11:52. God. Thought I'd never find the fucking room.

I've been away for the better part of five months, and while I was gone, Marie moved from one wing of the school to the other along with her two friends.

They're living in the wing for those in training to join the X-Men. There's a nameplate on the wall outside their room: Shadowcat/Rogue/Jubilee, and beneath that, Training Level Omega Three (Squad A-7). Very official looking. Except for the happy face sticker next to Jubilee's name.

The door's unlocked and I make sure to shut it quietly behind me. The room's dark, but there's a soft glow given off by a butterfly nightlight, so my eyes adjust quicker than they normally would.

The room is bigger than their last one, but they've arranged it pretty much the same. Two beds jut out from the far wall, side-by-side desks separating them, a third bed in the corner on the opposite side of the room.

Tie-dyed comforter and bright yellow sheets tell me the first bed's Jubilee's, and from somewhere beneath the covers, she snorts in her sleep and then goes back to snoring. Even the numbers on her digital clock are an annoyingly bright shade of yellow.

I can see Kitty in the next bed, legs tangled in her blankets, and shit, I can't quite make it out but I'm pretty sure that's a stuffed animal she's clutching.

That leaves Marie in the corner, the butterfly nightlight plugged into the outlet beside her bed.

Villains of the world, beware.

Marie's stretched out on her back, the covers pulled up to her chin and still smooth. She used to snore when she was younger, but now she sleeps too deeply, like the dead, hardly moving from the looks of it. Her training's been kickin' her ass -- in her last letter, she said gets up before six a.m. now, and starts her day by jogging five miles with the rest of her squad.

Even the little sad face she drew looked tired.

The mattress sinks beneath me, springs squeaking, when I sit beside her hip. She's sleeping too deeply to notice she's beginning to slowly slide my way.

Any other day and I'd leave her be, let her get the rest she needs. But I didn't drive several hundred miles with an eye on the clock just to watch her sleep. A deal's a deal. I promised.

Besides, she's cute as hell when she first wakes up. And I've missed her.

"Marie."

She stirs, twisting slightly, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. A slow, quiet 'mmmm' in the back of her throat, and fuck, I'd pay anything to see what she's seein' in her dream.

11:54. Maybe another day I'll find out.

"Marie." Louder this time, and I reach out to brush the tangle of hair away, fingers lingering. My gloves are leather, fine and soft, so thin I can feel the smoothness of her skin.

She leans into the touch, sighing, her face sleep-warm against my palm.

God.

11:56.

"MARIE."

Her lashes flutter and I let my hand drop to the mattress beside her head. She blinks, slowly, eyes bleary, disappointment flickering over her face. Musta been some dream.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Christmas?" She's still more asleep than awake, disoriented. "Get the hell up."

I shake her by the shoulder, which seems to get her attention.

"Logan?"

She's still sliding toward me. There's more blinking when her hip bumps into mine.

"Who'd you think it was? Santa?" Chuckling at the look on her face, I slip my hand from her shoulder down her arm, looking for her hand beneath the covers. "Get up, before Scooter figures out where I went."

Right around her elbow, I feel it. The edge of her glove.

Fuck.

"For God's sake, Marie --"

Still confused, she tries to sit at an angle, struggles, tries again and gets it right. She blinks a few times when her breasts press against the arm I've got braced across her body, and her eyes focus real quick all of a sudden.

She ain't exactly moving away. I'm not exactly complaining.

"Logan!" Yeah, hi. "When'd you get home?"

"A few minutes ago. Are you coming or not?"

A second or so passes. "Coming?" she repeats dazedly, staring up at me, soft lips parting. Her warm, sleepy scent is shifting slowly toward true arousal, and it's absolute hell, ignoring it.

"Out. Coming, out, somewhere not here. You turn twenty-one in two minutes. Let's go." I move my arm away so I can brush the hair out of her face again, and it's hard not to grin at the little disappointed noise she makes at the loss of contact.

