Chapter 1: Denial

There's only one thing I really hate, and that's the realisation that you've reached this point in your life where the people you know start inviting you along someplace more out of habit and guilt than any real great desire to be around you.

I've made being the third wheel into some kind of art-form, and I seem to find an increasing amount of my time is spent politely not glowering when the resident couples do couple-y, intimate things right in front of me. During that moment where you can't excuse yourself and go elsewhere because they invited you along to, ostensibly, spend time with you, I really do have to start wondering when it was that I became so damn good at making things happen for other people and so unutterably crap at making them happen for myself.

Some days, as I trip over yet another adoring, kissing, whispering couple swapping saliva on the couch, I have to remember that I'm something like 90% of the reason that everybody here got someone else, and I really have to ask what it was that I got in return for my efforts. That is, beyond a lingering sense of discomfort and the dubious sensation of being an interloper into an endless stream of intimate scenes that I somehow always wind up feeling guilty for interrupting. Even when they downright forced me to go someplace, it's hard to shake the sense that you're really not required to be an observer and should, in all truth, be somewhere else entirely.

You see, I am many things; I am mutant, I am Rogue, I am grand-master third wheel, involuntary love-doctor, recently the subject of increasing amount of pity-based invitations and, at heart, desperately sick of being single.

I should start, I guess, at the beginning. Back when Scott and Jean had been the mansion's only proper couple.

Back when it was all about Bobby.

Bobby was not my boyfriend. I don't think anyone actually believes me when I say that, but it's true.

In all honesty, dating him was a little too incestuous for my personal liking, and even he seemed fairly certain that we'd make better friends than we ever would lovers. A handful of brief, perfunctory peck-on-the-cheek kisses aside, it was pretty obvious that it was a too much like kissing my brother so that kind of thing mostly got relegated to birthdays, Christmases and all those times in between when a purely platonic smooch was considered to be in order.

Kitty, on the other hand, spent a good few months pretty much hating the crap out of me. In all fairness she hid it well, and it wasn't until Bobby and I made a very definite declaration that we were friends and nothing more that I really started to notice the way she was behaving. Like she wanted to crawl off into a gutter and die each time she saw us together, but just couldn't quite seem to stop staring first.

The human capacity for self-torture amazes me to this day. That she watched us for months, completely under the mistaken impression that we were in a relationship, and that she never once said a word still astounds me. All that time she just about managed to hide the fact that the one thing she desperately wanted was the one thing she thought I had. The one thing she figured she'd never be able to get. It seems everyone was pretty convinced that Bobby and I were a sure thing and that our friendship had been so thoroughly misconstrued came as a surprisingly big shock to everyone else.

I loved Bobby, but like a brother. Kitty on the other hand, just plain flat-out loved him and it was the moment I finally realised this fact that, I think, my fate was sealed.

That was the point I made my greatest triumph and, perhaps my greatest mistake.

I meddled.

I meddled in the way only a completely-impartial observer ever possibly could, because I told them the truth about each other.

I told Kitty that Bobby was single, and I told Bobby that Kitty was just as crazy about him as it's possible to get. And then I told both of them they were stupid if they didn't go and do something about it right this second now.

So they did, and it was good.

And then Jubilee started complaining, but I'll get to that.

Kitty and Bobby did like all new couples do. They demonstrated their affection openly, publicly and, most of all, frequently. It's cute people say, and it is up to a point. Then it's just nauseating and ever so slightly annoying. Especially when you're trying to watch TV and all you hear is 'slurp, slurp, smooch' from the other side of the room. Not to mention the whole set-up got amazingly awkward now and then, when they blocked up doorways for some tonsil-hockey or stopped suddenly in the middle of the mall because they just couldn't go another step without sucking a bit little more face.

Added to that, Ororo and Kurt had finally made a step towards wedded bliss, once more in part due to my meddling intentions. As an impartial observer, their own obliviousness was driving me insane, and after much internal grumbling that Xavier should just send them away on some extended mission somewhere alone together, he actually did. I honestly don't know if he was picking up my thoughts or if their coy denials were annoying him too, but away from the watchful eyes of the student body I guess mutual longing became finally great satisfaction, and so upon their return the mansion began positively oozing with saccharine sentiment.

Jubilee as I said was the first one to crack, complaining to me time and time again about the sickening display that turned the rec-room into the 'make-out snogging noisily room', and there were times I was sadly forced to agree with her. That's pretty much how my friendship with Jubilee developed in the first place, to be honest. We grew close in adversity, I guess, laughing and bitching and building castles in the sky where we could be cynical and jaded and single and own lots of cats or whatever. Jubilee relayed with relish frequent stories of how she aimed to become a crazy deranged cat-lady some day, living out her old age in the crumbling remains of the mansion, a mad old spinster with a fat ginger tom that insisted on being called The Colonel.

She was, it must be admitted, utterly convinced that this was her fate. And she took it with amazingly good-humour on the most part. Aside from the odd bitch session about the ever-sickening Kitty and Iceman that a momentary flash of jealousy could bring, she became for a while my closest source of comfort purely because of her lack of faith in the relationship game.

Jubilee was not ugly. She was a beautiful girl. But her features were unique, far from the all-American dream-girl, and her personality was of the kind of robust nature that did not become the demure shrinking violet she assumed all men must somehow desire. In her mind these things combined and doubled and slapped her firmly in the "love-less" category, unencumbered by the "effort and expense" of relationships. Her words, not mine.

I guess my next mistake in this saga was an innocent one. I believed her. Then I introduced her to Becca, the woman who ran the accessory store in the mall.

That connection came about purely because I bought a lot of gloves on a pretty regular basis and, as these things do, repeat custom leads to conversation which in turn leads to a tenuous sort of friendship and eventually the revelation that we were both mutants. Jubilee just happened to be tagging along with me on one otherwise innocuous day and the offhand introduction led to a new shop on Jubilee's continual mall-cruising, and a new place for her to stop and shoot the breeze.

It was on one of those many visits that Jubilee's assertion about perpetual spinster-hood came up and Becca decided to take a surprisingly pro-active role in the shattering of that assumption. Because it was through Becca that Jubilee met Remy, the semi-infamous ragin' Cajun, all-around bad boy and, luckily for him, a whole lot sweeter than his reputation let on. He was a man with space in his heart for a firecracker, and boy, did he ever find one.

I'd never seen her so happy, and I was genuinely pleased for her...

Oh crap, who am I kidding? I was pissed and more than a little bit hurt that my safety-net had been whisked away. We grew close through the mutual support offered by knowing that we were both decidedly not alone in our single status. Her certainty that love would never find her had been, I think, a comfort of sorts to me. A balm to soften the fact that I too had intense doubts as to the likelihood of any kind of meaningful relationship ever actually happening. Half the time I had doubts about anyone getting near enough to even want to be with me at all. Her frankness on the subject had always meant I didn't have to face my own doubts, and the moment that was gone I started to realise just how much that oft-threatened solitude frightened me.

And just how much I started to resent other people for having what I wanted.

The problem was compounded when I finally mastered my powers. An event part luck and part gut-slogging hard work, it was obviously a fantastic thing to happen. One of the best. But it was a problem because after that I didn't even have my skin left as a scapegoat. Any sense of blame left in the self-pity was finally, totally and completely all mine.

Jubilee's conviction, once so much a source of comfort, now began to echo unpleasantly over my head. A girl so convinced beyond all doubt that she would never find love had finally found it while I, quietly hopeful that maybe some day it would work out for me, had definitely not. It was a blow to the ego, yes, but also a blow to confidence. Maybe her conviction had somehow become a truth in my mind, but suddenly the "unlovable" became substantially more loveable than me. If there are plenty of fish in the sea I suddenly realised that, compared to her now free-spawning salmon, I was the green algae scum clinging to the bottom of the pond.

I looked around me and saw clearly for the first time that every single person in my immediate social circle was living their life now happily entwined in the arms of a lover. All except me.

It wasn't a happy time.

I'll give them their dues though. They tried to be thoughtful... but the relationships I'd had with these people had been forced to alter as their priorities shifted. I could no longer wage fantasy wars against lovers with a bitter Jubilee. Nor could I hang out with Bobby with such ease now Kitty was glued permanently into his lap. Those moments were gone. What we'd once had was lost, grown and changed into something else as they'd grown and changed into different people. It was only me who'd stayed the same, and it was round about then that I realised staying the same in an ever-changing world pretty much meant you got forgotten. Invited and then ignored. I found in the most ironic twist of all though, that my responsibility in starting these relationships somehow also landed me with the responsibility of fixing them too.

Why Kitty came to me with muttered, awkward questions about sex will perpetually be a mystery. I knew less about it than she did, but somehow in her eyes being able to say "penis" without blushing qualified me as a guru. So regardless of my own feelings on the matter, feelings I guess I must have been hiding a lot better than I thought I was, it was me they came to for an ear to bend or a shoulder to cry on in the ups and downs of young love. Someone to complain to when anniversaries were forgotten and photographs of old girlfriends were found under the bed. Someone to whisper excited details to after a sweet surprise from a loved one or, God forbid, graphic details about sex-lives. I sat through it all, with very little choice on the matter.

If I may allow myself a moment of self-pity now. (One of far too many, I'm sorry to say.) It was wearing. Not just the constant denial of my own hurt, but above everything else it served to highlight with sheer abundance the one thing that began to ceaselessly feel like it was missing from my life.

Love. Company. Companionship. Whatever you wanted to call it. Even simple physical contact began to glow in sharp relief, burning brighter and hotter inside me and illuminating a desperately painful need for the one thing I somehow knew I was never going to have. So they would invite me along because that's what friends do, and I'd have to sit and watch them kiss and cuddle and whisper intimate endearments... and every caress was like a knife in my guts. Every sweet murmur left me frozen in paralysed longing without anyone to keep me warm. I took to staying out of the way as a matter of my own self-preservation, and what was worse was that they didn't seem to understand why I'd withdrawn quite so hard. I guess to them maybe nothing had changed, but to me...

