The mansion was encased in a morbid silence, the residents quiet with mourning. Jean was curled up on a couch against Scott, struggling not to cry. Her fiance squeezed her tightly against him, and brushed a kiss against her hair. Behind his glasses, his eyes were misting up with tears, and they sat together in silence.

Jubilee sat in her bedroom, legs crossed indian style on her bed as she stared at the other side of the room. The empty bed across from her was still messy and unmade, just waiting for the owner to come in and straighten the sheets the way she had every day. Tears slipped unbidden down her cheeks, and she remained there, uncharacteristically silent.

Bobby was constantly on the verge of tears, eyes red-rimmed and swollen. He could often be found in his room, laying on his bed in immeasurable sadness. Every once in a while, his body would shudder in hiccupping sobs. His grief would have been the most overwhelming in the house…

If they hadn’t seen Logan.

The man was completely inconsolable. He showed no intense visible display of grief, but he was prone to violent explosions if someone tried to talk to him about what had happened at Alkali Lake. He holed himself up in his room, and as students passed by his door, they heard the unmistakable sound of adamantium claws destroying the interior.

It was either that, or his harsh, broken sobbing.

And there was nothing anyone could do to console him, because the one person who could was the one he grieved for.

It was too late.

Rogue was dead.

* * *

Four days earlier…

Jean’s eyes widened as she stared towards the back of the jet, her mind racing as she realized that tons of rushing water was thundering their way. Glancing back at the front of the jet, she felt her heart tighten as she watched Storm and Logan struggle with the controls. She turned around, making up her mind.

She never saw Rogue watching her.

As she lowered the hatch and stepped down, a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned, and couldn’t do anything to stop Rogue as she reached a bare hand towards her face. The younger girl held Jean’s wrist in a crushing grip Jean didn’t know she had. The woman’s face contorted in pain as she felt Rogue draining her life force and her power. The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her were the tears falling down Rogue’s cheeks as she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Rogue shut her eyes tight and released Jean when she felt the woman reach the weakest point she could without dying. Hastily shoving her gloves back on, she lifted Jean out of the way of the hatch, and raced down the ramp.

Charles felt his mind race with an unexpected rush of power, and as he closed his eyes and inhaled, he knew what had happened. “Rogue…” he whispered.

Logan heard him, and stiffened. Spinning around wildly, he caught sight of her empty seat and the opened hatch. Scott turned with him, and rushed towards the exit as he caught sight of Jean’s crumpled form. He spun back around, gripping Charles’s arms. “Where is she?” he snarled, and felt panic rise within him at the resignation in the Professor’s eyes.

“Outside.”

Roaring, Logan tore to the back of the jet, and had barely made it to the entrance of the hatch when Rogue spun around, lifted a hand, and, drawing on the mass amount of power she had acquired from Jean, forced the door to slam shut.

“Fuck!” Logan snarled, banging his hands down on the hatch. “Storm! Lower it!”

Ororo nodded, and even as she reached for the controls, they were moving of their own violation. “I can’t!” she cried, panicked. “She’s controlling the jet!”

Outside, Rogue stood against the cold snow, one gloved hand raised towards the jet as she called on all of Jean’s power. She watched, heart breaking, as the jet slowly started and hovered above the ground. Suddenly, the thundering pounding of water came rushing at her back, and she quickly threw out her other arm.

Pain coursed through her body, making her open her mouth in a scream. She shut her eyes, and willed everything within her to stop the rush of water that was breaking around her. When she opened her eyes, they were no longer the deep chocolate brown they always had been.

They were orange and red, a fire seeming to dance within her irises. She lifted the jet with her mind, and sent out a silent message to Charles.

Inside the jet, Logan was spiraling into animalistic panic. Bobby was screaming in unrestrained grief as he understood what was happening, and Logan was trying with everything inside him to escape the Blackbird. Kurt had already tried phasing out of the jet, but the sheer amount of power that Rogue was exuding interfered with his attempts. The German cast a sorrowful glance at Logan, whispering, "Der is nahthing I can do."

Grief threatened to overwhelm Logan, when the Professor caught his attention.

“I know what I’m doing,” Charles murmured as his eyes rolled shut. Logan all but raced over to him, falling to his knees next to the telepath.

“Marie?” he questioned brokenly, desperately.

“Don’t worry about me,” Charles said as Rogue’s last message played through his mind. “I’ll be fine. Get everyone back to safety…Tell Bobby I said good-bye…Tell Jubes I’ll never forget her…” His eyes shot open, the irises glazed over. “Tell Logan I’m sorry I never told him I love him.” Logan’s chest heaved with a sob, and he ran his eyes despairingly over Charles’s face as the last few words came through, and the jet was lifted out of harm’s way.

“Goodbye.”