"I need to carry ya or what?"

That gets her moving. Uncoordinated and jerky, but moving nonetheless. God help the woman if I were an intruder.

"Tonight?"

Big frustrated sigh.

"Yeah. So's I was thinkin' -- I don't usually raid your room this late."

Well, she's certainly awake enough to roll her eyes at me. I doubt she's ever too tired for that.

"Can you wait outside or something?"

Modest and sincerely shy. It's cute, and I laugh.

"You got twenty minutes." And the door's barely closed behind me when I hear her feet hit the floor.

Even though I'm leaning against the wall across the hall, I can hear everything happening on the other side of the door. I wonder if she remembers how sensitive my hearing is -- even if I can't see her, I can track her progress through her room just by listening.

Right now she's tearing through her closet, shoving hangers across the bar with a sharp scraping noise. It's loud enough to get her roommates stirring in their sleep, heart rates beginning to beat to a faster rhythm as they wake.

Marie -- heart pounding, easy to differentiate from the other two -- kicks something out of her way, probably shoes if the two thuds are anything to go by. Footsteps hurry toward the bathroom.

"Rogue?"

Jubilee. A sleepy, thoroughly-irritated sounding Jubilee. Maybe I'll get to see some fireworks while I wait.

Marie rushes back to the bathroom's doorway. "Jubes. Go back to sleep." Not exactly the most soothing voice I've ever heard.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm outta here, babe." She's back in the bathroom again, probably in front of the mirror. And she honestly sounds like she can hardly contain her excitement.

Good. In many ways, neither can I.

Jubilee is up and in the bathroom with her now. "Twenty-one," she says, voice soft and amazed. "He came home, didn't he?"

Marie doesn't answer, the beat of her heart growing stronger in the quiet.

The sound of hair being brushed is distinctive, easy to miss if I weren't straining to listen. Marie yelps in pain, and damn, Jubilee has to be jerking the thing through her hair for her to make a peep. Marie's not especially tender headed, and I've seen her get tossed into walls during training and pop back up for more without complaint.

"Kitty!"

Jubilee, calling for back-up. How many people does it take to get just one woman ready in under twenty minutes?

Kitty stumbles out of bed and rushes to join the other two in the bathroom, nearly tripping over her own feet twice.

"Rogue," Jubilee barks, clearly in command. "Whatcha wearin'?"

"On the bed," Marie answers immediately, a little too loudly, as if she were responding to a drill sergeant or somethin'. Jubilee is eight inches shorter than Marie, and the image forming in my head is ridiculous.

Kitty retreats to the other side of the suite, to check the clothes Marie picked out, I'm guessing. In the bathroom, drawers and jars and cabinets are being opened and shut, one after the other, and neither speaks for a few minutes.

"He's going to figure out something is up." A whisper from Marie, sounding dazed and more than a little nervous.

"Let 'im." Jubilee starts talking about something that stays on no matter what, telling Marie to take it with her anyway, and then she scoots them out of the bathroom and toward Marie's bed. They talk about clothes and I quit trying to follow along.

Because I'm still back on 'he's going to figure out something is up'.

Possibilities run through my head, running the gamut between 'I met this guy while you were gone, I think you'll really like him' and 'I'm all done working through my shit -- c'mere.'

Fuck. Nearly ten minutes to go.

Jubilee's ordering her to go change again when I tune back into the conversation. God. No more changing -- let's get this show on the road already.

"What's wrong?" She sounds confused by Jubilee's snapped command.

"Are we goin' schoolgirl crush or tryin' to seduce someone in a bar?" Spoken slowly and carefully, and she ain't joking around, either -- Jubilee wants an answer.

So do I.

"Jubes," she blurts out, "all my underwear is like this."

Mental images I don't need, one right after the other. Marie in nothing but her underwear, Marie in nothing at all. Damn it.

This is what I get for listening in.