To me, everything was different.

But from darkness, they say, comes light. However in my darkness, Logan came home.

I'm really not convinced that he helped.

-ooo-

Logan returning was not exactly an auspicious event in the Mansion's calendar. He came and went with alacrity, kind of like the flu but more prevalent and a whole lot hairier. He still called me Kid and I still tried to grab at least a small percentage of his time now and then and he was, at least, one of the few things around the mansion that hadn't been bitten by a nauseating case of romance. Aside from what other people thought, I did not exactly have a crush on the man either. A crush is ultimately one of those sudden physical desires, the kind of thing that fades in the light of day. Now don't get me wrong, Logan was hot and I could hardly fail to notice that... but I also quite liked him as well. He was an interesting person, and after the first flush of hero-worshipping admiration had calmed it was that, more than his sheer growly-stalking sex persona, that made me seek his company. I liked him a lot, and on his part he pretty much tolerated me. He didn't actively shoo me away but he was distant at times, and strangely sullen with a determination that pretty much ensured I knew precisely when he didn't want to be bothered. His personality could be mercurial at best, downright miserable at worst, but at least he tried to lend a sympathetic ear when he could, teenage self-absorption and dramas included.

I never troubled him with the obsessed, moping, lack-of-a-relationship rant though. That one felt a little too private and a touch too raw to share with him, and there wasn't anything he could do about it anyway so I kept it tightly to my chest. I think he figured there was something wrong though. I'd never been the most sociable person on the planet for obvious reasons, but even despite my now non-lethal status I was becoming decidedly reclusive and he actually made the effort to come and seek me out instead of waiting for me to come to him this time around.

He sat heavily on the end of my bed and I sighed, feeling it dip beneath his weight. It was almost an alien sensation, and that it was Logan just made it feel sweeter. The weight of a man on the end of your bed is different to that of a woman, and it sparked off a sudden feeling of longing inside me. A feeling in response to him that I knew from long ago would be ultimately fruitless, so I pushed it down. He could have been anyone and that need still would have been there.

He looked at me carefully before speaking. "What are you doing?"

I glanced at the book in my lap, then stared back at him. "Playing the tuba," I said and he rolled his eyes.

"Seriously, Marie. I've only seen you come out of your room for meal times lately, what's goin' on?"

I shrugged. "I'm avoiding the love-in downstairs. There's only so much schmoopey I can take."

He frowned and opened his mouth to say something but I interrupted. "And if you tell me I'll feel different when I have a boyfriend of my own, so help me I'm going to smack you. Hearing that day in and day out is almost as annoying as the endless wet kissing noises coming from the rec-room."

He shut his mouth and gave a noncommittal grunt but the twitch of his face said that I'd got a point. The sound effects really were very, very annoying. I was suddenly amused by the notion that Logan could become my new Jubilee but I didn't think he'd appreciate the sentiment, so I just smiled at him as he stared thoughtfully at the floor.

"Weren't you going out with that Ice kid at one time?"

"Bobby?"

He grunted.

"Jesus, no. It'd be like dating my brother."

He looked at me like he was expecting some kind of elaboration on that.

"It's creepy," I said. "Don't you think it's creepy? It's like some bizarre, incestuous love-in down there. I don't want to date anyone at this school, it's just too weird."

His forehead creased a little. "No one at all?"

I shook my head. "Absolutely no one. If I'd wanted to kiss my brothers, I coulda' done that at home, sugar..." I pasted on the accent thicker than the frosting on one of Jubilee's birthday cakes cause it usually got a smile out of him, but for whatever reason it didn't this time.

In fact he didn't reply at all, only looked at his hands and the silence passed for a moment as I waited to see if he had anything else to say. Apparently he didn't and eventually he just got up to leave. Logan seemed a little disappointed though, as if he had a question he wanted to ask but didn't quite know how to go about it. You know that feeling, when the right situation to slip it in naturally just hadn't happened. Like a stuttering schoolboy wanting to ask out the girl only not knowing how and the notion amused me. Yet another part of my overactive imagination and though he cleared his throat a couple of times he still said nothing. Logan was not a one to suffer tact when a blunt, direct enquiry would work just as well. I knew I could ask him anything, and I assumed he thought the same about me. So I didn't push.

He paused at the doorway and opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, walking away with a frown and an almost imperceptible shake of his head. I heard his door open and close and then there was silence. Whatever it was, he didn't say, so it can't have been important and he left the mansion again shortly after.

-ooo-

"You really don't want to hear about any of this, do you?"

I blinked, startled by Jubilee's sudden change of conversation topic. "Huh?"

She had, I think, been talking about Remy but to be honest I hadn't been listening. On the most part I just let her ramble because I didn't have an opinion on the matter.

"You!" she exclaimed. "I'm standing here rambling about how great my boyfriend is and you're just kind of glazing over. I went way TMI again, didn't I?"

She had. Definitely too much. But I shook my head.

"No, no... you know you can tell me whatever."

"You looked bored as fuck."

I smiled. "I wasn't bored, Jubes. I was just sitting here quietly hating your guts, that's all."

I laughed, said it like a joke, but some little part of me genuinely did despise her at that point and I think she knew that. She heaved a deep sigh and flopped down beside me.

Ah, my self-pity must be showing today. I should try to keep it better hidden.

"You'll find someone too, y'know," she said.

I couldn't help the derisive snort that escaped. She always did have a knack for hitting on the one particular nerve I was trying to avoid. If you don't want to talk about something you can guarantee Jubilee will find out. "I don't exactly see a queue forming at the door here, thank you. I shouldn't get too carried away."

She shrugged and I shook my head. I really didn't want to be having this conversation. It felt awkward and uncomfortable inside of me like indigestion, swelling in the way little things do when you're the only person who thinks it's a big deal.

"I'll help you find one," she offered and I rolled my eyes. Like boyfriends are shoes or sale-price handbags. I could see that ending oh-so-spectacularly...

"Whatever. Doesn't matter." Indifference usually worked wonders at deflating any of Jubilee's sudden notions but apparently even that tried and true method was failing me today.

"I mean," she said, "You have to like someone don't you? There's lots of guys around here, not all of them are idiots."

I raised an eyebrow at her and she pouted at me. "OK, so most of them are idiots. But it was worth a shot." Silence for a moment, then, "At least Logan'll be back again at some point."

I grunted in affirmation. He did always come back eventually. At least that fact always remained static.

"Not that I miss his charming personality or anything," she said, "But at least he's not quite such a miserable asshole when he hangs around with you. God, you shoulda' seen him that time he came back and you were out on that field-trip with McCoy. Was glad to see the back of him, the sour bastard..."

I wondered briefly why she cared either way, but she didn't stop to explain, levering herself up and wandering away in search of better entertainment.

I shrugged to myself. Not that it made a lot of difference.

-ooo-

I was, by nature, a girl very much given to fantasy. It was probably my favourite pastime for a great number of years, and it had always been without doubt the most secret and ultimately futile of guilty pleasures.

I think it was the secrecy that appealed the most though. When every relationship I encountered was played out on a public stage as the unremorseful source of my discomfiture, it was always nice to be able to retreat into the back of my own mind and play pretend for a little while. Public intimacies will only take you so far. What I fantasised in the darkness as I slipped into bed were the private things, or at least how I imagined that it should be. Not the sex, exactly, though it would make an occasional appearance, but the smaller moments between lovers. The weight of an arm draped over you as you sleep, or the warmth of someone breathing steadily against your neck at night. Anything from a male voice whispering in the darkness to the press of a bare, hard chest against my back. They were inconsequential things, but probably the things I wanted more than anything else. They were a representation of intimacy, and a level of connection I'd never had the chance to feel.

If occasionally the voice that whispered goodnight and the lips that pressed against my skin happened to belong to Logan, then... well, I tried not to think about it too much. He was hot and I'm only human, it didn't mean anything.

On a conscious level, one of the many things I knew was that I was of absolutely no romantic interest to Logan what so ever. I had him in my head, I knew exactly how he felt and I was ok with that. He was, for me, a depiction of the unattainable. Like a movie star to a thirteen year old girl as far as a relationship went. Nice to pretend about but it was never going to happen. I'd known that pretty much from the outset and during the day I tended not to even think about it. It just 'was', it always had been, and there was no way to change it. He was Logan, I was the Kid, and together we existed in a state of mutual friendship and absolutely nothing else. At night, however, when fantasy took over from reality? That was a different story. I could admit that maybe Logan was like my guiltiest secret. Ultimately futile to even consider in himself, but it was almost as if his attributes had become some kind of yardstick to measure other people by. I didn't want Logan because that was impossible, so maybe I could take his essence and find it in someone else? Most of the time it didn't make a lot of difference but every now and then it would go and throw a monumental spanner in the works of my existence.

"I been looking out for a boyfriend for Rogue," declared Remy one lunchtime and it took most of my effort not to first snort soup all over the table and then desperately sink through the floor at the mere notion of it. If there's one thing worse than being pathetic it's having everyone else know exactly how pathetic you really are. But somewhere just a little bit worse than that is the idea of needing other people to go out and actively hunt for someone willing to date you because you're so evidently incapable of doing it for yourself. Jubilee shot me an apologetic look, but I don't think Remy actually noticed.

"We should all take you to 'dis club I know. I can introduce you to anyone you like, chere, everyone knows Remy and Remy knows absolutely everyone worth knowing."

