"Watch your money, boys. Wolverine here is quite the shark."

Pool cues and shot glasses slammed down amid a flurry of foul language. "That fuckin' bastard . . . " seemed to be the general consensus of the onlooking crowd.

None of the men grouped around the pool table in the back of the bar took much offense, though. Certainly not the man who was clearly in the middle of a game with the legendary Wolverine; in fact, he seemed nothing if not relieved to be given an easy out of a sure loss.

Jubilee stood her ground as he turned and looked at her. While other men might have cowered in the face of Logan's full-on scowl, it was really nothing Jubilee hadn't seen directed her direction a dozen times over.

When his glare failed to back her down, he took a healthy swig of amber liquid from the shot glass resting on the edge of the table. "What the fuck are you doing here?" It was kind of hard to make the words out for all the growl in his voice, but she got the general idea.

Scowling right back and shivering only slightly, she said, "You know damn good and well what the fuck it is I'm doing here!"

"Shit, kid," he muttered, gripping the pool cue in his fist like he wanted to ram it right through her chest. "Did she send you?"

"No, she did not send me!" Walking right up to him, she tried to ignore the fact that the closer she came, the shorter she felt. She did her best to quit with the chills racing up and down her spine. "In fact, I'm pretty sure her exact words were, `If he wants to run, I ain't about to stop that man. I have no use for chickenshits.'"

The men and women who'd been watching their exchange with keen interest seemed to gasp collectively at her words. Then they looked to the man they knew as Wolverine to watch how he reacted.

He seemed to be acutely aware of the public nature of their little display. "This ain't the place for this shit, Jubilee," he ground out, pulling his leather jacket off a nearby barstool and slipping it on.

Even though the top of her head reached only to the middle of his ribs, she didn't back off and that was simply a sight to see.

"Well, honey, it's been kind of hard to get a hold of you lately for one of our delightful little chats," Jubilee shot back, her tone fairly dripping with sarcasm. "You know, since you hauled your sorry ass all the way to Canada as soon as those three little words popped out of her mouth."

If interest in their conversation was high before, it skyrocketed the moment scorned love got all involved. Instead of the multitude of layered conversations and fights and laughing one would expect to hear in a crowded bar, all that could be heard was "is that his bitch" and an answered "no, she's here `cause he skipped out on her sister."

With baited breath and an unnatural hush blanketing the entire place, the bar's patrons looked to see what Wolverine did next.

He didn't disappoint.

Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her as if her weight meant nothing to him, and slung her over his shoulder.

Struggling violently against his grip, she kicked whatever part of his torso she could reach while her fists pounded on his back. "Let me go, you goddamn motherfucker!"

A sharp smack on the ass stilled her flailing arms and legs immediately. "Ow, man . . . " she whined softly, reaching back to rub her injured rump while the crowd roared with laughter "Why'd you have to do that?"

"Quit bitchin`," he answered, fishing some bills out of his pocket and leaving them on the felt of the table. "I ain't about to kiss it better."

People parted for him as he carried her out of the bar. Once outside, the bitter cold hit her, ass first, and she burrowed against his body. "Damn, she's right, you're like a fucking furnace. Is it 'cause of the metal -"

"Shut up!" he growled, well aware that a few people had trickled after them to continue watching the show. The last thing he needed was a mutant-hunt on his hands. "Don't you have any common sense?"

For once in her life she did as he told her, and he thanked whatever lucky stars he had that she was no longer fighting him. He continued to carry her limp body to his truck, which was parked in the distant corner of the lot under a streetlight. He jumped when he felt her fingers dig beneath the hem of his shirts and press against the heat of his bare back, and he noted that her hands felt frozen through.

"How long've you been this cold?"

"Few hours," she answered promptly, quietly, with no hint of sass at all to her voice. Hell, he thought, I woulda taken her over my knee years ago if I'da known how well it worked. "My ride only took me to the edge of town and there were two other bars to search through before I found you."

"Shit," he swore under his breath. When they reached his truck, he unlocked the passenger side first and sat her down on the bench seat. "Gimme your hands."

She stuck them out immediately and when he went to take them, he noticed her flinch back slightly. When he searched her face for a clue as to why, she kept her focus downward and held her hands out farther.

He took them between his own and rubbed briskly, warming her small hands. After bringing them to his mouth and blowing warm air over her fingers, he said, "She, uh, she must be really tore up if you're up in Canada freezing your scrawny Asian ass off trying to find me."

No smart-ass retort. No yelling. He was beginning to really worry about her. "Start the truck and put your hands under the heater. I've got some blankets in the camper," he said, and handed her his keys.

