Jean stared at those tags for over a year. Such an innocent thing – metal hanging from a girl’s neck, and Jean knew the meaning was significant, she just didn’t want to know what it was.

Logan called twice, in thirteen months. Once out of the blue, for no apparent reason, and he spoke to Xavier briefly and somehow managed to rattle Scott’s chain through that medium, and he spoke to Rogue. For longer.

Jean stared at those small fingers twisting through that chain for days afterwards.

The second time he called was on Rogue’s birthday. Jean’s birthday had been just three weeks before, but it was Rogue that was torn away from her cake and presents and friends her own age, Rogue that disappeared for over two hours.

When she came back, she had a secret smile that she never gave to anyone else.

Jean stared at those tags three times a week on school days, after hours with Xavier beside her. Rogue struggled with meditation and struggled with inner peace, because it turned out that Logan and Erik were inside of her and she couldn’t make them be quiet. Finally, it came down to using one to exorcise the other, and a little piece of Logan moved in to Rogue permanently.

After that, Rogue didn’t just wear the tags, she checked them constantly. Logan’s paranoia.

Jean caught Rogue sitting on the roof with a cigar one night, chatting to herself. In their sessions with Xavier, Jean finally stepped into Rogue’s mind and found two people. Both were dominant. They were like Siamese twins living in the same mind, and she couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other began.

Rogue spent more and more time alone, with only her Inner Logan for company. And always, her fingers twisted in those tags and Jean stared at them. Oh yes, they were important.

And then Logan came home.

Out of the blue, in the middle of the afternoon, and Jean was with Rogue and Xavier in the garden, and Logan just sauntered up with a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Xavier said hello, Jean stared at him as he gave her a wink, but it was Rogue whom he swept up into a bear hug. Jean watched them twine all around each other, and watched Logan’s nose press into Rogue’s hair, and he caught Jean’s gaze over her shoulder and carefully, deliberately, closed his eyes.

When they walked away with Logan’s arm slung over Rogue’s shoulder, Jean knew what the tags meant.

She said and did nothing, but Scott’s sudden cooling towards her spoke volumes, and she tried not to think about those tags but couldn’t help herself. Days went by, and still those tags stayed around that girl’s neck, and sometimes Jean caught Logan staring at them too. And he stared at them with immense satisfaction.

Rogue continued her sessions with her and Xavier, but suddenly she didn’t want Jean inside her mind to help build the shields. It didn’t matter, because Jean could feel it. Could feel Logan coming off her in waves, stronger than ever before, an excess of energy rolling off a mind that was supposed to hold one, not two.

They were *touching*.

Jean waited. She lay awake in bed at night and waited, and waited. Two nights passed and then, well past midnight, she heard heavy footsteps going up the hall. Adamantium could not tread lightly. She trailed those footsteps down the hall and down the stairs and through the house and she hovered outside the rec room door, nervous. She didn’t want to look. But she wanted to look so badly.

Finally she got the nerve, and stood in the shadows and watched. In the flickering light of the television, Rogue and Logan sat facing each other, their profiles stark and unmistakable. Rogue touched the tags and closed her eyes, and Logan put his bare fingertips on her face.

A little rush, that even Jean felt. Rogue moaned softly, and Logan took his hand away. He touched her again, but this time with his mouth on hers.

It was a shocking, intimate moment, and Jean felt dirty for watching but couldn’t tear her gaze away. She felt the energy transfer between them, and saw Logan suddenly shudder, but his hands gripped Rogue’s waist and he held her too him even when she would have pulled away. And the kiss was passionate, and Rogue moaned again as her mouth opened to him, and Logan pulled her closer.

When the kiss broke, they were both panting. Logan looked a little dizzy and Rogue was stroking his face with gloved hands, and there was such tenderness between them that Jean felt a sharp stab in her chest.

And then Logan turned and looked at her in the shadows, and growled.

Jean fled.

She went to Xavier in the morning and paced in his office and told him about them touching, about them *deliberately* touching, and that it was mind control, pure and simple. Logan was taking over Rogue with his own personality, and who knew if he couldn’t just push her right out of there? Logan was a dominant personality in the girl, more dominant than Erik and getting stronger every time they touched, and maybe in the end his sense of self would override hers.

Xavier sat and listened quietly.

Jean strode back and forth, because she’d known there was something a little unhealthy about their relationship, and it was just going to get worse the more they touched, and that he was perverting her mind.

And then Xavier said, “Nobody else will touch her, Jean. Perhaps nobody else will ever be able to. Can you measure your intentions, and tell me if they are really for her best interests?”

Jean just stared at him with open-mouthed shock.

She sat down quietly. Xavier had known all along what was going on. Rogue and Logan were already bonded, and Rogue needed a steadfast personality in her mind, to control all the others. A personality she could accept. One she could love. Logan’s mind strengthened her own.

Logan’s personality, although dominant, would never try to take her over. And he would protect her from anything that tried.

Jean left his office numbly, and walked out into the sunshine. A fair distance away, Logan and Rogue were sitting on the grass. She was touching her finger to his face with a gloved hand, and the look they shared was vibrant in its intensity. Rogue, looking at the man who would protect her from the inside out. Logan, looking at the young woman to whom he’d given a piece of his soul.

Jean gave in to acceptance. Those tags didn’t bother her anymore.

Fin