I'm not sure if it showed on my face but the horror inside at the mere thought of it lurched sharply into my throat. Not that I doubted Remy's ability to hook me up with someone from his undoubtedly huge social circle, but it was the kind of people he knew that frightened me. The kind of people willing to 'hook up' with me, I feared, would not be the kind of people I actually wanted to date.

"What kind o' boy you lookin' for?" he asked, staring at me across the table. I felt like a bunny in the headlights of an oncoming truck; two cotton-tailed second away from something I didn't want to experience. "I assume you thinkin' more about someone a lil' bit alternative, maybe? Someone a lil' different to the crowd? You don' want no preppy, regular borin' old frat boy..."

I shrugged and wished desperately that I was elsewhere. The answer 'could you maybe find me an adult and not a boy?' would have been a bad one... especially when said to a boy who evidently didn't appreciate there was a difference, so I didn't say it. And the answer 'could you get me someone like Logan?' would have been equally open to misinterpretation. I didn't want them knowing my secret fantasies. Hell I didn't even want to acknowledge them myself half the time. And besides, there was no one else like Logan, no matter how much I wished there was. I choked instead, looking desperately anywhere but at Remy. "I don't know, I... "

"Rogue really doesn't like clubs."

I let out a breath I hadn't even been aware I was holding. Thank you, Jubilee. She was right, I did hate clubs, but I was hating this idea a whole lot more. The setting was just an added deterrent.

Remy waved his hand dismissively though. "It'll be fun. You can sit dere, and I'll bring people past, and you can point out the ones dat you like..."

He was... trying... I guess. The guy was sweet to be offering, but God, I could feel humiliation coiling tightly inside of me just at the notion of it. At the assumption that I could make my decisions about dating someone just by a conveyor-belt selection of faces. The notion that what they thought I wanted was a boy like Bobby and Remy for some aimlessly immature dalliance that ultimately led to nowhere was actually, genuinely frightening to me.

Not that I was specifically looking for the ultimate in commitment either, I wasn't ready for white picket fences quite yet. But I wanted a connection of some kind. Something a little more meaningful than a fumbled fuck in the back of some guy's car. It was just a feeling I was trying to find; Something I knew I would recognise when I found it.

I realised right then that these people had absolutely no idea what it was that I wanted.

"So what kind of guy are you looking for, chere, you never answered de question..."

But the sad thing was that apparently I didn't really know what I wanted either.

-ooo-

I knew what I didn't want, though.

Someone once said that the more lost you are, the more you have to look forward to. It's a roundabout way of saying that from here, things can only get better. Evidently I wasn't quite lost enough yet.

There comes a stage in a situation like this were the endless changes and shifts between friends and lovers forces you to look around you for one brief moment and ask yourself that ultimate question of "What if?".

No matter how fleeting the thought or how ridiculous the concept would be in real life terms, it becomes very easy to cast a theoretical eye over the men you happen to know and let yourself take a moment of indulgence in weighing up their potential. There were some for whom the idea was ludicrous, (the Professor may be single, but I am SO not going there) but there were a handful of people that, while I would not actively pursue them, I think I could have been persuaded to at least give something a try if, and only if, they'd said something first.

None of them ever actually did though, so it remained a hypothetical list. They were acquaintances rather than friends; Out of my immediate social circle and well into their own, and Pitor was one of those people. We had absolutely nothing in common at all, but he was funny in a Russian sort of a way and unfailingly willing to fill a few empty hours with mindless chatter about whatever it was that went on in his life. He was just that kind of a guy. We weren't especially close but with him it didn't matter who you were, he just liked to talk and I admit now that I really had a kind of theoretical crush on him.

If he'd ever actually asked me out I probably would have said yes, but he didn't, so that's how it stayed.

He did sometimes invite me along to grab takeout with him though, if he got hungry mid-way through a conversation (an event which happened rather a lot, I must say. Big guy, big metabolism) and it was during one of those little trips out that Logan decided to make another return to mansion life. We arrived back at around the same time as he pulled his bike back into the garage, and I didn't notice him first off because I was too busy flicking noodles at Petey and trying to make them stick to his forehead. But Logan had a weird look on his face when I finally did notice him. Part pissy, part... ok, all pissy. It was the look that said he didn't want to be bothered because something was irritating him, so I gave him a brief hello and left him in the garage to stew about whatever it was that was causing such evident annoyance. Burrs on his butt, saddle sore, bug-splatter on his forehead, really who knew? It's not like Logan actually needed an excuse to be bad-tempered. He barely even acknowledged our presence in all truth, he was too busy yanking angrily at the straps on his saddle-bags. Obviously something was not all rosy in the world of the Wolverine, so I went to hang out with Pete a little while more and then eventually made my way to my room.

When I got back however, Logan was there. Which was somewhat of a surprise.

He was half-sprawled on the end of the bed, disdainfully flicking through one of the film magazines he'd picked off my floor.

"Oh, hey. Good trip?" The innocuous greeting of a girl not even slightly warmed by the sight of a man draped on her bed. Really. (And some day I thought, I really must stop torturing myself with wanting what will never happen. He made my heart beat too fast and I knew that it was stupid.)

He glanced up at me, grunted a noncommittal "Mph" and flipped another page.

It was an unsurprisingly Logan-ish response and the little flicker of fantasy faltered and died once again, like they always unfailingly did.

I pursed my lips slightly and shrugged, dropping my jacket over the back of a chair before kicking off my shoes.

"So where'd you go this time?"

He looked at me and scowled, the look that says it's not important where he went and the whole experience sucked anyway. Apparently he was mister incommunicative right at that moment. I rolled my eyes and sighed. I really wasn't in the mood for guessing the reason for Logan's mood, and I didn't especially feel like sympathising him out of it either. Not when I had enough of my own reasons to be miserable.

"Was there something specific you wanted, Logan? Or did you just come by to read old back-issues of Empire and grunt at me?"

He tossed the magazine back onto the floor and sighed slowly, almost visibly rolling the thoughts around his head before finally speaking.

"You seemed... kinda' weird before I left."

"Oh." I shrugged and didn't really look at him. "It was nothing. Life and times of a histrionic, mutant drama queen. I'm fine."

He grunted again, quietly this time, and I could feel his eyes boring into me.

"You were out with that Russian kid earlier," he stated and I couldn't help smiling just a little. Petey had been picking stuck noodles off the ceiling when I left.

"Yeah," I replied. "He took me out for junk food."

He sat there silently for a moment, a pensive look upon his face before his shoulders sagged just the tiniest fraction.

"That's great, Kid."

He got up and left and I sighed slowly, inhaling whispers of the scent he'd left lingering in the air.

He really did smell good.

Chapter 2: Frustration

Jean Grey... That's what it said on the label, the perky yet pointless catalogue evidently intent on selling nick-knacks to a dead woman. It amazes me how people can go on getting junk mail even years after they're gone.

The first few times mail arrived for her were horrible. Just awful. Scott would collect them and read them and go about informing whoever still needed to be told that she was dead. After a while of course all the legitimate mail stopped and it just trickled down to occasional offers for credit and other sundry junk.

By now no one paid it any notice, it just wound up in the trash unless the catalogue looked interesting, and not even Scott got that faraway look in his eyes when he'd find it heaped in with the other letters.

I picked the catalogue out today though. The Original Gift Company had a valentine's special sale and an ironing board with a naked man sprawled over the cover. As it happened I was looking for an incentive to make Jubilee complain less about pulling laundry duty and it just seemed to scream "Buy me!".

I was browsing aimlessly through the pages when I stumbled into Logan.

Stumbled, truly. I'd been reading while walking back to my room, not looking where I was going and I bumped into him on the landing. The catalogue slipped out of my fingers as I scrabbled to stop an ungraceful landing, grabbing half onto Logan and half onto the banister before I got my feet back under me.

"You might wanna' look where you're walkin', Kid... you ok?"

I flushed, half awkward, half something indescribable as the steadying hand on my waist tightened a fraction then withdrew. He bent down, plucking the catalogue off the carpet and glancing over the cover.

Jean's catalogue, I thought, as his face clouded over a moment, something about his fire seeming to diminish as I looked at him. He read the catalogue cover and gave it back to me, a flash of shimmer in his eyes as he forced a lop-sided smirk.

"Buying things for anyone special?" he asked me and I shrugged.

"I guess so..."

He exhaled slowly, lips forming a thin line as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked away.

"Been a while... It's her anniversary soon," he added, barely glancing back over his shoulder. "Surprised these catalogues still keep turning up."

I watched him walk away from me, back to his room and I swore. Quietly, under my breath, a mental slap to myself as a cold, hard lump settled in the pit of my stomach.

Her anniversary. Jean.

I didn't see Logan again for quite a while after that. It was a safe enough assumption to make that he was locked in his room, mourning the passing of his unrequited love. Of course, who else? The perfect memory of a perfect person, mentally canonised by absolutely everyone. Who could ever even hope to live up to that?

The pinnacle of his wants was long, long gone... and if he mourned her that badly still, then absolutely no one else would ever have a chance, no matter how much I wanted for him to be happy.

Mentally I knew it. Telling my useless excuse for a heart that, mind you, was absolutely futile.

-ooo-

The curse of the hopeless romantic is right there in its own naming. Hopelessness. That is, not devoid of hope at all, but just rendered unutterably useless by wallowing in rather an excess of it.

A tiny part of my soul will forever be that hopeless. The quietly waiting part that would rather be wooed than pursued. Courted rather than chasing endlessly after other people. It's a little bit passive but I guess I just wanted to be wanted, that's what it came down to. I always felt a little bit stupid even thinking about initiating any kind of relationship, because somewhere along the line I was pretty convinced that I was going to make an ass of myself. I'm not good at reading signals, I admit that one, so making the first move really never felt like an option because it was like heading into something totally blind. I wasn't just hopeless, I was terrible at judging people, too.

