Logan guessed he had expected more. Not a goddamned hero's parade, no confetti falling from the sky and speeches and Xavier handing over some symbolic key to the freakin' mansion, but not this, either. Not… nothing.

Three o' clock in the afternoon and not a mutant in sight.

He could smell them. A confusing tangle of scents that swamped the hallways. Trails leading from room to room, fresh and old. Some he recognized, some he didn't. One that smelled disturbingly of freshly baked cookies. Had the X-Men recruited Dough Boy? They had a mutant for every bloody season. One that smelled cold, like the snow. One that stank of dying embers. He knew those kids. Marie mentioned 'em, occasionally.

And there, Marie. Could scents be slow? Could her careful, measured pace and long pause by the banister be left in little pockets of smell? Marie smelled like loneliness. People, they touched each other. They left little tags of themselves all over each other, so that one person's scent always carried the residue of another's. They marked each other like dogs.

Marie, she just smelled like Marie. Nobody touched her.

Logan tracked a fresh one up the stairs, spooked by the silence. Where were all the fucking kids? She was using something new. Subtle and fragrant, not alcoholic, but soft and powdery. Talcum powder. Rose scented talcum powder. A little clean sweat, soap, the faint traces of her body. Fuck, she was ripe. Right before her menstruation, he figured. A warning of blood.

She'd gone through a door. He stood outside of it, snuffling in the silence, trying to figure it out. The trail led away again, but she'd been in that room and that room was hers. He leaned close to the doorknob. Faint trace of sugar. What were you eating? Something sweet that bonded to your skin, and you weren't wearing any damned gloves when you turned the doorknob.

Logan put his own bare hand on the knob, and stared at it. Yeah, a violation of privacy. Her bedroom, her sanctuary, all those reasons he shouldn't go inside. He turned the handle and pushed the door open. This was Marie. No rules applied.

Jean had been in here recently. Stood in the doorway, and stopped. Didn't stay long enough for her perfume to flavor the carpet, just enough to leave a taste. Jean smelled overwhelmingly of Scott's pansy-ass aftershave and sex. Slightly vile. Not soft and powdery and clean, not lonely. No, Jean sure wasn't lonely.

Fuck 'em. Jean missed out. The Wolverine didn't take rejection well.

Marie didn't share a room, had her own. Her room was comfortable, a little nook out of the way with a bed under the window and a desk against the wall and a dresser with a big circular mirror. Her own bathroom, too. She had a Chinese screen in front of the robe and it was draped with scarves and gloves. All those colors. Makeup on the dresser, and he picked a few things up and tried not to feel too ridiculous. Nobody was there, nobody would see. Nobody would see the big manly Wolverine smelling her glossy lip balm.

Mandarin. He had to put it down before he tried tasting it.

He sat on her bed. If you were going to invade somebody's privacy, there were no half-measures about it. Sheets that smelled like fabric softener and Marie. A strand of hair on the pillow, pure white, and one of those amazing nightgowns tucked under it. He took it, shook it out and let it drape across his lap. Silky and clinging and designed to cover everything.

On her bedside table, there was a lamp, an alarm clock, and two books. Logan opened the drawer under it like he was filching a prize. Chicks always kept the best stuff in these drawers. Like their underwear. Inside, he wasn't disappointed. He found panties and stockings and bras, and they all were heavy with her scent. He checked her bra size with interest. He pawed through lacy underthings and discovered tampons and Canadian coins, and right down the bottom, letters. Crumpled letters on shitty paper stuffed inside envelopes, and the envelopes were a little tattered and dirty cause sometimes he'd carried them around for weeks before mailing them. The letters smelled like both of them. Like she'd held them and touched them as he had.

And under those letters, a box of Cuban cigars.

He held that box, turned it over and smelled it and finally opened it. Cigars, decadent, rich cigars and he wondered how in hell she'd gotten her hands on them. Little Marie smoking fucking cigars. Four were gone. One was half-smoked, stubbed out and the end all chewed on, and he tucked that one in his pocket for later.

