people each. There were three other safehouses in Manhattan, and the leaders knew of others in the boroughs and upstate. Logan and Rogue decided to go to the safehouse that was farthest north. They were given a rough map and they both studied it a good long while, and then Rogue burned it. They got together with a family of four who seemed like they could use some help, and they were one of the last groups out of the makeshift compound, since they were so busy helping others get going. They'd just made it to Grand Central Station when they heard sounds like thunder – sounds like artillery exploding on brick – coming from the general direction of the place they'd just left. Rogue prayed that every last one of the mutants they'd known from the safehouse had made it out alive.
What next? Logan wondered. He hated the fact that all of his power and all of Rogue's combined couldn't get them to safety. Magneto had been right; when the government persecuted the different, and you were different, it didn't matter how many gifts you had. You were still the bug they were trying to squash.
Logan held Rogue close against his side on the train. She was wearing a hooded cloak that hid her streaks. Neither they nor the family they were traveling with stood out particularly in a crowd, so as long as soldiers didn't came scrutinizing everyone in their car, Logan thought they'd be alright.
What next? he asked himself. But he could never have guessed what was coming.
"Oh my God," Rogue said five minutes after they entered the new safehouse, which was a subterranean complex just twenty miles from where Xavier's School for the Gifted had once stood. The first room they were shown was an infirmary of some kind, and there, treating the sick, was... "Oh my God, Jean!"
Logan thought he hadn't heard her right. Rogue dropped his hand in a hurry and ran to the other woman, her rounded belly not slowing her down one bit. Jean's eyes went huge when she turned and saw Rogue coming, then she held out her arms and the two old friends embraced as tight as they could, given Rogue's stomach. The women held on to each other as if it would save their lives.
Jean's eyes automatically went to Logan. Logan stood stunned. He couldn't move. Jean squeezed Rogue one more time and then made her way to her lover. Rogue tamped down everything in her – all her thoughts and feelings – so that she could watch Jean and Logan reunite without begrudging them their happiness. Jean embraced Logan tenderly, tears in her eyes. Logan hugged her back, then pulled away slightly to look at her beautiful face. "Jeannie? It's really you?" he asked in a whisper.
She nodded, and laughed a little, the emotion coming off of her in palpable waves. Rogue could feel her joy from across the room. "It's really me," Jean said smiling. She caressed Logan's handsome face. "I thought I'd never see you again," she said hoarsely, and kissed him.
Logan grew tense and nervous as Jean's lips plied his. He didn't kiss her back and he didn't stop her. When Jean ended the kiss, Logan's eyes flew to Rogue. Rogue was looking away. Jean followed Logan's gaze and her expression changed.
"Oh, God, how could I have forgotten..." she turned back to Logan and said, "I'm so stupid. I have the best present for Rogue, and I almost forgot to give it to her." Jean hurried out of the room.
Logan looked at Rogue, who looked as lovely as she ever had, one arm protectively over the place where his baby rested. No matter how hard he stared at her, he couldn't make her meet his eyes.
A moment later, Jean returned with someone else. Rogue thought she might die of all the surprises she was getting in one day.
"Chere," a well-remembered voice said.
"Remy!" Rogue yelled, and whooped when he took her in his arms, as if she were still light as a feather, and weren't carrying anyone's baby at all.
The four X-Men sat around a table in the large hall that served for mealtimes and meetings. It was mostly empty, except for them.
Remy sat next to Rogue, and Jean sat next to Logan.
"We were afraid of that," Jean said, once Rogue had finished telling their story. Rogue had left out the part about her and Logan sharing a bed, and having a wedding in an old stone church. "We'd heard rumors of the government ramping up their experimentation efforts. When we didn't find your bodies anywhere on the mansion grounds, we thought maybe they'd captured you for something like that."
"That's what we feared, but that's what we hoped, too," said Gambit. "We knew if anyone would make it out of those labs alive, it would be you two."