I was the kind of person to sit and wait and see if things became clearer with time. Inevitably they did, because the object of my watching would unfailingly waltz off with someone else, leaving me to consider that it was probably a good thing I never mentioned it in the first place. It wasn't a great track-record by all accounts, and it left me pretty convinced that whoever I finally did make that first overture towards would be guaranteed to refuse. I wasn't convinced that my pitifully low self-esteem was actually capable of surviving that too many times and it seemed simpler somehow to hope that, eventually, someone would want me enough to take the decision out of my hands.

It's passive, it's pathetic, I know all of that. But it's just sometimes you get stuck into this well-embedded rut and it's hard to find the courage or even the motivation to climb out of it. This is who I was, and I wasn't sure it was the best plan to go changing that because inevitably it was something I would always slip back into. I wanted, so desperately, to feel that rush as someone swept me off my feet and charged headlong into the sunset...

I wanted that impossible romance, I guess. The kind you see in movies and books that doesn't really exist but that never stops you hoping. I wanted that fantasy. I wanted... I wanted someone to love me, basically. I wanted them to love me with the passion I knew I was capable of feeling if only someone would give me a chance. But with every day and week that passed without sign of that hope ever being fulfilled it began to burn inside me with a crushing sort of despondence, like a low, smouldering ember in the very back of my soul.

It's tiring, I found, pulling on that happy face every day and attempting to convince people that you're glad for their joy when all you really want is for them to go away and make a return to the status quo. Jealousy is exhausting, but lying about it is so much worse.

Harder still is when you know that absolutely nobody is fooled. The pity was cloying and sickly sweet at times and it probably stung more than it ever helped. It felt a little too much like condescension when suddenly everyone and their dog was trying to either cheer you up or fix you up and the stream of 'good advice' was pretty much never ending. In the stakes of all-time-low I wasn't exactly planning on hurling myself off any rooftops or anything, but I greeted each morning with an ever-increasing sense of weary resignation rather than sunshine and optimism.

I'd hoped that day that I'd be able to grab someone, anyone, to go see a movie with me. I needed a time-out from the cabin-fever that was brewing in my room and it was one of those things that we all used to just get together and do for the sake of it. But both Kitty and Bobby and Jubilee and Remy all had other plans. Pitor was out someplace, doing whatever it was he did and Logan... Well like I said, Logan hadn't spoken to me since he got back and was pretty much nowhere to be found.

I went on my own that afternoon and, as the lights went down and the trailers came up, I felt strangely desolate.

I watched the movie, ate my popcorn and sat there in the dark, but as the credits rolled I felt that ember in my chest roll and catch inside me, smouldering gently against my heart. I missed Logan, I missed my friends, I missed what we'd had and the thoughts just wouldn't leave me alone. They stung and hurt behind my eyes and as I sat there crowded by so many people I could almost feel physical distance pulling me away from them. It was like being trapped inside a bubble, always watching everything else happen but never getting to be a part of it. For a second I felt helplessly isolated, so much so that I could almost feel myself starting to disappear, like I was becoming as insubstantial as the shadow I was living in, and I suddenly, desperately wanted to cry.

I wouldn't though, I had enough pride left to not be the crazy sobbing lady on the train home so I buried it. Swallowed it down as hard as I could, putting one foot in front of the other as I walked the last distance from the station to the mansion's gates. A cool breeze had sprung up and it caressed my slowly-burning cheeks as I trudged my way home. It should have been beautiful, my romantic heart whispered. Like a tragic heroine in the novels and movies, this should be the point when the dashing hero comes to save you and make everything better...

But there was no hero, this wasn't a book, and the mere fact that it almost felt like it should be just poured vinegar into an already bleeding wound. By the time I got home I felt so full up it was like my head was almost ready to burst and I closed my bedroom door behind me, curled up on the bed and finally let free the tears that had been gathering for far too long.

I mourned, I think. For what I'd had, what I'd lost, and what I absolutely believed I would never get.

-ooo-

Red-faced and blotchy and still sniffling my way through a box of Kleenex was how Jubilee decided to come and find me. She wasn't awfully good at going away, even when shouted at through a door, so she let herself in. Protestations that I was fine were evidently not going to cut it and she flopped down with a deep, heavy sigh, staring blankly at her booted feet shifting uncomfortably on the rug.

"Shit... I'm sorry I couldn't come with you earlier. I wanted to but I'd already agreed to do this thing with Remy and-"

I sniffed and shook my head. "Doesn't matter."

She shrugged. "It kinda' does to me. I know we've not been spending much time together lately."

I groaned quietly. "It's not that, Jubes. I know you've got Remy to occupy you, it's ok. I'm just... having a moment."

She nodded and chewed at her lip quietly for a second before looking at me. "Christ, girl, you look like shit."

I choked out a laugh and she handed me another tissue with a lop-sided smile.

"Thanks," I said, "Don't cushion the blow or anything."

She shrugged in her nonchalant way before growing quiet again. "Seriously, Rogue." She pulled her feet up on the bed and lent her chin on her knees. "I kinda' feel like we've been ignoring you, and obviously something's made you upset. You can still talk to me, you know. I'm still the same old Jubes you used to hang out with."

I swallowed at the lump that still burned in my throat and shook my head. Because she wasn't. This was Jubes of 'Jubes and Remy'. Half of a couple, and no longer on her own. Somehow that made everything different. "I really don't want to talk about it, OK? It just sounds stupid and there's nothing you can do about it so just... leave it alone. I'll be fine by tomorrow. You'll see."

She gave me the eyebrow, so amazingly unconvinced it was painful. Which was a shame because I'd actually been telling the truth.

"Uh huh... ok then if you won't tell me I'm going to have to guess."

I flopped over backwards with a groan and let my forearm rest comfortingly over my eyes in the forlorn hope that not having to see her might make her go away.

"I'm thinking," she said, "That it starts with an 'L'."

"Love?" I guessed. "Don't talk shit, Jubes. The topic's closed."

"Actually, I was going to say Logan, but there's a certain amount of crossover in that," she replied.

The silence hung in the room for an amazingly long second before I pulled my arm away and looked at her incredulously.

"Excuse me?"

She shrugged. "I'm just sayin'-"

"Logan's a friend but that's it, Jubes."

She nodded. "Yeah, he is. I'm thinking that maybe that's the problem."

I could feel the beginnings of something probably bad brewing on the horizon and I sighed resignedly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying," she said, "That's he's been seriously antisocial since he came back last time, and since nothing else in this place has changed it has to be him that's responsible for this. The more he pulls away the more time you spend wandering round looking like you just got kicked."

My eyes narrowed a fraction. I had my share of self-pity, yes, and God knows I missed his company, but I didn't understand what she was trying to explain. Logan was just Logan. It was none of her business what I wanted when the plain fact of it all was right there for everyone to see. Didn't she understand that?

"You should just tell him how you feel," she said. "Get it over and done with. It can never be as bad as you're thinking. It might even work out."

I looked at her, something in the back of my mind whispering at me about the possibility held in her suggestion, but I didn't want to listen to it. I couldn't listen to it. Logan was a fantasy, I knew that. He was anything and everything apart from what I had been denying the longest. Even thinking about it was tantamount to building up my dreams just for the purpose of smashing them down again. I wasn't going to think about it...

"My feelings about what?"

"You love him, don't you?" she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You have done forever and you've never done anything about it."

I didn't want to think about it. I wasn't going to think about it...

"I don't love him. Not like that," I told her. And I meant it, I swear I did... but my mouth was dry and it came out sounding forced and unnatural.

I loved him, but not like that; never like that. I wouldn't let myself. And damnit, what business was it of hers anyway?

"Why don't you believe in yourself for once?" she asked, shaking her head. "What makes it so hard to think that he might actually be interested?"

It felt like the most ridiculous question she'd ever asked me. Why wouldn't he be interested in me, huh? Because he never has been, that's why. Because nobody ever is. Hell, some days even I'm not interested in me. And why should they be? It's like all the other hopeless people out there. Everyone says it doesn't matter because we have 'nice personalities' or 'really great hair'. Well I had freaky hair and people were scared of my personalities. Mostly because I could say that as a plural and actually mean it. I was bitter... God I felt so painfully bitter in that moment. But instead I said "Don't be stupid Jubes," and rolled over to stare at the wall just so I didn't have to look at her face while I lied to her.

"Stupid about what? You totally have a thing for him. And you know he only comes back here because of you..."

"I do NOT have a 'Thing'!" I cried, angry suddenly. Like my privacy had been invaded in the most merciless way. I had a chasm in my chest and some indefinable need, but it was not a 'thing'... not by miles and definitely not for him, and she dangled that fucking carrot in my face, almost daring me to believe that there was more. There wasn't more. There never would be and how dare she try and make me hope that there was. Hurt turned to rage as I sat up to glare at her. "And he does NOT come back here for me. This isn't some stupid movie or some fucking romantic novel, ok? Grow up, Jubilee. This is real life and it sucks and it's not romantic and he has never even ONCE shown any interest in me beyond a grudging kind of friendship. He isn't secretly pining away and he isn't hiding his feelings and you know what? Neither am I. I do not have a thing for him. He does not have a thing for me and don't you ever suggest that he does. Don't you dare..."

Don't you dare give me hope...

I was shouting by the end and she stared at me silently for a second. She looked like I'd slapped her and I almost felt like I had, the pain inside me exploding like a volcano and pouring out before I'd even had a chance to think about what I was saying. For once, I think she was speechless. Her eyes were shimmering a little, like she was going to cry and I almost wanted her to. Almost wanted to make her hurt. Wanted so badly to scream at her and make her feel the twisting in my heart every time she waved that impossible dream in front of me. Because she had no idea how much it burned. No idea at all...