He heard her coming, a measured walk down the hallway, back from the direction he'd yet to trace. He put the lid back on the cigar case, and put it in his lap, and was aware of her, standing in the doorway, as he kept rifling through her drawer. This was Marie. His Marie.

"Charles got them. I was getting anxious with cravings," she said from the doorway.

She looked good. Good like he'd been in the cold too long, thinking of her. She'd filled out in all the right places, and he took his time noticing. Simple shirt with opera gloves up to the high-capped sleeves and a skirt and black tights and leather boots to her knees that made him stare. Soft mouth and those white streaks still in her hair. Grown up eyes. Yeah, she was all damned grown up.

Lucky for him.

"Hey Marie," he said simply. He took her cigar out of his pocket and started chewing on the end. Damn. He could taste her goddamned lip-gloss on it.

"Everybody calls me Rogue now," she said softly. He stopped chewing for a moment; frowned.

"You're fuckin' Marie," he said. He stuck his hands back in her drawer, kept working through it as he chewed noisily. Had to be there.

She didn't seem surprised that he was on her bed with a lapful of her nightgown and his hands full of her underwear. But then, she had a little Logan running around in her head. Probably just as perverted. He kept going, digging through enough silky things to make the mind boggle, but just kept scratching the bottom of the drawer with his fingers.

"So where is everybody?" he asked. Her scent was beginning to drift over to him, like the one he'd tracked to her room but fresh and cloying. Laced with a heartbeat.

"Field trip. The zoo," she said.

He didn't ask why she hadn't gone. Too many kids at zoos. They had no sense of personal space.

He sat back, finally, disappointed. Where was it? Not on her neck. Marie just stared at him, like she was trying to measure his presence. He'd been gone too long. But figuring how his thoughts had been turning just as he'd left her, long enough. Long enough to let her grow up. Hear her voice change over the phone line. Young and panicked and afraid, with an Erik and a Logan battling it out in her head, to calm. Mature too young. Marie who smoked Cubans and wasn't surprised to see him.

"Here," she said, and her arm came out from behind her back.

There was something around her wrist, under the glove. It made the material lumpy; had stretched the fabric. And Logan watched, and she plucked at the tip of each finger and drew that glove off like it was a striptease. His tags. Wrapped around her wrist, sitting next to her skin, all that time. She pulled at them and unwound the chain, and they sailed through the air and he caught them with a swipe.

Warm metal. Smelling like her and still holding traces of her touch, her pulse throbbing against it. Touching something just moments after she had was a dirty, illicit thrill. One degree of separation - her skin, the metal, and then him. A secondary touch.

He'd thought about that skin for two fucking winters.

Logan looked at her, really looked at her. Skin too pale, mouth too generous. Dark eyes that watched him right back. All legs and curves and opera gloves. He could touch her hands through her gloves and it would be millimeters. Bare millimeters, less than the space of a breath of air.

He clenched the tags in his hand, and tossed them right back.

"You keep them safe," he said, "Wear 'em around your neck, though."

Where people can see 'em, he thought.

Marie held his gaze for the longest time, then nodded. Yeah. His Marie. She got it. She lifted the chain towards her head, but he was up, spilling cigars and nightgown to the floor and banging his leg on her drawer. She stopped, and he crowded close, taking the chain out of her hands.

"Let me," he said, very quietly.

He opened the chain up between his hands, and draped it slowly over her head. His fingers brushed all through her hair, grazed by her cheek, and he settled it around her neck. Let his fingers rest on her shirt. Felt the warmth beneath. Close enough to take big a lungful of her scent and hear the steady hammer of her heart. His knuckles itched. Marie was so fucking dangerous, and it turned on every instinct he had.

"Welcome home," she said, and when she looked up at him her eyes were wide and bright, and he grinned. Felt her hand, her bare hand, run down his arm. His skin, his shirt, and then her. They'd figure it out.

He was home.



Fin