Jean and Remy, it turned out, had only barely survived the surprise attack by the military. As soon as they'd heard the soldiers coming, Scott told them to split up into their pre-arranged groups, thinking they'd stand a better chance of survival that way. Jean and Remy had been the adults in charge of their group of twenty-five students, and they'd somehow managed, with Jean's telekinetic powers and her mind-reading abilities, to evade the soldiers totally. When they thought it was safe, they came out of their hiding place in the woods and looked for signs of any of their former friends. But there were none. They'd stumbled upon the underground safehouse almost by accident. Jean had lowered her mental shields, trying to pick up on any mutant brainwaves, and had led the group to the area where mutant activity felt the strongest.
Neither Remy nor Jean seemed concerned or even surprised that Rogue was carrying Logan's child. "No one can blame you for doing what you had to do," said Remy in a voice filled with understanding.
"And no one's going to hold it against the baby, either," said Jean gently. "It's not to blame for how it came into existence."
Logan and Rogue both felt as if they were in a state of complete shock. Rogue had expended a lot of energy going through their story, and Logan could see she was tired. Numbly, he mumbled, "Maybe...we should call it a night. Where's our room?"
"We're the fourth door on the left, down that hall, and Rogue and Remy will be just a few doors down from us," Jean told him brightly.
It took Logan a couple of seconds to realize what she was saying. He couldn't bring himself to tell Jean she'd misunderstood him. When he'd asked, `Where's our room?', he'd been asking where he and Rogue were supposed to sleep.
"You're exhausted, chere," Remy said, laying his arm around Rogue's shoulder. "Let's get you to bed."
Rogue saw Jean clasp Logan's hand, and she didn't fight Remy when he led her away.
That night, Logan asked Jean if she wouldn't ask him to make love to her. He said he'd been through too much. He said he wasn't ready for that yet. Jean was surprised and disappointed, but she told him she'd give him all the time he needed. Logan was relieved. He needed time to sort everything out.
He didn't sleep, but he held Jean as she slept and thought about her. What did he feel about her? Over the long hours of the night, he remembered all the good things about her and him. How he'd lusted after her for years, how she'd turned her whole life upside down to be with him. He remembered laughing with her and playing with her and making love in the woods outside the school on a picnic blanket, a full moon overhead. He remembered telling her he loved her, and that he'd never been in love before.
He'd grieved deeply when he thought she was dead, and now she was alive again. It should be simple, shouldn't it? Lost love, found. But it was anything but simple.
He'd promised himself to Rogue. He didn't believe in God or church or anything like that, but he'd stood up before an altar and sworn before witnesses he would be Rogue's for the rest of his life. Giving his word meant something to him. To walk away from that would be like walking away from his honor. It felt impossible to do.
And was that it? Were his marriage vows the only reason he felt that being with Jean was somehow...wrong, now? Logan got a tight, nervous feeling in his chest when he thought on it. Yes, yes, that had to be the reason. He and Rogue weren't in love...right? When they'd had sex, it was comfort. Companionship. The sex was good, yes – okay, it was incredibly, unbelievably, gut-wrenchingly good – but they both understood what it was. Didn't they?
They'd never said they were in love. They'd stayed together, done what they'd done, because they needed each other to keep going, stay sane, and make it. Now...maybe they didn't need each other that way. They both had the loves of their lives back. Maybe they could go back to being the great friends they'd always been. Remy and Jean would welcome the baby, and it would be the five of them. Remy and Rogue, Jean and Logan, and the baby they would all help to raise. It would be a good life. There would be friendship and laughter and love, and four X-Men together was a hell of a lot better than two as far as their chances for surviving the war went. Logan saw his future laid out before him like a straight road, and it didn't look half bad.
Except when he thought of how he'd never be able to hold Rogue again. Never again in that way. He'd never kiss her mouth, she'd never press her lips against his neck, against his chest. He'd never sink into her warm, delicious body. She wouldn't smile up at him in that way she had, the smile that told him she wanted him to come to bed. She would be giving that smile to someone other than Logan. He wouldn't be able to look at her and think, "Mine. My wife."
