Days fade into months and months fade into years without him noticing. It's harder to witness time when you have no birthday to mark its passage or reason to celebrate quaint holidays. Snow is everywhere covering everything and towns blur together in one colorless watercolor after another, slush to gray to black to bleak. The bars are all the same with the same idiot men and trashy blondes and he can't help but wish for something more.

He is losing himself. Losing what he had become in those few months he stayed at the mansion. It was easier to do this before he knew that there were people missing him or not missing him. Before he cared whether or not his return would be welcome, whether she would be happy to see him.

Damn, he misses that kid.

Maybe that is why he has found himself back here, back in civilization. Here he would grab a map and find his way back. They would be happy to see him. They might even need him if the rumors were true. It seems that tolerance only grows to hatred in the end and no one compromise is ever that sturdy.

It seems war is on the horizon.

Then a voice caught his attention as his eyes jerked to the television playing above the clerk in the convenience store. Figures in black hiding from the blasts behind anything they could find. All but one, one foolish young man, and there was screaming. A face flashed on the screen, in pain as her eyes burned red. Around her, bodies exploded and the whole world seemed to catch fire before the image blacked out. It was her. Marie.

"Fuck." With that, he ran.

---

The smell bites at her nose. It is smoke, blood, charred flesh. The smell is too familiar. It hints at memories not her own.

Something moves behind her and she remembers. Even though she has made a habit of not to thinking of the past, right now she can do nothing else. She feels it all ending and she doesn't want to let it go.

Seven years is a long time and even if she saw him now she couldn't even be sure he would recognize her. She is no longer what she was but she couldn't be because nothing is the same.

Not only had she become a woman in all the years he's been gone, but time had been one bitter bitch or maybe she should say Mystique had.

Her first mission as a true blue X-Man had been the worst. Everything went wrong, the informant was a plant and they were surrounded in an empty warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Everything so suddenly became chaotic that she disappeared into the crowd only to find herself alone and back then she was young enough not to see the problem in that. The training Scott drilled into them always showed the worst possible scenarios, but never those that actually happen - especially those that involve barely managing to kill an old enemy before dying as well.

Mystique was never one to leave quietly so she gave Marie gifts that would last a lifetime - the surprisingly lingering ability to mimic voices, a fake right eye, and a scar that trailed down her forehead to her chin. The glass eye Beast had made her was almost perfect. Other than the slight difference in the color, detectable only on close examination, it was flawless. Beast was an artist.

When she looked in the mirror in the morning she could almost forget it all a miracle in itself. Her appearance was no longer unmarred and innocent and that too had its benefits.

She still was beautiful those around her would not let her forget that. But she was harder now, no longer the sweet little girl Logan had grown so fond of. Then again, he was never coming home, so why should she care? She had long since grown out of fairy tales and the childish dream that her love for him would be enough to bring him back.

And then she had found Remy and even though she worried at first that he had a wandering eye, one that rivaled Logan's, she realized she was wrong. He didn't see anything other than her. It was just in his nature to be a flirt - to flash Jubilee a smile that would send chills up that girl's spine, but then he would look at her and all those doubts flew away. She knew this man loved her.

He settled comfortably into her life and theirs, becoming a valued friend and X-Man.

He was happy here. He didn't look to the horizon and make her wonder what on earth made her so damn easy to leave. He didn't see in her only innocence, youth, and weakness. To him she was everything. And with him she was.

She liked to watch him sleep because he was never quite as relaxed as when he fell asleep holding her. She loved to look up and find him watching her from a corner with that devious grin.

He liked to trail his hands down from the curve of her shoulder to the tip of her fingers. He loved to bury his face into her hair in the morning, to wake up to that smell on the days she used rose shampoo. For him, she wore short skirts and put her hair up in a loose bun, only because he loved to take it down himself. He didn't snore and he couldn't sleep without his arms around her.

He was perfect and she loved him and she knew it wouldn't last. She waited to wake up, for it all to end. She waited for reality to strike because there is no such thing as perfect.

And in the end, she hates that she is right.

She drops quickly to the floor with her hands out, daring them to come closer. One does.

Just one more inch boy, what are you, chicken? I am just a little lady.

As he moves closer she smiles and when she opens her eyes the whole world burns.

---

It took him weeks to find her and moments to get her out.

She was thinner then he remembers her being, but then she was so covered in dirt, blood, and bruises he had almost missed her in the crowd huddled on the floor.