"Technically, it is her birthday," Kitty says, considering. There's some movement I can't identify, and then Marie's heading for the bathroom again, door closing with a click.

"I wonder if her legs are shaved," Kitty whispers immediately. "Did you check? Does she have time?"

"Remember that burnt-sugar smell the other day?" Jubilee asks. "She waxed them. Screamed like a crazy bitch, too, each and every strip."

"I can't believe she was about to go out with Logan -- Logan! -- wearing those god-awful granny-panties." A snort, and I can all but see Kitty shaking her blonde head. "I mean, geez, they could've covered Canada."

"I know! Thank God we found a bra in her cup size to match the thong, which is gonna freak her out enough as it is. But the gloves --"

"You're kidding!" A horrified shriek from the bathroom.

"Hurry," Jubilee calls back. "You got less than four minutes, hon. Make it quick."

The next time I leave on a trip, I'm going to bring back anything Jubilee asks for. Anything at all.

She doesn't get an immediate response. "He's gonna be gettin' impatient," she adds, stifling a giggle.

Which isn't exactly true. I've been waitin' on this girl forever, it feels like. And I passed 'impatient' quite awhile ago.

The bathroom door opens. "Perfect," Kitty says.

More movement I can't identify.

"No fucking way." Marie sounds absolutely scandalized. Knowing Kitty and Jubilee, I have a pretty good idea what they just handed her. And I'd love to see the look on her face right now.

"In case he forgets."

Yep.

"What the hell --"

"We believe in being prepared," Kitty says, talking right over her.

The door opens, finally, and Marie stumbles into the hallway, pushed out of the room by a friendly shove. She stops in front of me, staring down at the ground before looking up at me and -- oh, sweet Jesus.

Black boots with a three-inch heel. Long, lean legs in black hose, black skirt ending mid-thigh. A form-fitting top in a red so deep it's nearly burgundy, the neckline a 'v' low enough to show some serious cleavage. She's wearing just enough make-up to make her big brown eyes look even bigger, a little lip gloss to draw attention to her mouth, and her hair's a tousled mess of dark brown and shocking white over her shoulders.

She's gorgeous.

There's an inch or so of pale white skin showing between her shirt and her skirt. Short sleeves reveal bare arms, black leather gloves ending at the wrist. She's tied a long, sheer black scarf loosely around her neck.

For once the gloves and the scarf don't irritate me. She's not using them to hide, from the world, from herself. From me.

Jubilee smiles innocently, standing in the doorway. "Bring her home before next week, 'kay?"

She tosses a jacket that lands at Marie's feet, and she leans down to retrieve it, glaring fiercely at her friends over her shoulder.

"Sorry," she whispers, standing, horribly embarrassed.

"I've had the pleasure of Jubilee's company," I tell her, and her eyes narrow suspiciously for a moment.

She doesn't ask, though. She only pulls on her jacket, and thank God, because I don't know what I'd say if she did ask.

Several years ago, a few months or so after her eighteenth birthday, I was sitting in the kitchen by myself one morning, drinking a cup of coffee. Reading the paper. Enjoying the relative quiet. Then Jubilee bounced in with a couple of photo albums and dropped them on the table across from me. She said she'd be back in a minute.

When I got up to leave, I'd noticed a few photos had slipped out, and I picked one up. It was of Marie, head thrown back in laughter, happier than I'd ever seen her.

Curious, I opened the album and started flipping through picture after picture of parties and field trips and everyday life at the school. Since Marie's been one of Jubilee's roommates ever since she came here, both Marie and Kitty were featured more than any of the other kids in school.

When Jubilee came back with another armload, I was slipping a photo out of its sleeve and adding it to a growing pile beside me on the table. All candid shots of Marie -- laughing, eating, chatting with Kitty, playing foosball with Bobby and John. The posed ones I left alone.

"That's stealing," Jubilee informed me, picking up the last picture off the pile. Marie curled up in an armchair with a book in her bare hands, oblivious to everything around her.