She would just be his friend. Just his good friend, Rogue, and he would always be her friend, Logan. It would be what it had been before. What it had been for years and years and years. Logan and Rogue. Together, but not that way. Never together that way.
The next day, Logan and Rogue hardly saw each other at all. Logan helped Remy fortify the complex's defenses, a project which Remy had been engaged in for weeks, and Jean kept Rogue in the medlab all day, running tests on the baby. The four of them ate dinner together, and Jean informed Logan that all the tests showed the baby was healthy, and they had nothing to fear. Jean also said they were having a boy. Logan bunched his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching across to hold Rogue when he heard that it was a son, that she was going to bear him a son.
Rogue didn't say much over dinner. She was withdrawn and looked worn out. Everyone asked her if she felt alright, and she reassured them that she did. She was just processing everything, she said. She'd be okay. Remy was solicitous and gentle with her. At the end of the meal, Logan heard Gambit whisper, "You're gonna get through this pregnancy just fine. It'll be alright. You're back with Remy now, and Remy's gonna take good care of you."
"I know, sugar. Thank you," she said with a soft smile.
When Remy leaned down and kissed Rogue warmly, deeply, Logan's claws popped out. He couldn't help it.
"What is it?!" asked Jean immediately. "Do you sense danger?"
Logan retracted his claws and forced himself to take deep breaths, to push down the surging wave of jealousy that had taken him over. "I thought I did, but I was wrong," he replied.
They ran into each other that night, both of them wandering through the main hallways, suffering from insomnia.
"You alright?" Logan asked as soon as he saw Rogue.
She nodded. But she looked like a lost little girl, in her white nightgown, her hair falling messily around her shoulders. Except for the fact that she was obviously on the verge of childbirth, she looked like she was a child herself.
"You want some tea?" Logan asked, and Rogue nodded again. He knew all her habits, and knew that a cup of warm herbal tea often helped her get through her sleepless nights. "Come on. Let's go to the kitchen."
Logan fixed Rogue a pot of chamomile in silence. He put down a metal, army-style cup in front of her, filled it, and sat across the table from her. Since they arrived at the safehouse, they'd always sat across the table from each other, never side by side. But then Rogue felt the baby kick and move around, and she made a little "Ouf!" at being punched from the inside, and Logan couldn't help but go to her.
"Can I feel him?" Logan asked tentatively after he sat next to her.
She looked at him sadly. "You never had to ask before," she said.
Logan took that as a yes. He spread his palm across the apex of her rounded belly and felt his son beneath Rogue's skin. "I never thought I would be a father," he said in a hushed voice, as if he were trying to avoid disturbing the baby.
"Really?" Rogue asked, curious. "I'm pretty sure that Jean always wanted children." Logan said nothing to that. Rogue said, "I remember when Jean broke up with Scott, and went with you. I'd never seen you so happy."
"I remember when you decided on Remy. You told me you'd never felt anything like what you felt for him," Logan said.
"I hadn't." Rogue frowned. "I thought I hadn't."
Logan looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, thinking. He studied her delicate profile. "You thought you hadn't? What does that mean?"
Instead of answering, Rogue asked, "Why didn't you let me dye out my streaks?"
That caught him by surprise. "What?"
She met his gaze. Her own eyes were large and serious. "Before we got the apartment, I said I should dye out my streaks, because they might give us away. You said no. Why?"
Logan shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. "Because...they're important to me. They mean something."
"What do they mean?" Rogue asked.
"They're a reminder that you could've died, and I brought you back. They mean I can always bring you back. I feel like...shit, I don't know. Like, as long as I can see them, I'm not gonna lose you." Logan said it reluctantly, unwilling to be looked on as a superstitious man.
"Right," Rogue said, as if that confirmed something she'd been thinking on. "You wanted me to keep my streaks so you wouldn't lose me."