With her safe in his arms he was finally able to truly breathe for the first time since he arrived at the mansion confirming his worst fear and the only possible reality.

She had been the one to burn down Main Street in a fit of fiery destruction that would have made her friend John so proud. It seems that time and ventures to control Marie's powers had led to a startling discovery; she could still use the powers she had absorbed from others. The more basic elemental powers were the easiest for her summon, with fire and ice coming out in emotional rages and the X-Men had learned the hard way not to piss her off in the beginning of her learning process. But soon she could summon the other powers with the help of Xavier. She was learning to summon healing powers to heal scrapes and cuts, and had way too much fun reading bed time stories to the children with her new mimicking skills.

But in battle her new powers were far more useful and it wasn't too long the world took notice.

"She hadn't been safe here for some time, Logan. With all the alarm around mutants recently she was the poster child of every terrifying nightmare they have of us. And maybe the perfect guinea pig for the government. Just think about it, Logan. If they can find a way to control her god help us all.

She wasn't safe here but we needed her. She was easily the strongest of us we knew that and so did she. She wanted to stay. She wanted to help us."

"So that makes it okay to sacrifice her for the sake of your goddamn cause, Chuck?"

"No, that's over now Logan. It isn't about a cause anymore. It seems that Erik was right about them all the time. Now it's about survival. Our survival, there are children here and more coming every day."

"She's just a child."

"No she's not, not anymore. None of them are anymore. Children don't die in battle."

"Fuck!"

"It was her decision to make."

"Why was she in New Orleans? Why was she so far away if she was so goddamn needed?"

For the first time since he arrived in the mansion Charles looked shocked. "It's Christmas, Logan. They were visiting his home."

---

He's dead.

She can feel it. If he were alive she would be able to feel him, she would be able to look up and see him here. He would be pacing over her as Hank checked out her bruises. He would be here instead of Logan.

Logan, who was never going to return to her.

Logan, who is staring at her now with some strange mixture of awe, anger, and utter sadness. Logan, who is trying so desperately to find a way to tell her something she already knows, her lover is dead, Remy is dead.

She would put him out of his misery if she could only find her voice. But when she opens her mouth nothing comes out but air and then she is crying. His face at the sound of her cries shatters her more and she can't breathe.

She closes her eyes.

And Remy is laughing pulling at her to dance to the music pouring out of the club around the corner. Pedestrians join in moving with them, in love with dancing in the streets to trumpets. An old man behind them cheers and Remy winks as he dips her down to the floor. Another twist and turn and she begins to wonder if this song in the background will end up being their song, the song that will play at their wedding and then at their anniversaries. He pulls her closer and his arms are so warm.

Her eyes open.

And Logan is holding her like she is made of glass moving around her so carefully. She is the unknown a desperate crying woman. He wipes the tears from her face and she jerks away from his hand and she doesn't regret it even when he looks hurt. She doesn't want to be comforted, not by him. She just wants to be dreaming.

She closes her eyes.

And she sees Remy's smile falter as he looks over her shoulder. The street is suddenly darker now, abandoned and she tightens her grip on his hand. Shadows dance around them surging and falling. It seems that they have found them here of all places. Here in her perfect memory. She is pushed down to the ground before the crack that has him falling down beside her. His breathe hitches and she can feel the blood seeming into the silk of her glove warming her hands. He tries to calm her but he can only cough.

His lips form into a word she knows by heart, love. She shushes him telling him she knows but his body is shaking and she wonders if he can even hear her. The shadows are closer now producing hands and guns. She throws the first one away from him and sets fire to the second. The assault stops only for a second as they pause a moment circling, readjusting, and studying. They wait for her to fail, to trip.

She won't.

So she sinks into a stance that Scott taught her with her arms out, daring them to try her, to tempt her.

When someone grabs her hand her eyes pop open, she almost screams but it dies in her throat.

Charles has her hand and he is whispering something.

"Focus, Rogue."

She understands when she sees them staring at her battered hands. She knows what they want her to do. And she does it because if she didn't they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't understand that she needs this physical proof to remind her that this is real. So she doesn't forget and start to hope again.

"Breathe in."

Colors flash before her eyes but she ignores them another second and the pain begins to fade from her hands and face. She knows it all worked when she sees Logan's curious glance and before she knows it they are alone.