Somehow, over the rushing of water as it cascaded over Rogue, and the loud hum of the jet, Logan’s roar of agony echoed through the mountains.

* * *

Two weeks later…

Logan was massacring simulations in the Danger Room when the news reached them. One second he was gutting Sabretooth with his claws, and the next, an echoing command from Xavier resounded in his skull. Logan, he heard, Report to my office immediately. It’s urgent.

Growling in barely suppressed rage, he withdrew his claws from the simulation, and watched as the snowy landscape faded back into the Danger Room. Retracting his claws with a sharp metal sound, he strode angrily towards the door, throwing it open. Making his way towards Xavier’s office, he felt the same overwhelming grief sweep over him as he passed by Marie’s room. Tears burned, unbidden, and the back of his eyelids, and when he crashed into the Professor’s office, he all but snarled out, “What.”

Charles turned his chair to face the feral man, undone in his grief. Jean stood by the window, Scott’s arms firmly wrapped around her waist. Logan never thought he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of the redheaded doctor, until the day Marie died just so she wouldn’t.

“Logan,” rumbled Charles’s deep voice. “I have just received a telephone call from a police station near Alkali Lake.” Logan stiffened, back muscles tightening. “It seems they ventured out from their station yesterday to find a young girl lying unconscious in their parking lot. She was in a state of near hypothermia, and she woke up long enough to tell them to call me, and to, and I quote, ‘Get Logan’.”

Desperate hope was swelling within his chest as Logan listened. A part of him wished desperately to believe what he was being told, wanted so badly for Marie to be alive and to be asking for him. But he couldn’t believe him, couldn’t believe it, not until he saw for himself.

“They described her as a nineteen year old female, with long brown and white hair.” Charles raised an eyebrow at him, and said, “We’ve already loaded up the jet.”

Logan flew out the door before the sentence was even completed.

* * *

It was almost too good to be true. He almost believed that he was hallucinating, because there was no way Marie was cradled in his arms right now, bare hand tangled in his wild hair as he sobbed against her neck.

But he was touching her. He was touching her, his own bare hand firm against the back of her neck. She was swathed in a pair of thick sweatpants and a wool sweater, her hair upswept into a ponytail.

He had run, bursting into the police station without any introduction, merely stalking to the desk and slamming his metal hands down enough hard to leave dents in the wood. “Where is she,” he had snarled, frightening the young officer behind the desk into silence. “Where the fuck is she?!”

“Logan?”

He stiffened, and looked beyond the cowering officer to the girl who stood behind him. Her large brown eyes were filled with tears, and she gave him a watery smile. “Hey sugar.”

He launched himself over the desk and grabbed her into a fierce embrace, and that’s where they were now.

He was shuddering against her, heaving with the force of his joy. She was alive, she was whole, she was touchable, and she was in his arms. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t fucking care. “Marie,” he moaned against her neck, nuzzling the skin there. “Baby, don’t leave me again.”

Her arms wound tight around his neck, holding him against him as he shook against her. “I’m here, sugar,” she breathed, lips brushing over his ear as she comforted his broken spirit.

It was more than he could take, and, crumbled in a desperate embrace with the one person he cared most about, who he’d sworn to protect with everything in him, he pressed his lips to hers in a final assurance that she was there.

* * *

Later that day, when she had made all of her teary reunions and ecstatic hellos, and had a long talk with Bobby, she found herself in Logan’s tight embrace as they lay together on his bed. His hand was wound through her hair, face pressed against her neck as he nuzzled against her skin. Her bare hands were running over his naked torso, feeling the muscles rippling beneath her fingertips.

He planted wet kisses against her neck, desperate for that type of contact in a way he hadn’t thought possible until he thought he would never have it again. She arched her back, pressing into him further as he kissed and nipped at the sensitive skin on her neck. He rose to capture her mouth in his, and they kissed with a furious intensity.

When he slid into her, a mere ten minutes later, he was near tears as he took her virginity. Waiting until she gave him permission to move within her, he slid into her with a gentleness he hadn’t thought possible. Soon, she was moaning his name, pleading for him to go harder, faster, and he pounded into her with a desperate feeling swelling within his chest. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he entered her over and over again, nails digging into his shoulders as he took her with a desperate need. “Logan,” she moaned, and he shut his eyes at the sound of her voice.

“Marie,” he groaned, lowering himself to his forearms, forehead pressing against hers. He swooped down and thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing her cry as she came, shuttering around him. He thrust into her once, twice, three times, and came with a roar.

He collapsed on top of her, sweaty and panting, and whispered, brokenly, “Love you, Marie.”

Her gripped tightened in his hair, and she whispered, “Love you too, Logan.” She brushed a kiss to his forehead.

“Sleep now. It’s all okay.”

And as he dozed into the first peaceful sleep he'd had in weeks, he knew that she was right.