"Yeah."
"But it was because I kept my streaks in that we were in danger of being found. We had to run, because my hair was the way that the soldiers were gonna recognize me."
Logan wasn't following. "So?"
Rogue sighed. "Don't you get it, Logan? When you try to hold on to me the tightest, that's when you're the most in danger of letting me go."
Logan shook his head. He didn't know what she was talking about.
Rogue said, "You try so hard to make sure you and I stick together. And that means, Logan, that you'll never lose me, but you'll never really *have* me, either."
Rogue saw only blankness in Logan's _expression, so she put her hand on his broad shoulder and used the leverage to lift her rounded body up from her seat. "Never mind. Good night," she said, and started to waddle off to bed.
"Wait," Logan said abruptly. He grabbed Rogue's hand and tried to pull her back to him, but Rogue resisted, and even her slightest resistance made her immovable as a statue.
Logan dropped Rogue's hand and frowned, frustrated. "I miss you."
Rogue's expression softened. "I miss *you,* Logan. But now I know what that means. I don't think you do. And I don't know if you ever will." She walked away.
Logan stayed by himself in the kitchen a long time, thinking on what Rogue had said, pondering all of her possible meanings.
Two days later, Rogue told Logan she was leaving.
"I don't think all of us are needed here. I think we can do more good if we split up. There are still mutants in the city, and someone's going to have to help set up new safehouses. I want to be a part of that. Plus," Rogue added, her eyes downcast, "my baby's crib is in the city."
Logan argued with her for a good hour, pointing out all the dangers for her, for the baby, and for the Westchester mutants if she wasn't around to protect *them*.
"That's sweet, sugar," said Rogue, "but I think they'll be okay with two X-Men watching over them."
"Fine," Logan said, exasperated but seeing that Rogue was, as usual, not going to listen to any of his arguments. "When do we leave?"
Rogue blinked. "Remy and I are leaving day after tomorrow."
Logan went completely still, then swallowed, tasting fear in the back of his throat. When Rogue had said two X-Men would remain in Westchester, he'd automatically thought she meant Jean and Remy would be staying. If Rogue was going someplace, Logan just assumed he would be in tow. "You're leavin' me?"
"Sugar," she forced herself to say despite the tightness in her chest, "you and Jean have the makings of a good life here, and Remy and I.... I told him I just want to make a new beginning, somewhere else, and he agreed." She scrutinized Logan's desolate _expression. "I just don't think," she said, hesitantly but wanting to be as truthful as possible, "that I can be around you all the time. Not after...not anymore."
"Why not?!" Logan growled. "Why the hell not? That's the deal. We stick together. That's the bottom line. Always been, always will be. You and me...when have we ever split up?"
Rogue sighed. She should have guessed he would make it as difficult as possible, but she hadn't predicted how much his misery would unsettle her. A part of her would always want to do whatever would make him happiest. But the part of her that was already struggling to survive without him in her bed, wrapped around her at night, knew that what was best for her wasn't what would make him happy.
"Never," she answered. "We've never been apart. But Logan...we were never as close as we were for the last year, were we? And *that's* what's making it so hard to stay."
Logan frowned, enraged and desperate, but there was nothing to unleash his fury on. "Goddammit, Marie..." Suddenly, his mind seized on an argument. "Can't you at least stay till the baby's born?" he asked, his eyes wide like a crazy man's. "Won't you let me be there when you give birth to my son?"
Rogue lowered her head in defeat. She hadn't thought about Logan wanting to be present for the birth. She'd only thought about getting away from him, from the misery of having to see him with Jean every day, as quickly as possible. Of course, she would have said he could see the baby anytime: she and Remy would make occasional trips up to Westchester and he and Jean could come into the city as much as they liked. But Rogue had wanted that happy, cooperative future to be just that – in the future, far away, at some unspecified date when her longing for Logan would no longer be a problem.