He paces the room trying to find a reason to be there. He runs a hand through his hair scanning the room before he looks back at her with an idea. He sits himself at the edge of the bed with a bowl of water and a towel and begins to gently clean her face. The gesture is so comforting and familiar she wants to give into the urge to lean in and close her eyes. But she doesn't instead opting to watch his feet. After he is finished gives up the pretense of being helpful and just stares at her.

His hand traces the scar remaining on her face and then lifts her chin to look into her eye. "When did this happen?"

"A while ago..." and he grunts something pulling her into an embrace. "Seven years, seven years is a long time Logan." I gave up on you.

"I know. Sorry."

---

When she woke up in the morning their room was exactly the same. His sneakers were still thrown in the corner and his clothes were still in the hamper waiting to be washed. The room seemed to be waiting for him to return and it took her a long time not to think he wouldn't be the next person in the door. And it even took longer to accept that it was always Logan.

Mornings she would feel his breath on her neck and reach out to touch him only to realize that she had been dreaming. All of her dreams were about him. Most of the time they were of wonderfully simple things: the feel of his hand on hers or the look in his eyes after he kissed her. She almost never dreamt of that night but when she did she would never make it all the way through the dream because she woke herself but by crying. She slept little the first month because she was so afraid that she would never want to wake up.

There she still had him.

In the beginning she waited for the world to stop. She waited for everyone to realize what she had, everything had changed.

But time never stopped and in the end it moved quicker than she ever thought it could. Soon she fell back into the old routines that she had made with Logan in the short time he had been here picking up newer ones along the way but with one change.

Logan never left. He was always there watching, waiting, helping.

Every Sunday for the month after Remy died she would pack up one more box of his things. Then all that was left were their pictures and his favorite leather jacket. Logan wait right outside her door as their song played and she danced in Remy's jacket, thinking and remembering buried in his scent.

Logan had never been more careful with her, and it was the only time she ever accepted it from him.

Every Friday for a year he asked her to let him take her away, to go into hiding with him. He would promise that he could make her safe from them knowing all the while that there is nowhere to run anymore.

But he would try to make her safe. He was so sure.

Every time Marie would just smile and squeeze his hand before leaving him alone. And soon he stopped asking.

He and Scott became friends, drinking buddies and after the initial surprise nothing seemed to make more sense. She never commented on it because it is just the way it was.

Logan stayed and stilled becoming for the first time a part of the team. He was so much different than the man she remembered but still so Logan.

So she was a little more surprised than she should have been to find Logan's claws at Scott's throat when the time came for him to ask her back on the team, three months later. "No fucking way. She'll get killed out there or worse. They haven't given up looking for her!" He didn't move an inch even when she put a hand on his arm. She tried to give Scott a sympathetic look but he seemed to be fighting both flinching and rolling his eyes.

So instead she turned to the other man. "Logan."

"Marie." She saw when she looked him in the eyes that he knew he was beginning ridiculous. But he wasn't willing to give up quite yet. "It's too soon."

"Logan."

"You're out of training and I…"

"No." His jaw tensed but if anything that man knows when to take a hit.

"You better not leave my side ever." Nodding, she kissed him on the cheek. "Ever."

"Okay."

And it was. It took time for her not to feel guilty about that, to feel like she wasn't betraying Remy's memory by falling for him so quickly, but she knows he would understand.

When she was younger she dreamed of the day when she would look up and have him.

Just like that.

Because that is how simple she thought it would be. For the longest time she thought that it was that it would be just a matter of Logan noticing his love for her and then poof instant happiness.

Sometimes it would happen because she wore too short of skirt or maybe because he couldn't stand the smell of someone else on her skin. Jealousy, she thought, was always a good catalyst for a healthy relationship. Sense would take over and he could deny his love anymore.

In her more bitter moments back then she imagined herself eighty years old having to put in her dentures to reply. Whether he was old or young then depended on how pissed she was at him.

But she never could have imagined this. She never imagined that it could be so simple.

Turning around three years after he had returned to her and seeing that smile. That smile of his that was always the end of her.

Waking up now she doesn't open her eyes silently fearful that this was all a dream or that when she would reach out for him he wouldn't be there.

But the mattress creeks beside her and soon there are hands all over her rolling her over to see his grin.

"Hey there," he murmurs before burying his head into the crook of her neck.

"Hi," she whispers back and then she smiles.

The End