I took it back from her. After a moment spent watching me, she started pulling photos from one of the other albums. And then, when I still didn't say anything -- and what could I say, really? -- she started telling me stories that went with the pictures.

When I left, I asked her not to say anything. She looked offended that I'd even think to ask, but went ahead and said she'd keep quiet. "I think it's really rom --" she started to say, but I cut her off with a quick glare.

>From then on, she'd either send me an envelope of photos or slip them to me whenever I came back. In exchange I'd bring her little gifts from Canada, Italy, Peru, from anywhere I went.

Despite her promise, she said she had to tell someone or 'just die', and so Kitty found out and wanted in on the deal, too. Neither one ever asked about my reasons. They probably knew I wouldn't tell them.

I keep the pictures in a locked leather box at the back of my closet. Marie has probably seen it, but so far she hasn't been curious enough to break into it.

"Where's Scott?"

I've got a good grip on her hand, since she was a little unsteady on the heels at first and going far too slowly. She's beginning to get the hang of it now.

"Jeannie's distractin' him."

And how. Last I saw, she was backing him up against the foosball table, giving me a mental push toward the right direction, a room number repeating in my head.

She slows almost to the point of stopping beside me. "Jean knows?" She ain't too happy about that.

"Had to find your room somehow," I shrug. "I know you don't live in the dorms anymore."

Marie nods and we continue walking, down several hallways and through the kitchen door so we don't run into anybody.

I've got the bike parked several yards away, a helmet resting on the seat for Marie. It's black with 'Rogue' stenciled in white on the side, years old, and she puts it on without her usual fuss about helmet-hair. She climbs onto the bike behind me, skirt hiking indecently, and wraps herself around my back.

The entire drive into town, she clings closely to me. Arms tight around my waist, soft breasts against my back, thighs hugging the outside of my own thighs. And I have to force myself to stop imagining those two scraps of brand-new lingerie she's got on underneath everything else.

~*~

Once we're inside the bar, she looks around, shaking her hair out. "This isn't your kind of place," she comments.

She only says that because there's no straw on the floor, no cage in the center. I may have met her in a bar like that, but I'm not about to take her to one. Well, not tonight, anyway.

This is just a regular, easy-going bar. Not too small, not too large, decent lighting. I'm the roughest-looking man in here, so it shouldn't be too scary for her, even if the place is a bit crowded.

She grips the back of my jacket, though, and follows close behind me as I work my way toward the bar. Here's hoping she loosens up a little, or else she won't have much fun at all.

"What'll you have?" I ask when we get there, and she lets go of my jacket.

She blinks, surprised. In the year and a half since we made the deal, she hasn't given a single thought to what she wants her first legal drink to be? "Pick something," she tells me, smiling sunnily to cover.

"Hmph." Turning her away from the bar, I give her a push. "Get a table."

I get the attention of the bartender and he nods that he'll be with me in minute. In the meantime, I watch Marie weave carefully through the crowd until she spots a free table. Or a booth, from the looks of it.

She begins heading toward it, only seeming to realize too late that she has to cross the dance floor to get there.

She slows for a moment. But she doesn't stop. A year ago she'd have come back and waited for me.

You're doing it, baby. All on your own.

"Sir?"

I look away, turning toward the bartender. "Bottle of bourbon. Two shot glasses."

He doesn't balk, thankfully. I pay and take the bottle, tucking the glasses in my pocket, and I head after Marie.

Just in time to see some drunk young fucker get up in her face.

"Pretty girl," he's slurring at her, getting closer. "You wanna dance?"

She backs warily away from him. "No." The little shit doesn't listen, dancing right up to her. He gets a hand on her back, dangerously near the inch of skin she's finally dared to expose, and I'm still too far away.