"Okay. I won't leave until after the baby's born," she said, her shoulders rounding over in defeat. Logan's eyes changed from terrified to moderately relieved in an instant. Rogue fought back tears of frustration. If the baby was late, that would be another week or more of suffering through this intolerable situation, and then it was likely that no one, not Jean, nor Remy, nor (especially) Logan, would allow her to travel while she was recovering from childbirth. Logan put his arm around her in something meant to be gratitude, and Rogue had to fight herself from shrugging him off. The last thing she wanted was to recall how wonderful it felt to be held by him, when she'd have to learn to live without it for the rest of her life.
The baby wasn't late, and it wasn't easy. Logan heard Rogue screaming for help in the early hours of the morning, and Remy's shouts for Jean to come were not far behind. Jean woke up just a few seconds after Logan did, roused either by the sound of the voices in the hallway, or those in her head.
"Something's wrong," Jean said. The warning was unnecessary. Logan was already running out the door of their tiny room.
He found Remy carrying Rogue and doing his best to get her to the infirmary quickly. Rogue was clutching her huge belly, her face wrenched in pain. Logan's heart nearly seized at the sight of her, her nightgown dripping wet with sweat and something else – signs of her water having broken. Her agony was plain.
"I'll take her," Logan said abruptly, forcibly lifting Rogue out of Remy's arms into his own. It was on the tip of Logan's tongue to say it was because he could run faster than Remy, but something deep inside Logan rebelled at the idea of having to make excuses for carrying the mother of his child. It was *Logan's* son putting Rogue through hell, and he had the right to carry her if he damn well wanted to.
He whispered nonsensical words of comfort to her as he put her down on the table in the infirmary. Jean was already there, pulling on gloves and readying her instruments. "Wait outside, Logan, please," Jean said calmly.
Logan felt wild and miserable. "No! No..." he protested, clinging to Rogue. "Marie..."
"Do as she says!" Rogue screamed, and screamed again, giving in to the need to register her suffering. She was pretty good at blocking that kind of stuff out – all of her sessions with the Professor and some tips from Jean were great for that sort of thing – but this feeling, of being torn apart from the inside out, was right up there with the time she'd taken three bullets in the stomach for the team, before she'd inherited Marvel's invulnerability, when Logan still had to, demanded to, touch her and heal her from anything and everything.
She let out another yell as the pain knifed through her. She's never had a baby before, but she knew this wasn't normal, and she didn't want either Logan or Remy to have to witness whatever was going on.
"Logan, Remy, please!" Jean said with a little more volume, using a bit of telepathic force to break through to both of them, who were staring rapt, powerless, at Rogue in convulsions on the narrow table.
Remy put a hand on Logan's shoulder. The men exchanged looks. There was nothing either one of them could do for Rogue, and they'd have to leave the women alone to let them take on whatever battle was raging.
Reluctantly, Logan left the room with Remy, casting a thousand terrified glances in Rogue's direction before managing to close the door to the infirmary behind him.
Jean had telepathically called another resident of the safehouse, who had been a midwife before the war started, to assist her with Rogue. After hours of Rogue's excruciating labor, Jean went out to talk to Remy and Logan.
"It's a breach," she said. "The baby hasn't turned, and I can't perform a ceasarian."
"Why not?" grunted Logan, his heart racing.
Jean sighed in frustration. "Believe me, I tried. I knew it would probably be the easiest for Rogue. But her mutation, the invulnerability..."
Remy understood, and said, "It won't let you cut her skin."
"Exactly," said Jean. "I can't perform any surgical procedures on her. Her power makes such procedures, most of the time, completely unnecessary. But in this case, even when it would be the best thing for Rogue and the baby, Rogue's body seems to perceive any invasion as a threat."
"If she switches her skin on and I touch her..." Logan began, not even sure what he was suggesting but clinging to any hope that he could help Rogue.
"Logan, touching her won't do any good, and it might do some harm," said Jean. "What if she absorbs your healing and her contractions stop? If her body tries to "heal" itself against the baby, the baby might never be able to come out. It might suffocate in the womb."
