At 2 am the scent of tears hit him even before he reached the kitchen door. Logan hesitated, his hand braced on the door ready to open it, as he wondered whether he really wanted to get involved in the school’s latest teen drama. But then a quiet sniffling and an even quieter voice mumbling in obvious misery made his mind up. Damn, he thought, It’s not one of the students. It’s Marie.

“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked as he burst through the door.

Rogue jumped in surprise and choked on her ice cream. She dropped the spoon with a clatter and beat her chest with a closed fist as she coughed.

“Dammit, Logan!” she wailed hoarsely.

“Shit, you okay?” he asked, crossing the room swiftly to slap her on the back a few times.

“I…’m…f…ine,” she gasped between slaps, angrily shrugging his hands away. She plopped back onto her barstool and looked around for her spoon. Finally spotting it on the floor, she scowled at him and demanded, “Get me another spoon.”

Logan hastily complied. She dug back into her carton of ice cream. It was regular chocolate, he saw, which was always a bad sign. He took the stool next to her and waited in silence, knowing that she’d eventually talk to him. Rogue cast him several baleful glares over her spoon and didn’t speak until the spoon was scraping the bottom of the container.

“Men are assholes.”

Logan blinked. “No argument there, kid. Any man in particular?”

“Andy!” she spat.

“Your fiancé?”

“Ex-fiancé,” Rogue growled, slipping off the stool and stalking to the refrigerator. She jerked open the freezer door and started rummaging around for more ice cream.

“Shit,” Logan said softly. “What happened?” They had only been engaged for a couple weeks.

Rogue returned to the island and pried the lid off a container of coffee ice cream. “I told him,” she mumbled around the spoon in her mouth.

“Told him what?” When Rogue stared at him pointedly, Logan swallowed hard and muttered, “Oh.”

She snorted. “Yeah.”

“It shouldn’t matter though, kid. You took the cure. You’re not a mutant anymore.” Rogue ignored him in favor of her ice cream. As he considered the situation, a thought occurred to him. “Why the hell’d you tell him anyway?”

Rogue sighed and dragged a hand tiredly through her hair. “He would have found out, Logan. They screen for the x-gene on all blood tests. And you have to have blood tests to get married.”

Logan grunted. Life had certainly dealt her a shitty hand, he mused, going over the past ten years.

As if echoing his thought, Rogue began ticking items off on her fingers. “You know, as mutations go, mine sucked big time. That’s the first place my life went wrong I suppose. Then it was takin’ the cure and Storm bein’ so pissed she didn’t talk to me for months. Then it was Bobby – prick,” she muttered, “breakin’ up with me ‘cause I didn’t jump right into bed with him after I got the cure. Two months! Two friggin’ months is all the time he gave me before he hopped into bed with Kitty, Logan. And he had the nerve to call me a frigid prude. Ha! Iceman callin’ me frigid. Not my fault the jerk never asked my opinion on the matter. I would o’ told him that my mama raised me right. Like a lady. No sex before marriage. Did everybody think I got the cure ‘cause I was horny, Logan?” Rogue met his eyes directly, challenging him for an answer.

He gave her honesty, just like he always had. “Most of ‘em, yeah. Sorry.”

“Idiots. Is that why Storm was so mad at me?” she muttered, turning back to her ice cream. She scowled as she took another spoonful. She hated coffee ice cream. “So, after that, even though I was touchable,” she mumbled between bites, “once they knew I wouldn’t put out, none o’ the guys here wanted to date me. Is it so wrong to want to wait for marriage, Logan?”

Leaning forward, he snagged the spoon from her, which she gave up with minimal resistance. He helped himself to some ice cream as he considered her question. “No, kid, there’s nothin’ wrong with it,” he finally answered quietly.

“Really?”

Logan scowled at the slight tone of disbelief in her voice. “Listen, kid, I know I get around some.” He raised an eyebrow when Rogue let loose an inelegant snort. “All right, I get around a lot. But I’m tellin’ you, there’s nothin’ wrong with having principles and stickin’ to ‘em. You decided to wait for marriage, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s decent. Honorable.”

Logan panicked when she gave him a watery smile and sniffed a couple times. Seeing his expression, Rogue flapped a hand at him. “Relax, Logan, I’m not gonna blubber on you.” Despite her reassurance, he saw her physically wilt. Her head dropped down and her shoulders hunched inward. The salty scent of tears grew stronger. “It’s just…I thought Andy was the one, you know? I really thought he wouldn’t care. Those damn tests they ran after Alcatraz,” she continued, “to better understand mutations? That’s why I’m in this mess.”

Logan frowned. “How’d you figure that?”

“Before that, they thought only males could pass on the x-gene. Those stupid tests at Worthington!” She slammed her fist on the counter. “They gave me the cure, made me think I could finally have a normal life. The one I always wanted, the one with a husband, kids. Maybe a dog. Then they take it away less than a year later by tellin’ me I can still pass on the mutant gene to my kids.” She blinked rapidly, the first few tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily and looked at him imploringly.

Not knowing what to say to make it better, Logan just went with his first thought. “You can still have kids, Marie. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love them just as much even if they were mutants.”

“But Andy wouldn’t!” she wailed and broke into wrenching, shoulder-shaking sobs. Feeling useless, Logan rubbed her shoulders a bit. When she just cried harder, he sighed heavily and pulled her into a tight hug. As her sobs quieted to watery hiccups, Logan tried again.

“You don’t need to get married to have kids.”

Rogue reared back and stared at him, her lips pressed together in a tight, angry line.

“Uh…wrong thing to say?” he asked nervously.

She wilted again. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s just another thing I feel strongly about. I know I would be a wonderful mother, but I don’t think it’s fair to any child to deny him a father.” They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. “I suppose I can start tellin’ guys upfront that I carry the x-gene, but that’s hardly likely to lead to a second date, is it? And if I don’t tell them, and I’m lucky enough to get another marriage proposal, the damned blood test will trip me up. It’s just that I’m starting to feel like I’m not going to get many more chances, you know?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Logan protested. “You’re only twenty-seven. You’ve got plenty of time and plenty of chances.”

Rogue gave him a sad smile. “Do you really believe that, Logan?”

He met her eyes, and despite the faint flicker of hope he saw sparkling in the brown depths, he just couldn’t lie to her. “No. No, sorry, kid. I don’t.” The brightness in her eyes faded quickly and she nodded gracefully. Feeling guilty that he was, ultimately, the one to kill her last bit of hope, Logan searched for something to offer her. Something that was still honest. “Even if you’re not married, you could still work something out where the kid would have a father.”

Rogue frowned. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“Like…like what if the father’s just a good friend? Somebody you know who wouldn’t care if the kid’s a mutant, somebody you can count on no matter what?”

“You mean a sperm donor who would stick around?”

“Yeah…I guess.”

Rogue snorted. “You’re the only friend I have, Logan. You gonna volunteer?” she asked with a light laugh.

Clearing his throat as a frown settled over his face, Logan shrugged. “Let me think about it,” he said.

Rogue’s laughter died abruptly and her eyes grew wide. “What?” she breathed.

Logan shrugged again, feeling uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. “I said let me think about it for a while. You do the same, kid. We’ll both think about it for a few days and then we’ll talk.”

Although he had made the offer spur of the moment, once it had taken root in his mind, Logan was able to think of little else. It seemed odd to him that he couldn’t picture the child; there seemed to be no preference in his rambling thoughts for a boy rather than a girl, for a child who would look more like him, or more like Marie. All he could really see in his mind was Marie herself, gazing down at a blanket wrapped bundle with a soft, tender look on her face. And then she would look up at him and smile brilliantly as she held out a hand inviting him to join them.

All in all, Logan thought it was a pretty messed up picture.

He was a loner, he told himself. Unattached and independent. And yet he had stayed more or less put in the last ten years, with only the occasional one to two month foray into the Canadian wilderness. Like it or not, he now realized, he had become domesticated. He loosed a half-hearted growl and propped his booted feet up on the porch rail as he popped the top on another bottle of Molson.

When had it changed? He supposed it was after Alcatraz. After Scott and the professor and Jean. Prior to that, he had always run before he became attached to people or a specific place, knowing that sooner or later he would lose them, so what was the use getting tied up with them? He had always assumed he’d be the one left behind, whether the people just moved on or died. Frankly, he had expected that death would always be the dividing line. He hadn’t aged at all the last ten years while those around him just seemed to be speeding on by. All the children who had grown up too fast, Storm’s face beginning to show the passage of time, even Hank’s fur now shot through with silver.

Marie. Even Marie was starting, finally, to look older. Logan sighed heavily and rested his beer bottle on his stomach, lacing his fingers around it. Suddenly, he felt the urge to run again. But it was no more than a faint, restless tickle at the back of his mind that he managed easily to quash. He’d never run again, he knew. He had too many responsibilities, too many people who counted on him to be here.

It had started with Marie, not with Alcatraz, he thought with sudden, startling clarity. From the moment he had pulled to the side of the road to wait for her, he had already started piling duties, responsibilities, and obligations on himself. And he had just piled it deeper on the train when he had promised to take care of her. Strangely, that one decision – to take care of Marie for however long she needed him – was the thing he was most proud of in his life.

They had offered to free him from his responsibilities once, about a year after Alcatraz. Storm and Marie, finally speaking to each other again, had approached him on this very porch one hazy afternoon and told him that they were fine. They could manage well enough on their own now that the school was fully staffed once again and mutant registration was no longer on the political agenda. Logan smiled faintly as he remembered his response.

Shock, first and foremost, followed by an angry, offended growl that had had Storm backing up a step. But not Marie. She had tilted her head to the side thoughtfully before drawling softly, “But you know we’d love it if you stayed.” Storm had immediately argued with Marie by telling her it was unfair to pressure him, that he needed to be able to make the decision free and clear. When Marie remained silent and instead continued looking at Logan, Storm had lashed out in anger, accusing Marie of being selfish yet again and considering no one but herself. The quick flash of pain in Marie’s eyes pulled the words from Logan’s lips. “I’ll stay,” he had said, “and nobody’s pressuring me.” He had gotten up and walked away, and the subject had never been discussed again.

Logan sighed again and took another sip of beer.

“Problems?” a low, cultured voice asked from behind him.

He jumped and sloshed beer onto his flannel-covered chest. Cursing, he whirled around to face Storm, who was laughing in delighted surprise.

“Did I actually manage to sneak up on the Wolverine?”

Logan grunted. “Not the safest thing to do, you know.”

“Oh, but I wasn’t trying to,” Storm said. “It seems you were just too distracted to notice me. What’s wrong, Logan?”

He considered suddenly that Storm’s input on the matter might be helpful. Other than Marie, he had known Storm longer than anyone else at the mansion. He opened his mouth, intent on blurting out the whole situation, when something occurred to him. Other than him, Storm was Marie’s oldest friend as well. Shit, shit, shit, he thought. I can’t talk to Storm about this. That won’t leave Marie anyone to talk to. There’s no way Storm could talk to us both and not end up taking sides somehow.

He sighed again, missing the way Storm’s eyebrows rose. “Nothing, Storm. Just thinking about some stuff.”

“I…do you need to get away for a while, Logan? Is that it?” Storm asked, her voice soft and understanding.

“No,” he said in genuine surprise. “Nothin’ like that. Hell, I haven’t gone anywhere in…hell, when was the last time I took off?” He frowned.

“Precisely,” Storm countered. “Whatever…stuff you’re thinking about might be helped by a couple months away.”

A bark of laughter escaped his lips. “No, not this time. This ‘stuff’ definitely won’t be helped by time away. As a matter of fact, this ‘stuff’ would be completely screwed up if I hit the road now.”

“It’s Rogue, isn’t it?”

Logan choked on his beer. “What? Did she talk to you about it already?”

Storm’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “No, she hasn’t talked to me about anything. It’s just that she’s the only one you ever get worked up about. Jacie breaks her arm in three different places,” Storm said, referring to an accident one of their newer students had had three months ago, “and you shrug and tell her to suck it up, while Rogue can’t even stub her toe without you barging in to check on her.”

Logan scowled. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

“No, not quite that bad,” Storm conceded. “But you get the point.”

He stared at her for several seconds before muttering sullenly, “I was plenty worried about Jacie.”

“Funny way of showing it,” she said dryly.

“Storm,” he protested, “the kid was going into shock. I didn’t think lettin’ her panic would help at all. Yeah, maybe I was a little harsh, but it surprised her enough that she quit thinkin’ about her arm long enough for me to get her to Hank.”

“That it did,” Storm acknowledged.

Logan thought the incident through in his mind. He compared his actions to those he had seen from Storm, Marie, and the other teachers. They all used soft, soothing tones to calm frightened or injured students. Even Hank was soft and soothing, although efficiently businesslike.

“Storm?”

“Yes, Logan?”

“Do you think that I’m…that I’m bad with kids?” he asked awkwardly.

Storm smiled serenely. “You certainly have an untraditional approach.”

He frowned. “Bad then, right?”

“Why, no,” Storm said honestly, surprised by his slightly dejected look. “Rogue took to you right away all those years ago.”

“Rogue was never really a kid, Storm,” he reminded her gruffly.

“No, no she wasn’t,” the woman said sadly. “Artie certainly liked you, though.”

Logan smiled as he thought of the little boy with the forked tongue. Not a little boy anymore, he reminded himself. Artie, at twenty, was off at college studying Quantum Mechanics of all things. Regardless of what he studied, Logan chuckled to himself, he would always remember Artie sticking his tongue out at Stryker.

“And Jacie,” Storm said, interrupting his thoughts.

“I thought you just said I was too harsh with her.”

“Maybe,” she said with a smile. “But surely you’ve noticed the little shadow following you around the last few weeks?”

“What? Nobody’s been following me, Storm. I would have smelled her if she was.”

Storm gave a tinkling laugh like wind through the trees. “No, Logan. Literally, a shadow.”

He frowned as he remembered the odd shifting that he had been noticing from the corner of his eye lately.

“Jacie can separate herself from her shadow, can’t she?” he asked, abruptly realizing.

Storm nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. Using her shadow, she can monitor whatever or whomever she chooses. And she’s been watching you, Logan.”

“How the hell did you notice that when I didn’t?”

Storm laughed again. “It was when you stopped by my English class last month. Jacie’s little face perked right up and her shadow slipped out the door after you. I’m not even sure she realized she did it that first time. But since then, she’s been sending her shadow after you every chance she gets.”

Logan smiled, kind of liking the thought of the little girl following him around. The smile faded suddenly as he tried desperately to remember if he had done anything recently that little girls shouldn’t be seeing. Dammit, there was that busty blonde at the bar downtown last week! He was on the verge of breaking out in a nervous sweat when he remembered that Jacie’s ability was limited to a distance of two miles. He made a mental note to avoid the bars closest to the mansion.

“So I’m not entirely bad with kids?”

“No, not entirely. You’re honest, Logan, even with children. You make such a habit of being honest – brutally so – with everybody, while the rest of us try to cover things up for the children. Tell them little fibs now and again so they don’t worry. But we forget how perceptive children are. They know when they’re being lied to. They just don’t call us on it like an adult would.”

Logan swallowed the last bit of his beer. “Wonderin’ why you’re lyin’ to ‘em’s just gonna make ‘em worry more, Storm.”

She nodded. “Yes. And that’s why the children like you, Logan. They know that you’ll tell them the truth. And that means they can trust you when you say that you’ll help them, or that you’ll keep them safe from the bogeyman.”

He winced. “Heard that, did you?”

Storm gave him another serene smile. “I thought it was rather ingenious, letting Sammy in on the secret that bogeymen are allergic to adamantium. However, flashing your claws was perhaps a bit much.”

Logan scowled and stomped away in search of another beer and a dry shirt, trying to ignore Storm’s laughter.

Maybe, just maybe, he thought with something suspiciously like warmth creeping over his heart, he would make a decent father.

Rogue had been avoiding Logan for the past week. She wasn’t even quite sure why; she wasn’t angry or sad, she didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable around him. Perhaps, she reasoned, it was because the next time they talked, it would be about something that could change their lives forever. She felt that something with that kind of importance deserved to be acknowledged by her acting differently, behaving in an extreme manner that was in direct proportion to the seriousness of the situation.

It was ridiculous.

She kept thinking of questions that had her wanting to run to Logan for advice. He was always the one who listened while she talked things through. She considered briefly talking to Storm, but didn’t want to leave Logan hanging if he felt the need to turn to someone other than her. And if he did, Storm was the one he’d go to.

And that left Rogue with nobody to talk to. She was almost bursting with the need to talk, and she knew, just knew, that if she went anywhere near Logan, she’d start rambling and never stop. That wouldn’t be fair to Logan, she thought, since she might inadvertently influence his decision.

Rogue scowled and wished for the first time since she had taken the cure that she hadn’t lost the voices in her head. If she had kept them, she would have never found herself without someone to talk to. She wondered, sometimes, if that had been her mutation’s gift to her. Her skin would always leave her isolated, always an arm’s length away from real human contact, real connections, but in her mind, she had had five people who knew her inside and out. People who had never judged or scorned her. It was ironic, she knew, that the Magneto in her head had taken to giving her rational, fatherly advice, genuinely wanting to help her through things, with none of the homicidal intent of his real-life counterpart.

Maybe they could still help her, even though they were gone, she thought. She had known them just as well as they had known her.

Magneto would have said to choose anyone but Logan as the father of her baby. Hands down, no explanation offered. John would have shrugged and said, “Whatever. Doesn’t have anything to do with me. Just as long as you know you’re gonna end up with stretch marks and saggy boobs.” Bobby would have howled and raged and threatened to freeze Logan’s balls off.

She snickered when she pictured Bobby cupping Logan’s crotch to accomplish that.

David, she thought fondly, raised with the same southern family-oriented values as herself, would be appalled at the prospect of deliberately having a child out of wedlock. But, he would grudgingly concede, her views on family values had been irreparably skewed and scarred when her parents kicked her out for something she couldn’t help. If he had still been around after the cure, Rogue imagined that he would have been just as angry and hurt as she was when her parents still refused to have anything to do with her. She had waited a year after taking the cure to make sure it wasn’t going to wear off like it had with other mutants. Then she had called them. The conversation hadn’t even lasted a full minute. It was just long enough for her to say, “Daddy, it’s me. I’ve taken the cure, and I’m not a mutant anymore,” and the silence followed by the soft click of the phone as her father hung up on her had left her shocked and shaken.

She had cried then for the first time since Logan found her on the train. She hadn’t cried at the Statue of Liberty, hadn’t cried when Jean, Scott, or the professor had died. She hadn’t cried when Bobby cheated. But when her parents decided to cast her away even without her mutation, she finally faced the fact that they hadn’t ever loved her the way they were supposed to.

She had cried for days, locked up in her room not eating, sleeping, or showering, and snarling through her door for people to leave her alone whenever they knocked.

Logan was the one to finally ignore her wishes and he sliced right through her doorknob with his claws and stalked angrily into her room. She had screamed at him to get out, but he stood there silently, a look of challenge in his eyes. When screaming got her nowhere, she started beating at his chest and arms with her fists, crying all the while. He still didn’t move or respond in any way.

When she eventually wore herself down and she slumped against his chest, her hands knotted into fists at his shoulders, his arms had immediately come around her and pulled her close. After a few minutes, when the last of her tears finally dried on her puffy face, he had announced unceremoniously, “You stink, kid,” and pushed her toward the bathroom to shower.

Rogue chuckled as she thought about it. She wondered what the Logan in her head would have said about her current situation. Probably nothing, she mused. He had always had a habit of remaining silent on the big decisions, but she had never felt abandoned by it. Instead, she had always felt his quiet support and acceptance of whatever choice she made, even if she knew it was something he’d like to protest. With a sad smile, Rogue realized that that was the type of love and acceptance her parents should have given her.

And all at once, she knew that Logan was the only one who would ever love and protect a child of hers as fiercely as she would, regardless of its paternity.

* * *

They hadn’t agreed to meet in the kitchen at 2 am exactly one week later. It just sort of happened.

Rogue was contemplatively spooning peach-swirled vanilla ice cream straight from the carton when Logan came through the door. She wasn’t surprised this time, and merely slid the extra spoon in front of him when he sat down beside her. She hadn’t even realized she had taken a second one from the drawer.

They worked their way companionably through the carton, occasionally battling over a choice morsel with their spoons. When the last bit of ice cream was scraped up, Logan broke the silence.

“So?” That was it. That was all he said, but in it, Rogue heard all the things he wasn’t asking, first and foremost his concern that he wasn’t good enough.

“So,” she said, holding his gaze, “if I’m going to do this, I can’t think of anybody I’d rather do it with than you.”

“Yeah?” Logan asked tentatively, the beginnings of a smile quirking up the corners of his lips.

“Yeah,” Rogue said firmly. “What about you?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.

He shrugged. “I’m in if you’re in.”

“Logan,” she chided, “it’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because we haven’t even discussed the details yet.”

“Details?” He frowned. “Like what?”

“Like when we’re gonna do this. And how.”

“Whenever you want. And what do you mean how?”

“Well,” she began tentatively, “do you want to ask Hank to help us, or do you want to go to somebody else?”

Logan’s frown deepened. “Why would we need Hank’s help?” he asked in genuine confusion.

Rogue blinked in surprise. “We’d need his help with the…the procedure.”

Logan’s head snapped back as if she had punched him. ‘Procedure’ was such a coldly clinical term. It brought to mind labs and needles, strangers in white masks. The picture he had been holding in his mind all week of Marie and the blanket wrapped bundle was replaced by another picture. For the first time, he was able to clearly imagine the baby, and he didn’t like what he saw.

A cold, gleaming room with a crying infant lying alone on a steel examination table, its arms and legs flailing, its little fingers grasping only air as it reached for someone, anyone.

“There won’t be any…any procedure,” he rasped finally, spitting the word from his mouth as though it had a particularly vile taste to it.

“What?”

Logan glared at her, his eyes glittering. “No kid of mine is ever going to be the result of a fuckin’ scientific procedure,” he said flatly, threateningly.

Sudden understanding filled Rogue’s eyes. She swallowed hard. “It…it wouldn’t be like that, Logan.”

“No?” He laughed mirthlessly. “You wanna be the one to tell our kid that he was the result of a cold, hard procedure? That he was an object to be acquired through impersonal science?”

“It wouldn’t be impersonal!” Rogue cried in protest. “We would love him no matter how he came about!”

