He stood in the doorway, shuffling his feet awkwardly. Half an hour earlier a decision had been made. Everybody had agreed that it would be the best to leave it to him to tell her the bad news. Everybody had agreed except him. This really wasn’t his place, not his business. He had a nagging feeling that he had carried on this same task countless time in the past, in another war. Too many times. He wasn’t equipped to deal with this kind of situations, not ready or willing to handle grief of another person.

Seconds ticked by, turning to minutes, and he could only stand still. There were no words. But it looked like he wouldn’t even need them. Woman sitting in front of an ornate dressing table seemed to know already, one hand clutching delicate silver comb, other grasping support from the table. She was pale as the sheets on an unmade bed behind her back. She wasn’t even breathing, but he could hear her heart racing, struggling as if it was trying to burst out from its bony confines.

“He isn’t coming back, is he?” Woman asked, her voice trembling. He shook his bowed head. No. He wasn’t coming back home. There hadn’t even been enough left of him to bring back the body. There had been no way to discern scattered shreds and tidbits of bone and flesh from other debris.

When woman started to breathe again, great heaving sobs that rocked her whole body back and forth, he turned and left. He had done what they had asked him to do. It was up to them to pick up the pieces. He wouldn’t even know from where to start.

That night he was sitting in the garden, just enjoying the quiet voices emanating from the darkness around him. Crickets and other small critters scurrying around, minding their own business. Birds still squabbling with hushed tones with each other before settling in for the night. Leaves and grass rustling softly, almost as if relaxing after being under sun’s scorching rays from dawn ‘till dusk.

His gaze drifted towards the mansion from time to time. There were still lights on in some rooms. Kids staying up too late, somebody having a late night snack in the kitchen. And one, lonely light on a dark row of windows stretching along the teacher’s wing. Their room. And from now on, from ten-thirty this morning, her room.

Half an hour of complete mayhem and chaos. What puzzled him the most was how everybody else managed to get out of it unscathed, even himself. Five people had left this morning, four of them returned, not even a single bruise marring their skin. And the fifth one blown to pieces. It was so stupid. The things he did that morning. Risks he took. And his last sacrifice…
“It shouldn’t have been him.”

He didn’t have the slightest clue of whom had he chosen instead of the man that had given his life to protect the rest of their team. Only thing he was sure of was that it shouldn’t have been him. Never him. When she had been standing with him in the altar and they had said their vows, he had made a silent vow of his own. Ever since he had been looking after both of them. Guarding their lives as if they were his own.

He grimaced. In the end he had betrayed that vow. When he had told them to go, run to safety, he had taken off as fast as the others of the team, without giving a thought of what would happen to the man that stayed back. That thought hadn’t even crossed his mind when they bolted out from the building and towards the jet waiting outside.

Man. That he had been. Often in the past he had thought of him as a brat. Something less than a man. As soon as he had realized how much he meant to her, he had been forced to look closer. He had seen a boy who could give her everything she needed. But this morning it hadn’t been a brat. It hadn’t been a boy. His decision of staying back to buy their team the time to get out had been made by a man.

“What are you doing out here alone?” Voice drew him out of his thoughts. Rogue.
“Just having a cigar… And moment to myself,” he spoke slowly, inhaling and studying the glowing end of the stub dangling between his fingers.
“Oh… I’ll go if you want to be alone…”
“No need to leave on my account,” he muttered hastily.
“Sit.” He patted the vacant spot on the bench beside him when Rogue just stood there, Glance shifting nervously between him and the lit window at the teacher’s wing. She sat, turning her back to the mansion and leaned her back against the backrest, letting out a weary sigh.

“I feel sorry for Jean. I can’t even imagine what it must be like. What is going through her mind. And I feel guilty.”
“Guilty?” He tilted his head questioningly.
“You weren’t even there. Why should you feel guilty?” He asked puzzled. She hadn’t been there. She wasn’t even in the team yet.
“Because when I heard about it… When professor told us that Scott’s dead I was just relieved that it wasn’t you. That it didn’t happen to me.”
“And…” He urged her to continue. She had been staring straight forward, but turned to look at him.
“Doesn’t that make me a bad person? I couldn’t even cry, because I was so goddamned happy that it was Scott instead of you. That it happened to Jean instead of me. That I wasn’t the one receiving that message.”
“I don’t think it makes you a bad person, kid. Just human…” He murmured, grounding the stub of the cigar under the heel of his boot, half expecting Scott to barge from behind the corner to give him a lecture how he shouldn’t leave that disgusting thing laying on the ground from where any of the children could pick it up.

“Just human…” He sighed and flung his arm around her shoulders. She sniffled a bit and burrowed against his side.
“Cold?” He asked when she nestled partly under his jacket, small hands wrapping around his ribcage. She was shivering.
“No… Not cold…”
“Okay.”

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there. Long enough for him to have another cigar, long enough for her to calm down. He managed to tune out her sobs. Managed to lie to himself that he was just sweating when wetness from her tears seeped through his shirts and made his skin itch. Managed to keep it all in and stay stoic when in reality all he wanted to do was to scream and curse Scott for dying. It hadn’t been his place. Not in his job description. And he highly doubted Scott had looked his almanac before leaving, deciding that this was a good day to die.

“He had no fucking right to die,” he grunted stubbornly, clutching half empty beer bottle in his hands. Rogue had gone to bed hours ago. He was sitting in the kitchen. Last hour he had been twirling the thought around in his head, trying to approach it from several angles, but the end result stayed.
“No fucking right… Wasn’t his time… Not his right…”
“Logan?” He tried to straighten up, but ended on his back on the floor, beer spilling to a puddle around him from the fallen bottle. Rogue.

“Are you drunk?” She asked with disbelieving tone.
“Yeah…” He ventured, trying to focus his gaze to her face.
“Didn’t you go to bed?” He asked scrunching his forehead in confusion. He was quite sure that she had been heading to her room when he had last seen her. He grasped the foot of the stool and using it as leverage crawled up. Rogue was already retrieving a towel from the sink, intent to mop up the mess he had made on the floor. He took another beer from the fridge and sat down, leaning his elbows to the counter while she dried the spilled beer.

“It wasn’t his turn. It wasn’t his place.”
“Logan, come on. Let’s get you in to bed, okay?”
“No.”
“You feel better in the morning.”
“Made me broke my promise…” That was it. What bothered him the most. He had made a promise, and Scott had made him break that promise.

“I don’t make promises often… Too hard to keep…” He slurred and grasped the front of Rogue’s nightgown, trying to keep her still because she seemed to sway back and forth, making it hard to see her eyes.
“I made one for you. Made on for them. To Jean and Scott. And he had no right to go and die! No right to make me a liar!” He was shouting, but she didn’t even bat her lashes.
“Scott died. He told you to leave. He told you guys to evacuate. He was the leader.”

She spoke instead of shying away from his anger. All the way through the dark and silent halls and corridors, up to his room she spoke, giving him reasons why he wasn’t a liar. Why he wasn’t a coward.

“You’re just human…” He could hear her whisper when he laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. And maybe tomorrow he could believe that she was telling the truth.