"You love him, don't you?" she whispered, and it wasn't a question. She knew I did. She'd known all along and I hated her for it. Hated that she could see my secrets and my fears and my weakness so easily. Hated that the things I so desperately needed to keep private were so fucking public.

"No." I replied and the lie felt like swallowing fire.

Oh God... God I loved him. The realisation was fast and hard and sickening all at once and the chasm in my heart seemed to expand into a gaping, black void.

But I already knew he didn't love me back. He never had and he never would. I couldn't just sit dreaming about the things that wouldn't happen because it was just too hard to keep hoping for the impossible. To keep wishing for fantasies to come true. Because I knew, if I asked him, exactly what his answer would be. Masochistic as it sounded I preferred not to ask. That way he couldn't answer. If he didn't get the chance to say that inevitable 'no' then there was always a chance he could have said yes.

I looked down at my hands and they were shaking and I closed my eyes in frustration at my own weakness. But not just that, it was the realisation that I wasn't as accepting of my friendship with Logan as I'd always convinced myself I was. It felt strange yet too achingly familiar both at once.

"I'm not good at playing the martyr," I said eventually, as if that explained everything. And in my mind it did. I wasn't going to be some daydreaming, desperate heart, pining away for the impossible, no matter how badly I wanted it. No matter that I could almost taste it with the lightest touch of his hand...

She looked at me then and pouted slightly, a bizarre mix of pity and disbelief on her face as she climbed to her feet. Because I knew she could see right through me.

"Believe what you want to, Rogue. But just remember that the only reason he even has to come back here now is you. Eventually you have to stand up and ask for what you want. It isn't always going to come right to you, no matter how much you wish it would."

She left then and I buried my face in the pillows on the bed, pulling the blankets over my head until I was cocooned in their darkness, wishing that today would just be over so that tomorrow I could forget it ever happened at all. Maybe that way I could forget the aching loss inside my body from where all of my illusions had suddenly fallen apart.

My hope went unrealised though and I felt off-centre for days afterwards. Though while Jubilee knew the reason for my discomfort at least she had the good grace to keep quiet about it.

I didn't see Logan during that time either. I would sometimes catch a hint of his scent in the hallways and I knocked on his door once or twice to see if he was ok, but there was never any answer so I assumed he was either out or didn't want to see me. It hurt, I admit that. More now than it would have done previously though I tried not to think about why that was. I tried hard too, to rebuild my net of fantasy, but all I had left was a lingering resignation to an unrequited, new, old, endless love affair with a man I knew deepest of all wanted nothing less than my heart on his conscience.

I tried not to be demanding on his time in general, but he seemed to have withdrawn completely and I felt a little bit lost without him. I made myself promise not to dwell on my feelings but there were moments in amongst it all where the only thing I wanted was just to be near him for a little while. Hear his voice or feel him touch me in the little ways he used to. Even just to know that he was ok and not still hurting too much.

And when I was honest with myself, I finally admitted that I desperately wanted more.

-ooo-

It was probably close to a week later that I next saw him. It was late and I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a walk down to the library rather than toss and turn all night. There was a book I'd been meaning to find and for once I had absolutely nothing better to do.

So it was while passing the rec-room late that night that I finally happened to see him.

Well, no, that's a lie. It was when passing the rec-room that I saw the TV was still on, if you want to get technical about it all. The room was dim and silent other than the droning infomercials and I paused at the door, thinking that someone had forgotten to switch it off before going to bed. But there was a rustle of something crinkling and, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, it was then that I saw him.

He had his back to me, strangely absorbed in the flickering, endless images on the screen. Sitting in the dark, he was eating Pop Tarts right from the box.

The vision was so patently absurd I almost thought I must be sleepwalking, dreaming this moment, but no. Something shifted a little inside my chest and, no matter how much I wanted to see him, I stayed hidden just beyond the doorway. It was so far from anything anyone ever would have expected of him I didn't want to take that moment away and spoil it.

Something so... humanly mundane but infinitely lonely in that instant. He looked so sad and it fired that spark inside me once again, breath almost halting in my lungs for a half second, stopped by the sudden formation of an intense, tangible desire. I wanted to hold him, I thought. Make the pain go away. The fantasy of it flashed behind my eyes, casting the prettiest image and making my heartbeat lurch.

The realisation of my denied feelings still felt a little strange and new in that moment, and I could almost physically feel the conflict between old and new perspectives like a fizzing sensation in my chest.

I wanted him. I wanted him so desperately, but I didn't want to want him. I still didn't want to need him this bad because I already knew how it would end. I was lost that second in a halfway realm between 'what is' and 'what was'. What I want to have and what will never be.

Need felt sharp, watching him from the shadows. He was the realisation and the solidity that anchored still essentially abstract feelings and I felt it then through the deepest part of me with total, inescapable clarity.

I needed him. Like air and water. I wanted him inside me, like oxygen in my lungs. This great, vital thing that I couldn't even hope to live without...

I saw him pause then. Saw him throw the remains of the Pop tart back into the box and then I saw him slump forward. Heard the sigh as he dropped his head into his hands and felt the desperation and wistful sadness of it rip right through me. It burned as it did, like a sheet of white hot lead slicing my heart. Because I wanted him so badly when I knew that all he wanted was Jean.

For once it was me who walked away. I don't think he even knew I was there.

-ooo-

Logan did eventually make a grudging return to a more public mansion life. I saw him finally once more in the rec room one lunchtime, squeezed into wifebeater and jeans, pouring over his copy of greasy engine monthly or whatever the hell it was he read for his own edification.

His extended avoidance had made it pretty clear he had no great desire to see me (or I guess anyone else), but I took his presence now as a sign that a little company might be ok, so long as it was pleasantly indifferent and didn't ask anything he didn't want to answer.

Or mention Jean.

I said 'hey' and sat down on the other end of the couch and he glanced at me and grunted and flipped the page. Ah, another classic Logan moment. The only difference was that previously I had been pretty much certain I only ever saw Logan as a friend, and now...

Well now I was honestly still confused as all screaming hell. I tried to be indifferent I really, really did, but it was so much harder than I would ever have anticipated. That conversation with Jubes and then my stolen glimpse into his privacy had stirred up a lot of things I still didn't quite know how to deal with, and now publicly faced with the object of all that confusion I had no idea how to behave around him any more. I couldn't seem to remember what I'd always done to make that camaraderie between us so easy, because this was like a whole other person now. The same man but looked at from a completely different angle and he, apparently, was offering no clues. He just sat there in silence reading his magazine.

There was a noise at the door and a bunch of the boys came in, Pitor at the head, all of them shirtless and rowdy from some outdoor pursuit and tracking mud across the wooden floors as they headed to raid the sodas behind the corner bar. Their presence was pissing Logan off, I could tell. His knuckles had paled as he gripped the pages a little tighter but it was the only outward sign of his annoyance. They must have been loud and stinky and generally overwhelming on his heightened senses. They were pretty overwhelming on mine, to tell the truth, but he said nothing.

The guys settled down eventually, milling around the fridge as they drank and discussed their game and I let my attention wander back to the silent figure beside me. He evidently wasn't in the mood for talking so I didn't. I Just sat there, feeling absurdly and pathetically grateful to be spending any time with him at all, even if it was in silence.

He wanted indifference. I was sure I could give it to him. I mean, it was only Logan after all, right? Regular, solid, boring old Logan. He didn't leave me flustered and confused in the slightest. Of course not, that would be crazy...

It was easy to ignore him and pretend I felt nothing, really it was. Then he'd go and do something simple, like yawn and scratch his neck and damn it if I wouldn't be lost all over again. Just at the sight of his throat bobbing as he swallowed, or that smooth glide of skin that arced from shoulder to jaw. He had a terrible effect on me, his body like some lethal weapon made all the more dangerous by the sweetness of the soul I knew lived within it, and I wound up just sitting there, staring blindly into the middle distance as my brain went off on some tactile and erotic fantasy trip.

I wanted him. I wanted him badly. Though while it wasn't a new thing that I found him attractive, it was like I now felt it with a whole new level of intensity. Because while before it had been some kind of nebulous, abstract concept, now... well now I suddenly wanted to hold him tight and refuse to let go. I wanted everything he was and, for some ungodly reason... I really wanted to lick him. I mean seriously. Run my tongue over the shivery flesh under his jaw. Curl hot, rough trails over his nipples. Suck and taste and feel his skin against my mouth, salty and warm and bare. I wanted to make him gasp and shiver in pleasure. I wanted to know how that felt, looked... tasted.

I wanted to feel the turn of his hip, the top of his thigh, the hard, toned ass that almost just begged to be bitten, teasing as it does when so often encased in tight, worn denim. I wanted to feel the fulfilment of heart and soul both satisfied, humming with the glow of deep, passionate sex... And then I had to catch myself, blush creeping up my face as I stole a look at Logan from the corner of my eye, hoping beyond anything that he hadn't detected the suddenly heated scent coming off me.

For a second I thought I'd got away with it but then his head snapped round sharply, pinning me with an inscrutable look before his eyes flickered for a split-second to Pitor and the guys laughing boisterously on the other side of the room. His attention came almost instantly back to me though, his expression set and unreadable before he got to his feet and walked out.

Shit.

I was an idiot. He had to know what I was thinking of even if he didn't realise who it was directed at... Heat and want and longing, he'd said to me once that they were distinct and I was pumping them out like crazy. Wafting in his senses was the bloom of infatuation when the only one he wanted to be infatuated with was gone and evidently still burning like a fresh wound. What more proof did I need that he wasn't interested in someone like me? I'd upset the legendary Wolverine so much he'd had to leave the room. It was like every day my own stupidity incinerated yet another bridge to take Logan further away from me.

I sighed and shook my head. Fuck. Maybe if I could keep my fantasies in check we could pretend like it never happened. I should just take his friendship and be grateful for what I had rather than keep risking it all dreaming about the impossible.