"You're saying, we just have to ride this out," Remy clarified. Jean nodded gravely. From the expression on Jean's face, she wasn't all that happy about it. "What's wrong, Jean? What's the danger here?" Remy asked.
Jean took a deep breath and prepared herself for Logan's rage and Remy's terror. "Rogue is bleeding heavily. There's nothing I can do to stop it. If the baby doesn't come soon, we could lose one or both of them."
"NO!" Logan roared loudly enough for the entire encampment to hear. His claws popped out, ready to kill anything that threatened Rogue and his offspring.
But there was nothing to fight, nothing to kill, nothing to do but wait and wait.
It was in that time, the endless time when Rogue was struggling to deliver and her life flowed out of her, that Logan finally knew.
He and Marie weren't friends. Truth be told, they had never been friends.
Logan thought of the first incredible days they'd known each other, when he'd nearly died twice to save her and he felt more emotions for her, more strongly, in those 72 hours than he'd felt in all his conscious years.
Logan thought of the firm boundaries he'd carefully drawn for their relationship for so long. How he'd been so deliberate in establishing Rogue as someone he couldn't touch. She was his student, his ward, his family, his charge. His only goal all of those years was to keep Rogue safe. Safe from the world, from their enemies, and safe from him, from what he might do to her if he let those carefully constructed definitions blur even for a day.
Logan thought of the torment he'd suffered when, unconsciously, he felt Rogue approaching adulthood, and how he'd finally resolved his yearning for her into a platonic relationship closer and deeper than anything he'd ever imagined possible for himself.
He'd stayed right by her side on missions, whenever physically possible. Every day, in the midst of the busy life at Xavier's mansion, he'd made sure to be always aware of where Rogue was, who she was with, what she was doing, how she was feeling. Jean had said from the start he felt connected to her because it was Rogue who had, however inadvertently, rescued him from solitude, a life of endless wandering alone. And Jean was right, Logan had felt an obligation to look after Rogue from the first. But it was more, much more, and Logan could not even explain it to himself. A constant need to be near Rogue always, to see her happy and well – a tie to her that was stronger than most blood relations and any other comradeship Logan had ever seen or known – a feeling that his fate was bound to hers, that his life somehow fit with hers, that he would kill and die for her, and that he would live as a better man for her as well, be a human being with honor and kindness – a certainty that where she was would be his home, and where he was, would be hers.
When they were sure that their world was coming to an end, when the army descended on Xavier's, Logan had stayed behind with Rogue. They had volunteered together, to fight to the end together. Logan had the unsettling, gut-twisting feeling he should have realized something then, something very important. Then came the months on the run, the unforeseen turn of events at the lab, the life they'd carved out together in New York, their shared joys and worries and hopes and fears for the baby, the vows they'd taken to be man and wife for the rest of their lives. He couldn't believe he hadn't realized it then. Hadn't realized it in all that time, even when he pledged himself to her body and soul.
He and Rogue had never been friends. They'd always been mates. Life mates, in the animal sense, and soul mates, in the metaphysical sense. Logan had spent seven years trying to keep Rogue close, but not so close that he would ever be in a position to hurt her deeply. He had proceeded under the assumption that if they were always friends, he would never do anything bad enough to their relationship to drive her away from him permanently. But in trying to give her only as much as he thought was safe, he'd ended up not giving her anything she really needed.
Logan loved Rogue more than life and breath. He'd never told her. Now, she might die giving birth to his son, and she would never know.
Logan sat on the freezing cold floor outside the infirmary, listening to every pained scream and muffled groan of Rogue's, and felt his soul shrinking in his chest. If Marie and the baby didn't make it, his healing factor wouldn't save him. Grief would shred him to bits, or shrink him until he was nothingness, until he just disappeared.
Or so Logan hoped. He couldn't, and wouldn't, make it without Marie. He'd always known that, somewhere inside. He just wished he'd *understood* it.