“It wouldn’t be impersonal?” Logan mocked. “I don’t know, Marie, jerking off in a cup and handing it over to Hank or whoever the fuck else so he can squirt it into you with a turkey baster sounds pretty damn impersonal to me.”

Rogue gasped and her face burned with a blush. “You don’t need to be so hateful about it,” she said with quiet dignity. “I know why the thought upsets you, but what other option do we have?”

“The only other option there is. Have the baby the good old-fashioned way.”

A steely glint appeared in Rogue’s eyes. “You’re not willing to compromise on your wants and beliefs here, so I have to compromise mine?” She raked him head to toe with a withering glare. “Whatever happened to ‘waiting for marriage is decent, honorable, Marie’?”

They gave glare for glare, neither willing to back down. Rogue remained mutinously silent, challenging him to answer her question. When a low, frustrated growl rumbled from Logan’s lips, she knew she had won the match. She waited expectantly for his apology. But it never came. Instead, he snapped out a challenge of his own.

“So we’ll get married.”

“What? No!” Rogue gasped, horrified at the idea.

Logan shut down. That’s the only way she could think to describe the coldness that fell over his face, the careful stillness of his body. He searched her eyes and then nodded once, sharply.

“Fine.” He got up and headed toward the door.

“Logan, wait!” Rogue cried. When he actually stopped, she was rather surprised. He didn’t turn around, though, choosing instead to keep his back to her. When she remained silent, he tilted his head to the side a little as though to indicate he was, indeed, listening. “Will you please look at me?” she snapped. He didn’t. “Fine,” she spat venomously, “I’ll talk to the back of your idiotic skull then. You’re thinkin’ I said no ‘cause I don’t think you’re good enough, aren’t you?” Rogue waited for a response, but when none came, she continued, “You’re an ass, you know that?”

That, at least, got him to turn around.

“You turn me down flat, like the very idea of marryin’ me’s disgusting, and I’m the ass?” he asked in angry disbelief.

Rogue narrowed her eyes, but didn’t argue with the name calling. “I turned you down because my idea of marriage doesn’t include divorce,” she explained calmly.

Logan scowled fiercely. “Who the hell said anything about divorce?”

Rogue’s jaw went slack. “What? I…uh…you mean marry you for keeps?”

His lips twitched at the childish expression. “Yeah. What the hell did you think I meant, kid?”

Feeling a blush rising up from her chest, Rogue dropped her eyes and muttered, “I figured you meant we’d get married and uh…do it as many times as it took to get me pregnant and then we’d get a divorce.”

“‘It’, huh?” Rogue was mortified by the amusement in his voice.

“Yes,” she snapped, going quickly back to anger, “‘it.’ But it still won’t work. I want to marry somebody who loves me.”

“I do love you, kid,” he argued, confused.

Rogue sighed, caught between fondness for him and exasperation that he really just didn’t get it. “Yes, Logan, I love you too,” she said condescendingly. “But it’s not the same kind of love that married couples have.”

He shrugged. “So? Love is love. Means I’ll be there for you, protect you, put up with your annoying habits, same as any husband would.”

“I don’t have any annoying habits!” she immediately protested.

“No?” Logan’s eyebrow quirked. “What do you call tappin’ your fingernails on your teeth when you’re thinkin’? Stickin’ your freezin’ cold feet under my thigh when we’re sittin’ on the couch? Havin’ four different kinds of shampoo and conditioner in the shower, all of ‘em open? Leavin’ the cap loose on the toothpaste? Wakin’ me up when you can’t sleep just so you have somebody to keep you company? What do you call all that if not annoying?”

Rogue offered a jaunty smile. “Endearing?”

He snorted, and as easy as that, all was forgiven. He was still shaking his head at her as he sat back down.

“You know, you have plenty of annoying habits too,” she reminded him.

“Idiosyncrasies,” he countered.

“Annoying idiosyncrasies,” Rogue persisted.

“Like what?” Logan asked, his open expression telling her he really wanted to know.

She blinked when nothing immediately came to mind. She grasped at the first thing she could think of. “Like…like the fact that you’re with a different woman every week. Sometimes several different women a week,” she said tartly.

Logan squinted at her as he thought that through. “I can see how a wife would find that annoying.”

Rogue spluttered. “I didn’t mean from a wife’s perspective!”

His eyebrows shot up. “You mean it bothers you now that I sleep around? Why should it?”

“It doesn’t!”

“Then why bring it up?”

“I…it…never mind,” Rogue said sullenly.

“No, I want to know,” Logan persisted.

She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, Logan.”

“Try.”

Rogue sighed again and started tapping her teeth as she attempted to put her thoughts in order. At Logan’s snicker, she dropped her hand and stuck her tongue out. “It’s just that that kind of behavior seems disrespectful.”

“To whom?” he asked seriously.

Shrugging her shoulders in a quick, awkward motion, Rogue tried to explain. “I don’t know. To you, to the women.”

“How do you figure? I don’t pretend to offer anythin’ permanent and I don’t go after blushing virgins,” he argued.

Rogue flushed scarlet. When embarrassed, fall back on anger, she thought. “No, you go after cheap whores instead.” She winced when she heard how nasty she sounded.

Logan, though, well acquainted with how she reacted when embarrassed, kept calm. “Nope, sorry. I’ve never paid a woman to sleep with me. So whores they’re not.”

“Still cheap,” Rogue muttered.

“Nope, not that either.” He waited until Rogue met his eyes in disbelief before winking rakishly and finishing, “Just easy.”

Completely flustered, Rogue sat up ramrod straight and said in her most precise voice, “You, sir, are incorrigible.”

“Guilty,” Logan readily admitted. “Seriously, though. You gonna marry me?”

“I need some time to think about it.”

“What’s to think about? You know me better than anybody, just like I know you. I trust you completely, and you trust me. Seems like a pretty simple decision to me.”

“But we’d be married, Logan. Things would change.”

“Like what?”

“Well, first, I wouldn’t want you sleeping around anymore.” Honestly, Rogue expected that to be the deal-breaker right there.

Logan shrugged. “That’s fine. I can do monogamy.”

Rogue looked at him askance. “You can?”

Another shrug. “Sure. Men aren’t particular, kid. As long as we’re havin’ sex and havin’ it regularly, it doesn’t much matter who with.”

Stung, Rogue snapped, “Gee, thanks.”

“Listen, kid, I’m not tryin’ to offend you. I’m just sayin’, if I’m gonna be havin’ sex with the same woman for the rest of my life, I could do a lot worse than you.”

“Ohhh,” Rogue mocked, “that makes me feel so much better. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t find you sexually attractive either?”

“What? No,” he said.

“Add ‘insufferable ego’ to your list of annoying idiosyncrasies,” Rogue snarked.

“No, I’m sayin’ I find you plenty attractive.”

“Oh, come on, Logan. You don’t have to try to make me feel better. I know you’ve never thought of me that way.”

“That’s true. But now I am thinkin’ about it, and honestly you’re not bad.”

“Oh, do tell,” she muttered crossly.

“Okay,” Logan nodded. He swept his eyes over her body several times, pausing at places of interest. His clinical appraisal was making Rogue acutely uncomfortable. Eventually he nodded once, decisively. “Okay, got it. You’re pretty. Nice face, smooth skin. Pretty color hair and eyes. Great boobs,” he dropped his eyes to rest there briefly before they flitted back to hers, “nice, tucked in little waist. For bein’ so short, you’ve got legs a mile long, and you’ve got the cutest little ass I’ve ever seen.”

Rogue had dropped her gaze to her lap as Logan’s list continued. She felt her skin burning and couldn’t come up with any sort of a reply. Glancing at him from underneath her lashes, she thought that Logan looked incredibly self-satisfied. Wait a second, she thought. “You can’t see my ass ‘cause I’m sittin’ on it,” she accused.

Logan smirked. “Caught that, did you?”

“When have you ever checked out my ass?” she asked in consternation.

Logan shrugged. “Don’t remember when it happened, exactly, but I was walking across the garage one afternoon and saw a shapely little ass leanin’ across the back seat of one of the cars. So I stopped to check it out and damn near swallowed my tongue when I realized it was you.”

Frowning, Rogue shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

Logan shrugged again. It was beginning to irritate Rogue.

“So,” she said peevishly, “we’ve established that I’m ‘not bad,’ but when it comes down to it, will you be able…” she trailed off and looked at him questioningly.

His eyebrows flew up and his mouth fell slack. “Are you actually askin’ me if I’ll be able to get it up?”

It was Rogue’s turn to shrug.

“‘Course I will,” he exclaimed.

She shrugged again. “If you say so.”

Logan glowered at her and leaned forward until his face was just inches away from hers. “I’ll even make sure you enjoy it,” he whispered silkily.

Rogue’s breath hitched and her face flamed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Kid, I don’t need luck,” Logan returned brashly.

“Well maybe you do!” Rogue snapped. “I’ve never thought about you sexually, Logan, and honestly, the idea of even kissing you is hard to fathom.”

“Never?” he asked incredulously.

“Never,” Rogue confirmed.

“But you used to have a crush on me,” Logan protested, almost plaintively.

Rogue shrugged. “It was more hero worship than a crush.”

Logan got up and took a beer from the fridge. He popped the cap off and drank the whole bottle in a few long swallows. “Score one for you, kid,” he muttered. “You just killed my ‘insufferable ego.’”

Rogue burst out laughing. Logan grinned back at her, and she knew whatever flaws and problems they might have, a life together would also have bright, perfect little moments just like this one scattered throughout it.

Her laughter finally died down, leaving her and Logan grinning at each other like fools as she continued thinking. She seriously considered the fact that she really might not be able to respond sexually to Logan, but oddly enough believed all his earlier assurances that he wouldn’t have a similar problem. So her marriage might not be a passionate one, she acknowledged, but it would be comfortable, and comforting. And it would be loving, although perhaps not traditionally so. And she would have a child. Maybe more than one.

Put like that, it really didn’t seem like such a bad deal after all, Rogue thought. So she shrugged and said simply, “Okay.”

Rogue gasped, her shoulders jerking as she came out of the dream. While she waited for her heart to stop racing, tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and rolled across her temples into her hair. Heavy waves of guilt assailed her as she realized for the first time exactly what she had done to Logan by accepting his proposal.

* * *

She was acting weird, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was he found odd. It had started a few days ago, right after Rogue had said she’d marry him. Logan wondered if maybe she was regretting that decision now, so he watched her carefully for any clues.

The more he watched, the more confused he became.

They still talked just like they used to. She was maybe a little quieter than normal, but then so was he. Marriage and a baby were a lot to think about, even if it wasn’t going to happen right away. At least he assumed it wasn’t going to happen right away; they hadn’t talked about setting a date or anything yet. Rogue wasn’t acting shy or awkward around him. She wasn’t angry that he could see. But she did stare at him quite a bit, mostly when she thought he wasn’t looking, and sometimes even when he was. He shrugged that one off since he found that he had been doing his own share of staring. But when he looked at the way she stared, Logan was finally able to see exactly what was wrong.

Her eyes were sad when she looked at him.

At first, Logan interpreted that as proof that she was regretting saying yes. But then, as he thought about it a little more, he realized that he would expect panic more than sadness from a woman who was trying to get out of a proposal. That left him right back where he started: Rogue acting weird and him not having a clue in hell why.

So he did what any brilliant tactician would when faced with a lack of intel. He settled in and waited her out.

* * *

Two weeks, Rogue mused. Two weeks since she said she’d marry him and she was still too selfish to tell him she wouldn’t hold him to it. Too selfish and too much a coward. She wanted babies and she wanted marriage and at this point, Logan was the only way she was going to get them. What she was doing now was weighing her happiness against Logan’s, trying to decide if what she wanted was worth the pain it was going to cause him. She thought a lot and as a result, didn’t end up saying much when they were together. She stared at him when he wasn’t looking, trying to figure out if he was as aware of her presence in his life as she was of his in hers. She wondered, those times when he wasn’t paying any attention to her, if he had a permanent section of his mind and heart cordoned off and labeled with her name the same way she had one labeled “Logan.” And when he caught her looking at him and didn’t ask why she was staring, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he didn’t care, if it was his way of keeping her at a distance.

She was staring now, and even though she knew he was aware of it this time, he still didn’t say anything. Instead, he kept his gaze focused on the hockey game, leaning away from her into his corner of the couch while she huddled up in her corner. Their own little boxing ring, she imagined. But nobody was going to sound the bell to signal the start of the match, and so they sat, alone and silent in their corners.

Rogue told herself she was being an idiot. She could always talk to Logan about anything, but this time it seemed different. This time it was about something that would hurt him, something she wasn’t even sure he had ever thought about. She sighed and stretched her legs out a little, grimacing as her toes peeked out from the edge of the blanket she had draped over her legs and stomach. Without thinking, she stretched a little more and started to slip her feet under Logan’s warm thigh. She froze before her toes had even disappeared and yanked her feet back violently.

And ended up kicking Logan in the hip so hard he actually grunted in pain. Immediately, tears filled her eyes.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, kid?” he asked roughly, rubbing his hip even though the pain had already faded.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and the tears spilled over.

“Marie?” He sounded scared now instead of angry.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you!” she apologized. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, and I know that in the end I’m going to anyway. But I just can’t take it back!”

“Take what back?” Logan asked as he reached over and grabbed her feet to pull them into his lap. He sandwiched them between his large, callused hands and rubbed her toes a bit to warm them.

Rogue went back to staring at him and fell silent.

“Oh no, don’t start that again,” he said in irritation. “You’ve been starin’ at me for weeks and I’m about ready to go stark, raving mad if you don’t just spit out whatever the hell’s been botherin’ you.”

Rogue gulped in a breath of air to brace herself. She wasn’t going to be a coward anymore, she vowed, even if she was still selfish. Considering how much she was going to hurt him, he at the very least deserved honesty from her.

“I’m sorry. I never should have said I’d marry you. And I never should have asked you for a baby.”

Logan’s face immediately rearranged itself into a fierce scowl and his hands tightened on her feet so much it hurt. “Are you sayin’ everything’s off?”

“No.” Rogue shook her head, her hair swaying gently around her face.

He growled. With her feet in his lap, she felt the way it caused his stomach muscles to tense and the deep vibrations in his chest. “Then for fuck’s sake, woman, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I still want to marry you and I still want to have a baby. But I don’t think you thought everything through yet, so it’s okay if you want out. I won’t argue.”

His frustration deepened. “What is it, exactly, that you think I haven’t considered?”

“Logan, I’m gettin’ older, and the baby when it comes will be gettin’ older every day.” She held her breath.

He looked at her as though she had just confessed to rubbing nettles on her nipples because she liked the way it felt.

“Uh, yeah, kid, that’s the way it works. People get older.”

Rogue expelled the breath she was holding and blurted, “But you don’t.”

He tipped his head to the side and rubbed her feet thoughtfully. When she couldn’t take the silence any longer, everything came pouring out of her. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about it before. I should have. It isn’t fair to expect you to marry me and have kids with me. It’s selfish and mean, and I know that, but I still want to do it anyway even though you’d have to watch me get old and die. Even though,” she finished in a much smaller voice, “you’d have to watch our baby get old and die.”

She was crying again. She couldn’t believe she was still this upset; she had had plenty of time to think about it and should have been able to keep her composure as she pointed the sad facts out to Logan. Instead, she was the one blubbering while he continued to look at her calmly, his eyes clear of worry or sadness.

Rogue pulled the blanket up to her chin and hugged her arms tightly to her ribs. “Will you please say something?”

“Sure. You’re an idiot.”

Rogue gaped at him. “What?”

“And you’re a sweetheart.”

Fresh tears, these ones caused by utter frustration and confusion, welled in her eyes. Seeing them, Logan’s face softened and he leaned forward to grasp her around the waist and haul her bodily into his lap. Rogue buried her face in his neck and curled tightly against his chest, sheltering there.

When he spoke, she could feel the rumbling of his voice echoing through her own ribcage and into her heart.

“I already thought about all that, darlin’.” The new endearment gave her pause. “I know,” he continued softly, “that I’ll probably outlive you. And I know that if that happens, it’s going to just about kill me. And maybe the same thing will happen someday with the baby. But maybe not. He might be like me, Marie. He might still be here long after we’re both gone. And even though I know it’s selfish of me to hope that he’ll live long enough to suffer through watching people he loves age and die, I like the thought of him being here someday, remembering us, even though it hurts him.”

With a groan of pain that sounded as if it were pulled from her soul, Rogue began sobbing. Logan’s arms tightened around her and he rocked them a bit.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed over and over until her crying lessened. Rogue rolled her head back on his shoulder and caught his eyes. He offered her a gentle smile and said, “If you’re still in, I’m still in.”

Rogue opened her eyes slowly, wincing at the gritty, swollen feeling of her eyelids. For a moment she was disoriented, wondering why her room was backwards. When she heard the rush of water into the sink in the bathroom – the bathroom that was opposite where it should be – she realized with a start that she was in Logan’s room.

Sitting up and wincing at the stiffness in her legs and hips from sleeping in her constricting jeans, she looked toward the partially open bathroom door, a sliver of light escaping into the dim bedroom.

“Logan?”

The water turned off and the door swung open. Logan stood there dressed only in jeans, a towel slung around his neck, and a toothbrush in one hand.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hey yourself,” she croaked, feeling a little awkward. She had never slept in Logan’s room before.

Seeing the discomfort on her face, Logan jerked his chin toward the door. “Go grab a shower, kid. We’re goin’ out for breakfast.”

“We are?”

“Yeah. Now scram.”

Rogue shrugged. “‘Kay. Meet you downstairs in twenty?”

Logan already had his back to her. “Yeah,” he called over his shoulder as he turned the water back on and reached for the toothpaste.

Climbing clumsily from his bed, she took a moment to twitch the covers roughly into place and pick a pillow up off the floor. Stepping out into the hall, she pulled the door gently closed behind her.

“Rogue?”

With a gasp, Rogue whirled around, her hand going to her throat in surprise.

“Storm!” she exclaimed. “Lordy, you scared me.”

Storm was standing a few doors down, her feet bare and a steaming mug held partially aloft in one hand. She tilted her head quizzically as her eyes swept over Rogue. Although she wondered about the puffiness of Rogue’s eyes, her messy hair, and the general disheveled state of her clothes, she knew that she had no right to question what she had been doing in Logan’s room. Instead she simply said, “Good morning.”

Rogue cleared her throat. “Mornin’,” she returned. “You’re up early.”

Storm smiled. “So are you. The birds woke me up,” she said, and waited for an answering explanation from Rogue.

“Oh. Yeah, they do that,” Rogue said vaguely. “I’m gonna go shower. See you later, Storm.”

Long after Rogue had walked away and disappeared into her own room, Storm stood there contemplatively sipping her tea. Something was going on with Logan and Rogue, she knew, and wondered if it was a good something or a bad something. Eventually she shrugged. Sometimes, she mused philosophically, you just had to wait and see what developed. As she turned to bring her mug back to the kitchen, Storm caught the fuzzy outline of a child’s shadow slipping down the hall. It looked like Jacie had been watching Logan in her sleep again. She wasn’t worried about what Jacie might have seen or heard between Logan and Rogue. Whatever the girl monitored in her sleep seemed like regular dreams to her, and the memories faded once she woke up. Or at least that’s what she always said.

* * *

“Feelin’ better?” Logan asked over his second cup of coffee.

Rogue shrugged and pushed the last bit of egg around her plate with her fork. “A little. I still feel sad whenever I think about it, though.”

“Then don’t think about it,” he returned easily. “I’m not.”

She looked at him skeptically. “Is it really that easy?”

Sipping at his coffee for a moment before answering, Logan raised an eyebrow. “Pretty much.”

Rogue pushed her plate away. “You know, if you’re going to be a father, you do have to consider the future a bit. You can’t just take care of a kid on a day to day basis.”

Logan frowned a bit and nodded to the waitress a few tables away when she held a carafe of coffee up in question.

“This my first lesson in parenting, kid? I have been living in a house full of rugrats the last ten years, you know.”

Rogue snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, but they’re not our kids. There’s a difference. We’ll probably make a bumbling mess of things the first few months.”

Logan chuckled and slid his mug to the end of the table so the waitress could refill it. “So we hope the kid has a lot of patience and a hard head.”

“Logan!” she reprimanded. “The baby won’t need a hard head as long as you don’t drop him.”

A giggle spilled from the waitress’s lips. They turned to look at her. “Sorry,” she said. “First time parents?”

“Not yet,” Logan said. “Soon, though.”

She swept her eyes over Rogue’s trim figure and frowned. “You’re not even showing yet, honey.”

Rogue blinked. “I’m not pregnant.”

The waitress blinked back. “Then don’t you think you might be getting a little ahead of yourselves here?” Without waiting for a reply, she moved on to the next table.

Logan and Rogue stared at each and she snickered.

“She’s right. We have other things to think about. Like the fact that Storm saw me coming out of your room this morning.”

“Yeah?” Logan asked with interest. “What’d she say?”

Rogue lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothin’. I could see she was damn near dyin’ of curiosity, but she didn’t ask.”

Logan smirked. “You gonna tell her we’re gettin’ married?”

All of a sudden Rogue was uneasy. “I don’t want to tell anybody right away.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not a typical couple, Logan. As soon as they know, they’re gonna be watchin’ us.”

“So?”

“So they’re gonna expect us to be all giddy and cuddly. That’s the way it’s supposed to be when you’re engaged.”

Logan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Like you and Andy were,” he commented quietly.

Rogue swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. That’s another thing. What are they gonna think about me marryin’ you when I was engaged to Andy less than a month ago?”

He scowled. “The guy was an ass, kid. Nobody will think anythin’ bad about you for movin’ on, especially considering why he called it off.”

“I…I didn’t tell anybody why,” Rogue admitted. She fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug.

“You wanna explain that to me?” he invited.

“I just don’t want everybody pityin’ me.”

“Uh, kid,” he said, “he dumped you. I think it’s safe to assume they already pity you.”

Rogue scoffed. “You suck at pep talks.”

“Ain’t no pep talk. Just pointin’ out the facts.”

At Rogue’s mutinous expression, he continued. “I’m not sayin’ they’re right to pity you. Pity’s for messed up, useless people. And that’s not you.”

“Then why does this whole conversation sound like one big pity party?”

“Damned if I know,” Logan admitted. “Anyway, back to your original problem.”

Rogue raised an eyebrow in question.