He says something else to her, and she all but snarls in his face. "Get the fuck away from me!" she hisses, and I'm there, grabbing the boy up by the back of his neck and pulling him off her before his hand can slip any lower. I give him a hard shove away from us, but he's too drunk and stupid to stay put. He tries rushing me and I growl, popping three claws in front of his face. Suddenly, he can't get away from us fast enough.

I swear to God, if that ignorant asshole's scared her back into covering herself up from head to toe, well, he hasn't seen the last of me.

I retract the metal immediately, getting a hand on the small of her back long enough for her to feel the leather against her skin and know I've got her. I have to loosen my grip on the bottle before I break it, and I'm ready to sit down now, thanks.

"What'd you do?" she asks, sounding shaken.

"Looked mean."

She glances back at me while I'm rubbing the ache from my knuckles. That and the slice in the leather across the back of my hand gives me away, and she frowns, concerned.

"Oh," she comments. "That's not very inconspicuous, you know."

I'm not too worried about it. "He's so drunk he's probably already forgotten about it."

We reach the booth and she gives a last glance at the dance floor before she slips into the seat. I slide in across from her, setting the bottle on the table between us along with the glasses.

She eyes the liquor, looking momentarily startled.

Just in case she's changed her mind: "You sure you wanna do this?"

Irritated, she works up some good, haughty scorn at the question, tossing her hair. She arches her back, stripping off her fitted jacket, and her breasts strain against the clingy material of her top in a way that gets my attention real fast. Along with every other male in the place.

"No, I'm just here for the atmosphere," she tosses off, eyes rolling. "I have been to a few parties, Logan."

Might be true, might not, but I'm willing to bet she's never been drunk in her life. Her cheeks are flushed, but so far she's not backing down.

She's got a plan here, that's obvious as all hell, but I'm not sure she has an actual goal in mind. And that's okay. Having a plan at all means she's beginning to think about what she wants, and how to get it. It's more than I expected tonight.

The hard part's going to be deciding how much encouragement she wants or needs, and how much she actually wants her plan to work.

"I'm just checking. You done this before?"

Her mouth wants to say yes, of course she's done this before. Her eyes say no, no I have not, and I laugh even if it does annoy her.

"Easy," I lie. It's not going to be easy, not the first time, not the third or fourth time. She don't need to know that. "You've seen it done. All at once. Got it?"

I pour both shots and slide hers over. She hesitates, staring into the glass for a moment, and then she picks it up with a leather-coated hand. The sight of those gloves sickens me, suddenly, thoroughly, and I get my hand around hers, stopping her.

"Gloves off."

She bites off a curse. "How'd I know you'd say that?"

In the past year, I've made her take them off every single time we've gone out. She hardly argues about it anymore, and tonight she tugs them off and tosses them on the table without trying to fight me.

"What if --"

"Marie, darlin'," I cut her off, "there ain't no one comin' over here for any reason." I hold up my gloved hands for her to see. "I'm wearin' mine, so no worries. Ready?"

I let her hand to pick up my shot glass, and I wait for her to do the same.

Her fingers, bare, smooth, and so pale, are wrapped so tight around the glass her knuckles whiten with the pressure. "You think I won't do it," she says, waiting for me to agree so she can prove me wrong.

"I think you'll do anything you please," I answer. Before she can mouth off and dig herself in deeper, I lift the glass higher. "On count, one, two, three."

Her face screws up tight at the terrible taste, eyes scrunching tight as it burns going down. I laugh, harder than I have in a good long while, and it's a full minute before her throat muscles relax and her face begins to smooth.

"What?" she demands, and somehow the hoarse croak of her voice manages to sound indignant.

"Nothin'." I pour two more shots, sliding one over. "I'll give you to three."

She takes the glass, her grip a bit looser this time.

"Why three?"

Because I don't want to stop on the side of the road for you to puke in the bushes. "You don't have my tolerance."

Another eyeroll. "Logan, you don't have tolerance, you have a healing factor. There's a difference." A beat later, she adds, "And I can get past three."

Even she doesn't believe that.