-ooo-

I never realised Logan was such a voracious reader until he started using it as an excuse to avoid holding conversations. Maybe he figured there's only so much longing to be had between the covers of a Dostoevsky or whatever, but he sure did spend a lot of time being here while being somewhere else entirely. It may have been good for him, but I admit it wasn't working out so great for me.

I was having... I guess you'd just have to call it 'One of those days'. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and I'd just found out Pete was having an online romance with some Russian woman he'd met on an ex-pat mailing list somewhere... everyone was nauseatingly happy and to me it was about as chafing as the cake crumbs under the hide of Kipling's rhino.

But I am, as I have said before, nothing if not a glutton for punishment, and when what I really wanted was to be hiding from everyone, I was stupidly down in the dining room with a slightly glazed expression on my face. One that would probably pass for normal so long as no one was looking too hard.

Of course no one was looking. Just regular old Rogue, there like always, slowly blending into the wallpaper. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Kitty and Bobby giggling and whispering sweet nothings over the broccoli, Kurt and Ro sharing smiles across a platter of buttered carrots. Remy removing a piece of chocolate cake from Jubilee's mouth using only his tongue...

Jesus.

I couldn't help it. I winced. Flinched visibly enough for Logan to glance up from his book and stare at me. His eyes flicked sharply between my grimace and Remy making out with Jubes in the corner, watching in silence as I got up and left. I felt like I was choking on it all suddenly. Drowning under this inescapable tidal wave of the most potent kind of resentment. He must have followed me though because I paused at the bottom of the stairs and he was right behind me, speaking before I even had the chance to register he was there.

"Don't tell me you have some kind of crush on that stupid Cajun now."

I jumped at the sound of his voice. The first time in weeks he'd actually spoken to me and suddenly so close to my ear I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to bring my galloping heartbeat under control.

"Don't sneak up on me like that. Christ you made me jump..."

He didn't reply, just crossed his arms and stared at me questioningly.

I exhaled and shook my head. "And not that it's got anything to do with you, but no. I don't."

He nodded, satisfied at least with a denial and I started my way up the stairs.

"Don't suppose your little Russian would like it too much if you did."

I halted mid step and spun round to stare at him. Pitor? What in the hell did Pitor care whether I crushed on Remy or not?

"Huh?" As responses go it wasn't the greatest, but I was genuinely confused.

He was leaning against the stair rail at the bottom, an air of sarcasm about him as he rolled his eyes.

"You know? Russian Kid? Seven foot tall. Turns to metal. Can't really miss him."

"I know who he is Logan. I just don't know what he has to do with this."

"I thought you two were some kind of an item or something."

I gave him an incredulous look and snorted. "Yeah, right."

His eyes narrowed a little and I huffed. "He's just a friend. Someone to talk to sometimes. I do have friend y'know, even if I haven't even seen him in weeks, but then you'd know this if you actually spoke to me from time to time."

If I didn't know him better I would have sworn he shifted uncomfortably... but he was Logan. He was never uncomfortable. I turned my back on him and started up the stairs again, muttering under my breath. As if someone like Pitor would even go out with a freak like me anyway.

"You're not a freak."

There was heat in his voice suddenly, the sound of his footsteps quick and sure on the creaking old stairs and I cursed quietly. I didn't mean for him to hear that and my fists clenched, walking a little faster, ignoring him in the hope that maybe, just maybe he wouldn't push it.

"Marie, look at me..."

My chest hurt and I didn't want to, but he touched me. A hand on my arm and I froze, helpless against it as he turned me round to face him. I didn't look at his face though. I couldn't. Stared at the collar of his shirt instead, at his neck and where he'd missed a spot shaving.

"Marie, darlin'..." I felt the back of his fingers brush across my cheek and he paused, concerned. "Kid? You crying?"

I shook my head. No. No I'm not. I won't. But he wiped the warm, dry pad of his thumb just under my eye and fuck it, I was. Damn him...

I jerked away.

"Kid... If this is about that Russian-"

"It's not about Pitor!" I yelled. "Or Remy. Or anyone. Just leave me alone!"

"You angry at me?" And damn if he didn't look genuinely concerned. "Did I do something to upset you?" No Logan, nothing at all. Just ignored me for weeks while I let my heart break, no biggie... But I was more angry at myself. I had no right to be mad at him for anything because he didn't know how I felt and hadn't once done anything different to the normal behaviour I'd come to expect. But more than that, he had enough of his own damn misery, he didn't need mine on top of it.

"It's not about you either." No, not directly.

"Marie will you just tell me what's wrong?" There was a hint of exasperation in his voice and the grip on my arm got just a little bit tighter. Why couldn't he leave it alone? Why couldn't he, more than anyone, know that sometimes the hurt you feel is easier kept inside?

I wrenched my arm from his grip and tried again to escape up the stairs, but he hounded me pace for pace until I spun around shoved him hard, my hands in the middle of his chest just trying to push him as far away from me as possible. He stumbled down a step before regaining his balance, grabbing hold of my wrists and twisting me around until my back was pressed hard into the oak banister, his body solid and impossible to shift as he folded my arms firmly across my chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" His fingers were tight against my skin. He was angry now, I could tell. Angry at me. Frustrated and annoyed and I scrunched up my face as I felt my body go limp. Just sagged under the twist inside as if I'd hammered another nail into my own damn coffin, helping to bury the hopeless fantasy of a relationship with Logan before it even had a chance to live.

Christ, I was such an idiot.

He sighed heavily, releasing a shaky breath as he let go of my hands. "What were you trying to do, Kid?"

Kid. It was all I was ever going to be to him and suddenly I just felt exhausted. So tired of trying to hide from him because I knew then that, no matter what I said, it wasn't going to change anything. I would always be a kid, Jean would always be his hopeless fantasy and he... he would always be mine.

"I'm just so sick of it..." I whispered, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth, throat burning as I looked anywhere but at him. "I'm so sick of all this. I'm so tired of watching everyone else be so happy all the time."

I swallowed, hating how much it hurt to admit it. Especially to him, when I knew he still had his own damn pain to deal with. Because I knew he could empathise to a degree and that somehow made it worse.

"It's exhausting, being happy for other people when I'm so sick of being on my own. And they all act like it's ok cause I'm waiting for something special, but it's bullshit."

His fingers clenched by his sides, I could see them baling into fists through the shimmering blur of tears that just wouldn't leave me.

"I never get to be a part of it because they don't want me and it hurts to watch them. It hurts to see what you've never had sitting there just out of your grasp... but most of all I'm so sick and so tired of trying to make myself believe that it doesn't matter."

I wiped angrily at the wet streaks slithering down my face.

"I tried... I really did... and sometimes it was ok, y'know? I could believe that it was alright and that I didn't need anybody. That I was the best damned thing people like Remy will never get to have... But sometimes... there are times when I would give up everything I have for someone like that. Even just for a little while. Even if they were only pretending. Just so at least I could say that I knew what it felt like to be wanted that way."

He looked devastated for a moment, fire burning behind eyes that almost seemed to glow and he grabbed me hard by the shoulders, shaking me slightly when I wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Hey... Hey, don't ever talk like that. Never again, Marie, you understand? You deserve to love someone who loves you back. Someone willing to move the moon and the stars for you. Nothing pretend about it."

He looked at me so intensely, like he was trying to see right into my heart, so close that if he just leaned in a fraction he almost could have kissed me.

It was a pretty image, and pretty words, but so sadly impossible. I forced out a watery smile, shrugging out of his grip and then regretting it as his hands fell back down to his sides.

"Yeah... well... You learn to live with disappointments." And this time when I walked away, he didn't follow.

Chapter 3: Delayed Gratification

So, there was this boy...

It's how most stories start, few of them happy and fewer still truly satisfying. It's a standard precursor to aching hearts, settling for less, and the truth that dreams are just that... dreams. Life is not a romance novel, the handsome prince will not whisk you away on his steed and no matter how many frogs you kiss or Pygmalion schemes you concoct, the ending is very rarely like that glorious, perfect, fade-to-black romanticism of the movies.

Because unlike the movies, life goes on after the credits roll and, if you're me, Logan stops speaking to you altogether. Or, more accurately, he just wandered off somewhere to do whatever it is that he does, and didn't quite bother to say that he was leaving. A strangeness had appeared between us and I didn't really know why. Maybe I'd said too much; shown too much. It was possible, I guess he had about as much use for a histrionic mutant drama queen as he did for Band-Aids but I figure some part of me had been hoping for maybe more than a conciliatory pat on the shoulder and an uncomfortably hasty exit. A bit of reassurance would have been nice at least.

Compatibility, that was the thing. There were times when I wondered if this whole thing with Logan was just beyond even the scope of stupid. You know, pushing in from an objective point of view, what on earth was I holding out for so damn hard? He was older and unstable and dangerous and apparently right now, wholly uncomfortable with me. I was younger and weird and inexperienced and intensely neurotic. He should not and could not realistically ever actually want this. I could not see any tangible reason for it ever working out, and yet...

Yet, I really wanted it to. I kept trying to think of reasons to dissuade myself just to make this endless back and forth mental argument end, and I couldn't tell you why or how I ever thought it would work. I mean, he'd already told me to 'keep on waiting, kid,' and rationally I'd all but given up on him ever reciprocating my feelings, but that stupid, hopeless part still whispered quietly about how great it could be no matter how many times I tried to convince myself it was impossible.

Heart and head were battling it out, taking no prisoners and it was killing me in the process. I didn't know which path to follow. Logic dictated I should just get over myself and leave it alone before it got any more humiliating, but my heart... oh he had a beautiful, beautiful image and he wasn't ready to give it up yet.