“Giddy and cuddly,” Logan reminded her.

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’ll be an issue with us. I’m not the giddy type,” he stated flatly.

Rogue snickered. “That’s true. So we just have the cuddly part to worry about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t really want anybody knowing this is basically a marriage of convenience, Logan.”

“Then they don’t have to know.”

“They’ll figure it out,” she argued. “Normal couples don’t sit around drinking beer and eating nachos over hockey games.”

“They don’t?”

“No, they don’t,” Rogue said in exasperation. “They go out. On dates.”

“Oh hell no,” Logan protested immediately. “I’m not gonna act all sappy and get you flowers and shit.”

Rogue laughed. The thought of Logan giving her flowers and fawning over her the way Andy had was too bizarre. “That’s fine,” she said, smiling. “It should be enough to just disappear together for a while.”

“And do what?” Logan asked suspiciously.

“We’ll drink beer, eat nachos, and watch hockey,” she said brightly.

“Huh?”

“Sports bar,” Rogue elaborated with a grin.

Logan grinned in appreciation. “You know, I think I’m marryin’ the perfect girl.”

Her eyebrow lifted in wry amusement. “You’re just sayin’ that ‘cause to you, I’m basically a guy with boobs.”

Logan burst into laughter, attracting the attention of everyone in the diner. “And a cute little ass,” he added.

Rogue cleared her throat. “Seriously, though. Will that be a problem, do you think?”

Narrowing his eyes a bit, he said, “You keep questioning my manhood like that, I’m gonna end up with an inferiority complex, kid.”

“I’m not questioning your manhood,” she denied.

He snorted. “You’ve asked me twice in the last two weeks about whether I’ll be able to get it up or not.”

“No I haven’t.” Rogue blinked. “Well, maybe I have,” she admitted sheepishly. “I don’t mean anything insulting by it, Logan. It’s just that the two of us together like that is hard to imagine.” She shrugged and continued in a matter of fact tone. “I mean, I don’t have to like it for it to work, but don’t you have to actually be enjoying yourself for us to get the…the desired result?”

Logan gaped at her. Although he knew that she had asked the question in all innocence, he was wincing internally at the gaping holes she was poking in his ego. “I’ll enjoy it just fine,” he assured dryly.

“But how do you know for sure?” Rogue pressed.

“What the hell, kid, you want proof?” he snapped.

She tilted her head in consideration. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “That’s actually a good idea.”

Damned if she hadn’t just sat there staring at him expectantly. As though he could produce a stiffy on command. Logan huffed a little, which had Rogue looking at him curiously from the passenger seat. He ignored her. The fact of the matter was, it had embarrassed the hell out of him, and that wasn’t an emotion he was at all familiar with.

Now it was obvious that she was expecting some kind of performance from him once they got back to the mansion and Logan wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. How, exactly, did she want him to provide “proof”? Maybe just being able to kiss her without making a funny face was all she expected. Should he cop a feel, too, just for good measure? Given her views on premarital sex, surely, surely, she didn’t intend on letting him get so worked up that he’d want to finish the job.

She couldn’t be that cruel.

But as Logan glanced at her from the corner of his eye and saw the serene way she was looking out the window, humming to herself a little like she sometimes did, he really had to wonder.

By the time they pulled into the garage, Logan was in a downright foul mood. Not exactly conducive to getting in the mood. All right, so maybe it was; nothing wrong with tossing a little anger into the mix. But something told him Rogue wouldn’t appreciate being slammed against a wall like he was wont to do with women when he was in this state.

He threw the car door closed and stalked into the mansion, Rogue following behind him. He strode purposefully across the foyer and toward the stairs.

“Logan?” Rogue called. “Where are you going?”

He spun around to face her. “Upstairs. You wanted proof, right?”

Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t seriously think we’re going to try this in a bedroom, do you?” Her tone of voice told him she was offended.

“Why not?” he growled, confused.

“Logan,” she chided him as though he were a child. Talk about a mood killer.

“What?” he said, exasperated.

“Logan, listen. Do you really think my mama didn’t warn me about stuff like this? If you can show me…sufficient proof that this will all work, you really don’t need the added temptation of a bed being right there.”

He stared at her in disbelief. So she really was that cruel. Downright vindictive, actually.

Rogue looked around a bit, her eyes finally coming to rest on the library door. She started toward it, calling to him over her shoulder. “Come on, Logan.”

And like a good little puppy, he followed without protest. He couldn’t help but wonder what marriage was going to do to him if, after only a couple weeks of being engaged, she was the one calling all the shots.

As the door clicked shut behind them, a feral grin stretched across his lips. Despite the fact that everything up to this point had proceeded at Rogue’s direction, he was confident that he could reestablish his dominance in this room. He was the one with experience here, not Rogue. If she thought that he was going to let her remain an objective observer in her little quest for proof, well then, she had another thing coming, didn’t she?

Rogue turned in the center of the room to face him. “Well? Come on,” she said, and his confidence wavered a bit at her sure, unaffected voice.

He missed a step. Rogue looked at him curiously. He felt a dull blush staining his cheeks and anger surged up again, bolstering his resolve. He took his time, stalking slowly toward her. As he approached, her head tipped back incrementally so she could maintain eye contact. When they were toe to toe, she closed her eyes and waited.

He put his hands low on her hips and started walking her backward. Her eyes flew open in confusion, but she didn’t protest. He kept them moving until her back bumped up against the wall gently. Considering how rough he usually was in his anger, he thought it was a hell of a compromise.

Rogue just settled back comfortably and tipped her face up to him again. Maybe sheer, overwhelming sexual aggression wasn’t the way to go here, he mused. He grinned suddenly. Teasing seduction. That seemed more her style.

So he cupped her jaw in his hands, running his thumbs lightly along her pointed little chin and along the line of her bottom lip. Her mouth twitched in a little smile. He swept the pad of his right index finger behind her earlobe and massaged a bit, smirking when he noticed the fine hairs on her left arm stand in response. Her breathing was still normal, though, he noted absently. No matter. It wouldn’t be that way much longer.

Logan leaned in and grazed her lips with his in the barest hint of a kiss. It was a feathering caress designed to make her want more. When Rogue’s hands remained calmly at her sides and she didn’t move forward into the kiss, Logan frowned and wondered if she could feel the expression against her lips. He increased the pressure of the kiss, sealing their mouths together, although he kept it innocent, non-invasive. At least now Rogue was returning the kiss, moving her lips against his.

Without being aware of it, Logan lost track of time. If asked, he would never be able to recall how long he had spent kissing Rogue. All he knew was that a warm, tingling heat had suffused his lips and his heart had begun pounding in his chest. He could smell her; warm, clean skin, the subtle flowery scent of her shampoo. It was a scent that was as utterly familiar as his own, and he found it strangely comforting all of a sudden. He broke the kiss and tipped her head back a little farther by exerting pressure under her chin with his thumbs. He leaned in, his nose against her temple for a brief moment as he breathed her in, and lowered his mouth to the pulse point in her throat. He felt it jump a little under his lips, and he smiled. Applying a light, suckling pressure there, he heard a soft sigh escape her lips. A surge of desire arrowed straight to his groin and as easy as that, he had her “proof” for her.

He felt Rogue lifting her arms from her sides, but before she could touch him, the door opened behind them.

Logan cursed and spun around, taking Rogue with him and planting her firmly in front of him, facing them both toward the door.

“Mr. Logan?” The bright little voice was accompanied by a wide grin missing two of its teeth.

He cleared his throat before attempting to speak, but his voice was still a little rougher than usual. “Hey, if it isn’t my little shadow stalker,” he said.

Jacie gasped. “I like that! Do you mind if I use it? Oh, hey Miss Rogue,” she added as an afterthought.

Logan’s brain was still fogged with desire, leaving him distracted. “Hmm? Use what?” he asked absently, inhaling Rogue’s scent deeply.

“The name! I need a cool name. The other kids called me just Shadow at first, but that was my dog’s name. And he died when I was seven. So when I told them that, they stopped.” Her face fell for a moment. “Now they call me Peter Pan.”

That got Logan’s attention. “Huh?” he asked intelligently. Rogue snickered.

“You know,” Jacie said tentatively, gesturing at the shadow at her feet. The shadow that wasn’t quite firmly attached to her. It was more like it was just hovering close to her. “Peter Pan would wrestle with his shadow.”

He cleared his throat again. “Oh. Right.”

“So can I use the name?”

“What name?”

Jacie huffed and propped her hands on her hips. “Mr. Logan,” she whined in exasperation, “the one you just called me!”

Logan was lost. He felt, but didn’t hear Rogue laughing. He dug his fingers into her waist.

“I think she means Shadowstalker, Logan,” Rogue said with amusement.

“Oh. Yeah. Right. Sure, go ahead and use it, kiddo,” he said with a shrug.

“Awesome!” Jacie crowed. “Now I’ve got a cool name, and when the other kids find out that you’re the one who gave it to me, it’s gonna be even cooler.” She beamed at him.

Logan frowned. “Why would that make it cooler?”

“Because everybody knows that you’re a badass – ” Jacie slapped her hands over her mouth and her eyes grew wide. She mumbled through her fingers, “I’m sorry! I know we’re not allowed to swear.”

Smirking in genuine amusement, Logan said, “It’s okay, kiddo, we’ll let it go just this once. You were saying?”

Jacie dropped her hands and smiled back. “Everybody knows you’re a badass,” she emphasized the word, as if she was getting particular enjoyment out being allowed to say it in front of adults, “so when they find out that you gave me my name, that’ll make me badass, too!”

Logan burst out laughing at the thought of anyone describing the delicate little girl with the sparkling eyes and gap-toothed grin as being badass. Rogue was chuckling a bit, too, and started to move forward. Panicking, Logan lunged forward and grasped her hips again to pull her firmly back into place. She cast him a curious glance over her shoulder, but stayed put.

Jacie was eyeing them strangely.

“So, Shadowstalker.” Logan gave a strained grin. “What did you need in here?”

“Oh. I forgot my math book.” Jacie pointed to a book sitting on one of the couches. She danced over to it and lifted it with a little grunt. Logan was amused to see how bulky it was in comparison to her thin frame. “‘Kay!” she said cheerfully, heading for the door, “I’ll see you later, Mr. Logan.” She didn’t close the door after her.

Rogue burst out laughing. “Well, that was interestin’,” she said. “We gonna have to start all over again?”

“With what?”

“Well, she interrupted us before you could prove that you wouldn’t have any problem with uh…with the baby makin’.”

“No, we’re good,” Logan muttered.

“What? No,” Rogue argued, starting to turn around to face him, “we still need to find out if – ” Her words were cut off and her eyes rounded in surprise as Logan pressed himself against her hip.

“No,” he repeated, “we’re good. If I’m still like this after a prolonged conversation with a twelve year old, then we won’t have any problems when it comes to the baby makin’.”

Rogue blinked at him. “Oh. Well, good,” she said, and headed toward the door.

“Marie, wait!” he yelped. Yelped? The Wolverine did not yelp. But nonetheless, his voice was high and sharp.

She paused and turned to face him. “Yeah?”

“You…I…you can’t just leave me like this!” he sputtered.

Rogue frowned. “Like what?”

Logan’s jaw dropped. She wasn’t serious, was she? He scrutinized her face and body language, seeing no deception. She really didn’t know?

“Like…this,” he explained, gesturing vaguely toward his aching groin.

Her lips rounded in an “Oh” and they stared at each other for several seconds. “But,” Rogue began, her voice hesitant, “it goes away on its own, doesn’t it?”

Logan goggled. How the hell had she gotten to her age without knowing a damn thing about men? “Well, yeah,” he admitted gruffly, miserably. “But it’s damn unpleasant in the meantime, and it leaves you keyed up anyway.”

“It does?” she asked blankly.

He loosed an involuntary growl. “How the hell can you not know any of this?” he snapped. “You used to have five men in your head.”

Rogue blushed so vividly her skin almost looked purple. She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks as she mumbled, “You all did your best to keep all that from me. And honestly, I let you.”

Logan had never considered that. “You’re tellin’ me that a teenage girl wasn’t curious enough to go pokin’ around for memories of sexual escapades?”

Rogue was fanning her cheeks now. “Of course I was curious!” she snapped. “But what’s the use of wallowin’ in somethin’ you think you’ll never have? That was before the cure, Logan, when I thought I’d never be able to touch anybody. Ever. And I couldn’t stand the thought of knowin’ what I’d be missin’ instead of just wonderin’ what I’d be missin’. You all agreed that knowin’ would be worse, and never let me catch even a glimpse of any sexual thought or memory. Even John.”

That certainly gave Logan pause. John had never been the most caring or considerate person. Most of his anger left him. Most, not all. “Still,” he argued a little more calmly, “you have to have some idea of how…unpleasant it is for a man to be left wantin’?”

A look of cold fury passed over Rogue’s face. “Are you tryin’ to bully me into havin’ sex with you?”

“I’m not bullyin’ you,” he returned angrily.

“Fine. Guilt then. You’re tryin’ to guilt me into it. It’s not gonna work, Logan. I told you that I’m not havin’ sex ‘til I’m married.”

“Fine.” He snapped back. He didn’t need her to relieve his problem, he reasoned. There were plenty of willing women close by, and since they weren’t married yet, he figured the promise of monogamy wasn't in effect. He just needed to know one thing. “But tell me, kid, were you completely unaffected by that kiss?”

Rogue looked at him warily for a moment. When she saw that he wasn’t going to push the issue of sex, she finally answered him. “No, it was nice.”

“Nice?” Logan echoed.

“Yeah. I was kinda surprised I enjoyed it at all to tell you the truth.”

“Care to explain that?” he ground out.

Rogue shrugged and a look of frustration swept her face briefly. “I told you that I’ve never thought of you sexually, Logan. And I think that’s a big part of a woman bein’ attracted to a man. I mean, with Bobby and…and Andy,” she stumbled over his name a bit, “I was imaginin’ what it would be like to kiss ‘em even before it happened. So by the time it did, I was already all nervous and my stomach was fluttery. I guess that’s the difference here…I was lookin’ forward to kissin’ ‘em, but with you…I don’t know. No butterflies in my stomach.” She shrugged.

“No butterflies?” Logan muttered. Rogue shook her head. “Then do me a favor, kid.”

Rogue met his gaze curiously, honestly. Logan rarely asked for anything.

“I don’t much like the thought of a marriage where my wife doesn’t really want me to touch her.”

Rogue interrupted him. “Logan, once we’re married, I won’t deny you. I remember what you said about men needin’ sex regularly.”

“That isn’t what I’m worried about,” he snapped. “I don’t like the thought of you sufferin’ through my attentions, all right? I just want you to promise me that you’ll start to think about sex between us. Try to get those damned butterflies, would you?”

Rogue smiled faintly and nodded. “I’ll try,” she promised.

“Good,” Logan grunted, still angry and still horny as hell. He gave her one more searching look and then swept past her. The ride on the motorcycle would be hell, he knew, but he had to get to a bar and a willing woman. Posthaste.

There was one thing Logan hadn’t thought about before he headed out on his quest for a willing woman. It wasn’t even 11am yet and none of the bars were open. So unless he wanted to try to pick up a woman in the mall, he had no idea where else to find one. Given his luck today, he mused darkly, if he cruised the mall all he’d probably find would be mothers and teenage twits skipping school.

Damn Marie and her absolute cluelessness. He frowned. Was that even a word? Fuck it all, it was now, he decided.

Glowering, he sped up on a straight stretch of road, accelerating past the exit for the mall. He’d head up to the camp grounds, he thought, and take a swim in the lake. The park rangers didn’t seem to care if there was the occasional skinny-dipper during the off season.

* * *

Rogue frowned as she considered Logan’s request. Truth be told, she was feeling kind of guilty for pretending to be such an idiot, but she had learned a long time ago that acting oblivious was the best way to dissuade a man.

Oh, she hadn’t completely lied to Logan. None of the temporary residents in her head had ever shared anything of a sexual nature with her, but that didn’t mean she had no idea how difficult it was for men to hold back. She was well aware that Logan…well, she couldn’t think of any other way to put it, but she was well aware that he liked to cat around more than was healthy for most men. She wouldn’t quite put him in the man-whore category, but she figured he was darn close.

And she knew all about blue-balls. Well, no she didn’t. But she knew what it meant and what caused it.

Rogue sighed. If she were to be completely honest with herself, kissing Logan had been nice, and when he went after her neck…well that had been a little better than nice. But she hadn’t lied about the lack of butterflies. There had been the beginnings of a curious warmth low in her stomach, but then Jacie had interrupted before she could find out what it might lead to.

She sighed again and reached for her phone. If she was going to keep her promise to Logan and try to get used to the idea of them together sexually, she was going to need to ask for help from the most oversexed female she knew. Jubilee.

She picked up after three rings. “Hey, chica!” Jubilee practically cheered into the phone. Rogue allowed a faint smile to cross her lips. She knew that she and Jubilee weren’t as close as they once were, but she appreciated the effort the other woman made. They had grown apart after Rogue and Bobby split; it had just been too awkward since Jubilee, Bobby, and Kitty had been friends long before Rogue had come to Xavier’s.

“Hey, Jubes. Got a question for ya.”

“Shoot.” Rogue heard the snapping of gum through the phone.

“How do you get yourself interested in a guy? You know, somebody you think would be good husband material but you’ve never really thought about having sex with.”

“Close your eyes and pretend he’s somebody else,” Jubilee answered quickly, an almost tangible shrug in her voice.

Rogue blinked. She supposed she could try that, but she had a feeling Logan would be furious if he found out. How would he know, though? “Okay,” she said, “any other ideas?”

“Hey, listen, chica. Is this just hypothetical, or is there really a guy? Anybody I know? And what happened to Andy?”

“We broke up. And do you need to know who it is in order to give me advice?” Rogue didn’t know why she was hedging. She was just vaguely uncomfortable with the topic – there was nothing she could specifically point to as the source of her anxiety.

“It would help, yeah,” Jubilee said.

“Okay,” Rogue said slowly. “It’s Logan.”

First it was “Holy shit!” And then a much softer, “Ohhhh.” There was a slight shudder in Jubilee’s voice. “Girl, you shouldn’t need any help with that one.”

Rogue frowned. “Why not?”

Jubilee cursed colorfully. “Why not? Damn, are you blind?”

Rogue was suddenly, inexplicably angry. “I guess I am!” she snapped. “Because I don’t understand this awe and confusion you and Logan seem to experience whenever I say that, no, I’ve never been particularly attracted to him!”

“Whoa, slow down, chica.” Jubilee’s voice was soothing, placating. “Are you saying that you actually told Logan that you’re not attracted to him?”

Rogue hesitated over her answer. A hint of something barely there in Jubilee’s voice was telling her that the response was more important than she realized. Taking a deep breath, Rogue said slowly and calmly, “Yes, I did.”

Jubilee groaned. “Then you’re dumber than a drunken skunk.”

Jubilee’s tone was grim and matter of fact. Nonetheless, Rogue couldn’t help but wonder if she was also getting in a dig about her hair; she had never tried to get rid of the white stripes, which surprised the people who thought she was trying to shed anything that made her a mutant. Rogue had always just shrugged it off, thinking that surely they would understand some day that a life spent unable to touch or be touched would have ended up killing her. Emotionally if not physically at least. Frowning at the thought, she considered that maybe people looked at her reluctance to engage in physical relationships as proof that the lack of touch when she was still a mutant hadn’t actually bothered her.

“You still there?”

Rogue started. “Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I’m still here. Why is it so bad that I told him the truth, Jubes?”

Jubilee snorted. “Because now he’s going to be thinking that it isn’t enough for him to treat you like he would any other woman. He’s probably going to try changing his behavior or something, and what you’re going to end up with won’t really be him.”

“I never wanted him to change,” Rogue admitted in a small voice.

“Well, you gotta tell him that.”

“I will. But in the meantime, how do I make myself attracted to him?”

Jubilee snorted yet again. “Attraction isn’t something you can force. And who knows why the hell you wouldn’t be attracted to Logan. Don’t you remember that time – it was before Alcatraz – when a bunch of us girls headed down to the gym to work off that after dinner cheesecake? And we get there, and there’s Logan shirtless, wearing just sweatpants?”

Rogue frowned. “Kinda. You all were acting funny and Logan kind of just smirked at you and left.”

There was a heavy sigh from the other end of the phone. “Yeah. You’ve never really thought about how beautiful he is, have you? You just traipsed right over to him and said hello while the rest of us were reduced to drooling little puddles in the doorway. That’s why he was laughing.”

“Oh,” Rogue said in surprise. And said again, “Oh,” this time with a tone of sudden understanding.

“Yeah,” Jubilee sighed.

“Jubilee,” she began. When there was no response, Rogue rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to snap her fingers into the phone. “Jubilee!” she said louder, more insistently.

“What?” The other woman’s voice was irritated.

“So what do I do?”

“Go and get yourself a bunch of Cosmos.”

Rogue frowned. “How will drinking help?”

“Not the drink, you dolt, the magazine!”

“Why do I need magazines?” Rogue was beginning to wonder if she had asked the wrong person for advice.

“Because Cosmo has all those nifty little sex quizzes. Just take a bunch of the quizzes and decide how to answer the questions based on how things would be between you and Logan.”

“But I don’t know how things would be,” Rogue argued.

“You know, I never thought you were stupid, Rogue,” Jubilee said, a hint of genuine anger in her voice. “This is a surefire way to get you thinking about Logan and sex.”

“Oh.” Rogue cringed. She was starting to think that one little word was all she could say lately.

“So,” Jubilee’s voice was light once again. “You going out to get those magazines?”

Rogue felt firm determination settling into her stomach. “Yeah,” she said, “I’m goin’ right now.”

While Logan wasn’t normally in the habit of slamming doors, his foul mood and accompanying horniness had persisted even through a prolonged swim in the chilly lake water. And so he slammed the front door when he returned to the mansion.

Several children paused in their scurrying to stare at him with wide eyes. He snarled and they bolted. Sighing, Logan scrubbed his hands over his face before running them back through his hair. Since he hadn’t bothered letting it dry before the ride back, it probably looked an absolute mess. Not that he cared. At the moment he was more concerned with trying to figure out how in the hell he was going to make a marriage with Marie work and how to avoid scarring their kid with his habit of snarling and growling.