She knocks the second shot back, taking it easier this time. I watch her closely, and she gets the strangest look on her face, almost as if someone just slapped her. Her eyes are pained, jealous, and slightly unfocused.

"I don't need to remember that," she whispers, and I reach across the table for her hand, closing my fingers around her wrist.

Her eyes meet mine and I wonder whose memories are stirrin' inside her head.

"Remember what?"

She looks away, focusing with effort on the glass in her hand. Refuses to answer. Biting her lower lip, she slams the glass down on the table hard enough for the noise to startle her.

I open my mouth to ask if she wants to slow it down, but she leans across the table, grabbing my jacket. She reaches inside and goes straight for the inner pocket, pulling out a cigar.

I try not to grin but I don't think I'm too successful.

"Figured you were the one snatching them." Though really, who else would it be? I've known for years. She looks at me, brown eyes guarded, toying with the cigar.

"Just because I have one now?"

This is going to be fun. "Nope," I answer, nearly smiling. "You leave your scent on the drawer."

She blinks and tries to wrap her mind around that little piece of information, trying to work out what else I might know. "You couldn't," she sputters, shaking her head. "Sometimes it's months --"

She cuts herself off before she says anything else that might give her away.

"And since no on one goes in there 'cept me -- and apparently you, darlin' -- it stays for awhile."

Her face colors immediately. She looks like a damned deer caught in the headlights, she's so stunned. Does she truly believe I can't tell when she's been in my room and touched my things, that I can't tell when she's slept in my bed?

I pour her another shot and pass it to her, brushing my fingers over hers. She brings the glass to her lips immediately, visibly braces herself, and then she downs it in a single gulp.

I watch as she sets the glass back down with a heavy thud, wincing as the bourbon burns through her. "How're you going to explain to Scoo -- Scott, I mean -- getting me drunk?"

I don't need to explain anything to Scott. Marie's getting herself drunk, she's responsible for her own choices, and she doesn't need to feel like she has to blame me if someone dares question her for having fun. She's twenty-one years old; legally old enough to drink what she wants to, smoke if she likes it, go anywhere she wishes to go. Old enough to live her life any way she chooses.

I'd tell her so, but she's too drunk to listen. I just shrug instead. "Not gonna," I tell her, and nod toward the cigar between her fingers. I pat my jacket and pull out a lighter, flicking it on. "You want me to light it, Marie?"

She looks at it for a moment like she forgot it was there. Then she lifts it to her mouth and easily bites the tip off, spitting it back out like she's done it hundreds of times before. It's a wonder she's never realized that I keep the drawer stocked with far more cigars than I really need.

"Yeah. Go for it, sugar."

Sugar. That's new. Her soft Southern drawl is deepening with each shot, her voice throaty from the alcohol. Sugar. I wish she'd say it again.

Her soft, glossy lips wrap around the end of the cigar and I catch myself staring. She's too trashed to notice it takes me a second try to get the tip lit. She takes a deep drag, sucking strongly on the end, clearly enjoying the taste. A slow exhale, dark eyes on mine as smoke clouds around her. It's been a long time since I've gotten so hard so quick.

She takes a second drag and I pour myself a shot, knocking it back and pouring another.

"You graduate yet?"

Marie stares at me for a long moment, looking surprised. What? I can make small talk.

"Yeah," she finally answers, looking around the bar. I was beginning to think she forgot the question. "I want to dance."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she tries to stand and fails. She's tilted over the table, about to fall over sideways, and I get a hand around her elbow and push her back down toward the seat

"Not at that angle." And I get the cigar out of her hand before she sets something on fire, setting it down in the ashtray. "Sit."

She does so, pouting.

"Give it awhile," I tell her. "That's three in less than ten minutes. You won't be able to stand upright."

Somewhere around 'awhile' she stopped listening. "Will you dance with me?" she asks, smiling brightly all of a sudden.

I don't dance. She knows that.

