I was seventeen when I lost the ability to touch without fear and nearly twenty one when I finally found the mental switch I could use to turn my mutation off and on at will, and during that agonizingly long four year period, I could never forget that even living in a mansion filled with mutants, I was a freak among freaks. I stood out each time I came into a room, during the hot summer months I had to keep my myself covered from head to toe. I couldn’t go swimming or sit in the sun, I couldn’t feel flesh against flesh, holding hands, something most took for granted wasn’t possible for me and at times I had to do all I could to hold back my tears when I saw Kitty and Remy or Kurt and Ro or Jubes and John cuddled up, looking in love and comfortable holding each other the way those in love should be able to hold each other.

Seeing examples of true couples finally prompted me to end things with Bobby, who said he had seen it coming, that he had known I would get tired of not being able to touch long before he did. He also said I wasn’t upset that I couldn’t touch him, he felt it had never really been about him, he had just been a stand in for someone he knew he couldn’t compare to. I tried to deny it, I tried to tell him that yes, I had and I did care for him, but I was holding us both back by dating him when I could kill him with something as simple as a kiss, but he looked me right in the eye and he told me that I did touch all the time.

I touched Logan.

That was different, I argued, Logan was in my head, Logan had saved my life more than once and Logan knew the risk involved with my skin.

Logan did not flinch when I came near him.

Logan would sit on the sofa, his arm around me, and when I had nightmares, he would hold me close to him and assure me I was okay…Logan was my best friend, my rock, my shelter…Logan was the man I loved, Bobby said on a sigh, looking more resigned than hurt and I could only stare at him, a denial lodged in my throat.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t lie to him.

I might not have been *in* love with Bobby, but I did love him, and lying to someone I loved wasn’t an option for me.

“I’m sorry.”

It was all I could say, and it was the truth, because I was sorry.

I was sorry I had hurt Bobby.

I was sorry for myself, because I loved a man that was in love with a woman who had died after making it clear to him that she loved another man.

We were a sad sight, to say the least, something Bobby and I were able to joke about later, after we each came to accept certain realities and in the years that came Bobby and I remained close.

Logan and I remained closer.

He stayed at the mansion for the most part, leaving about once a year, to look into his past, but he always came back, always came back to me and to the friendship, to the bond we shared.

Year after year, he came back.

Year after year my love for him grew into something that consumed my heart and my soul.

I knew I could never love anyone else.

I loved Logan too much to even consider it and it was my love for Logan that gave me the strength to fight when I drained Carol’s life and she tried to take over…I just kept on telling myself I loved Logan and I had to battle Carol back because Logan needed me as his friend and his support even if he never needed me as his lover.

Course, I wanted him to want me, to need me as his lover.

I had some very vivid daydreams about being Logan’s lover.

I just never allowed myself to believe it would happen, even after I learned how to control my skin.

I told myself me and Logan would never cross that line.

Until the night we did.

****************************************************************************************************

The nightmares didn’t always come to me, lots of time, it was Logan that woke up in the middle of the night, shivering, terrified and haunted by images he couldn’t latch on to once the sleep faded from his mind. He tried to be strong, to handle the aftermath all on his own, but often I heard the sounds he made when he was ripped from sleep, as his room was next to mine and when I heard him, I never hesitated to get up and go to him to offer him the same comfort he always offered me.

I would crawl into bed, wrap him in my arms, stroke my hand through his hair and very gently whisper his name.

I told him he was safe.

I told him he would never be hurt again.

Never.

I would see to it.

That promise always made him smile, always chased away the last of the chills and the fear and it made me feel as if I had made him feel safe, like he always did with me.

It was a common thing when Logan had a nightmare, he usually never commented on it, he just smiled and held me tight, but late one night about three months after I finally mastered control, he lifted his head so he could look down at me.

“Marie…” His brushed a lock of hair from my face and I shivered inside.

“What is it, Logan?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saying that, for being here, for caring that I never get hurt again.”

“Oh, sugar, of course I care. I…” Love you. God the words were there.

“You what?”

“I…care about you.” Yeah. Care. Cares a good word.

“I know. I just don’t know why.”

“Are you kidding?” I smiled, brushed my hand over her cheek.

“I’ve always wondered what it is about me that makes someone as good and as pure as you give a damn.”

He was serious, I realized.

“You remember Laughlin City?”

“Hard to forget it, kid.”

“Yeah. I know. I can’t forget it. It was a changing moment for me.”

“I’d say, it was a prelude to you getting kidnapped…”

I shook my head. “I was so scared when I walked into that bar, when I…I was afraid that I had finally reached a place where I was screwed, where I wouldn’t be able to find the ride I needed…”

“Marie…”

“Then I saw you, in that cage, I saw you and I…God, Logan, the men in that place were terrified, even the ones stupid enough to jump into the ring with you were scared, but I wasn’t cause when I looked at you I saw…”

“You saw what?”

“You. I saw you. I saw *you*”

He half smiled. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means that the second I saw you, my fears faded, because I knew that as long as you were near, I would always be safe.”

“Marie…”

“You are brave and good.”

“Hardly.”

“I wish to God you could see yourself like I see you.” I smiled, but I wanted to cry.

“How do you see me?”

“I see you as you are, good and honorable and brave…I look at you…”

In that moment I knew I had to say the words, I had to give life to them at least once, because even if he didn’t want them he *needed* to hear them.

And I needed to say them.

At least once.

“Kid?”

“Logan, I love you.’

It came so naturally, it felt so right, and I could see surprise in his eyes, followed by sheer disbelief.

“Do you? Do you really?”

“With all my heart and mind and soul.”

“Marie…”

“I love you.”

“As in you are in love with me?” He asked and I smiled.

“Yes. Very much. I am in love with you and I love you.”

“Kid, I ain’t no…”

“Don’t.” I snapped. “Don’t say a bad word about yourself.”

“Marie, baby.”

Marie, baby.

I loved how that sounded.

“I know you don’t feel the same…”

“Hold it.” He cut me off. “Marie, are you kidding me? You think I don’t love you?”

“Well, I know you love me as a friend…”

“Marie, I don’t…I love you as Marie, as my friend, my salvation, my best friend, my mate, and my everything.”

“Logan…”

“Kid, when I saw you in that bar, I knew you were a prize, you were all I could want but I was sure I’d never have and as much as I wanted to believe you’re crush on me could be the real thing, I never left myself believe it…”

I kissed him then, I couldn’t hold back, I couldn’t control my desire and need to feel him and his lips beneath mine were warm and receptive and instantly, we melted into one another.

His body and mine seemed to merge into one.

His heart and mine joined together.

The line in the sand, the one that separated friends from lovers, it blurred for me and for Logan and I realized it was right that it blurred case we were both, we had been meant to be both from the start.

Friends and lovers.

I realized that night that they didn’t have to be two separate things, if fact it was better if they weren’t.

The two went hand in hand.

Like me and Logan.

Hand in hand and flesh to flesh.

Bobby had been right.

Logan had been the one I had wanted to touch all along.

He had been the one I was meant to touch.

All along, on some level, me and Logan had been more than friends and going into our life together we would go on being friends and lovers and everything else to people could be to one another.

We threw out all the lines and the rules.

And life has been better for it.

THE END