He sighed again and headed for Marie’s room. His mood darkened as the students continued giving him a wide berth on the stairs and, although he would never admit it, he was relieved when he hit the teachers’ wing and the crowds of students disappeared. Wondering vaguely why there were so many kids hanging around on a Saturday, he almost missed the howls of laughter coming from Marie’s room.

With a perfunctory knock – they had gotten beyond the stage of common courtesy years ago – he pushed open the door. He saw her lying on her bed, a pillow under her stomach and chest, and several open magazines sprawled around her. She looked up in the middle of a laugh and choked on it when she saw who was standing in her doorway. With a gasping gulp that sounded painful even to him, Marie swallowed her laughter and shoved the magazine she was holding under the pillow.

His eyebrow shot up. His anger was forgotten as curiosity consumed him. Marie had never hidden anything from him before. At least, not that he knew. He took a step closer to the bed and she scrambled to gather up the magazines.

“What’re you lookin’ at, kid?”

“Nothin’,” she said, hastily slipping the magazines into a locking drawer in her nightstand and tucking the key into her pocket.

Logan grinned evilly as he eyed the pillow. She had forgotten one. Marie realized it just as he made his move. She dove for the pillow, but Logan’s hand had already grasped the magazine. Swiftly pulling it out from under her, he was pleased to see that it was still open to the page she had been looking at. Rogue reared up on her knees and made a desperate grab for it. Logan didn’t pull it back in time, and with a slick ripping sound, the magazine tore in two.

“Ha!” she exclaimed triumphantly, glancing down at her half. Her eyes grew wide with sudden panic as she saw what she held. Logan’s grin stretched even wider. Apparently he had the good half. “Logan, no!” she shrieked, dropping the pages she held and reaching again for his. He stepped back quickly and hastily scanned the title on the top page. His eyebrows flew up.

“What Your Man’s Behaviors Say About Your Relationship?” he read in disbelief.

Rogue made a humiliated sound low in her throat and grabbed for the magazine again. Logan held it out of reach and absently extended his other arm, placing his palm on her forehead and easily holding her back. She tried to pivot around and get closer, but he moved with her as he turned his attention back to the magazine. His eyebrows inched impossibly higher as he scanned through the first few questions. For each one, Rogue had circled an answer. A couple of the questions had hastily scrawled notes next to them.

“Interesting,” he said smugly, realizing that she had already done as she had promised she would. He thought it was a rather unorthodox approach to establishing a sexual relationship, but if it worked, he didn’t much care how she went about it. Glancing down at Rogue, his smugness immediately crumbled and panic welled in his chest. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Aw shit, kid,” he said contritely and handed the magazine over before he finished reading the questions.

Rogue snatched it to her chest protectively, her face flaming and embarrassed tears still spilling over her lashes.

“Dammit, Logan,” she mumbled, pulling her long sleeve over her hand and scrubbing her face dry.

They stared at each other for a few seconds in uncomfortable silence. Logan cleared his throat and offered an olive branch.

“You got the first question right.”

The blush that had just begun fading from her cheeks flared up brighter than ever and Rogue loosed a surprised little gasp.

“Well that one was never any mystery,” she said angrily. “You stare at every pair of boobs that crosses your path.”

Logan smirked. “So I’m a breast man – never thought that was something I should apologize for.”

Rogue glowered at him and he laughed.

“You should be happy about that, kid. You’ve got a killer rack.”

Another gasp and her right fist flew out, hitting him hard in the arm.

“Ow,” Logan mumbled, rubbing at his bicep just for show. The pain had faded instantly. When Rogue’s expression remained mutinous, he sighed heavily and ran his hands through his hair again. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I’m glad you’re goin’ through the magazines, and if you want I could…” he trailed off uncertainly.

“You could what?” Rogue prompted suspiciously.

Logan hesitated a moment longer before throwing caution to the wind with a mental shrug. “I could go over the answers with you.”

There was that blush again. Rogue lowered her eyes, opening and closing her mouth several times as she searched for what to say. Logan waited patiently.

“I…okay,” she whispered finally, extending the crumpled magazine pages to him. Logan took them and pulled out her desk chair. Flipping it around, he straddled it and rested his arms on the chair back. He looked at Rogue expectantly until she dropped uneasily to the side of her bed.

“So, how did you answer these?” he asked. “Did you think them through before answering, or did you just go with the first one that popped into your head?”

“First thing that popped into my head.”

“‘Kay,” he said, turning his attention to the questions. “First one. ‘What does he like best a) your sense of humor, b) your legs, c) your smile, or d) your boobs.’ You answered D, which is fine. I like your boobs,” he explained calmly, “but for the record, kid, you’ve also got a great sense of humor and great legs. And I love it when you smile. A real smile, not the ones you give people when you’re being polite. So, technically, I like everything about you. Your boobs are just the icing on the cake.” Here he leered at her chest and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Rogue snickered.

“Lech,” she reprimanded half-heartedly.

“Guilty,” Logan admitted. “Question two. ‘It’s date night. Your guy prefers to a) go out to dinner, b) stay in and watch the game, c) cook dinner for you, d) have you cook dinner.’ Two for two, kid. Definitely B.”

“Naturally,” Rogue smirked.

“Brat,” he returned easily. “All right, number three. And this is where I think things get interesting. ‘You get your guy worked up and leave him wanting. He a) shrugs it off and waits until you’re in the mood, b) finds the nearest willing woman in a hurry, c) pouts and forces the issue until you give in, d) you’re not sure.’ You said D, kid.” Logan looked at her expectantly.

Rogue shrugged uncomfortably. “I really don’t know, Logan. I mean, I know you promised once we’re married that you won’t cheat. But we’re not married yet, so when you took off…” Rogue shrugged again and looked at him questioningly.

Logan suddenly felt guilty. He had gotten over his anger at Rogue as soon as he saw her tears, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she would have cried if he had been able to pick a woman up at a bar. Looking at her now, he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, mixed with a strange hopefulness. Hopefulness for what, he wasn’t sure. That he hadn’t cheated? He frowned – he hadn’t thought of it as cheating when he first left the mansion. Or maybe it was hopefulness that he had found another woman and he wouldn’t be bothering her with his attentions. Logan felt caught, not sure what answer to give her. With a shrug, he chose to tell her the truth. He owed her that.

“Honestly, kid, I left to go look for a woman.” Rogue’s face fell.

“And…and did you find one?” Her voice was tiny and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“No,” he said simply, and chuckled a bit when Rogue gaped at him. “It’s too early for the barflies to be out, kid, and damned if I was gonna troll the malls and end up with a soccer mom.”

Rogue burst into laughter, which was fine with Logan. He thought it was kind of funny too. But when she continued laughing until she clutched her stomach with one hand and pointed shakily at him with the other, he was no longer amused.

“Enough,” he growled. To her credit, Rogue immediately tried to bring her mirth under control.

“W-what did you end up doing then?” she asked, somewhat breathless. Logan ignored her and turned back to the magazine.

“Question four. ‘When sleeping, your man likes to a) spoon you, b) lie on his back and let you cuddle up to him, c) sprawl over most of the bed, or d) leave right after sex, so you don’t know.’” Logan cleared his throat and read the note Rogue had jotted in the margin. “Interesting addition here, kid. You know from experience that A is the right answer for us, but you scribbled in that D is true for everybody else I’ve been with.” Glancing at her, he saw that her face was once again flushed with embarrassment. Logan pretended not to notice and continued, “What I want to know is, if you’ve gotten everything right so far, how can you really say that you’ve never thought about havin’ sex with me?”

Rogue’s look was pure surprise. “Knowin’ this stuff has nothin’ to do with knowin’ about sex. I just know you.

An unfamiliar warmth crept through Logan. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and it certainly wasn’t sexual. If he had to hazard a guess, he would say it meant he was pleased with her answer. He genuinely liked the thought of her knowing him that well. It made him wonder if he knew her as well as he should. Clearing his throat, Logan asked softly, “Are there quizzes for guys to take in any of those magazines?”

Rogue smiled shyly. “Yeah. I thought it was kinda interestin’, though. The quizzes for women to take about guys seem to be focused more on sex, and the quizzes for guys to take about women are more touchy feely.”

Logan’s eyebrow winged up. “Touchy feely?”

Rogue’s smile widened. “Yeah. ‘You forgot your anniversary, how does she feel?’ Or ‘She’s gained a few pounds, so you say….’ ‘When she asks if you think her friend is pretty, you say….’ Stuff like that.”

A short burst of laughter escaped Logan. “Ha! So they’re quizzes on how to navigate the emotional landscape.”

Giggling in response, Rogue nodded.

Logan leaned back a bit and crossed his arms over his chest, the ruined magazine still in one hand. “Guess it boils down to men bein’ physical creatures and women bein’ emotional ones.”

Rogue tipped her head to one side. “Men are emotional too. They just express it physically.”

“But you don’t argue that women are emotional?” he asked curiously.

She shrugged. “Some more than others.”

Narrowing his eyes in thought, Logan asked, “And where do you fall on that scale?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Rogue admitted dryly. “I’ve always been told that I don’t act the way people expect me to. I don’t cry all that much – these last couple weeks notwithstandin’ – I don’t let my feelin’s get hurt over little things. I don’t think I hold grudges?” She looked at him questioningly.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” he answered with a shrug.

She shrugged and they stared at each other, figuring the topic had been talked out. With another shrug, Logan turned his attention back to the quiz. They breezed through the next few questions, all of which Rogue had answered correctly. His favorite meal – steak, drinking with the guys or hanging out with her – hanging out with her, with the added note that sometimes he preferred to drink with Hank and Kurt, and it was fine with her when he did. Logan gave her a nod of approval on that one. A question about how to deal with him not liking her parents – she left that one blank and Logan just shrugged and moved on to the next question. His eyebrow flew up when he got to the one asking if she’d still love him if his stomach got flabby and he started losing his hair. Rogue had answered c) of course, and penciled in “But that’ll never happen.” That earned her another nod of approval.

It was the last question that Logan found most interesting.

“Okay, now here’s the good stuff,” he said with a smirk. ‘After he achieves climax—’ Pansy way to phrase it,” Logan interjected, “‘he a) rolls over and falls asleep, b) returns the favor, c) cuddles with you—’ Is that with or without having returned the favor?” he interjected again, “Ah, and here’s your answer, kid. D.” Shifting his thumb out of the way so he could read the next line, Logan’s eyes widened and he burst out laughing.

Rogue was shocked. She had never thought she’d see Logan laugh until he cried, but here she was witnessing just that. When he dropped his forehead onto his arms and continued laughing, though, she began to get irritated.

“I told you I just answered with whatever popped into my head. It’s not like I really think you’d do that.” She winced when she heard how waspish she sounded.

Her attempt to defend her answer just made Logan laugh harder, which Rogue would have sworn only a few seconds ago was impossible. Not knowing what to do to make him stop laughing at her, Rogue just crossed her arms defensively and glowered at him.

Eventually Logan’s laughter eased, although it was still punctuated by a few renewed bursts of laughter as he lifted his head and wiped at his streaming eyes.

With one last chuckle, he exhaled shakily and said, “I know you answered without thinkin’ about it. That’s what makes it so damn funny.” He grinned unrepentantly.

Rogue couldn’t quite keep her lips from twitching. “I know,” she admitted grudgingly. “That’s why I was laughin’ like a loon when you first came in.”

Logan shook his head and looked back at the quiz, now more crumpled than ever. With a grin still in his voice, he read, “‘After he achieves climax, he d) pats you on the head and says, “Good job, kid.”’”

Rogue snickered and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. When she was sure she could contain her laughter, she cautiously removed her hand. “You have to admit you’d probably have picked that one, too,” she challenged.

“Maybe,” he returned easily. Suddenly his eyes darkened as he looked at her. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “But the real answer is B, darlin’. I’d definitely return the favor.”

Something about the way he said it, or maybe it was the look in his eye, made Rogue’s breath hitch and the muscles low in her stomach quiver.

“That’s what I thought the right answer would be,” she admitted somewhat breathlessly.

Logan’s eyes darkened further and his hand tightened visibly on the magazine. He cleared his throat, but his voice was still raspy with desire when he spoke. “What other kinds of quizzes are in these magazines? Sex quizzes?” he asked, wondering if she’d have the courage to answer him honestly.

“Yeah,” she whispered, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Did you take any? Quizzes about things you like or think you’d like?”

Rogue nodded shyly.

“Show me.”

Rogue nodded again and pulled the key to her nightstand drawer from her pocket. She pulled a few of the magazines out and thumbed through them quickly. When she found the right one, she opened it fully to the quiz, hesitating for a fraction of a second as she handed it to Logan.

He dropped the first magazine to the floor beside him and took the new one from her without looking at it, preferring to continue staring at her. Her cheeks were flushed and her pupils were dilated, sure signs of arousal. And he could see the rapid fluttering of her pulse in her neck.

Becoming suddenly uncomfortable with his attention, Rogue dropped her eyes and folded her hands together in her lap. Turning his attention to the magazine, Logan saw that the quiz was actually quite explicit. Again, Rogue had added comments in the margins, most of them to the effect that although she wasn’t positive about some of her answers, she thought she’d like what the magazine described.

Aware that Rogue would probably be embarrassed to the point of tears again if he read the questions and answers out loud as he had with the other quiz, Logan instead read through it quickly and silently. He went back to a couple of the questions, especially the ones saying that Rogue’s shoulders and her neck were particularly sensitive. He couldn’t help a surge of smug satisfaction when he saw her note wondering what else he would have done with her neck if Jacie hadn’t interrupted. He completely dismissed the questions about which sexual positions she preferred; she couldn’t possibly know yet. And since he planned on eventually helping her experiment in that area, he figured she’d let him know when they found her favorite.

“So, kid,” he said finally, his voice rougher than ever, “I’m not gonna badger you about all your answers here. Just two. You said you like kissing and that your neck is sensitive.” He waited until she looked up at him. At her shy almost imperceptible nod, he continued. “And since the whole point of these quizzes was to get you used to thinkin’ about the two of us together, how about we start with those two things?”

Rogue blinked at him. “Just those two?”

Logan nodded slowly. “Just those two. Just kissing, and my hands and lips won’t go any lower than your neck.”

“Nothin’ else? Promise?”

He smirked. “Yeah, kid, I promise. Nothin’ else until you say so.”

With a fleeting thought to his word choice – ‘until’ instead of ‘unless’ – Rogue took a deep breath and nodded hesitantly in agreement. Instead of getting up and coming to her like she had expected, Logan merely crooked his finger at her in a summoning gesture. When she stood, she was surprised to find that her legs felt shaky. She took the first few steps toward him gingerly, not sure if he could see how nervous she was. Logan half rose and flipped the chair around, settling comfortably against the back rest. He made no other move, only watched silently as she moved slowly across the room.

Rogue was drowning. That was the only way she could think to describe the pressure in her chest and stomach, the slight dizziness and disorientation from the lack of oxygen. And every time she tried to drag herself back to the surface, she was pulled under again.

It had started out innocently enough. Logan leaned back comfortably in his chair, waiting for her to come to him, but even when she stood right in front of him, he didn’t reach for her. Instead, he tipped his head back to look at her and told her bluntly to kiss him. Rogue felt unsettled and unbalanced – she had never initiated a kiss before. She took another half step forward, feeling almost embarrassed as Logan obligingly moved his legs apart so she could stand between his thighs. Dropping her hands onto his muscular shoulders, she leaned forward, hesitating when she saw that his eyes were open and focused on hers. He still had his arms crossed over his chest.

Rogue frowned. “Why are you starin’ at me?”

Logan’s lips twitched in a quick smirk that vanished almost instantly.

“Just tell me what you want, darlin’,” he said evenly.

“Quit starin’ for one!” Rogue exclaimed uneasily. He immediately closed his eyes, but Rogue’s uncertainty remained. “I…what do you want me to do, Logan?” she asked hesitantly.

Without opening his eyes, he answered, “Doesn’t matter what I want. This is about what you want. You can start by kissin’ me, but you want somethin’ else, you tell me. You want my hands on you, you tell me. And you tell me where you want them.”

Rogue felt her face flush scarlet. To cover her embarrassment, she immediately leapt into action. She discovered quickly, though, that she had misjudged the angle as she ended up kissing more of Logan’s chin than his mouth. With a fleeting thought to whether he found it funny, she quickly corrected the kiss, surprised when Logan did no more than return the light pressure of her lips on his. She would have expected him to take control from the start. Intrigued, she wondered if she could make him lose control. She began teasing his lips with hers, brushing them softly and pulling back slightly, flicking his lower lip with her tongue and waiting for him to reciprocate. He didn’t. After a couple minutes of her toying with him, she became impatient.

“You don’t have to sit there with your arms crossed, you know,” she snapped.

He responded again without opening his eyes. “What do you want me to do with them?” The rough edge to his voice gave Rogue a dark sense of triumph. He wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he pretended.

“My shoulders and neck, like we agreed before. And you could at least make an effort to kiss me back,” she muttered in irritation, completely missing the quick satisfied tilt to his lips as she again leaned forward.

She hadn’t realized at the first touch of Logan’s tongue against hers that she would end up drowning. It had been fine then, exciting and a little unsettling, leaving her wondering what had changed between this morning in the library and now. That, of course, was when she had still been able to think clearly. As soon as Logan repeated his actions from earlier and slid his lips along her jaw and onto her throat, her stomach felt as though a whole cage of butterflies had been let loose inside it. She had managed for a few heady moments to keep her wits about her, to swim clumsily through the waves of desire crashing against her. But then he used his teeth, and she was lost.

* * *

Logan knew he had her. If he just kept going, she wouldn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. But as much as he wanted to continue, he didn’t want to give Rogue any reason to be angry with him. And so he gritted his teeth and drew back, threading his fingers through her hair and tipping her head so she would look at him. Her eyes remained closed, though, as he took in the flush high on her cheekbones and the quick beat of her pulse in her neck right beneath a raspberry colored mark where his lips had been a moment before. The sight caused his eyes to darken and his muscles to tense in restraint. Rogue was almost limp in his arms, offering no resistance, her only movement the slight pressure of her fingertips digging into his back and the press of her breasts against his chest as she breathed rapidly. It startled Logan to realize he didn’t even remember when he had stood up to pull her against him.

Frowning, he shook her a bit and commanded roughly, “Open your eyes, kid.”

She complied slowly, her eyelids fluttering for a moment before she met his gaze with her desire clouded eyes.

“What do you want, Marie?” She stared at him hazily and he groaned in frustration that she wasn’t understanding him. He took a half step back, smiling grimly when she loosed a mewling little sound of disappointment. He shook her again. “Marie, listen to me. Do you want to keep going?”

She blinked a few times and bit her lip in indecision. The few seconds she hesitated allowed enough time for her mind to clear. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind, and she latched onto the one that seemed most important at the moment.

“If…if I say no, are you going to go out looking for a woman again?” Her voice was low, hesitant, and Logan easily heard the fear beneath the question.

He smiled wryly and took another step back. She had already answered his question. Rogue reached out as if to draw him back, but stopped at the last moment.

Sighing, Logan chucked her on the chin lightly. “No, kid, I won’t do that again.”

She smiled at him brilliantly and caught his hand up in both of hers, resting her chin happily on their knuckles. Her smile faded quickly. “Isn’t that going to be…uncomfortable for you?” she ventured.

Logan snorted. “Yeah. That’s why I think we should get married by the end of the month.”

Rogue gasped and dropped his hand. “Logan, that’s less than three weeks!”

“So?” He couldn’t imagine lasting another three days, let alone three weeks. Why was she arguing when he was just trying to be generous?

“So I can’t put together a proper wedding in three weeks.”

With a frown, he ticked items off on his fingers. “License, blood test, schedule a trip to the courthouse. That won’t take three weeks, kid.”

Her lower lip trembled and he cursed silently.

“I want a real wedding, Logan, not just some legal agreement. I want a dress and a ceremony. I want to be married by a preacher – it doesn’t even have to be in a church,” she pleaded, “and I want…” She trailed off, but Logan saw the way she absently rubbed her ring finger with her thumb.

“You want a ring,” he sighed.

Rogue nodded tremulously.

“And you can’t get all that lined up in three weeks?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. I want a couple of bridesmaids for the ceremony, so we would need time to decide on dresses and have them altered.”

Logan squinted in consideration. “All right. Six weeks then. No longer, got it?”

Expecting another argument, he was surprised when Rogue just smiled and nodded. Studying her, he realized she actually looked happy. Wanting to keep her happy without really knowing why, Logan said, “We’ll start with the ring. Let me take a shower and then we’ll go shopping.”

Rogue’s smile widened and then almost instantly turned into a frown.

“Why do you need another shower? You took one this morning.”

Logan’s lips quirked in wry amusement. “I need a cold shower, darlin’,” he explained ruefully.

Her eyes dropped to his groin and she blushed. Muttering a quiet, “Oh,” she scurried from the room, leaving Logan staring at the door, his body aching for her.

Logan was surprised when Rogue insisted on taking the bike. Although he knew she liked riding with him, he had expected the somewhat somber occasion of ring shopping to warrant taking one of the more sedate vehicles. Something with a roof and four tires. And frankly, the thought of having her plastered to his back was already having an effect on him. With a mental wince for the physical hell to come in the next six weeks, Logan shrugged and straddled the bike, determined to keep Rogue happy. That was a husband’s job, wasn’t it? Keep his wife happy and make sure all her needs were met?

Before they even hit the gates leaving the mansion, Logan realized there was something different in the way Rogue was holding on to him. Physically, she wasn’t any closer than she usually was, but whereas before she would loosely wrap her arms around his ribs and fist one hand over his stomach, gripping her forearm with her opposite hand, now she splayed both hands flat against him. It was more like an embrace. And he could feel where her cheek rested contentedly against his shoulder blade. That was new.

Something about it was bothering Logan, and not in the way he had thought it would. The new handhold was much less secure than the old one. And Rogue really should be wearing a helmet. He wondered incredulously why it hadn’t concerned him in the past ten years. She was no longer a mutant and he couldn’t heal her if something happened. Had he really thought that he’d be able to protect her during a wreck? Did he really think he’d be able to flip over mid-air and cradle her safely in his arms while allowing his own body to absorb all the force of the impact? Calling himself an idiotic ass, Logan quickly descended into brooding, hyper-aware of Rogue’s position on the bike, monitoring her for even the most minute slip or loosening of her hands.

