Logan looked around the Danger room, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand as he surveyed the carnage. He was tired and sore to the point of physical exhaustion, yet she was still there, lingering in the dark recesses of his mind. He'd hoped spending a few hours of physical punishment in the one place he felt free from the constraints of the mansion would ease his torment and assuage his need for her.

He was wrong.

Even now images of her were battling the tiredness, demanding free rein among his thoughts: it didn't matter how hard he pushed himself or how tired his body became, she remained. She dominated his every waking thought, and when he finally slept, she haunted his dreams; all his thoughts were of her. The pleasure he felt at seeing her, talking with her, the moments when she smiled...just for him.

Was there no escape from the hounds chasing him?

He grimaced at this own interpretation of his feelings as he stooped to retrieve the towel from the floor and wiped the sweat from his flushed face. It had always been that way for him.

Seeing love as something hunting him, chasing him like a pack of baying hounds coming to get him, only to drag him down, leaving him trapped and vulnerable. He knew what it felt like to be captured...trapped, he'd seen what love could do, and did do to others. He'd seen them chased and caught, ensnared only for love to rip them to shreds, leaving them wounded and in pain, with their guts spilled all over the floor.

He swore he'd never succumb to that; he wasn't capable of love, or being loved...

Some people were made to go through life alone; that's the way it had always been for him. Imprisoned within his limitations, haunted by anger, hurts, and resentments. Love had never revealed itself to him, nor would it! Slowly, the spectre of his past had numbed his hurt with hate, harnessed the anger with resentment. Lonely, he had wandered from one place to the next, punishing himself, struggling with his demons, searching for his past.

Only now, he truly understood what punishment really was: to love, yet not be loved in return. Torture, pain, and anguish had been his only companions until now; love had never revealed its face to him. He didn't miss it, that physical or emotional closeness with another...

Until it arrived!

Until then, the skeleton of love was just that: she gave it life by adding the flesh and blood, the muscle and nerve, the thought and feeling. She had breathed life into the pieces of the puzzle called love.

The instant he saw her curled up in his trailer in Laughlin City, he knew she was the one. Even before he pulled back the covering and found her stowed away among his stuff, he'd caught her scent and recognized it instantly.

For him, love wasn't a random process, it didn't happen by chance: he had in him a "blueprint"-albeit unconscious-of the right person...of her. A blueprint that developed throughout his wanderings, as if he naturally imprinted within himself the person he would love some day.

He had dreamt of her, how one day she would walk into his life and chase away all the demons. He knew he'd never met her, but he knew her, he had dreamt night after night of the same girl. The same face, voice, the colour of her eyes, even the smell of her skin. Yet, try as he might, he could never imagine the feel of her touch. There were nights when the dreams were so vivid, he could almost imagine her name, waking up in a cold sweat, his entire body trembling, one word shattering the silence...

"Marie..."

Heartbreakingly vulnerable Marie, never letting anyone get close to her, running from life, as he desperately searched for his. How could he inflict the anger and sadness of a life-long loner on such touching innocence?

He knew how she saw him, the hero who came charging in and chased away all the bad guys, but she didn't know the half of it. She'd only seen flashes of the animal he struggled with daily, fighting to keep the savage within him quiet, always trying to shield her from the truth. Afraid that if she saw the darkness in him, he would see it in her eyes: he couldn't bear the thought of looking into those eyes and seeing fear. So he tried to bury it, bury it so deep she couldn't see it, but no matter how deep he pushed it down, it clawed its way back, screaming to the surface, mocking his attempts to gain peace with himself.

He thought he could settle for the childish hero-worship, better than have her run from him, and she would: she would run as fast and as far as she could. He'd promised to keep her safe, to protect her from all dangers, including himself. The extreme bouts of berserker rage left him consumed by it, experiencing nothing but the need to kill, to inflict wounds that tore viscous and deep, until he could smell the blood that oozed from them. He could prove as dangerous to his friends as his enemies-to her. He couldn't let her see that-he wouldn't let her see that!

She knew the wild feral animal that seethed, hidden just below the surface; she'd experienced him that night in his room when she'd tried to wake him from his nightly demons. She felt it, heard it, and feared it the instant he touched her, a touch which brought her pain. He always brought pain-pain and fear were his calling card, but that night had been different, because he felt it too. The pain, the moment his claws entered her skin, they entered his heart. Skewering it, twisting and slicing until he could almost taste his own blood seeping from the wound.

She had been introduced savagely to the inner man first-hand, felt his psychotic tendencies, which is why he knew she would never make a conscious effort to have any meaningful involvement with him.

She was the beauty to his beast: a beast she had seen, felt, and come to fear.

He walked to the door and clumsily pulled at the handle, thinking that maybe a shower and some air would soothe his thoughts. He caught the breeze coming in from a nearby window and smelt the change, a cool, slightly nutty smell of earth and damp leaves as it mixed with the moisture in the air. A storm was near, maybe a few hours away. Perhaps he'd see if Cyke's bike was around and ride out to meet it.

He felt an affinity with the savage beauty of a thunderstorm, earth and water, life and death; he revelled in its rawness, how it heralded the change of the seasons, when the sky opened up and brought forth the cleansing rain of understanding. There were times when he would stand in the rain and hope that it would wash him away with the rest of the refuse. Then there were times when he would just stand in the rain, feeling it trickle down his skin like a caress of feather-light fingertips.

Did Marie ever stand in the rain and marvel at its touch? Did she feel its caress against her skin like the moisture from a kiss?

Marie...it always came back to Marie!