"Logan," she said, tugging at one of his hands when he went to shut the door. He stopped, irritated, until he looked up and saw her eyes. "Don't - don't spank me again, okay? At the last foster home I -"

"Fuck," he said, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, I -"

"No worries," she answered somewhat shakily. "Just don't do it again, alright?"

He set her hand in her lap and awkwardly patted it with a gentleness that surprised her. "I won't. I promise."

"Go get those blankets," she said, losing most of her uneasiness. "I've got a hell of a lot to yell at you about, and it's kinda hard to maintain a good rage when you're so cold you think you're nipples are gonna pop right off at any moment."

The door slammed shut at that and she laughed despite herself.

~

They didn't speak for awhile, at least not until her teeth stopped chattering. She'd taken the time to look around his camper, at the thermal underwear hanging on a makeshift clothesline, at the food wrappers on the floor. The sleeping bag that must serve as his bed.

"Man, I just don't get it."

Warily, he asked, "What's that?"

"How Rogue could have fallen so hard for you after seeing this," Jubilee told him, wrapping the blankets tighter around her body. "What a freaking mess."

Logan made a noise that sounded like a mangled cross between a laugh and a growl. "Actually, she took one look at it and said that suddenly, her life didn't seem all that bad."

Jubilee turned back around toward the front. "So where are you taking me? Cause we gotta have that big talk where I point out just how far up your ass you've got your head stuck. I’ve got all these tips on how to pull it free, as well."

"Hmph. I bet you do," Logan grunted. "I'm taking you to the nearest bus station."

"Then what?"

Logan glanced over at her, once and only briefly. "Then you're ass is on the next bus to New York."

"No. The only way I'm going back there is if you come with me."

Logan chewed on that for awhile. He should have figured she'd say something like that. "Does she know you're here?"

Jubilee shook her head. "I told her that I was spending Spring Break with some of my college friends. She'd kill me if she knew I chased after you, you know."

"Pretty angry?"

"Your tags were in the toilet bowl at one point," she confessed, watching him wince before continuing. "But she got a hanger and fished `em out a moment later. She cried while she boiled them."

Logan's brows knitted together in frustration. "I didn't leave because I don't . . . have feelings for her. I didn't want to hurt her. I just -"

"- had to run like hell because she got drunk and forgot how weird your relationship is and accidentally told you she loves you."

His fingers tightened visibly on the wheel. "You don't know what you're talkin' about, kid."

"Don't I?" Jubilee laughed rather bitterly, her anger welling in direct proportion to the dissipating cold.

"No," he stated firmly. "You don't."

She fumed for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Look, Logan. I came all this way to lay it out clearly for you, using small words and language you'll be able to easily understand."

"If I listen to whatcha got to say, will you get on the bus and leave me alone?"

Jubilee nodded. "Promise."

"Shoot."

She wasn't too thrilled at how blasé he seemed to be taking the whole situation, but she figured she'd take what she could get.

"It boils down to this, really: shit, or get off the god damned pot," she began. Before he could comment, she rushed to go on. "Because the two of you have this strange, quasi-relationship thing that has absolutely no definition to it. From what I can understand, you're stuck in this place where you're not just friends, but you're not quite lovers, either. And that's gotta be your idea, Logan, 'cause why else would she cry in the middle of the night? For months now?"

Her words hit him like a bat to the head. For the first time, he looked away from the road and met her eyes briefly. "She - she's been cryin'?"

"Quietly, so she thinks I won't hear," Jubilee confirmed rather ruthlessly. "And you know what? Maybe I don't have all the details on what's gong on with you guys. Maybe I don't have the first clue. All I know is that I wound up crying too when she told me that you'd gone. Because you broke her heart, Logan. And I knew I couldn't fix it."

He didn't speak as he pulled his truck off the road and parked it. She felt tears sting her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of her hands.

"I didn't know that."

"How could you? You haven't called, you haven't written." Jubilee swung her arm to indicate the whole of the camper. "You left her and for all she knows, you have all you need in life, right here in this rolling pig-sty."

Logan rested his forehead on this wheel. "Fuck. I heard her say she loved me and I didn't know until right then how much I wanted to hear it. I got shit she don't need in her life, I don't deserve -"

"Hey, Logan, hey," she said, reaching over and resting her hand on his shoulder. "Don't pour your heart out to me. I’m not the one who needs to hear this."

"No, you're not," he said, sitting back up. Taking a deep breath, he turned his key in the ignition and waited for the engine to turn over in the biting cold.

"Where're we going?"

He put the truck in gear and looked up and down the highway to see if he was clear both ways. Then he pulled a u-turn and hit the gas.

"Home."