So he nearly had a heart attack when she let go with one hand and leaned back away from him. A second later, the hand reappeared near his cheek, pointing to a simple one-story building with a lot of glass up the street. Thousands of glinting bits in the windows caught his attention and he nodded in understanding. He had been planning on heading to one of the jewelry stores in the mall; Rogue’s idea was much better. No screaming kids in a freestanding jewelry store on a Saturday.

When they pulled into the lot, though, he thought they might be dealing with something even worse. There wasn’t a modest vehicle to be seen. All high-end foreign monstrosities costing as much as a small house in the suburbs. The lack of even a moderately less expensive car told him that even the employees were probably snobs.

Taking grim satisfaction in parking the somewhat beat up Harley between two gleaming BMWs, Logan braced the bike and waited for Rogue to climb off. He remained seated and watched her smooth out her hair.

“After today, you’re gonna start wearin’ a helmet whenever we take the bike.”

Rogue paused with her hands still lifted to her hair. “What? Why?” The question spoke of honest confusion.

“It’s safer.”

Rogue blinked at him. “Why should it matter all of a sudden? You’ve been lettin’ me ride without a helmet for the past ten years.”

“And I shouldn’t have,” Logan admitted gruffly. “If somethin’ happened, I might not be able to keep you safe, kid.”

Rogue gave him a small smile. “Thanks for thinkin’ of me, Logan, but I’m a big girl. I can decide for myself.” She shrugged. “I like the way the wind feels in my hair.”

Eyeing her closely, Logan asked, “And you like takin’ risks, too, right?”

With a wink, she said, “Gotta get my thrills in where I can.”

“And when we have a baby, are you still gonna take risks so you can get a few cheap thrills?” Logan’s question removed every bit of humor from her expression.

With her eyes locked on his, Rogue saw the genuine concern mixing with his anger. She slowly shook her head. “No, no risks after we have the baby.”

“And before,” he insisted.

Rogue cocked her head to the side. “Why not?” At Logan’s thunderous expression, she hastily explained, “I’m not arguing, Logan, I’m just wonderin’ why.”

Rising abruptly, Logan stood across from her, the bike between them, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve asked you to marry me, kid, and in my book that means forever.”

Rogue smiled. “In mine too. But what’s that got to do with not takin’ any risks?”

Logan exhaled sharply. “It’s got everything to do with it. Marriage means you belong to me. And I belong to you. I’m not gonna let you do anything stupid or reckless when the end result could mean you’d be taken away from me forever. You’re mine, kid. Have been from the second you said yes, and I take care of what’s mine.”

While she understood that her joy at such a possessive statement flew in the face of all things feminist, Rogue decided feminists could take a flying leap. They had obviously never met Logan and wouldn’t realize that his declaration was tantamount to a candlelit promise of love and devotion over wine and strawberries. Maybe even flowers and a little slow music for dancing.

With a grin, Rogue nodded and said, “Okay.”

Logan blinked and dropped his arms. “Okay?” He sounded suspicious.

Rogue moved around to his side of the bike and looped her arm through his. “Yup. I asked for a reason and you gave me a good one. So that makes no risk taking a legitimate request.”

“No arguments?”

“Nope. None.”

“No conditions?” They were walking toward the entrance now.

“Nope. None.”

“No quid pro quo?”

Rogue snickered. “I don’t think that really applies here. You heal, I don’t.”

Logan glanced down at her as he pulled the door open. “You really don’t have any requests?”

Rogue’s brow furrowed in a delicate frown. “Maybe one.”

“Name it, kid.”

“Just…don’t go off on your own during missions, okay? I know they’re few and far between now, mostly pick-ups, but when you have to go into a compound – especially a lab – don’t go off by yourself, okay?”

Hearing the fear in her voice, Logan pulled her to a stop just inside the jewelry store. “Marie, you know there’s a reason I do that.”

“I know,” she admitted. “You figure you can survive whatever or whoever’s waiting while the others might not. But what if they take you again, Logan?”

Sudden understanding flooded him and he smiled. “You’d get me back.”

“What could I do, Logan? I don’t have powers anymore. I’m good at hand-to-hand, but I have no weapons training and can’t track worth a damn. I’d just be in the way in any rescue attempt, so I’d end up stayin’ behind at the mansion twiddlin’ my damn thumbs and hopin’ that Kurt and the others bring you back to me.”

“I understand what you’re sayin’, kid,” he soothed, rubbing his hand comfortingly along her arm, “but if doin’ what I do keeps everybody else safe, then I’m gonna keep doin’ it.”

“Logan,” Rogue said earnestly, “I never said you couldn’t go in first, just don’t go in alone.”

“Gotcha,” Logan said with a grin and a wink. At Rogue’s answering smile of relief and happiness, Logan felt that curious warmth spreading through his chest again.

A throat cleared behind them. “Can I help you?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Logan sized up the diminutive male quickly. Shiny shoes, shiny hair. Thousand watt smile that looked a little strained at the edges. And he was doing his own once-over and was obviously finding Logan lacking. His lip actually lifted in a sneer at Logan’s beat up leather jacket and worn boots. Not that Logan cared.

Until the little shit turned his attention on Rogue and the sneer remained in place.

Logan growled a little, catching the man’s attention again. “Yeah, bub. You can help us by getting that nasty little look off your face. And while you’re at it, show us some engagement rings.” Rogue looked at him curiously, obviously having missed the sneer.

The man visibly stiffened and his tone turned icy. “Certainly.” He led them over to one side of the large room and slid behind the display case there. Pulling a set of keys on a retractable cable forward from his belt loop, he selected one of the keys and inserted it smoothly in the lock. He reached carefully into the case and pulled a tray out and plunked it on the counter in front of Logan and Rogue. A dozen rings glinted dully against the grey felt lining.

Rogue was bending forward to peer at them, a slight frown on her face, when Logan grabbed her shoulder to hold her back. She looked up at him.

“They’re all kinda dirty lookin’, aren’t they?” At the disappointment in her voice, Logan felt a tight knot of fury in his stomach.

“That’s ‘cause this little idiot didn’t ask us what kind of rings we wanted to see.”

“I beg your pardon?” The salesman was offended, and loud, catching the attention of a tall, thin woman a few cases down. The woman waved over another salesperson and excused herself from the couple she had been working with. She strode quickly and silently over to them.

“Is there a problem here, Stanley?” Her voice was low and smooth, but Logan detected an undercurrent of roughness, like whiskey and smoke. He decided from her voice alone that he liked her.

“No, ma’am, not really. I just let this…gentleman’s rudeness get to me.”

Logan snorted and the woman glanced over at him. She lifted an eyebrow in question. From the corner of his eye, he caught Rogue’s slight smile at the gesture.

“He was rude first. Ma’am,” Logan explained.

“Oh?” she asked, sweeping her gaze over Logan and Rogue quickly and then turning again to Stanley. “Is this true, Stanley?”

“I…no, ma’am. He asked to see engagement rings, so I showed them this tray. The woman insulted the product and then the man called me an idiot.”

“I didn’t insult your rings!” Rogue denied. Then she flushed. “Well, maybe I did, but I didn’t mean to.” She looked between Logan and the woman and shrugged. “But they do look kinda dirty.”

The woman smiled warmly. “That’s because you have a good eye for quality, my dear. What Stanley showed you are our lower end rings. And I think the gentleman,” she nodded at Logan, “realized this and took offense.”

“Ma’am,” Stanley began, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

“I think it might be best if you go home for the day, Stanley. I’ve warned you repeatedly about making snap judgments about our customers’ needs and wants. You didn’t bother to ask them what, exactly, they were looking for, did you?”

Stanley flushed an ugly red and shot a glare at Logan. “No, ma’am,” he muttered.

She nodded. “Go home, Stanley. I will see you tomorrow morning at 8 am in my office.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He unclipped the keychain from his belt and handed it to the woman. He didn’t say another word as he brushed past Logan and left the store.

“I do apologize for that,” the woman said to Logan and Rogue as she put the tray of rings back in the case and locked the door. She straightened up and looked each of them in the eye. “My name is Estelle. I’m the manager here, and it will be my great pleasure to help you find the perfect ring today.”

Logan grinned toothily.

Rogue smiled tentatively at Estelle. “I didn’t mean to get Stanley in trouble,” she said, “and I’m sorry for insulting your rings.”

The other woman chuckled. “Stanley got himself in trouble. Now, first things first. What are your names?” she asked, smiling warmly.

“I’m Logan, and this is R–”

“Marie,” Rogue cut in, glancing at Logan.

He quickly hid his surprise and nodded firmly. “Logan and Marie.”

“And when is the wedding?”

“Six weeks.”

Estelle’s eyebrow lifted again. “That doesn’t leave much time for any resizing or adjustments that might need to be made. Do you know what size ring you wear, Marie?”

Rogue shook her head.

“Well, let’s find out then, and while we do that, tell me what type of ring you’re looking for.” Estelle pulled something from her own keychain, and at first Logan actually thought it was a set of brass knuckles. When she reached for Rogue’s left hand, though, he realized that it was some sort of sizing tool. She started with a hole in the middle, frowning when it was obviously much too big for Rogue. Pulling the object from Rogue’s finger, Estelle glanced up at Logan. “Did you have a particular price range in mind?”

Logan shook his head. “No, whatever Marie wants is fine.”

Estelle hesitated for a split second as she slipped Rogue’s ring finger into another hole. “Some of our rings are upward of $12,000.”

He shrugged. “That’s fine.”

Rogue’s head whipped around. “Logan! That’s way too much for a ring!” She looked at Estelle guiltily. “No offense.”

Estelle chuckled. “None taken. It looks like you’re a size 5, Marie. That’s a rather dainty finger you have there, so that already limits your choices today. Of course, we can always put a rush on any necessary resizing, but that costs quite a bit. Should I leave you two for a moment so you can discuss what type of ring you want?”

“No need,” Logan said, shaking his head at Rogue when she opened her mouth to protest. “Can we see what you have available in Marie’s size?”

“Of course,” Estelle said. “Just give me a moment to gather them.” She pulled an empty ring tray from beneath the display case and started moving along the counter, pausing every now and then to unlock a case and slip a ring into the tray.

“Logan,” Rogue said, grabbing his arm, “I don’t want anything obnoxiously expensive.”

With a wry smile, Logan grabbed her hand and brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “You can have anything you want, Marie.”

“If you’re hell bent on dropping $12,000, I’d rather have a car!” she exclaimed loudly.

A female customer a few feet to their right looked over with an envious pout. The man with her shot a panicked glare at Logan. Estelle glanced up with an indulgent smile.

“Listen, kid, I don’t care about the price. It’s not like I ever spend my salary on anything, so I have plenty of money saved up. You should know that since you never spend yours either.”

Rogue lowered her voice as Estelle walked back toward them. “It’s just that it seems wasteful to spend that much on a ring.”

Logan shook his head. “I’m probably gonna botch this explanation, so listen carefully, kid.” He absently noted Estelle’s raised eyebrow at the endearment, and also the way she slowed her steps, giving them a few more moments of relative privacy. “I know I didn’t give it any thought before today, but this isn’t just a ring, Marie. It’s my promise to you. I’m promising you everything that I am. Forever. And even though I might not be worth much, my promise is. I promise to always be here for you, to make sure you have everything you need, and to make sure you’re happy. So your ring should be exactly what you want, regardless of the price.”

Rogue blinked away sudden tears. She exhaled a shaky breath and glanced over at Estelle. “Okay,” she agreed in a small voice.

Estelle cleared her throat delicately. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but what you just said would make an excellent wedding vow, Logan. Assuming you haven’t already decided on your vows.”

Logan snorted at Rogue’s hopeful look. “Forget it, kid. I may be willing to be all sappy for you, but nobody else gets to hear it.”

Rogue gave an answering snort. “They wouldn’t believe it anyway. Nobody even knows we’re engaged yet.”

“They’ll know after today,” he said, “once we get you some serious bling.”

Rogue burst out laughing and turned her attention to the tray Estelle had placed in front of them, a happy smile on her face.

Already half way through the tray of rings, Rogue still hadn’t found one she liked. Well, she liked all of them. But none of them were her ring. She tried on the next few in rapid succession. And then she was at the last ring. Hoping that this might be the one, she slipped it on and held out her hand to study it. With a grimace of disappointment, she pulled it off and then picked up the third ring she had tried on.

“This one,” she said, holding it out to Logan.

He took it in his palm and squinted at it a bit.

“You sure?” he asked dubiously. “You didn’t seem that excited about this one.”

Rogue shrugged. “I like it best out of all the ones I tried.” She glanced at Estelle, who remained carefully quiet and let them work the issue out between them.

“Dammit, kid, you’re not settling on a ring. Pick out the one you want. It doesn’t need to be one of these – you heard Estelle. We can do a rush on the resizing.”

Rogue bit her lip in indecision, the small gesture drawing Logan’s attention and making his stomach clench in sudden desire.

“Just look around,” Logan urged.

Rogue nodded and shuffled off uncertainly, peering into each of the cases. Logan shook his head and sighed as he watched her.

“Most women would be ecstatic to be given free rein in a jewelry store,” Estelle murmured, leaning companionably against the counter beside Logan.

Logan chuckled darkly. “Not Marie. She’s never been the type to draw attention to herself. Everything she wears and does is understated. Silly little idiot doesn’t realize that people notice her anyway.”

Estelle raised her eyebrow. “Understated isn’t exactly the way I would choose to describe her hair.”

Shooting her an irritated look, Logan grunted softly when he saw Estelle hadn’t meant the comment as an insult. “It’s not a dye-job. That’s the way it grows.”

Estelle nodded, not really looking surprised. “How long have you been together?”

Logan hesitated. “Ten years,” he said finally. This time Estelle did look surprised, and perhaps a little alarmed, so he rushed to explain. “First, Marie’s older than she looks. And second, I meant we’ve known each other for ten years. We haven’t been…together that long. That’s more recent…the last few weeks actually.”

“And you’re already at the marriage stage?” Estelle asked with honest surprise.

Shrugging, Logan crossed his arms over his chest. “I never thought I was the marryin’ kind, but with Marie…I don’t know how to explain it. When the subject came up, I could see a life with her, you know? And I liked what I saw.” Laughing softly as he watched Marie, Logan added one final thing. “Besides, she’s probably the only person I trust enough to give myself over to completely.”

Estelle observed him closely, noting the tender look in his eyes as he watched the young woman, his lips set in a crooked grin that she would bet money he didn’t know was there. Her study was cut short as she noticed an abrupt movement from the corner of her eye. Looking over, she saw that Marie had stooped down in front of a case, her palms flat against the glass and her nose mere inches away. With a mental sigh at the necessary glass cleaning she would need to do as a result, she moved forward, murmuring to Logan, “Looks like she’s found it.”

Intent on the ring, Rogue didn’t even notice their approach. She jumped visibly when Estelle’s face appeared on the other side of the case. Without a word, the saleswoman slid a key into the lock and reached into the case.

“This one?” she asked quietly, her finger hovering over the ring Rogue had been looking at.

Rogue nodded, not taking her eyes off the ring. She was aware of Logan’s presence at her left shoulder, and as she reached to take the piece of jewelry from Estelle, she saw Logan’s hand flash forward and beat her to it. For some reason, Rogue didn’t protest, although her attention remained glued on the little glittering bit of metal and stone.

Grabbing her left hand, Logan lifted it up and slid the ring over her knuckle. It was only slightly loose, he noted with satisfaction – certainly an easy resizing. He tilted her hand back and forth, admiring the way the light caught the three stones and threw off dozens of sparkling rainbows.

Estelle began quietly reciting details. Logan didn’t hear much of what she was saying – letters and numbers that didn’t make sense to him – but he did hear “perfect cut,” “colorless,” and “certified.” And “two carats total weight.” Whatever that meant. All he cared about was Rogue’s wide-eyed happiness, and if three little stones and a bit of white gold could put that look on her face, nothing else mattered.

“You like it, darlin’?” he asked, shooting Estelle a look of apology for interrupting her.

“Yes,” Rogue breathed, her eyes still glued to the ring.

Logan nodded decisively. “We’ll take it then,” he said to Estelle, “and pay whatever we have to to rush the resizing.”

Estelle nodded. “Very good.” Turning to Rogue, she winked and said, “You really do have an excellent eye for quality.”

Pausing in the middle of pulling the ring off her finger, Rogue suddenly looked panicked. “Oh God…I didn’t pick the $12,000 ring, did I?”

Estelle burst out laughing, attracting the attention of everyone in the store. Before she could answer, Logan interrupted.

“Doesn’t matter if you did, kid. That’s the ring we’re gettin’.” He took it from her and handed it over to Estelle who accepted it with a smile and a slight shake of her head.

“Marie,” she said, “why don’t you take a look at our wedding bands and see if there’s a design you like. Logan and I will go do the paperwork for the resizing and purchase.”

Smiling his thanks, Logan turned to Rogue. She looked crestfallen.

“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked, alarmed.

“I…can you wear a wedding ring, Logan?” she asked, nodding toward his left hand.

Cocking an eyebrow in confusion, Logan looked down at his hands. When Rogue reached forward and lightly brushed her finger over the skin between his knuckles, he suddenly understood.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. We’ll figure that out a little later, so go ahead and take a look at the wedding bands for now,” he said with a shrug.

“‘Kay.” Rogue wandered off and Logan turned to follow Estelle to a low section of counter with chairs on either side.

“Why wouldn’t you be able to wear a ring, Logan?” Estelle asked curiously. “Do you work with your hands a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he admitted with a nod.

“We have several men’s designs in platinum,” she offered.

“Honestly, I’d need somethin’ a little more durable than that.”

“Titanium then?”

Logan shook his head and Estelle blinked in surprise.

“Well, it’s unusual, but some rings are made of tungsten, but there’s a bit of risk involved with that.”

“What do you mean?” Logan asked curiously.

As she pulled a few forms from beneath the counter, Estelle explained, “If there’s any sort of accident and it becomes necessary to remove the ring, there is very little chance of being able to cut it off your hand.”

Logan hesitated, digesting the information. “Have you ever heard of adamantium?”

Estelle’s head jerked up in surprise and she blinked at him a few times. “I…yes. Yes, I have. But that’s only because I studied metallurgy as well as gemology. Forget adamantium, Logan. There’s no chance of getting you a ring made out of that in six weeks. Not to mention how much it would cost. How do you know about it anyway?”

“Ex-military,” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

Her lips shaping in a soundless “oh” of understanding, Estelle looked Logan over more closely, pausing at the dog tags disappearing under his shirt collar.

“Special forces?” she asked quietly.

“Can’t say.”

“If you’re ex-military, why would you need a ring made out adamantium? I can’t imagine you’d need something that durable if you’re inactive.”

A muscle jumped in Logan’s jaw. “Can’t say. But you never know.”

Estelle nodded slowly. “If you want something ready in six weeks, your best bet would be titanium. It can be made thin and flat to fit as closely to your skin as possible. That would minimize the risk of damage or the ring getting caught on anything.”

Logan nodded, thinking there shouldn’t be any problem with his claws if the ring was thin enough.

“But if your hand gets trapped under something and enough pressure is exerted, it’s going to slice your finger right off,” Estelle finished bluntly.

Logan let loose a bark of laughter, startling Estelle and attracting Rogue’s attention. He shook his head slightly and Rogue continued her inspection of the wedding bands. “I’m not worried about that.”

“All right, then,” Estelle said brightly, apparently realizing she should let the subject drop. “We’ll see what Marie likes for the wedding band design and then check to see if we can have something made for you in time. Now, about your purchase today. We have several payment plans.”

She scribbled two figures across the top of a paper and slid it across the counter to him. Glancing down, Logan saw that Estelle had written in the cost of the ring and the fee to rush the resizing. The rest of the paper detailed three different financing plans. He shook his head and slid the paper back to her.

“We can go ahead and put that all on my card.”

Estelle’s eyes popped wide in shock. To her credit, she recovered quickly and nodded calmly. “All right. And did you want to add a lifetime protection plan? For a ring of this value, the plan is an additional $600. Any accidental damage or even loss of a stone is covered, as well as any maintenance that might be required should the setting become loose. Marie can even have the ring professionally cleaned whenever she wants, free of charge,” Estelle finished with a smile.

“Sure, go ahead and add that,” Logan said absently, looking over at Rogue. She was crouched down in front of another case. He kept watching her, listening to the light scratching of Estelle’s pen on the sales form.

“All right, Logan, all I need is your signature here and your card.”

Taking the pen, Logan scrawled his name at the bottom of the form and then pulled his wallet out of his back jeans pocket. He handed the card to Estelle, wondering if there would be any problem with the charge amount. While he used the card regularly, and the price of the ring was well within his credit limit, he had never spent so much at one location before. Most of the charges he made were for maintenance and construction supplies for the school, for which he was later reimbursed. Dismissing the worry with a mental shrug – he could always split the cost on a couple different cards if he had to – Logan got up and went to join Rogue.

“Did you find one you like?” he asked quietly.

Looking up at him with a brilliant smile, Rogue tapped the glass in front of her. “Yeah, this one.”

Crouching down next to her, Logan inspected the design. It was in white gold, like her engagement ring, and was relatively simple. It was a plain, thin band with entwined eternity symbols engraved around the center of the ring, and the edges of the band were smoothed into a thin taper so that the ring would sit flush against the skin. He nodded in approval.

“Yeah, I like this one, too.”

“Will you be able to wear one?” Rogue asked.

“Estelle and I are working on that. We can always get a cheap ring and check it out at home – see what happens when I pop the claws.”

Rogue nodded. “Let’s stop at the mall on the way back, then.”

“Okay,” he agreed with a shrug.

“All right,” Estelle said as she walked up to them, “all I need is your signature on the charge slip, Logan, and you two are good to go. Unless you want to buy the bands today?”

Logan shook his head. “Not today. How long until Marie’s ring is ready?”

“With the rush, about ten days. I’ll call you when it comes in,” Estelle replied, leading them back to the counter.

As he leaned over to sign the credit slip, he shielded the amount from Rogue’s curious eyes, carefully ignoring the disgruntled look she sent him. Estelle gave them another indulgent smile and made sure to cover the entire credit slip with her hand as she slid it toward her.

“Let me know what you decide about the wedding bands,” she said to both of them.

“We will,” Rogue replied. Logan surprised her then by grabbing her hand as he turned toward the door. She looked at him curiously, but he didn’t even seem to be aware of making the gesture. With a mental shrug and a happy smile, Rogue followed Logan out of the store.