The sound of laughter distracted him as he walked out into the corridor, the autumn sun casting a misty haze in the air. The shafts of sunlight streaming through the nearby open door permeated the haze, seemingly all the brighter in contrast to the polished oak that lined the corridor walls, casting deep dark shadows and warm bright colours.

He picked up a faint warmth in the air that was sensual and comforting; it created a flow of thoughts that he could almost see, hear, feel, and taste. It opened a window to his inner world, acting almost as a message to his subconscious. It was the scent of warm, moist earth, the rich aroma of forest greenery, and the cool freshness of a running stream. The sweet air of the living forest.

It was...Marie!

It stirred a liquid memory lingering deep within, a synergy of emotions and feelings, of shelter, of home, of...

Marie.

He walked the length of the corridor until he reached the door to the common room, thinking he'd find her playing some board game with the other kids. He liked to watch her from a distance, her rare unguarded moments when she could be just like any normal kid, laughing and enjoying the company of others. Free from the burden of her mutant ability, free from the constant awareness of who she was.

Stopping in the doorway, he slowly looked around the room, turning his head in her direction, and stopped...

He was torn between the desire to inflict violence and an overwhelming urge to fade into the woodwork as he watched the students in the room. Some were chatting at tables, laughing at the comments of their friends, others were quietly reading alone, and there among the noise and the clutter was Marie...his Marie.

He watched her eyes widen, and heard the catch in her breath as she looked into his eyes, edging back slightly as his lean body stretched out and moved closer. How his arm draped casually behind her on the sofa, his face lowering as he looked to her mouth...a breath away from kissing what should have been his.

His fingernails dug into the palm of his hands as he fought the seething jealousy that festered in his blood. He took small comfort in the fact that she wasn't touching him in return, but then this was Marie...his Marie.

Only she wasn't his, she'd never be his; he was just the outsider, like now, watching her from a distance, as Bobby shifted slightly, narrowing the gap between them even further.

He rubbed his hands together trying to bring back some warmth into his now-cold skin, feeling the toughness of his palms, the roughness on the pads of his thumbs, and knew if he ever got as close to her as he wanted...needed, she would know. Maybe it was a blessing she couldn't touch him, feel the calluses that that scarred his body, his palms, his elbows and his knees, feel the roughness of his feet, the pads on his toes.

Would she see them for what they were?

Would she be repulsed at the knowledge that at one time he had gone on all fours?

Lived like an animal, slept like an animal, and even hunted like one, just to survive?

More a wild beast than a man, sleeping during the day and waking at night, hunting smaller creatures to feed his hunger, ripping them to shreds with his teeth and hands, and on nights when no food was to be found, how his mournful and incessant howling was his only company, save for the scurrying movements of the other creatures seeking warmth and shelter. Living in rough mountains, dwelling in caves and inaccessible dens, sleeping curled up in a ball like an animal and defecating without shame whenever and wherever the urge took him. His only thoughts were of food and sleep, the rest of the time spent hunched on the floor, rocking slowly back and forth and staring into space. He reflected on nothing, had no discernment, no imagination, no memory: even now, living among others, sometimes unwillingly, it was impossible to keep the animal in him at bay, to bury his wild character.

Impossible, that is, until it became essential to the survival of someone else!

Shaking his head to clear the memories, he looked back to the couple on the sofa, as she lifted a gloved hand and rested it on Bobby's arm. Fighting the jealousy that seethed just below the surface, he tried to move, but his feet refused to obey. Instead, he forced himself to watch. To listen as her breathing changed, accelerated. The scent of her arousal was intoxicating, stirring his senses, as he noticed Bobby's nostril twitch slightly, unconsciously responding to the aroma lingering on her skin.

He should have known better than to think she could ever love him, want him with the same urgency that he craved her. All the years he had spent wandering, he was no wiser: he was just older. She needed this, Bobby, at least for now; she needed that first blissful experience, the adolescent falling-in-love. The softness, the sense of giddy disorientation, the euphoria of romantic love, love which would probably lead to much badly-written poetry and late-night whispers down the phone; he knew the rush she would feel probably wouldn't last forever. Yet, however short-lived it might turn out to be, an experience of passionate love could quickly become the most important thing in her life. Maybe the intimacy would teach her about her own identity; maybe becoming close to someone else, being intimate, would teach her openness, sharing and trust...trust in herself, help her to believe she could be close to another without fearing for them.

God knows he could never give her that. Instead, he would probably shatter her heart and hand it back on a platter, raw and bleeding from wounds that would never heal, never trust, never love again. Because that's what he did, what he always did. He had done things that he could never forgive himself, or was it that he was waiting for others to forgive him? Maybe he had decided he was unforgivable. Was that his fatal flaw, his original sin-of-sorts...to never be loved?

He leaned heavily against the doorframe trying to swallow against the dryness in his throat, words of past conversations echoing in his head. The day in the professor's office when he told him he was leaving.

"One must learn to love oneself, Logan, because if we haven't loved ourselves first, then how can we realize that another could love us?"

He laughed bitterly to himself, thinking what a pile of shit that was: "Love himself, yeah, like there was so much about him to love!"

Jean had it right; she knew the truth, as much as it pained him to admit it.

"Girls flirt with dangerous guys, Logan, they don't take them home!"

The proof was right there in front of him, eyes closed and face flushed in anticipation, as the moist, warm taste of love's first kiss lingered a hair's breadth from her lips.

"They marry the good guy!"

"I could be the good guy!" he murmured, casting one last, mournful look in her direction and stalking from the room in search of Cyke's bike and the oncoming storm.