"You're kidding."

Marie leans toward me, elbows on the table, and her breasts nearly spill out of her top. "Nope," she argues, grinding a finger into the table to make her point. "My birthday. You promised."

She's too far forward, her balance too shaky, and I get a good grip on her elbow to steady her until her ass lands on the bench seat behind her.

"I want another shot."

"No way in hell," I answer, smiling. I move the bottle out of her reach before she even thinks to make a grab for it. "You've had enough for now."

"I can outdrink you," she lets me know, in just about the loudest voice possible. She knows she can't outdrink me -- no one can -- and the last shot she took stirred up someone else's memories.

Reconsidering, I pour two more drinks. If she's looking to me to set boundaries for her, like Xavier does, like Scott and Jeannie do, she's in for a surprise. She wants another shot? Okay.

She's going to spend the night puking it up and wishing she could just die already, and I'm probably going to be the one holding her hair back. Her head's going to feel like it exploded and got put back together wrong.

I want her to make her own decisions, learn from her own mistakes. And this one's going to bite her in the ass. Maybe next time she won't say things like 'I can outdrink you' to someone who's never had a hangover like the one she's gonna have tomorrow.

I hand her the glass and she takes it, bringing it immediately to her mouth. "Now," she whispers, and throws it back. There's a wince and when she opens her eyes, she's lost in another memory.

"Did you even know her name?"

So it is my memories bubbling up inside her. Shoulda figured, with the bourbon and all. And it would have to be *those* memories. She goes for some more and I reach across the table, pinning her hand to the bottle so she can't lift it. Her wrist is delicate, the bones fragile-feeling beneath my fingers, and I brush my thumb over her fluttery pulse.

"Nope," I answer. I have no idea who she's actually talking about, but chances are, no, I didn't get her name. "Slow down."

"What're you afraid of? Maybe forgetting I'm your little sister?"

That was bitter and she's already regretting it. I wonder when she started telling herself that I look at her as a family member. Or if anyone else planted that idea in her head.

It's amazing, how blind she can be.

"I don't have any sisters." I let her hand go and pull the bottle from her grasp. I don't trust her to pour at this point. "It's your headache."

"Take the shot," I tell her, handing her the glass. "On two."

I take it with her, watching as she knocks hers back, half-rising. Her coordination's shot and she grabs for the table to keep herself from falling right over. I can't help laughing at the look on her face, like her own body's betraying her and it's pissin' her off.

I pour her another.

"Sit."

She remains upright for a second or two, just long enough to let me know that she'll sit when she's good and ready.

Once her ass is firmly planted in the seat, I slide the shot across the table to her.

"Do it."

She stares at me, more than a little suspicious.

"You told me to stop."

So I did. "You've never listened to me before now," I point out, smiling.

Her eyes sparkle at that. "You never gave me an order worth following, neither."

"Then follow that one."

She picks up, glancing at the bourbon for a second, and then she throws it back. Slams the glass down on the table with more than just a little defiance. This time she stays with me, no memory immediately clouding her eyes.

Pushing the glasses aside, she gets her elbows up on the table again and leans toward me, giving me a hell of a view down her shirt. "Where were you?"

Where the hell did she pull that question from? "Recently?" I ask. What made her wonder? "Cincinnati."

"Why?"

She doesn't need to know I was tracking yet another lead that went nowhere. Another complete waste of my time. I won't lie to her, but I don't want to get into it, either. Not here, not tonight. So I don't bother answering.

Instead I ask, "You like it?"

Her head tilts to the side as she slowly, carefully thinks about what I could possibly be referring to.

"Bourbon," I clarify, shaking my head a little.

"Oh," she answers. "Yeah."

And then her mind's somewhere else for a minute. Her eyes harden a little, and she looks down at her bare hands, at her short, even nails.

"You don't even have scars."

There are a number of women she could be thinking of right now. Women with big hair, fake tits and long, false nails that scratched down my back.