Logan popped his claws and sliced right through the second ring. The two halves made dull thunks as they dropped to the area rug in his room.

Rogue rolled her eyes and handed him the last ring, this one a bit thinner than the others. Logan obligingly retracted his claws and slipped it on. A split second and a snikt later, and the destroyed ring joined the other two on the floor.

Logan grimaced and murmured, “Sorry, darlin’.”

Shaking her head as she picked up the bits of metal, Rogue replied, “You’ve got nothin’ to apologize for, Logan. And this doesn’t mean you can’t wear a ring – you just can’t wear any this thick.”

Logan arched an eyebrow. “We ran out of rings, kid. Don’t have anythin’ else to test out.”

Rogue bounced upright, a smile on her face. She winked and said, “Got an idea, sugar.”

Logan’s other eyebrow rose to join its twin. As he rolled the unexpected endearment around in his head, he decided he liked it.

With a little smirk of contentment, Logan crossed his arms as he replied. “I’m yours to command, kid.”

And he was. He followed her out of the room, down the hall, downstairs to the kitchen, all without question. But when she pulled a roll of aluminum foil from one of the drawers and started fashioning rings of varying thickness, Logan had to admit that he was a little worried about potential witnesses. After all, to anybody walking into the room, it would look like the Wolverine was playing dress-up.

“Uh, Marie? Can we maybe go back to my room to do this?”

Without bothering to look up from the little bit of foil in her hand, Rogue shook her head. “Why bother? We’re either gonna run out of foil and have to grab another roll, or we won’t use it all and we’ll have to bring the rest back here. That’s one thing I’ve always hated about this place, you know. Takes forever to get anywhere.”

Logan grunted, not bothering to argue as Rogue reached for his hand and slipped the first of her creations onto his finger. Waiting only long enough for Rogue to pull back a safe distance, Logan flexed the muscles in his forearm and the claws shot out, slicing cleanly through the makeshift ring. As he lowered his arm, ready to retract the claws, Rogue reached out to stop him.

“Wait. Doesn’t it make more sense for me to fit a ring on you while your claws are out? That way we’ll know exactly how thin it needs to be.”

“No way,” Logan said, and shook her hand off his arm so he could pull the claws back in safely.

“Logan,” she chided. “I know it hurts when they come out, so why won’t you let me try? I don’t want you to be in pain when we can avoid it.”

He shook his head. “I said no.”

Rogue looked surprised and then angry at essentially being told what to do. “Well why the hell not?”

“Marie,” he explained quietly, “they’re too sharp for you to be workin’ around ‘em like that. You could slice your damn fingers off before either of us even noticed a thing.”

Remembering her first glimpse of the claws in action, when Logan had sliced through that gun in Laughlin City, Rogue found herself swallowing convulsively.

“Uh, yeah,” she murmured, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Yeah,” Logan echoed dryly.

Rogue made no reply, feeling strangely ashamed that she had been angry with him when he was only trying to protect her. She just bent her head and reached for another foil ring.

Logan said nothing as she slipped it on, and they went silently through the process of him popping the claws, the ring falling off, retracting the claws, her grabbing another ring several times. When they were on the fourth to last ring, the claws only sliced partially through the ring. Logan and Rogue exchanged a quick look and she nearly lunged for the next ring on the table, Logan already extending his hand so she could slip it on.

He popped the claws and the ring stayed in place. They exchanged excited smiles and Logan retracted and popped the claws a few more times in rapid succession. The ring remained unscathed.

“You know,” Rogue said in a musing tone, “it just occurred to me that there might have been an easier way of figuring this out.”

“How’s that, kid?” Logan asked, still staring at his hand.

“You can make them come out slowly, right? So we could have just watched carefully to see where along the claw the ring was actually being cut.”

Logan looked at her and blinked twice before laughing abruptly. “We’re a couple o’ geniuses, aren’t we?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner, Logan,” Rogue said earnestly.

He just shook the apology off with a wave of his hand. “Here, take the ring, kid. We’ll head over to see Estelle tomorrow morning and order the wedding bands.”

Rogue got a mischievous look on her face. “Can we go at 8 am?”

For a moment, Logan didn’t understand. But when he did, an identical smile tugged at his lips. “Sure. Wanna take one of the cars this time?”

Rogue’s smile turned just the slightest bit wicked as she replied, “The Bentley?”

His smile changed too, stretching enough to show teeth. “Darlin’, you read my mind.”

Almost as if it were orchestrated, Logan and Rogue ended up pulling into the parking lot just as Estelle was stepping from her modest Audi. Logan saw her squinting a bit against the glare reflecting from the Bentley’s windows as he cut the engine.

When he opened his door, all Estelle did was raise a single perfectly arched brow.

Rogue’s face appeared over the roof of the car. “Hi, Estelle!” she said happily.

Estelle returned the greeting with a nod and a little wave and looked back and forth at Rogue and Logan.

“Uh,” Rogue started, her bright tone noticeably dimmed, “too early?”

“A bit,” Estelle said dryly. “The store doesn’t open until 9.”

“Uh, well,” Rogue said, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt as she came around the hood, “we, uh, kinda wanted to, uh, run into Stanley this morning.”

Her somewhat stern expression melting into a gentle smile of understanding, Estelle tipped her head toward the parking lot entrance. “Looks like you’ll get what you came for then.”

Turning to look, Logan and Rogue saw a gleaming black BMW gliding almost silently into the lot. As the car pulled into the space to the right of the Bentley, Logan could see Stanley staring at him, his jaw slack.

Feeling a grim satisfaction as Stanley stepped from his vehicle, Logan greeted politely, “Good morning, Stanley.”

“Uh.” The young man swallowed hard, casting a fleeting, panicked look toward Estelle who pretended not to notice. Swallowing again, Stanley returned the greeting and then said to Estelle, “You did say 8 am, didn’t you, ma’am?”

“Yes, Stanley,” Estelle confirmed. “Logan and Marie are just here to finish up some business from yesterday.”

“Before business hours, ma’am?”

With a stern look, Estelle said, “We’ve done it before, Stanley, for some of our more…helpful customers.”

Stanley gulped audibly as his eyes appeared to bulge. He looked over the Bentley quickly and then gave Logan another once-over like he had yesterday. As he took in the beat up jacket and scuffed boots, the obviously aged jeans and Logan’s unruly hair, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“They were…helpful yesterday, ma’am?” he asked faintly.

“Indeed,” Estelle returned calmly. With a quick wink at Logan, she continued, “Best commission I’ve made this quarter.”

Stanley gulped again, looking a little ill. As he opened his mouth to reply, Logan cut him off.

“Yeah, we’re hoping to get you another nice commission, Estelle.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, about that matter we discussed yesterday. We’d like to go ahead and get a wedding band for me in titanium. Marie and I worked out exactly how thin it needs to be.” Logan nodded at Rogue, who handed a small, clear plastic bag to Estelle. Inside was the dull shine of the makeshift aluminum foil ring.

“That’s the right size there, too,” Rogue added, stepping back to stand beside Logan.

Estelle chuckled a bit when she saw what it was she was holding. With a shrug she said, “Okay. I’ll put the order in first thing this morning. The bands can probably be ready in about four weeks.”

Glancing at Stanley from the corner of his eye, Logan asked, “Any chance we can put a rush on this one, too?”

Looking only slightly surprised, Estelle said, “Yes, of course we could do that. But it’s going to cost you triple the rush fee for the resizing of the engagement ring, since this one will be custom made.”

Nodding, Logan said, “That’s fine.”

“Why rush it, though, Logan? You said the wedding’s in six weeks, so you’d still have the ring in time.”

“Just want to make sure it’s done right,” he returned. “And if it’s not, then we’ll still have some time to fix it.”

“True enough,” Estelle said with another shrug. “Would you like to come in now and take care of this?”

“Nah, I can see you’re busy,” Logan replied, nodding toward Stanley. “You still have my credit info, right? Go ahead and run it through.”

Estelle shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, Logan. We’ll allow you to pay for the wedding bands when they come in.”

As Logan and Rogue exchanged a confused look, neither of them missed the equally confused expression on Stanley’s face.

“Ma’am,” Stanley protested, “that courtesy is only offered to loyal customers who have been with us for years.”

Shooting him a stern look, Estelle returned, “No, Stanley, those are the only people to whom you are allowed to extend that courtesy. As the manager, I may extend it to whomever I wish provided their credit is good.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stanley muttered, glowering at Logan and Rogue.

“That will be all, Stanley. Why don’t you get the merchandise from the safe and start placing the trays in the cases?” Estelle dangled her key ring on the tip of her right index finger and extended her hand to Stanley.

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered again, snatching the keys and shuffling toward the store.

Waiting until the door had closed behind Stanley, Logan lifted an eyebrow. “That going to cause you any problems?”

Estelle shrugged. “He’ll probably quit within a few weeks. He’s been nothing but trouble since he got transferred here four months ago.”

“I don’t want to sound mean, but couldn’t you fire him?” Rogue asked.

Making a sour face, Estelle shook her head. “He’s the owner’s nephew. Kid’s been transferred from branch to branch because nobody wants to risk firing him. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m no different. If he doesn’t quit on his own, I’ll suggest another transfer. We have enough customer complaints on record to warrant that at least.”

“Seems to me he’s bad for the company’s name and image,” Logan put in. “Why doesn’t the owner let him go?”

“Stanley’s his last living relative apparently.”

“So the kid’s going to inherit the business?” Logan’s tone was rife with disbelief.

Estelle shook her head. “Nope. Owner’s not fond of Stanley at all. Just feels obligated to keep him employed. Of course, this is all hearsay.”

“I doubt anybody’s fond of that little worm,” Rogue huffed and looked immediately embarrassed. Holding her hand over her mouth, her cheeks turning red, she elbowed Logan sharply in the ribs when he chuckled.

“Hey!” he protested.

Estelle laughed. “You two are like kids together,” she said, shaking her head.

“I apologize for our behavior and my comment just now,” Rogue said politely, her face still red.

The other woman flapped her hand in dismissal. “No apology needed. Now get out of here, you two. I have work to do,” Estelle finished with a grin.

Logan and Rogue smiled in turn and climbed back into the car. Estelle stood in the parking lot and watched them go, tipping her head back and laughing appreciatively when Logan revved the engine and peeled out onto the highway.

Rogue was nervous. She didn't quite understand what it was she was picking up from the quiet, considering looks Logan kept giving her, but that, combined with the absolute silence on the drive back to the mansion had her biting her lower lip and twisting her fingers together in her lap.

She stopped the lip biting when she caught Logan narrowing his eyes in a predatory manner. But her fingers - those she kept twisting. Trying to shake her nerves by thinking the situation through rationally, Rogue cataloged every moment since they left the jewelry store. Logan had been fine when they got on the highway. He had been fine when she was flipping through radio stations, and he had been fine when she switched it off entirely in disgust at not being able to find a single good song to listen to. Then she had settled back against her comfortable black leather seat, yawned a bit, stretched her arms forward, and then she had lifted them behind her head to hook her wrists on her headrest, finishing her stretch by straightening out her legs and arching her back.

Rogue's fingers froze in her lap as realization hit her. Casting a quick look at Logan from beneath lowered lashes, she saw that he was, indeed, staring at her chest. His look this time wasn't predatory, but more musing and hinting at confused as his eyes flitted down to her clasped hands and then up to her face.

Feeling a blush burn her cheeks, Rogue tilted her head down so her hair swept forward and hid her face from him. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard a soft, deep laugh compete with the low purr of the Bentley's engine.

Her face flaming brighter than before, Rogue cursed Logan under her breath. She was willing to bet her favorite teddy bear that he thought she had been flirting with her earlier stretching. And then she cursed herself for even having teddy bears at her age, which made her scowl when she realized there was no logic behind her last thought.

"Logan, look," Rogue began, swallowing hard, "I, uh, think we need to talk about how things are going to, uh, be the next few weeks before the wedding. I mean-"

"Can it, kid," Logan cut her off. "No point in trying to plan anything. Things are going to turn out however they turn out."

Rogue hesitated before blurting anxiously, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Logan shrugged as he turned into the mansion's driveway. "It means we take it one thing at a time. First thing being that we're gonna grab some breakfast in the kitchen and head up to your room and watch the morning news."

"And after that?"

"We'll see," he said in a softly suggestive tone, pulling the car into the garage.

Rogue's heart stuttered. What the hell was going on, she wondered wildly. Was Logan actually thinking of trying to seduce her? She got out of the car in silence and started walking around the hood. When Logan placed his hand low on her back, she jumped in surprise and danced a few hasty steps away from him.

Logan frowned uncertainly. "You okay, kid?"

"Fine," Rogue replied shortly.

Pausing mid-step, Logan stared hard at her as he searched for words. Finally giving up, he shrugged and said, "If you say so. Just trying to figure out what has you acting so weird all of a sudden."

"Me?" Rogue asked in disbelief. She was strangely comforted when Logan's right eyebrow winged upward.

"How am I acting weird?" he challenged.

"You were staring at my...my...you were staring!"

"News flash, kid. I'm a guy. We stare."

Rogue's jaw grew slack at his ready admission. "I...but why?" was all she could come up with.

Logan laughed. "Come on, kid. I know you're not as clueless as you were pretending to be a few days ago. I see something I like, I'm going to look. And you've got a lot I like."

"But you haven't even seen - " Rogue clapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed by what she had been about to say.

Laughing again, Logan shook his head slowly. "You know, it's weird. I've known you for over ten years, but all of a sudden in the last few weeks, I haven't been able to figure you out, kid."

Rogue couldn't keep from snorting. "So you seeing me as a woman has suddenly made me three dimensional and too complex to size up?"

"Hell no. Women have always been two dimensional to me - I like them and they have their uses. Nothing else to worry about."

"Pig."

"Probably. You've always been three dimensional, though, kid. I know who you are and what you want, and I know what place you have in my life. Or I did. Well, I still know what place you have, but it's changing and you're not acting like I thought you would and...hell, I don't know." Logan's tone was suddenly disgusted.

"It's unsettling."

"Damn right it is," he returned.

"You're unsettled," Rogue said, smiling widely.

"Uh, yeah, darlin'. I think we just covered that."

"The tough, stoic Wolverine is unsettled. By me." Laughter laced the last two words.

Logan growled and uncontrolled mirth spilled from Rogue's lips.

"Dammit, I don't have a damn clue where I stand with you right now. Go ahead. Laugh it up while you still can, kid, but you're just as unsettled as I am. And if you're not, by the end of this week, I'm going to make damn sure that you are."

"Ha!" Rogue crowed. "And how do you think you're going to make that happen?"

Smirking at her, Logan stepped quickly forward, crowding her until she took a step back. Her knees hit the Bentley's front bumper and she ended up sitting awkwardly to the right of the winged hood ornament. Placing his hands against the hood on either side of her, Logan boxed her in and put his face mere inches from hers.

"Like this," he said in a rough voice and kissed her.

* * *

Just like the last time, Rogue wasn't quite sure how much time had passed or how, exactly, she ended up lying across the front of the car. All she knew was that Logan's strong shoulders beneath her fingers felt wonderful and the hood of the car was still warm from the engine. When Logan lifted his lips from hers, she made a soft sound of protest and twined her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

Lifting her heavy eyelids to look at him, Rogue wondered vaguely if she looked as shell-shocked as Logan. He licked his lips and swallowed before speaking.

"Hey, kid, listen. I know you said you - "

"Aww, don't ruin a great sex scene with talking!" The loud voice at the door made Logan jump in surprise and the claws of his right hand shot out, screeching against the hood next to Rogue's head. He whirled around to face the intruder, pushing Rogue behind him with his left hand.

"Holy shit," the voice said faintly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing sneaking up on me like that?" Logan roared angrily. "Shit! You should know better by now."

Rogue sat up behind him, placing her hand soothingly against his back. The voice sounded familiar.

"I didn't expect you to nearly shishkebab her head!" Rogue narrowed her eyes at the bright, angry tones. It couldn't be, she thought, peeking around Logan's broad shoulder.

"Jubes?" she said in disbelief.

Jubilee grinned toothily in return. "Hey, chica. I came rushing home thinking you needed my help with certain matters, and here I find out you're doing just fine on your own."

Logan's right eyebrow hitched upward. "Certain matters?"

"Never mind," Rogue replied hastily as she scooted off the hood of the car. She jogged over to Jubilee and pulled her into a hug. "Say anything else and I'll wire your jaw shut with rusty razor wire," she hissed furiously into her ear.

Jubilee jerked back in surprise and gave Rogue an appraising look. "Ohhh-kay," she said cautiously, shooting a look over Rogue's shoulder at Logan. If his enhanced hearing had picked up Rogue's threat, he had a damn fine poker face. He had something else damn fine, Jubilee noticed.

Catching her looking at him, Logan growled low in his throat and dropped his hand to crudely adjust himself in his jeans. "What the hell you doing here, yellow?"

Jubilee answered with a leer, "Just came to catch up with my girl here. She mentioned that things between the two of you were going to be changing."

Logan's gaze shifted to Rogue. "You told her about the wedding?" he asked in surprise.

Her eyes popping wide, Jubilee stuttered, "W-wedding?" She snatched up Rogue's left hand. "Where's the ring?" she demanded.

"No, I didn't tell her about the wedding," Rogue muttered in irritation as she pulled her hand away from Jubilee's tight grip.

"Where. Is. The. Ring?" Jubilee demanded again, narrowing her eyes at Logan suspiciously.

"It's being resized," Logan answered absently, his eyes intent on Rogue's face. The faintest hint of a blush was creeping over her cheeks.

He squinted at her face appraisingly and a knowing smile quirked his lips upward. Shifting his gaze to Jubilee, he winked. Jubilee’s mouth dropped open slightly and she frowned in confusion.

“I take it the Cosmo quizzes were your idea, Sparky?”

“Ha!” Jubilee crowed in delight. “I guess they worked then, eh, Roguey?” She tried to nudge Rogue with her elbow and only succeeded in knocking her off balance.

“Yes, they worked, you menace,” Rogue growled, rubbing her ribs.

Jubilee clapped her hands in delight. “Am I gonna be an auntie any time soon then?”

“Jubilee!” Rogue protested, shooting Logan a dark look at his snort of laughter.

Unfazed by the look, Logan said, “That’s the plan.”

“Seriously?” Jubilee’s amusement disappeared. She looked cautiously between Rogue and Logan, but was unable to decide if Logan was just pulling her leg. Rogue continued frowning at Logan, giving Jubilee no further information. Coming to a quick decision, she skipped the few feet to Logan’s side and grabbed him by the elbow. She whirled him around and pulled him after her. “Come on, Wolvie. I need to talk to you.”

“What? Why?” Logan asked in irritation, tugging at his elbow. Jubilee knew that he wasn’t using his full strength to break her grip, fearing that he might hurt her if he did.

“Jubilee!” Rogue protested again, taking a step after them.

“We’ll be back in a minute, chica, just sit tight!”

“But--”

Curious, Logan decided to cooperate with Jubilee for the time being. He cut off Rogue’s protest, tossing over his shoulder, “Wait for me in the kitchen, darlin’?”

“Hm. ‘Darlin’.’ Cute,” Jubilee observed.

Scowling, Logan returned, “I didn’t say it to amuse you.”

“I know,” she said, patting his arm comfortingly. “That’s what makes it cute.”

Finally seeing where they were heading, Logan asked disbelievingly, “The stables?”

Jubilee shrugged. “The location doesn’t really matter I guess. Just figured we’d have more privacy here than anywhere in the mansion.”

“What the hell do we need privacy for?” Logan grumbled, turning to face Jubilee when she finally released his arm.

He was startled by her narrowed eyes and tightly clenched jaw.

“You been messin’ with my girl, Wolvie?”

“What?” Confusion swirled in Logan’s mind, worsened by the lingering arousal edging his thoughts.

“You’re not stringing her along by promising to marry her, are you? ‘Cause if you are,” Jubilee jabbed him sharply in the chest, “I’ll take you out.”

“What? No,” Logan said, absently rubbing his sternum where Jubilee’s sharp fingernail had broken the skin even through the layers of his flannel shirt and wife beater.

Jubilee snorted loudly. The sound startled the horse in the nearest stall, a tall chestnut mare who swung her head toward them with a nervous whicker. “You’re not the marryin’ type, Wolvie. And you don’t strike me as the type to play daddy either. So what the hell’s going on? If you just want to give her a good tumble, then fine. I’m all for that and I’ll even help you seduce her. But this fake engagement is plain cruel.”

Logan’s growing anger replaced his amorous thoughts with ones of a more homicidal nature.

“Just one question for you, Sparky,” he growled, leaning forward aggressively. “Where the hell do you get off thinking it’s any of your business? You go months without returning any of Rogue’s phone calls and now you’re concerned for her?”

“Hey, my job keeps me busy,” Jubilee protested.

With a derisive snort, Logan continued. “Fine. Maybe it does. You didn’t have a job when you were still in high school, though, and when Bobby broke up with Rogue, you spent more time with him and Kitty than you did with Rogue. She needed you then too, but you couldn’t be bothered.”

Jubilee’s left eye twitched. “She wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming little thing then, Wolvie. She went off and took the cure without tellin’ any of us. If she didn’t need my help with that, why they hell would she have needed it when she and Bobby broke up?”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Logan snarled. He cut off Jubilee’s protest with a vicious cutting gesture in the air between them. “How could she have talked to anybody about that? Who the hell understood what she was going through? You want to tell me you know how much pain she was in not being able to touch anybody? To be touched? If you understood, you should have known she’d jump at the chance for the cure.”

“If she wanted touch that badly, why the hell’d she keep turning Bobby down, huh?” Jubilee challenged.

Scoffing, Logan turned his back to her. “You really think she could have gone from not even being able to hold hands with that little jackass to hopping into bed with him as soon as she got back?”

“She didn’t have any problem cuddling up with you!”

Logan turned sharply on his heel to face her once again. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? It’s been ten years since she took the cure.”

“I’m not talking about now,” Jubilee sneered. “Do you know what it did to Bobby to find Rogue snuggled up with you every time he went looking for her? You know how many times he would back out of a room instead of interrupting the two of you?”

“Come off it, Jubilee,” Logan said in disgust, using her name for the first time in years. “You know there was nothing like that between us then.”

“But Bobby didn’t!” Angry tears stood bright in Jubilee’s eyes. A thought flashed through Logan’s mind.

