She knew it was wrong to be thinking about him like this, to be feeling all the things she felt, but she couldn't stop no matter how hard she tried. Since he'd left she'd been thinking about him all the time, wishing he'd come back to her.

Logan was the only real person who had never drawn away from her touch. Even after being on the receiving end of her gift twice already. Although each time, especially the last had brought him to the brink of death he hadn't shown any hesitation or fear in brushing her hair from her eyes or holding her when she needed comforting.

When they'd first met it had been in a bar in Laughlin City, some God-forsaken place that lay snowed in to the North in Canada. Rogue had known then, watching the handsome stranger fight that he was different somehow, special. She'd noticed how he seemed aware of her watching him intently and yet hadn't regarded turned to regard her in the same manner.

He was tall, she guessed standing at around six foot. He faced away from her, his strong back and broad shoulders catching her eye. Although he had been fighting contender after drunken contender, his exposed upper body showed no sign of harm, from the strong shoulders right down to his slim waist.

The next time she'd seen him was at the bar. She sat across from him, still staring occasionally while he drank from the beer bottle in front of him and puffed at another cigar. As he'd notice her watching him, all he did was return the attention. That was until the drunken lout he'd beaten in the last round had approached him.

Rogue had watched them silently until she saw the man pull a knife at which she yelled to him in warning. Watching him in slight awe and amazement as he ducked and dived, she thought that his behavior reminded her of a wild animal, in total control, acting from moment to moment on instinct alone.

Somehow she had been unafraid to see three claws spring from each of his clenched fists. he had looked so feral and wild at that moment, yet when he had turned and glanced at her still watching him, he had seemed regretful. His face bearing an apologetic and disappointed expression, as if he hadn't wanted her to see him like this, to have seen this side of him. She had thought him to be a very complicated person, but someone she could relate to at the same time.

And so it was, now...she remained at Xavier's school while he was out there somewhere alone, searching for a past long forgotten to him. There were terrible things in his past and strong as he may have been, she feared for him facing the discoveries alone. Even after so much time, she still awoke in the middle of the night trembling, sweating, even crying at the pain and torment caused by the memories that surfaced in her dreams and filled her head as she slept. They had all originated from him.

Wondering if he was dreaming the same thing at that exact same moment in time, Rogue doubted that anyone else would ever understand the pain he'd felt or the person he was because of it. But she did.

The loneliness and solitude that he had found himself confined to as he roamed from place to place, searching for anything that could reveal something to him. The restlessness that drove him to keep moving, she understood it all. Part of the reason he wasn't here now was down to it pushing him on.

Logan could have been at least as old as the Professor while she was barely eighteen now, but thanks to his gifts he still had the body of a man in his prime. No matter what his gifts could, would or had done, he would still always be older than her.

Confusion set in. 'Should I be having these thoughts? Can or should we be together even if we both want it?' Something Rogue secretly hoped Logan would in time. 'I suppose I'll never know, least not until he comes back.'

She gazed out of the window onto the moonlit gardens below. The silence all around her made her wish Logan was there too, his bed just through the wall from hers. Hearing him occasionally toss and turn, mumbling and moaning as the same haunting dreams plagued his mind.

There was no sound at all as a familiar sensation crept into her bones and set her whole body tingling. Immediately her thoughts took her to the moment Logan had tried to sneak off without saying goodbye. She'd felt his presence and caught up to him. A smile crept over her face as the words floated back to her and she whispered....."You runnin' again?"