But the thing was that there was also one other part. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew the reason I couldn't seem to decide was because I was afraid. Desperately terrified of what a relationship with anyone could mean and that, more than anything, was the root of my problems. I didn't know if I was trying to talk myself out of attempting a relationship with Logan or if I was just afraid of relationships in general. Some nameless fear of the unknown that kept me from making a step in any direction just in case it was the wrong one. Every time I thought about him I tried to picture the truth of what it could entail, and it was as if one half was rejoicing at the possibility of wonderful new things and the other part was...

Well the other part was the bit that screams when you step into the void. It's the part that knows you won't fly and that the ground will hit you very, very hard, and then when it's all over it knows that some part of you is going to be somehow, irreparably broken. It's the part that's afraid of being humiliated. The part that sits in the back of your mind and reminds you that you've never been kissed and you have no idea what sex is like, and that at 24 pretty much everyone else at the mansion is more experienced then you. And that it's mortifying when you're still all awkward fingers and thumbs taking a first step that everyone else has already taken. It reminds you that you can barely manage to look him in the eye any more so how in the hell do you expect to do anything else? It's all 'what-ifs' and indignity and it dares you to be more than what you are, when you already know you're just going to embarrass yourself...

And I was, I knew. Embarrassed by my own sense of inadequacy. I was afraid to fall into the void because I didn't think I was capable of flying. I didn't know how. The fall is exhilarating but the repercussions immense, and I was so, so scared that if I threw myself out there, no one would catch me. Not Logan, not anyone.

He wouldn't catch me, it whispered over and over inside my head. He wouldn't. I'd land on my face and he'd be there with a box of tissues and an admonition to "Try again with a parachute next time, kid," and the wounds I nursed would forever stay secret because it was too shameful to admit that they existed. Too degrading to admit that not only did I fail but that he didn't even notice I'd tried. I was afraid he'd laugh at me, and I don't know why I thought that. I don't know how it got into my head, like I had a low enough opinion of him to think he'd be that cruel, because I didn't. But I kept thinking that maybe he'd never realise what I was trying to do, and I didn't want to have to explain it because I found it humiliating. I wanted it to be something I didn't have to explain. I didn't want to be forced to admit that absolutely everything was new and frightening and I didn't want those fumbling first missteps to be something I had to have a witness for when everyone else was already running...

But I was already very aware that whoever I eventually wound up having a relationship with would never be so astute as to not wonder about me. About why at 24 and moreover touchable for a long time now, I'd never even learned how to kiss. Whoever they were, eventually that revelation would be made, and the thought of it made me squirm.

I was scared to death of making myself sound pathetic, when I spent so much effort trying to make people believe that I was capable. It was hard to quell and harder still to ignore. So I did the only thing I knew how.

I hid it. Buried it. Pushed down the insecurity along with my endlessly confused desires. I was too scared to face reality and too desperate to let go of fantasy, so I pretended like none of it existed.

But of course the problem with hiding things away, is that if you do it long enough and well enough, eventually people seem to forget that you have any feelings left at all.

-ooo-

Frustration. Confusion. Embarrassment...? I was pretty familiar with all of them. But they had a bastard half-brother I was only just now getting to grips with.

Anger. The testy, petulant kind of annoyance that gnaws somewhere at the very base of your spine. I was pissed the hell off. Bobby and Kitty were having unrepentantly loud sex in the room directly above mine (She'd got over her awkwardness with penises by then, obviously) so I'd had to vacate down to the kitchen in a last-ditch, frantic attempt to avoid the mental imagery that invariably went with the thumpa-thumpa of a bedpost beating against the wall.

I was tired, I was frustrated, I was both jealous and mildly grossed out both at the same time, and I was utterly sick of feeling like that. It was tiring being so damn conflicted all the time.

So I was taking my time nursing a mug of cocoa and trying to somehow sort things out in my head when I smelled it. Cigar smoke. I'd just about managed to convince myself that my desires were totally futile and I should get over them when, like some instantaneous Pavlovian response, my stomach twisted in a nauseatingly distracting combination of anticipation and sheer blind panic. Only one person wandered around shrouded in a pall of the finest Cuban, and that was Logan. I hadn't heard him pull back down the driveway but above the sound of bouncing springs and Kitty's moaning that wasn't really much of a shock.

I was pissed off with him too, truth be told. Or maybe not with him exactly but certainly because of him, and as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe with that cigar dangling out the corner of his mouth. He didn't look overly pleased to see me up and about at this time of night either. I almost wanted to smack him round the head for his calmly collected arrogance.

God, I wanted him, but in the same breath I really, really, didn't.

I didn't want to feel this way. Hell, half the time I didn't even know how I felt and maybe I was just mad at him for not feeling the same. For being so damn confident. And increasingly for pointing out that he still just saw me as a nobody.

I wanted him to notice me and desire me in all the ways I did him. I wanted him to tell me it was ok to fall because he'd catch me, and yet I knew he was never going to do any of those things. The futility of unrequited desires burned and I was, just on this particular night, very short on patience.

"You're up late, Kid," he said and I glared at him, settling more firmly in my seat and crossing my legs in a practised study of nonchalance and disinterest.

"Not tired," I said and I didn't really have the energy left to be civil. I was tense and annoyed and his persistence in calling me 'Kid' just felt patronising. I half expected him to try and pack me off to bed with some chocolate milk and a pat on the head but he didn't.

Instead he grunted, unfolded his arms and slouched towards the fridge, battered work-boots thudding dully against the tiled floor as he went. The clink of bottles said he'd yanked open the fridge door, though I kept my eyes firmly fixed on my cocoa, and I could hear him grumbling quietly to himself as he pushed things around on the shelves.

"Still no fuckin' beer..." he muttered and I rolled my eyes.

"Still a fuckin' school," I said. "You been here six years and you've not even worked that out yet?"

He cast a quick, sharp look over his shoulder at me.

"Man's gotta' live in hope, Marie," he said, pulling a bottle out the back of the refrigerator and looking at it in disbelief. "Babycham? Jesus..." He shoved it back in disgust.

"Yeah well," I said. "Sometimes you just have to accept that you're not always going to get the things that you want." And hell, didn't I know it. He turned around, flicking the fridge door closed to lean against it and stare at me.

"Real helpful," he said. "Glad to see you still know how to make a guy feel good about a situation."

I rolled my eyes at him. "It's just a beer. Didn't you get enough while you were out on your magical disappearing act already?"

He snorted. "My disappearing act?" He shook his head. "I gotta run everything past you now or something?"

"You never even told me you were leaving," I said. "I had to hear it from Ro. A goodbye might have been nice."

"Yeah well, like you said yourself. You don't always get what you want."

The strangeness that had formed between us that day on the stairs was still present but was edged with something else now and I just shrugged. I didn't know what the hell it was, though I had a nasty suspicion we weren't actually talking about Budweiser any more.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I sighed.

He snorted at me like I was some brain-dead moron he could have carte blanche to mock.

"Can't live in a fairy-tale, Kid. Sooner or later you'll get kicked back into the real world."

"Really." I observed him coldly. "That's rich coming from you."

I didn't really have an answer to him, this whole messed up conversation, or to his sour mood. Maybe he was just as unreasonably pissed off as I was. Though I knew he was still in pain it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"What's the matter?" he growled. "Reality already started biting you?"

Bitterness marked him, I guess as much as it did me. We both wanted what we couldn't have and my unspoken desire for him too perfectly mirrored his very public desire for Jean. I knew that well enough already even if he remained unaware of my feelings.

"Spare me the lecture, ok?" I snapped. "I'm not in the mood for you to tell me things I already know."

"Yeah, well I guess we all learned something pretty fuckin' important this time round then didn't we?"

I cocked my head and stared at him expectantly. "Oh, and what's that?"

He glared at me, the words snapping in his mouth. "Next time, remember to fall for someone who actually gives a shit about you."

Oh...

Oh Jesus.

He knew... He fucking KNEW? And like a bug under his boots he stomped on it. Ripped out the one thing I'd tried so hard to hide and threw it back at me just out of spite for his own torn up fantasies. I felt the hurt well up inside me, overwhelming the anger for a moment before it burst back up like a sheet of raw flame. I slammed my cup down, staring at him with all the heat I'd felt boiling inside me since the beginning, all the fury escaping in a rage that suddenly had nothing left to lose.

"You have no right, Logan. No right to be pissed off with me for the way that you feel!"

"I have every right!" He was breathing hard, some kind of anger seething inside him. "You're driving me crazy!" He thumped his hand onto the kitchen table, making it shake under the force.

"You sit here," he snapped, "Day after day with your inferiority complexes and you wallow in your self pity. You won't even try, Marie. You don't even see what's right in front of you half the time. You want everyone to believe so bad that things are impossible and that no one will ever want you that you push them all away."

I opened my mouth to deny it but no words would come out and I could feel my heart beating too hard in my chest. He frightened me, this side of him. A side I'd rarely ever seen. He looked strange when I stopped to think about it later. Full up and about to burst on something, only I didn't know what and I never had the chance to work it out.

"Don't... don't say it," he growled. "Don't sit there and deny it. Cause you know it's bullshit. The moment you start rejecting people you forfeit all right to complain that no one cares."

My jaw dropped, eyes widening in hurt so sudden it was as if he'd reached across the table and punched me in the face. He'd thrown my feelings back as if they were absolutely nothing at all. As shallow as teenage drama trying to copycat his pain.

He snapped his mouth shut and buried his head in his hands with a groan, the sudden silence only broken by the sound of my chair scraping over the kitchen floor before I walked away from him.

"Shit... Marie, wait..."

"No." I didn't even stop. "Just... no."

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. Not in front of him. But it was during that moment that I learned the one true disadvantage to hiding yourself from people. It's the fact that even the ones who know you best sometimes make it obvious that they don't really know you at all.