“You were in love with him,” he said in a low voice, watching Jubilee closely. The slight hitch in her breathing told him he was right.

“No I wasn’t.”

Logan nodded. “You were. And you think Rogue is somehow responsible for him not ending up with you.”

“She - He-,” Jubilee spluttered.

Squinting at her, Logan asked, “You’re not still in love with him, so why are you still angry at Rogue?”

“I - ” Jubilee’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug and she held both hands palm up in question. “I don’t know,” she finally said.

“All right,” Logan said slowly. “Any idea why you’re angry at me right now?”

Jubilee’s anger was roused again. “Because you’re just like him!” she accused.

“Like Bobby?” Logan was torn between disbelief and amusement.

“Yes,” she snarled. “You hang around waiting for Rogue to make up her mind and ignore everybody else in the meantime.”

“Who am I ignoring?” Logan asked. “You?”

Jubilee’s wordless sputtering amused him. Until she managed to get her next words out. “Sure. I would have jumped your bones at least a half dozen times if you had ever shown any interest.”

Logan’s eyebrows shot up and his head reared back in surprise.

“But no,” Jubilee continued, “Rogue wasn’t even interested in you and she still got all your attention. I just don’t get it,” she finished in disgust.

“You want to jump my bones?”

“Not now I don’t,” Jubilee snapped.

“Okay. Just checking.” At his nonchalant tone, Jubilee narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You want me to explain some things about Rogue?”

Jubilee nodded cautiously.

“First thing you need to know is that even though she took the cure, it didn’t heal any of the damage her mutation caused. She reads more into every touch and gesture than you can imagine. And she’s afraid to trust whatever conclusions she makes because, in some part of herself she isn’t even aware of, she still considers herself untouchable.”

“You’ve lost me, Wolvie,” Jubilee admitted grudgingly.

“When she was still a mutant, nobody made any effort to touch her unless they wanted something from her. Bobby wanted what any teenage boy wants. Magneto wanted to use her power. Every touch had some sort of expectation behind it. She got so used to that that even now she’s suspicious of people touching her.”

“You were never like that, though,” Jubilee mused.

Logan shrugged. “And maybe that’s why she’s willing to take a chance on me after ten years.”

Snorting, Jubilee said crudely, “I’d hardly call trying to get into her pants a touch without any ‘expectation’ behind it.”

Logan felt his face heating. When Jubilee tipped her head in curiosity, his blush deepened.

“What am I missing here?” she asked.

Clearing his throat roughly, Logan said, “Never mind.”

“Wolvie, you gotta tell me!”

“Why should I? You come here because of some misguided anger and guilt over something that happened ten years ago and accuse me of wanting to take advantage of Rogue, and you expect me to explain my actions to you? Forget it, Sparky.”

“All right. Fine. I can understand that, but don’t think that I don’t care about Rogue. So can you answer just one thing for me?”

“Depends on the question,” Logan hedged.

“You’re serious about marrying her?”

Jubilee’s eyes were steady on his, her gaze more serious than he had ever seen it. But behind the seriousness, he saw a glimmer of worry. That, more than anything, allowed him to answer her honestly.

“Yeah. I’m serious. And it’s for keeps,” he added, smiling to himself as he used Rogue’s childish phrasing. He ignored Jubilee’s surprise as his mind wandered over the past weeks, wondering how such a short period of time could have more weight and meaning in his heart and mind than the thirty, forty, fifty or more years before it.

Rogue’s head swiveled back and forth as she peered first at Logan and then at Jubilee. They were finishing dinner in the great hall, Storm, Hank, and Kurt occupying the seats nearest them and dozens of curious students were sneaking glances at the head table. Several of the older students had heard stories about former students, particularly those who had been Rogue’s classmates, and they were whispering theories to the younger ones about Jubilee’s identity. The fact that she still favored yellow after all these years helped them determine which of the famous students she was.

“Is one of ya’ll going to tell me what’s going on?” Rogue hissed at Logan and Jubilee.

“Nope,” they answered together, sharing a secretive grin that Rogue found infuriating.

There was a sudden lull to the students’ murmured conversations and one soft voice floated clearly to Rogue’s ears.

“Miss Rogue looks mad. Do you think the new lady is Mr. Logan’s girlfriend?”

Rogue whipped around in her seat to spear the first year student with a stern glance. The girl loosed a startled “Eep!” and ducked her head. Around her, Rogue could hear the other adults chuckling. Only Logan remained quiet. Rogue glanced at him inquiringly.

“Almost a dozen years later and it seems the students’ favorite pastime is still gossiping about us,” he murmured, his quiet observation meant only for her. With a frown, Rogue nodded agreement.

Storm gave them a gentle smile. Pushing her chair back, she stood and tapped the side of her water goblet with a clean fork. As if coordinated, all the students turned toward her at the same time, the remaining conversation dying down.

“Children, we have a guest staying with us for a few days. This,” she said with a graceful gesture toward Jubilee, “is one of my former students. You may call her Miss Jubilee. For the time that she is here, you are to treat her with the same respect as you do your teachers. Understood?”

Storm received a silent nod from every student. “Now,” she continued, “Does anyone have any questions for Miss Jubilee?”

Dozens of eager hands shot into the air. Storm sighed. “Katie?” she invited, gesturing toward one of the older students.

“Are you that Jubilee?” the girl asked.

Laughing robustly, Jubilee nodded. “None other.”

A few students lowered their hands, but plenty continued waving in the air. Storm acknowledged a younger student. “Hannah?”

The preteen stood up in her eagerness. “Are you Mr. Logan’s girlfriend?” she asked loudly.

Before Jubilee could reply, Logan growled, “No, she isn’t.”

“Oh,” Hannah said, looking disappointed as she sank back into her chair.

Rogue snickered as half a dozen more hands dropped.

Hannah popped back up in excitement. “Are you Miss Rogue’s girlfriend then?”

Jubilee gaped at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. “No,” she said finally, wiping a tear from the corner of her left eye.

“Oh,” Hannah said again as she dropped once more into her seat.

“Last question,” Storm said, nodding toward a tall, thin boy with bright blue hair.

The student swallowed before speaking, his adam’s apple sliding awkwardly in his throat. “How long will you be staying, Miss Jubilee?” he asked, voice cracking.

Jubilee blinked. “I’m not sure yet. That will depend on a couple of things.” She cast a speculative look at Logan and Rogue. Logan merely raised an eyebrow while Rogue scowled fiercely.

“Oh, by the way, chica. Storm said there aren’t any empty rooms at the moment, so I’m taking yours.”

Rogue’s scowl deepened and she missed Jubilee’s wink at Logan as she shoved a heaping forkful of chocolate cake into her mouth.

***

“Marie, this is ridiculous,” Logan said.

“Just hold this,” she said, shoving her pillow into his hands. She snapped open the blue flowered bed sheet and draped it over the longest couch in the library.

“Marie,” he said again, a warning in his voice.

“What?” Rogue snapped, rounding on him.

“You can sleep in my room.”

“Logan,” she reasoned, “I know you end up with a stiff neck whenever you sleep on a couch.”

Logan shrugged. “I wasn’t offering to sleep on the couch.”

“What?”

“We’ll share my bed. I promise I can keep my hands to myself for one night.”

“Um, Logan?”

“Yeah?” He was already busy pulling the sheet free from the couch cushions.

“She’s going to be here more than one night.”

“Look, kid,” he said, rounding on her. “If anything happens and you say stop, I’ll stop. What’s the problem?”

“Why does it have to be my responsibility to make you stop?” she grumbled, snatching the sheet from him and folding it with sharp, jerking motions.

Logan’s left eyebrow quirked in interest. “You doubting your willpower?”

“No,” Rogue defended. But her voice lacked conviction.

Logan chuckled. “Quite a change from a few days ago when you swore you weren’t interested in me sexually.”

“That’s before I ended up draped over the hood of a damn car! I don’t know what changed all of a sudden,” she snapped, “and I’m not really happy that it did.”

“Why the hell not?” Logan fought to control his temper, knowing that she was just being honest.

“Because I don’t love you the way a woman’s supposed to love her husband and I never thought that I’d want to sleep with somebody I don’t love!” Rogue’s voice was taut with anger.

Logan blew out an exasperated breath. “You’ve got a lot of hangups, you know that, kid?”

“Hangups?” Rogue shrieked, swinging the folded sheet at him. Logan blocked the blow with the pillow.

“All right, maybe that’s not the right word.”

Rogue lowered the sheet, indicating that she would listen.

“I would agree with you if I were just some random guy. And I don’t think you’d want to sleep with me if I were. But you know I love you, right, kid?”

Rogue nodded cautiously.

“And I know you love me. So what if it isn’t the right kind of love? It’s a hell of a lot more than most people have. And I can tell you it’s a hell of a lot more than I’ve had with any woman I’ve slept with.”

“You don’t know that for sure, Logan,” Rogue felt burdened to remind him.

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “If I can’t remember it, it might as well not have happened. And I don’t ever remember caring about a woman the way I care about you. It makes a difference,” he said, his voice deepening. “It makes me want you more.”

Rogue’s eyes widened.

“So my take on it is that it’s natural to want to sleep with someone when you care about them the way we care about each other.”

“What about Jean? You loved her.” Rogue said in a small voice.

Logan considered the question. Finally, he answered, “I wanted Jean from the beginning. It wasn’t until later that I started to like her. But I never loved her, kid. And I never slept with her.”

Rogue hesitated over the revelation. She had never been sure of the nature of Logan’s relationship with Jean. “I saw how torn up you were when she died, Logan. There was love there.”

Logan shrugged jerkily, the motion awkward compared to his normal graceful ease of movement. It silently told Rogue how uncomfortable he was with the conversation. He tilted his head back and searched the ceiling as if he might find answers written there.

“I think it was more regret about what could have been,” he said finally, his tone soft.

Rogue studied him carefully, taking note of the easing of tension in his shoulders and the fractional smoothing of the lines of his face.

“Did you ever think you loved her?”

“I…Yeah, for a while I did.”

“What made you realize you didn’t?”

Logan pinned her with an intense stare. “You did, kid.”

“Me? How?” Rogue asked in disbelief.

“After Jean died, you were still missing for a while. And I realized I was more concerned over whether you were safe than that Jean was dead.”

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t love her, Logan.” Rogue wondered vaguely why she was trying to defend Logan’s feelings for the dead woman when it would only be an obstacle between them in their marriage.

“How do you figure?” he asked curiously.

“Well, Jean was already dead and there was nothing you could do about it. Me missing, on the other hand, was something you might have been able to do something about.” Rogue shrugged. “You were prioritizing.”

Logan squinted at her in consideration. Finally, he shook his head. “Maybe,” he conceded, “but the bottom line is that her death didn’t destroy me. I think yours would.”

“Logan,” Rogue said in exasperation, ignoring the little thrill in her heart. She propped her hands on her hips, a gesture made awkward by the bundled sheet still held in her right hand. “Is it really necessary to compare the feelings you have for us? What’s it going to prove?”

Smiling faintly, he nodded. “You’re right. It’ll only end up making me a basket case, right?”

“Well,” Rogue said cheekily, “more of a basket case.”

Logan scowled at her in mock anger and snatched the sheet away from her as he strode from the library. At the door he called over his shoulder, “Come on, kid. Time for bed.”

***

An hour later Logan was sincerely regretting his offer to share his bed with Rogue. She kept rooting around in the covers, shifting the pillow, twitching her foot or elbow, sighing loudly, and muttering to herself.

Rearing up on one elbow, Logan glared at her in the dim light. “Will you just settle down already?”

“I can’t!” Rogue snapped resentfully.

Logan sighed and flopped down on his back next to her. “Why the hell not? It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before.”

“That was before you wanted to have sex with me,” Rogue reminded him in a small voice.

“Marie, what the hell?” he asked helplessly, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m not going to turn into some monster and rape you.”

“I didn’t think that!” Rogue returned, her tone horrified. The immediacy of her reply went a long way toward soothing Logan’s injured pride.

“Then just settle down, kid,” he said gently.

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re acting different already!”

“Huh?” Logan asked intelligently, blinking rapidly into the darkness. He hadn’t laid a hand on her since they had climbed beneath the covers.

“You always used to cuddle up with me,” Rogue reminded him, a trace of pain in her soft voice.

A snort of laughter escaped him. He had been so worried that she’d be upset if he touched her that he hadn’t dared treat this like any of the other nights they had been forced to share a bed. It hadn’t happened often - the odd mission or two with only a tent to shelter under, or the occasional need to give up a room at the mansion when there were too many visitors.

“It’s not funny,” Rogue snapped.

“Yes it is,” Logan insisted as he rolled onto his side and scooped her into his arms. Rogue stiffened. He ignored it and went about arranging their limbs comfortably, ending with his right arm cradling her head and his left draped around her waist. He tucked his knees up behind hers and rested his chin on the top of her head, sharing her pillow. Rogue relaxed at the familiar position. “Better?” he asked.

“Much,” Rogue said in satisfaction, grasping his left hand with hers.

Logan sighed and closed his eyes. Sleep claimed them in less than a minute.

Somehow Rogue was aware that it was a dream. Still, it was the most realistic dream she had ever had. And the most unexpected. Perhaps it was her surprise at the dream situation that made her realize it wasn’t really happening.

She was pinned under a shirtless Logan while his teeth scraped along the length of her throat. Her heart was pounding heavily in her chest and her breath was coming in short gasps as her fingers tensed and relaxed on his shoulders in response to the small bites on her skin. Logan made a deep sound of displeasure when he encountered the neckline of her shirt. Her fuzzy mind acknowledging the minor problem, Rogue expected that Logan would take care of it with a minimum of fuss. Nevertheless, she was startled when his warm hands caught the hem of her shirt and pushed it up under her chin, allowing him to skip her sensitive collarbone and shoulders in favor of a more direct path to the soft skin of her stomach and ribs.

The rough tickle of facial hair on her ribs made her giggle and she let go of Logan’s shoulders to wrap her arms around her middle in defense.

He lifted his head and eyed her strangely. “Kid, you all right?” he asked, his voice rough.

Rogue kept giggling and rocked back and forth a bit, confused when Logan’s hand descended on her shoulder and shook her.

“Kid?” he said again, louder this time. “Are you all right?” He shook her harder.

Irritated now, Rogue opened her eyes to glare at him, confused by the painful brightness that met her eyes. Hadn’t the room been dark just a minute before?

Blinking rapidly, she took in her surroundings, noting first that Logan had somehow donned a shirt while she was laughing. Her ribs still tickled and they were, indeed, bare, but she was covered by a blanket. Brilliant scarlet light spilled through the east facing window.

“I…wait,” she croaked hoarsely, “am I awake or still dreaming?”

Left eyebrow quirking in amused interest, Logan said, “Must have been a fun dream, kid. You woke me up with your thrashing and giggling. You gonna clue me in?”

Rogue hurriedly yanked the hem of her shirt down and sat up, ignoring the blush she could feel creeping up her neck. “No,” she said shortly.

“No?” Logan drawled, his own voice rough with the remnants of sleep.

Shaking her head, Rogue looked around the room in an effort to avoid meeting Logan’s gaze.

“Last chance,” he warned, waiting only a few seconds before pouncing on her.

Rogue shrieked with laughter and beat at his shoulders as he attacked her ribs.

“Gonna tell me?” he asked, still tickling her.

“Nooo!” Rogue wailed helplessly, tears of laughter streaking down her cheeks. In the midst of her hilarity, she wondered what had gotten into Logan.

***

Damned if he was going to stop tickling her, Logan thought to himself. He was afraid where his hands might end up if they weren’t occupied with her ribs. While he was curious about her dream, he was more concerned with buying himself time until his morning erection subsided.

Not that Rogue wasn’t aware that such things happened, he thought philosophically. They had shared a bed before and it was a natural occurrence for him. But he wasn’t sure how she would react this time.

With a mental sigh, Logan gave Rogue a moment to catch her breath - and a chance to confess her dream, which she didn’t take - before attacking again. It was only after her shrieks started up again that Logan realized how loud they were.

“Uhh, kid,” he said with a trace of worry in his voice.

“Logan!” Rogue yelped and thrust a hand into his face just as he was glancing over his shoulder at the door.

Logan grunted at the sudden pain and lost his balance, collapsing on top of Rogue.

A muffled oof escaped her as she was crushed beneath his adamantium enhanced weight.

“Shit, kid!” Logan popped up on his elbows almost immediately. He tasted the salty tang of blood on his tongue as the bedroom door burst open.

Jubilee stood in the doorway holding a lamp devoid of its shade. The metal column arced with blue electricity as she frantically scanned the room.

“What’s going on?” she yelled, finally focusing on Logan and Rogue in the bed.

Her eyes widened at seeing the blood at the corner of Logan’s mouth. Confused, she looked at Rogue, taking in her disheveled clothes and hair and the tears on her cheeks.

“You son of a bitch!” she yelled, advancing on Logan.

Storm appeared in the doorway just as Jubilee was swinging the lamp.

“Jubilee!” she yelled as Logan turned his body to shield Rogue.

Realizing with alarm that Rogue was in danger of being electrocuted along with Logan, Jubilee stopped the current running along the lamp. She didn’t, however, have time or strength enough to stop the downward motion of the makeshift club.

A sickening, muffled crack sounded from deep inside Logan’s shoulder and he growled in pain.

“Jubilee!” Rogue shrieked, clutching Logan to her as she sat up.

Jubilee dropped the lamp and shook her hands out. They were tingling from the force of the impact. Eyes wide, she asked, “I couldn’t have broken his arm, could I? There’s no way, right? I mean, he’s made of metal…”

Logan was cursing loudly as he glared at Jubilee. Through gritted teeth he managed, “No, my bones can’t break, you twit. But my shoulder can still be dislocated.”

Straightening up into a rigid line, Jubilee glared back. “That’s what you get for attacking her. You’re nothing but a damn animal after all, are you?”

Before he could respond, Rogue said with deadly calm, “He wasn’t attacking me, Jubilee.”

Storm, still in the doorway, cocked her head in interest. For the time being, she ignored the crowd of students gathering behind her, all of them peeking around her at the room’s inhabitants.

“Like hell he wasn’t!” Jubilee insisted. “I could hear you screaming from all the way down the hall, and he may have already healed, but I can tell you socked him a good one right in the kisser. So don’t try and tell me those are happy tears, Roguey.”

“Jubilee.” Rogue smoothed Logan’s hair back from his forehead, worried at the way he was still clutching his shoulder. “He was tickling me.”

The room fell silent. Even Jubilee’s angry breathing stopped. “T-tickling?” she stammered. “Wolvie doesn’t tickle people.”

Storm’s rich voice supplied the obvious answer. “Apparently he does, Jubilee.”

***

“Logan,” Rogue tried again, “she said she was sorry.”

He growled wordlessly in response.

“Oh come on, Wolvie. Your shoulder’s fine now. Hank said so.” Jubilee’s voice was irritated.

“That’s not why I’m angry!” Logan snapped, knocking back the rest of his beer. He was on his eighth bottle.

“Well, shit!” Jubilee exclaimed, pounding her fist on the kitchen table. “Then tell me what you’re angry about and I’ll apologize for that too.”

“Jubilee,” Storm admonished, nodding at the mistreated furniture.

“Sorry,” Jubilee muttered, “but he started it.”

Logan snorted in disgust.

Rogue cast worried looks between her two friends.

“Logan,” Storm said, “maybe it would help if you told us what else Jubilee has to apologize for.”

“You really don’t know?” Logan asked in disbelief.

“No!” Jubilee returned, exasperated.

Logan pushed away from the table. Before he had taken more than two steps, Rogue caught his arm.

“Logan,” she said softly. But he just smiled slightly and gave a minute shake of his head. Rogue let him go, her fingers trailing along his forearm and the back of his hand.

“What the hell,” Jubilee huffed, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.

“Jubes,” Rogue said reproachfully.

“Not you too,” Jubilee groaned.

“Yes, me too,” Rogue said, anger stirring in the pit of her stomach.

“What the hell did I do? I thought I was protecting you.” The real frustration in Jubilee’s voice softened Rogue’s heart.

“You’ll never have to protect me from Logan, Jubes,” Rogue said in a soothing voice. “And you should know that by now. That’s why he’s still angry. And the small matter of you thinking he’s a rapist, of course.”

Jubilee’s mouth dropped open with gratifying shock. “Oh. Um, yeah. I can see why that might make a man angry,” she said with chagrin.

"Yeah," Rogue agreed. "Find a way to fix it, will you? I wanted you to be a bridesmaid at the wedding, but if Logan stays angry at you, it's not gonna happen."

"Really?" Jubilee squawked, smiling widely.

“Wedding?” Storm asked, her face blank.

“Oh…um, yeah. Logan and I are getting married,” Rogue said sheepishly. Her hands fluttered nervously in front of her for a moment before she consciously stilled them.

“Married,” Storm echoed.

“Um…yeah.”

“When?”

“In a few weeks.” Rogue’s voice was becoming progressively quieter with each answer. Jubilee looked back and forth between Rogue and Storm, her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“Wait,” she said. “Does this mean I’m the first one you told?”

Rogue nodded silently, ignoring Jubilee’s whoop of triumph.

“A few weeks,” Storm said.

“Are you all right?” Rogue asked anxiously.

Storm blinked at her and began laughing.

Rogue leaned forward and gripped the older woman’s shoulder. “Storm? Storm?” she asked frantically, shaking her a bit. “Are you okay? Should I get Hank?”

Storm shook her head, but continued laughing, leaving Rogue and Jubilee with no choice but to sit back and wait.

Finally, Storm’s hilarity eased. She shook her head as a few last chuckles escaped her. Looking into Rogue’s worried face, she hurried to explain.

“I finally made sense of a conversation I had with Logan a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh?” Rogue asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Storm nodded. “It was most unusual, both in the nature of the conversation and the seriousness with which Logan took it. He was worried that he wasn’t any good with children,” Storm finished gently. She observed with interest the delicate blush that dusted Rogue’s cheeks and the slight upward tilt of her mouth.

Curious, Storm asked, “Are you already pregnant? Is that why you and Andy broke up? And why you’re rushing the wedding with Logan?”

Her face turning scarlet, Rogue burst out, “No!”

“Then what’s going on?” Storm asked. Jubilee nodded in support of the question.