Jean had seen many incredible, heartbreaking sacrifices since the war on mutants had begun, but the sight of Rogue using up her last ounce of strength to deliver her baby touched Jean to her core. She saw the younger woman flag, almost fail, innumerable times throughout the intolerably long labor, but each time, when Jean was sure Rogue would surrender to the pain, Rogue just gripped Jean's hand tighter, scraped up some bits of energy and will from God knew where, and kept fighting for her child's life. Finally, finally, finally, the baby was safely in the world...and Rogue began to slip quietly out of it.
"No! Hold on, Rogue!" Jean said, setting the baby down in the makeshift incubator and rushing back to Rogue's side. But it was too late – Rogue had lost consciousness, at last allowing her body to give into the combined effects of hemorrhaging and stress. Rogue was losing her life's blood, and there was nothing Jean could do about.
But there was someone who *could* do something about it, and Jean knew he would do it without even a second's thought.
"Logan, she needs you!" Jean shouted as she flung open the infirmary door, and Logan came rushing through before she'd even reached the end of her plea.
Although Rogue had learned to control her power even while asleep, her control was completely gone anytime she was utterly unconscious, and Logan was able to pour his healing power into her.
Logan felt only relief as he passed out, his hand still clutching hers. His last sensation before blacking out was Jean's gloved fingers prying his and Marie's hands apart.
But when Logan came to, he was stunned to see that Rogue still wasn't awake. They were both in the tiny chamber that served as a recovery room, and he and Rogue lay on cots that were side-by-side. Logan, though, felt strong enough to move, even to walk, while Rogue was as motionless as she had been when he'd touched her. Her beautiful eyes were closed.
Logan sank to his knees next to her still form. "Marie, no..." Logan whispered, agony taking him over. Tears fell one by one from his eyes; he didn't notice. "Please don't leave me..."
"It's okay, Logan, she stopped bleeding after you touched her," said Jean's voice, approaching from somewhere behind him. Logan didn't look up at her, but he felt himself revive a little at her words. "My best guess is that she hasn't regained consciousness yet because she's been through too much trauma, and at some level, she's made a choice to conserve her energy and focus completely on healing, in body and mind."
"And heart," Logan said. "Her heart needs healing, too." He grudgingly removed his gaze from Rogue's sleeping face and looked up at Jean. His eyes were brimming with anguish and love, and both Logan and Jean knew who his love was for. "Jeannie, I'm so sorry. I fucked up."
Jean tried to smile, but didn't quite manage it. A heavy sadness settled over her; she'd left Scott and then lost him in the flight from the mansion; she'd thought she'd lost Logan, then miraculously found him again, only to be left by him after all they'd been through. As much as she wanted to tell Logan that she wished him and Rogue all the best, she knew what she needed to do the most was find somewhere to nurse her wounds in private.
"Logan, I know what you're going to say," Jean said, "and I understand." When Logan looked like he was going to speak again, to explain or apologize, Jean stopped him with a raised hand. "No, really, I do understand. I should have seen it from the start. *You* should have seen it from the start," Jean couldn't help but add with a humorless smirk. "I'll be in my room if you need me, but I have two assistants working in the next room if you want to call one of them for any reason. When you're ready, you can ask one of them to bring your son to you."
*My son,* Logan thought, his insides filling up with pride and anxiety, a powerful combination. "I'll wait...till she's awake," Logan said in a voice that was not a little fearful. He thought it was only right that he and Marie greet their son for the first time together. But what if Marie didn't wake up? Dread swirled in his gut.
Jean nodded, and left, closing the door to the recovery room quietly behind her. Logan knew he should have probably said more to her, at least thanked her for understanding what he was feeling, but that could wait. Marie was his priority now. *And you always will be, darlin',* he thought, staring at her delicate features.
Logan cleared his throat and began talking to Rogue in earnest. He knew that she might be able to hear him, even while she was unconscious, and he needed to begin telling her the things that he knew he would be telling her for the rest of her life, if she would only wake up.