He didn't know me... Not even the simplest little thing and I may as well have been a fucking stranger.

I knew he was wrapped up in his own hurt, I understood it. I could even just about accept it. But that didn't stop it from stinging when it also made abundantly clear the one thing I hadn't wanted to accept.

That there were times, days, when I actually wished he'd fucked Jean and just gotten it out of his system; Experienced the reality of her instead of making it into this perfect fantasy to torture himself with. Because all the while he had that fantasy he would never love me. Never want me. Never catch me. Didn't even know anything about me and I knew then I should have given up a long time ago. Because in thinking so little of me he'd answered the one question I'd always been so afraid to ask. I'd lost him without ever even having him and, at that moment, my most desperately-held fantasy finally, truly died.

You see, the truth, (that purple elephant in the corner everyone's too polite to mention,) could never have been further from what he thought. Because I chased no one away. There had only ever been him. I was still waiting for anyone else to even notice that I existed.

-ooo-

I expected him to vanish again, I really did. Do what he's best at and avoid anything and everything that causes him discomfort. But he didn't. He slipped into the shadows like so much of his own cigar smoke; there but not quite real before he turned up one day at my door.

I had my back to him, trying to write my journal but I hadn't been able to for days. The words just wouldn't come, like they'd been replaced by this indefinable thing inside of me that was swelling and taking up every inch of space I had left in my body. My skin was too tight to contain it, my whole being stretched taut and about to burst.

Of course he didn't bother to knock. Never had done. Just let himself in and stood watching me for a moment as I tried and failed yet again to put pen to paper and form any kind of coherent thought.

I heard the creak of the loose floorboard by the door as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the silence stretching for far too long before he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry."

I froze, the world lurching to a stop for a moment, dizzying as it broke mid-spin and I turned my head slowly, afraid of what I would see in his eyes... but his face was as blank and inscrutable as the unused diary page now scrunched up in my hand.

He didn't stay. Didn't explain or contextualise exactly what part of the argument was he was apologising for. He just nodded as if it was a task now done and vanished back out into the corridor.

I never knew it could take such force of will to uncurl my fist from the sharp-edged paper ball now digging into my palm, but it tumbled under the desk as I rose to my feet, two quick steps crossing the small room and out into the hallway.

"Wait."

He paused, but didn't turn around. His head dropped a little though, but whether in annoyance or resignation at the loss of his clean getaway I wasn't sure.

"Is that it?" I asked and he sighed.

"What else do you want from me, kid?"

"I just..." I didn't even know where to start, but he barely even gave me time to fumble for my thoughts before he spoke again.

"I have to go."

I felt a twist of dread in my stomach; An unpleasant kind of anxious certainty. "Go? What do you mean, 'go'? Go where...?" I asked and he sighed again, longer this time before turning just enough to glance at me over his shoulder.

"Does it matter? I can't keep doing this."

This? I knew he meant Jean. He always meant Jean. It was the only thing I ever really did know for certain. But where the hell did that leave me? Because while I knew that hoping for affection from him was like clinging to the flotsam of an already-sunken boat, I was doing it anyway. Because even before all of this began, I liked him, and what I had never really stopped to consider was that after this was all over... I could lose him from my life entirely.

I guess I'd never really anticipated the consequences of failure because I'd never even intended to try, and in some half-formed part of my mind I was figuring at some point I'd be able to look forward to an incredibly awkward return to the status quo.

But he was leaving... and I was angry. Upset and with nothing at all left to lose.

He had humiliated me that night in the kitchen. He'd taken my deepest held secret and he'd used it to hurt me; to lash out at me because of his own damaged heart, and somewhere deep inside I still seethed.

"Oh, fabulous, Logan. Excellent idea. Hightailing it out of here without warning every time you come close to having a 'Jean moment'. Give me a fucking break."

He turned at that, staring at me so hard I could virtually feel it and I almost expected him to start shouting, but he didn't.

"You humiliated me!" I hissed. "You knew how I felt about you. You knew I was trying to hide it, just out of respect for the fact that I know you don't feel the same, and you used it anyway. And what? I get a half-assed apology before you fuck off out of here again? It's not good enough."

"Kid..." His voice was low; a little rough. "I don't think-"

"No!" I shouted. "Don't... don't you dare tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, Logan, because you don't have a clue."

I looked at him, eyes burning with the raw sting of unshed tears. His face was still, as if I'd shamed him.

"You have no idea what it's like, do you? Spending night after night wanting for something as fundamental as human contact. Something that maybe isn't just casual. How big a deal that is to me. How much it frightens me that I'm never going to have that!"

I didn't want to tell him this... I didn't want him to see what I was. How desperate I'd become. How much he'd already hurt me. But I couldn't stop despite his quiet curse, because he thought he knew and he didn't understand at all.

"You know, once upon a time I could lie to myself. I got so good at lying to myself. It's all about my skin, no one will touch me because of my skin, it's my skin that drives people away.

"Well guess what? I controlled it and nothing changed. It wasn't my skin. It was never my stupid skin. All the while I was blaming it on that, and it was me all along." I hard my voice catch... break... "It was me..."

It hurt. Oh God, it hurt so much, the tension inside me finally snapping and I sank to the floor crying so hard I thought my lungs were going to burst. Choking sobs that ripped my throat apart. I held my hands over my face, closed my eyes and let myself drown, and in the middle of it all, down on the floor... he held me. Strong arms that wrapped me tightly against his chest, a hand pressing my sobs into his shoulder and it was everything that I wanted, but at the same time it was the worst thing in the world. Because it was only temporary. Comfort from pain but that was it. The actions of a friend or a brother suddenly feeling guilty for their spite, it changed nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

He held me tight and pressed his cheek against mine and I could feel the heat of his breath as he whispered against my throat.

"Shh, it's ok..."

But it wasn't ok. Nothing would ever be ok. And I couldn't speak to tell him.

"I understand better than you think, Marie."

"Don't!" I sobbed and I shoved him away from me, wrapping my arms around myself protectively as I sat there on the floor. "You've been such a JERK to me, Logan. Just leave me alone."

The look in his eyes was almost pained as I wiped angrily at my face and I thought maybe the truth had stung him a little bit too. I hoped it did. I wanted him to know what I felt.

He slumped down onto the hall carpet next to me then as if he'd suddenly deflated, staring pensively at the pattern on the rug for a moment.

"If it makes any difference," he said at length, "I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?" I scoffed. "That you hurt my feelings or that it actually mattered?"

"Cut it out, Marie," he growled. "I never knew how you felt. How the hell was I supposed to know something like that?" He shook his head slightly, rubbing one eyebrow with the back of his thumb. "I mean, Jesus... You told me you'd never date anyone at the mansion and then months ago I asked you to give me a chance... and you told me I was a disappointment. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

A disappointment? I don't...-

"What?" is all I managed and he looked at me, one eyebrow quirked so high in disbelief it'd almost have been funny if I wasn't so fucking confused.

"That day on the stairs," he said. "You were crying so hard and I told you that you deserved someone who loved you. Who the hell else did you think I was talking about?"

No. Just... no. He was just being nice, just being my friend...

"But... but you were just trying to make me feel better. You were just saying that-" His head snapped round and the look on his face made the words die in my mouth.

"I was talking about me. Everything I said, Marie. I was talking about ME."

For a moment I almost couldn't breathe. I was glad I was already sitting down because for one horrible second I felt like I was going to fall over.

"But... but you... You always call me kid. Like a little sister or something..."

He sounded exasperated. "You're always so sure you know everything. And sometimes, Marie, you don't know anything at all."

He shook his head as if angry, covering the space between us so fast I only felt his hand cradle my face for a second before his kissed me. Hard. Desperately. Caressing my lips with a sweep of his tongue before the whole world just flickered away. I don't remember opening my mouth and I don't remember wrapping my arms around his neck. I just remember the taste and the feel of him. The heat and the hard muscle of his body pressing against me as strong arms wrapped firmly around my back. And it was nothing like a father or a brother or a friend. He kissed me like a man kisses a woman for the first time in my life. Like everything I ever wanted, and God, it felt so good.

He released my lips after taking his fill, leaving me dazed and breathless, still tasting him vaguely on my tongue as he buried his face against my neck and I could feel him shaking.

"God, Marie... please don't tell me to stop."

I don't think I could have if I'd tried. He was holding me and breathing against my throat, everything about him just so beautiful and visceral and real.

"I'm... I'm not Jean," I whispered and I could have kicked myself because he grew still, pulling back a fraction to look at me with concern.

"What does she have to do with this?"

I swallowed hard, too overwhelmed to keep the shaking out my voice.

"I'm not her. I don't want you to be disappointed in me."

He looked at me so confused, leaning in to kiss me with a soft tenderness that almost ached, it was so, so sweet.

"I don't want you to be her," he murmured. "I've never wanted that. She died a long time ago, Marie. I kept trying to tell you..."

That was it? That was what he'd been trying to say when he mentioned her...? And then, as if the world was shifting, it all made some horrible kind of sense.

I had no idea. I never had any idea and it felt like every certainty had suddenly failed, letting loose all the insecurities and doubts I'd ever had about my ability to do this. Everything I thought I knew was suddenly wrong, from the most basic principals onwards and it felt like too much. Naivety had always been my biggest fear and suddenly it was the reality I'd always been so starkly terrified of. I'd been so wrong about him from the very moment I started and it scared me.

"I didn't know..." I whispered. "I don't even know what I'm doing." Tears made the words unsteady and I hated how it sounded. Hated how I felt vulnerable and exposed and useless and like I was being swept under by something so much bigger than I ever imagined. And then me smiled at me, and he kissed me, and he said the one thing I never knew I needed to hear.

"Neither do I."


-End-