Rogue sat silently, wondering how to answer the question. She and Logan had agreed to keep their arrangement secret, but they hadn’t gotten around to discussing what they were going to tell everyone. Her worry increased as she took into account how upset Logan already was. How would he react if she told Storm and Jubilee anything now?

“Spill, chica,” Jubilee said, a trace of stubborn threat in her voice.

Rogue swallowed hard, her mind racing while her heart frantically yearned for Logan to come and back her up.

Jubilee moved to block the doorway. Until then, Rogue hadn’t even realized she was inching toward it.

“Spill,” Jubilee said again.

Her escape route cut off, Rogue was out of options. Praying Logan would forgive her, she began to speak.

“We didn’t really plan to get married,” Rogue said slowly, trying to stay as close to the truth as possible. “It’s just kind of come to that point.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jubilee said. She shook her head emphatically, her ponytail slapping her cheeks. “Marriage doesn’t just come about on its own.”

Smiling wryly, Rogue said, “With us it did.”

“But that’s not normal!”

“And what part of my relationship with Logan has ever been normal, Jubilee?”

“I…you have a point,” Jubilee said, deflated.

“Rogue,” Storm said gently, “what I don’t understand is how it got to this point so suddenly. I know that you and Logan have never flaunted your relationship, and that has led to some confusion as to its exact nature, but still…this is incredibly unexpected. And I think, more than anything, Jubilee and I - and the others as well, once they learn about the wedding - just want to know that you’re making the right decision. That you aren’t rushing into anything.”

“Just because it’s unexpected doesn’t mean Logan and I haven’t thought it to death, Storm,” Rogue said earnestly.

“Hold on,” Jubilee butted in. “Just a few days ago you were calling me and saying you weren’t attracted to Logan. What the hell’s going on there?”

Rogue blushed fiercely. “As you saw for yourself when you got here, that isn’t a problem anymore.”

“Huh.” Jubilee exchanged a skeptical glance with Storm. They knew there was more Rogue wasn’t telling them. “And?”

“And what?”

Exasperated, Jubilee began arcing blue current across her fingertips. She waggled her fingers and the electricity followed suit, weaving intricate patterns in the air. Holding her hand out, she said, “Don’t make me zap you, Roguey.”

“I honestly don’t know what you want me to say!” Rogue protested. “Logan and I are getting married. We want to have kids, and we’ve thought everything through, I swear. I don’t understand why you need to know anything else.” She winced internally at her defensive tone.

“Do you love him?” Jubilee asked, her voice serious and her eyes steady on Rogue’s.

Rogue felt her jaw go slack in surprise. “Of course I love him,” she said matter of factly. “I’ve loved Logan for years, and I’ll love him for the rest of my life. He’s my best friend.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jubilee said impatiently. “We all know how dedicated you and the Wolverine are to each other. Almost to the exclusion of forming any lasting relationships with anybody else. But that’s not the same as being in love.”

Tapping her teeth for a moment with a fingernail, Rogue mulled over the idea. She had expressed the same concern to Logan just the night before.

“I don’t think that matters,” she said slowly, realizing in that moment how completely right Logan had been. Raising a hand to forestall Jubilee’s immediate objection, Rogue continued in a quiet voice. “I thought of that too, Jubes. And I talked to Logan about it.”

Rogue ignored Jubilee’s indignantly squawked, “You what?”

“And he agrees with me.” Rogue’s voice was louder now, firm. “It’s not important how we love each other, just that we do. And how do you measure love anyway? I know I want him to be happy. I know that when he hurts, I hurt. I miss him when he’s not here. He’s the first one I want to talk to when something’s wrong, and he’s the first one I want to share it with when something goes right. I can see myself with him twenty years from now. Fifty years from now. And I know that I would die for him to keep him safe. I would kill for him to keep him safe.” Feeling an odd sense of shame at the last admission, Rogue dropped her eyes. She knew without being told that Logan felt the same for her. That he would - and had - killed to keep her safe. She had never thought to ask him if he felt any guilt over that. She had only been concerned with her own feelings of humbled gratitude. Lacking any further words to explain her feelings, she finally mumbled to her lap, “Those are all ways of loving to me.”

The continued silence in the kitchen made Rogue curious enough to raise her head.

Jubilee stared at her with an odd mix of confusion and awe. Storm’s countenance was quietly introspective.

“So you love him,” Jubilee said at last. “But are you sure he feels the same way about you?”

“Of course,” Rogue said with honest surprise. “He wouldn’t have suggested getting married otherwise.”

“I…wait. Logan is the one who said, ‘Hey, let’s get married’?”

Amused that Jubilee had assumed the wedding had been her idea, Rogue said with a smile, “I believe his exact words were, ‘So we’ll get married.’”

“And that’s a good enough confession of love for you to agree to this crazy idea?” Jubilee hissed.

“Yes,” Rogue stated defiantly.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, chica?” Jubilee shouted. “This is the Wolverine we’re talking about. He has some sudden whim to get married and you’re all for it? This is gonna come crashing down around you and he won’t stick around long enough to find out if you’ll survive it.”

Angry now, Rogue stepped into Jubilee’s space, ignoring the threatening sparks dripping from her fingertips. She felt a vicious sense of satisfaction when Jubilee hastily damped the current.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Jubes,” she gritted from between clenched teeth. “The first thing you should get firmly in your mind is that Logan isn’t going anywhere. I would think that after ten years of taking care of the school and the students, you should realize he’s here to stay. So, that concern is taken care of. I’m telling you that this is something Logan and I want, and we’re both adults who are fully capable of making our own decisions and dealing with whatever consequences they may have.”

“Fine! Maybe he will stick around. Just don’t think that I’m gonna listen to you crying your heart out when it all goes to shit!”

Sudden, hot anger swept over Rogue in waves.

“You know what?” Rogue jabbed Jubilee in the shoulder with her finger. “You’re royally pissing me off!” she shouted in her face. “I love Logan and he loves me and if that’s not good enough for you, you can shove your sparky little fingers up your ass!”

Shocked by the outburst from a woman she had always thought of as meek and non-confrontational, Jubilee’s mouth worked soundlessly. Storm spoke at that moment, making it seem eerily as if Jubilee were speaking in the older woman’s voice.

“Logan,” Storm said.

“Logan?” Rogue echoed, looking over Jubilee’s shoulder to the kitchen door. He had a strange look on his face. “Uh…hi,” Rogue said, stepping back from Jubilee and offering him a weak wave.

He continued to stand there, his right forearm braced against the doorframe, supporting his weight in a stance that suggested he had been there for some time.

“Uh…” Rogue tried again, “are you angry?”

Logan shook his head silently and took a step into the kitchen. Rogue backed up instinctively. His lips quirking in a quick smile, Logan stepped around Jubilee, who remained rooted to her spot in continued shock, and approached Rogue where she stood leaning back against the granite topped island.

The muscles in Rogue’s torso twitched in surprise when Logan slid his warm hands onto either side of her waist. He tugged her gently forward until their hips bumped together. Dropping his forehead onto hers, he said in a rough voice, “I do love you, kid. Probably more than I can ever explain. I love you in all the ways you said, and more. And I can promise you that I’ll never give you a reason to regret marrying me.” On the last whispered word, Logan touched his mouth to hers in a tender kiss. There was no pressure, no sense of urgency in his lips, just a comforting warmth and softness that invited Rogue to lean into him in contentment. Logan broke the kiss by wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her up into a tight hug, resting his cheek against her hair. Rogue slid her hands up Logan’s back and clasped her fingers on his shoulders. They sighed together, and for just a moment it was as though they were alone in the room as all the potential problems and worries of the future disappeared.

“Will you ever regret marrying me?” Rogue asked quietly several hours later.

While Logan continued playing with the ends of Rogue’s hair, he gave the question serious thought.

“I don’t think so,” he said after a few moments. At Rogue’s questioning glance, he explained, “I mean, you’re the one person I’ve just assumed would always be part of my life. I never really gave much thought as to how our relationship might change, but I knew that you would always be my best friend and that I can trust you absolutely.”

Rogue laid her head against Logan’s shoulder and watched the way the early afternoon light shifted across the gleaming cherry wood tables in the library. They had attempted to retreat to Logan’s room, but the hallway in the teachers’ wing was unusually congested with students. They all had excuses of course, namely that they were looking for a quiet place to study and brandished notes and textbooks as proof. Logan had hrumphed quietly in disbelief and pivoted about on one heel, dragging Rogue with him by virtue of the arm he still had crooked around her shoulders and neck. Apparently Storm hadn’t yet done any damage control for that morning’s scene. And there were bound to be rumors about Rogue’s confrontation with Jubilee in the kitchen as well.

“And you know I don’t trust easily.” Logan’s soft murmur brought Rogue back to the present.

Considering his words, Rogue offered, “You don’t think you can trust everybody at the mansion? Storm and Hank? Kurt?”

Logan hesitated before answering. From her position against his side, Rogue could feel the tension that suddenly entered his frame. Shaking his head, Logan said, “Not the way I trust you.”

“Logan,” Rogue chided softly, lifting her head to look at him. Part of her was thrilled that only she was held in such high regard, but another part was worried that Logan still thought of himself as cut off from everybody else.

“It’s the same with you,” he defended.

Curious, Rogue asked, “How do you figure?”

“Who else knows your real name, kid?” Logan’s voice was soft, gentle.

“Oh.” Rogue tipped her head back onto his shoulder and laughed a little. “So, we can agree that we’ll trust them to watch our backs or come rescue us if we need help. But we don’t trust them with ourselves.”

“Uhh…” Logan mulled through her words for a moment. When he caught her full meaning, he nodded once. “Right.”

“Why don’t we trust them?”

It was Logan’s turn to laugh. “Because we’re both basket cases and figure they can’t possibly understand us?”

“There is that,” Rogue agreed, a smile in her voice. “Do you think it’ll be a problem? Turn into an us vs. them kind of thing?”

Logan shrugged and bobbled Rogue’s head. “Oh - sorry,” he said, steadying her head with a gentle hand. “It’s been that way for a while, hasn’t it? I know I don’t talk about it often, but you know I can’t help but hear what the students are always gossiping about.” He tapped an ear as a reminder of his enhanced senses. “It’s always ‘Logan and Rogue.’ They never mention one of us without talking about the other. Used to irritate me, you know.”

“Hm? Why?”

Logan made a rumbling noise of contemplation deep in his chest. Rogue smiled in contentment as she snuggled closer, liking that the sound was like a rough purr beneath her ear.

“At the beginning I didn’t have a clue in hell who I was. Didn’t seem fair that you’d be stealing what little of me I could claim.”

“Hm?” Rogue asked again.

“I mean, suddenly I wasn’t just me, you know? I was stuck together with you as one part of a pair without anybody even asking me. And it bothered me. Does that make sense?”

The hesitant note in his voice caught Rogue’s attention more than his words had.

“Yeah, it makes sense,” she said, tilting her head and studying his profile surreptitiously. He was frowning slightly. “It was different for me, though. I liked being paired with you. Made me feel less alone.” Seeing his frown ease, Rogue smiled and closed her eyes.

“Yeah,” Logan said softly. “Once I got over being irritated, it did the same for me.”

“Something Jubes said is still bothering me,” Rogue admitted after a moment.

Logan scoffed and growled a little.

“No, really, she did make a couple of good points. They were just made for the wrong reasons,” Rogue murmured.

“I’m not gonna leave you, kid,” Logan protested, anger stirring in his stomach.

Patting his chest absently, Rogue explained, “No, I was talking about what she said before that. About how we exclude other people.”

Logan caught Rogue’s hand beneath his and stilled it against his chest. He frowned again as he thought about Rogue’s words - Jubilee’s words really.

“Do you think she’s right?” Rogue continued. “When Bobby and I were together, he always hated how close you and I were. And after a while, the girls stopped asking me to hang out with them because they knew that I’d just end up going to find you at some point. Even Andy didn’t like it.”

“Huh?” Logan asked in surprise, releasing Rogue’s hand in response to her light tug. “I only met him the one time when I dropped you off at the theater.”

Feeling sudden heat on his shoulder, Logan glanced down and saw a blush spreading over Rogue’s face. Her eyes remained closed, so he felt free to keep studying her.

“Yeah, but I talked about you to him.”

“So?” Logan said.

“Umm…I apparently talked about you a lot.” Rogue fell silent for a moment before finishing in a rush, “And it got to the point that Andy said he didn’t want to hear about you any more.”

“Jerk,” Logan said mildly. “We live together - how could you tell him about your day if you can’t talk about the people you live with.”

Logan’s shoulder became a degree warmer.

“Hmm…I never told him we live together,” Rogue mumbled, turning her mouth into his shoulder to further obscure her words.

“Why the hell not?” Logan asked in surprise.

Rogue opened her eyes and met Logan’s gaze directly.

“I…well, it’s not the usual situation for teachers to live together with students at a school, and I didn’t want him to start asking questions about what kind of school Xavier’s is.”

Logan’s shoulders shook in a silent laugh. “So the poor idiot thought you were spending all your time away from him with me?”

“I guess so,” Rogue said with chagrin, dropping her eyes. “But anyway, about us excluding people. It won’t be like that when…when the baby comes, will it?”

The honest worry in Rogue’s voice gained Logan’s full attention. He lifted the shoulder upon which her head rested so she would look up at him. He kept his shoulder in the uncomfortable position to make sure they didn’t lose eye contact as he said, “When the baby comes, keeping him safe and happy will be my number one priority - even before you.”

Rogue smiled brilliantly and with a trace of relief. “I was thinking the same thing but didn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying so,” she said smugly.

Laughing, Logan shook his head in mock disappointment. Sobering suddenly, he caught Rogue’s chin with callused fingertips.

“Marie. I want you to know that I would protect any child. And if it came down to having to make a choice between helping you or a kid…” Logan trailed off.

“You’d help the kid, of course,” Rogue finished for him. “After all, I’m an adult and I can help myself to a certain extent, right?”

“Right. But…” Logan stopped speaking abruptly and let go of her chin. Rogue waited patiently, knowing he would continue when he was ready. Even so, she waited several minutes, concentrating on the sounds of Logan’s breathing and the ticking of the grandfather clock beside the door. “But,” Logan tried again, “if it ever comes down to a choice between our kid and one of the students, what am I supposed to do?”

Rogue’s breath caught in her throat. When she spoke, her voice was a pained croak. “I don’t know. I know all the rational arguments about helping whichever person has the best chance of…of survival, but…I don’t know.”

Logan violently expelled a deep breath and scrubbed his free hand angrily through his hair, leaving it in uneven spikes.

“This is stupid,” he growled. “I don’t even know why the hell I’m thinking about this stuff.”

Rogue shrugged slowly and reached over to smooth down his hair. “I don’t know either. It’s not like it’s something we need to worry about right away, right? And we might never have to worry about it. I mean, if the baby’s like you, he could survive almost anything and wouldn‘t need to be saved.”

Eyes widening at how callous she sounded, Rogue slapped a hand over her mouth in horror.

Logan laughed humorlessly and pulled her hand away from her face. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that, kid. As much as I hate what I am sometimes, part of me hopes our baby is the same way for the exact reason you said.”

“So you don’t think I’m awful for saying that?”

“No,” Logan said softly, “as long as you don’t think I’m awful for wishing, if the baby’s not like me, he’ll be like you so I can still heal him if he gets hurt.”

Rogue straightened away from Logan abruptly. Trying to think objectively about what he had just said, Rogue laughed bitterly at the conclusion she came to. “I can agree with that.”

They stared at each other for several minutes, each wondering how their relatively tranquil afternoon had taken such a dark turn.

“I need a beer,” Logan said abruptly, pushing to his feet.

“Me too,” Rogue seconded, grabbing his hand and following him toward the kitchen.

Neither of them noticed the child shaped shadow crouched beside the sofa they had just vacated.

On the fifth day of Jubilee’s visit, Logan and Rogue were ready to tear their hair out. While Jubilee had refrained from any overtly hostile comments about Logan or his relationship with Rogue, her clipped greetings and chilly manner made it clear that she was still harboring feelings of anger and suspicion. About what and why was still a mystery to Rogue.

“I just don’t get it,” she said to Logan as they were getting ready for bed.

“What? Jubilee’s bitchiness?” Logan asked calmly as he pulled his shirt off.

Rogue snorted. “Yeah.”

“She’s jealous of you,” he said with a shrug.

Rogue was momentarily speechless, both from Logan’s words and from the site of the muscles in his chest, shoulders, and arms bunching and releasing smoothly with the shrug.

“Marie?”

She started at the word and felt her cheeks burn with a blush when she realized Logan had caught her staring.

“Uhh,” she said, her voice sounding strangled, “yeah?” She forced her eyes away from Logan’s chest and looked at his face. She saw the amusement in his eyes and her blush deepened. “Um,” she tried again, “Jubes is jealous of what, exactly?”

“Of you. And the attention you get from men.”

“Huh?” Rogue asked blankly. Her attention was now thoroughly fixed on the conversation. “Jubes doesn’t exactly suffer from a lack of male attention herself, you know.”

Logan laughed as he pulled on a clean tee shirt to sleep in. He would change his jeans for a pair of sweats in a minute. With a brief thought to how much more comfortable he would be sleeping without a shirt, as he normally did, Logan tried to think of a way to explain to Rogue about Jubilee.

“I know she’s got plenty of men interested in her - she’s pretty, there’s no denying that - but they’re not necessarily the men she wants.”

“Well, if she doesn’t want them, why does she bother with them?” Rogue argued logically as she flipped back the blankets on the bed.

“Because she can’t have the ones she really wants.”

Rogue climbed into bed with a frown. She settled herself comfortable against the headboard, saying, “Then we’ll just help her get the one she wants and she can stop being so crabby.”

Logan shouted with laughter. He flopped onto the bed beside Rogue and looked up into her puzzled face.

“What if I told you she wants me?” he asked with a smile.

Rogue’s mouth dropped open.

“What, you think I’m lying?”

“I…no, but…she…you….” Rogue closed her mouth with a snap of teeth. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “And how, exactly, do you know she wants you, Logan?”

“Because she said so.”

“When?” It was an outraged shriek.

Logan grinned toothily. “About five minutes after she saw us practically having sex on the car.”

“That…that hussy!”

Logan didn’t bother trying to hide his laughter.

“And what the hell were you doing to invite such a confession, Logan?”

The censure in her voice cut him off mid-laugh.

“Huh? Nothing. I swear,” Logan said seriously, holding his right hand up in a pledging gesture.

“Uh-huh,” Rogue said doubtfully.

“No, really, kid. She was being all protective of you, wanting to make sure I wasn’t stringing you along, and we got to talking about how she had wanted Bobby when you were kids and - ”

“Wait,” Rogue cut him off, her eyes wide. “She wanted Bobby?

“Yeah.”

“But she never said anything!”

“When would have been a good time? When he was dating you? Or Kitty?”

“Well, no. But why is she angry about that now?”

Logan shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t have a clue how women think. But I figure since she thinks you beat her then, and she probably thinks I never gave her a chance because of you, she’s just all bent out of shape about everything now.”

“But that’s stupid.”

Logan shrugged again.

“You really think she’s being this nasty just because she’s jealous?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Logan returned dryly.

A thought flitted through Rogue’s mind, making her frown. “If I hadn’t made you promise not to…to be with another woman before we’re married, would you have…hmph?” Rogue asked, lifting her eyebrows.

“Would I have ‘hmphed’ Jubilee?” Logan asked, amused.

Rogue smacked him in the face with her pillow.

“Oof! No,” Logan said hastily as Rogue pulled back for another swing.

Pausing with the pillow hefted over her shoulder, Rogue tipped her head to the side. “Seriously?”

“Of course I wouldn’t sleep with Jubilee. Shit, kid, she was a student.”

“Hmm. Really? The only reason you wouldn’t sleep with Jubilee is because she used to be a student here?”

“Well, that’s not the only reason, but it’s the main one.”

“Logan dear.”

“Hmm?” he asked, cautiously pulling the pillow out of Rogue’s hand and propping it beneath his head.

“I was a student here.”

Suddenly sensing danger, but not sure why or how to avoid it, Logan responding intelligently, “Uh…yeah. But you’re you. That doesn’t count.”

“How do you figure?” Rogue asked with sugary sweetness.

Thinking fast, Logan barely kept from snapping his fingers as the answer came to him. “Because I knew you before you were a student, so you’re in a different category.”

“That’s sweet, Logan, really. But I was still just a teenager then. That wouldn’t have kept me off limits?”

Confused as to how the conversation had devolved into a defense of his attraction to Rogue and non-attraction to Jubilee, Logan said again, “Uh…”

A timid tap at the door saved him.

“Come in!” he invited with undisguised relief.

Ignoring Rogue’s arched eyebrow that told him she was mentally bookmarking their conversation, Logan watched the door creep slowly open.

“Mr. Logan?” a little voice asked as the head of a shadow peeked around the door. Logan sat up abruptly.

“Jacie? What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately worried. The girl had never come looking for him before. At least not in person.

Jacie followed her shadow into the room. “I need to talk to you, Mr. Logan.”

Frowning, Logan said, “Sure, kid. What’s up?”

Remaining mute, the little girl eyed Rogue intently.

“Oh.” Sudden understanding filled Rogue’s voice. “I’ll just step out for a moment, shall I?”

“Thank you, Miss Rogue,” Jacie said politely, dropping her eyes to the floor.

Rogue patted the girl’s shoulder as she stepped around her and out into the hall.

Logan waited until the door latched quietly behind Rogue. “What’s goin’ on, kiddo?” he asked softly. Jacie looked up at him slowly.

Tears hung for a moment on her lower lashes before spilling silently down her cheeks.

“Jacie?” Logan moved quickly and dropped to his knees in front of the girl. He grasped her thin shoulders gently. “Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”

Jacie’s chin wobbled slightly. “I…I heard what you and Miss Rogue were saying in the library the other day.”

“And?” Logan asked cautiously, uncertain which day the girl meant and thus clueless as to what she might have overheard.

“Oh!” Jacie said anxiously, “And I’m sorry, Mr. Logan, I know I’m not supposed to eavesdrop on people with my shadow.”

Logan chuckled at Jacie’s earnest expression. “I wasn’t prompting you for an apology, kiddo. Just finish tellin’ me about what you heard.”

“‘Kay.” Nodding earnestly, Jacie took a deep breath and blurted, “I heard about the baby and I just have to know, Mr. Logan -- you wouldn’t really let me die if we were both in trouble at the same time, would you?”