"Darlin', I'm so sorry that I didn't see it before. I don't know why I was so thick-headed. I just never had a fuckin' clue. Even this past year that we've been together, I still didn't get it. But I get it now, Marie. I swear to you. And if you...*when* you wake up, I'm gonna prove it to you every single fuckin' day. I know it now. I know who I belong with. Who I belong *to*. And it's you, Marie. It's always been you, except I didn't ever let myself think it before. Please, please give me the chance to show you, baby. Please wake up. As soon as you wake up, you can meet our boy...we'll meet him together...and I'll show you every day that I belong to you. I'm yours forever, darlin'. Forever..."
Logan babbled for another hour over Rogue's resting form, until her lids lifted slowly, and her eyes, tired but warm, mirrored back the love that he'd been sending her way.
Just a week later, Rogue and Logan were driving back to New York City in a van that Logan had salvaged from the wreckage of Xavier's school. It was long enough after the raid that military personnel were no longer permanently stationed on the school grounds, and Logan had found it easier than expected to drive off in one of the transport vehicles that Scott had always parked in a lot out by the supply sheds. All of Cyclops' gorgeous customized cars and bikes, and of course the jets, had been either destroyed or carted off by the Army long before.
In the van, Rogue looked frequently back at their sleeping son, Charles Xavier Logan, in his car seat. She thought about all that was behind them, and all that lay ahead of them. It had been horrible but necessary to break off her relationship with Remy. On top of all the friends she'd lost to battle and persecution over the past year, she'd had to sever her ties to Remy as well, and of course her always-strong friendship with Jean had cooled. Rogue said a silent prayer that someday, she and Logan would manage to forge new ties to Jean and Remy. The four of them were all that were left of the once-mighty X-Men, and in her optimistic moments, Rogue let herself dream of a day when the evil forces currently running the government would be vanquished, and the X-Men could be rebuilt, Xavier's school re-founded, Xavier's goal of a lasting human-mutant peace accomplished.
But as Rogue turned away from her gorgeous little son to the looming Manhattan skyline, she knew that her dream was a long way off. She and Logan would have to try to scrape out another tentative existence for themselves, try to live and work under the government's radar while they helped develop new safehouses and centers of resistance. It would be difficult, to be sure, but they had quite a bit on their side. More than they'd had before.
"I love you," Logan said, in a voice that was low and sure. He took his right hand off the clutch and put it on Rogue's left thigh, warming her skin through her jeans. She covered his hand with hers.
"I love you," she answered. She let herself smile. No matter how much time they would have together, whether it was one month or fifty years, it would be worthless to spend it without humor and laughter and affection. Even if their boy had to grow up in a world fraught with danger, it would also be filled with joy. She and Logan would make sure of it.
Logan glanced over at her and lifted his hand from her knee to stroke the front of her hair. Where once there had been white streaks, there was now just more deep chestnut. Logan hadn't objected this time, when Rogue had said that she'd have to dye her hair to try to escape detection. "I know you don't like to see them gone," Rogue said. "I know you thought of them as some kind of guarantee..."
"I don't need any guarantees to know I won't lose you," Logan said confidently. "Not anymore. You belong to me, and I belong to you. And Junior there," he said, gazing for a moment as their dozing infant, "he belongs to both of us. No one's gonna lose anyone. I *know* it."
Marie turned her cheek into Logan's palm and nuzzled its warmth. "I'm a little scared," she admitted.
Logan laughed. "I'm not. I was scared for a damn long time. Almost too long." His large hand wrapped tightly around her smaller one. "Now I'm not scared of a goddamn thing. We're gonna be okay, Marie."
"Okay," she said, choosing to believe him, because it was true that she and Logan were stronger than they had ever been. "Let's go get the baby's crib." Holding her husband's hand, she looked steadfastly forward as the towers rose up in front of them.
"Sounds good," Logan said, and gave his wife's hand a squeeze as they drove into the city.
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