Marie's getting more and more jealous the longer she thinks about it. I want her to look at those memories, dig them up and examine each and every one of 'em -- I've been with many, many women, a few I've even cared for. I want her to see, no, I want her to *understand* that just because I didn't leave her on the side of the road, just because I did whatever I could to save her life, I'm not some hero.

I'm just a man who's done a whole lot of shit I'm not all that proud of, more of an asshole than anything else. I stay in one place as long as I feel like, leave as soon as the idea strikes me. I wake up screaming and clawing from nightmares I lived through, and Marie knows firsthand how pleasant that is. I've been told I'm antisocial, mostly by Marie herself -- I've met many people since waking up in Canada twenty years ago, and so far I've only liked a handful of 'em. I brawl in cages because I like to, and the money I make off winning's just a bonus. I'm never likely to change any of that.

Except for one or two things. It's been several years since I touched Marie, and the women she's recalling now are nothing to me, forgotten long ago. If she had my recent memories, she'd realize it's ridiculous of her to be jealous of anyone. I haven't been with anyone in a damn long time now.

And she'd know why, too.

"Remembering, huh? Thought as much."

She's clearly surprised I understood what she was talking about. "How'd you know?"

"Something the Professor said awhile back about all those memories of yours."

Actually, it was the afternoon I saw her bare her teeth and growl at Scooter. It surprised me, the exact way she mimicked my stance, _expression and sound as best she could. When I finally stopped laughing, I started thinking about the other times she's said something a certain way, or moved a certain way while fighting. Like an echo of me, quickly suppressed.

Before I left, I spoke to Xavier about it, and he nodded as if he'd been waiting for me to notice. He didn't tell me much, because he said her mind is one of the hardest he's ever tried to read and understand. Essentially, he said, she absorbed my memory entirely, along with large chunks of my personality. Magneto's too, to a much smaller degree. Even that boy she kissed, she still has a few fragments of his mind.

It's all locked away, buried deep for the most part. Forgotten and left alone. But every now and then, something will trigger a memory to surface and she'll 'skip personalities' for a moment. Long enough to growl at Scooter, long enough to flirt with Jeannie, long enough to remember women I've met in bars like this one.

Marie moves around, gets her knees up on the bench beneath her and leans her weight on her elbows and forearms. She's half-way 'cross the table now, skin damp with sweat, and she smells like cigars, like alcohol, like vanilla and pure want.

Her big brown eyes lock on mine, slightly unfocused but full of resolve and drunken bravado. If she's expecting to back me up, she's in for a surprise -- it's all I can do not to reach out and haul her to me.

"What do I remember?"

I raise an eyebrow at that. "Depends on what bourbon reminds you of."

Her eyes are completely focused on me now. "You," she whispers.

Marie stares at me for a long moment, almost as if she's seeing me for the first time.

"Logan." Voice steadier now, stronger and serious. "Why don't you want me to wear gloves?"

There are so many reasons I could give her. What can I say that won't scare her off? What can I tell her to make her understand? I have no idea what she wants me to say.

So I tell her the truth.

"Because I don't like them on you."

She recoils slightly at that. "And you decide what you like and I do it?"

Oh darlin'. If only.

But she's too jittery to hear that right now. "So far," I answer, shrugging.

She leans away from me, pissed, pulling back across the table. And she snatches up her gloves.

Fuck.

I grab her wrist before she can get them tugged on, and she looks up at me, eyes angry, defiant. She doesn't try pulling away from me, which is a good thing. I wouldn't let her go.

"You scared to take a risk still?"

She jerks as if I slapped her. "I'm not scared of anything!"

Bullshit. "You're scared of yourself. Half the time you're scared of being Marie, half the time you're scared of being Rogue. Like you can't have both, like you can't be who and what you are."

She's already shaking her head, mouth set angrily. "Forget the fucking gloves tonight, Marie," I tell her. "Because this is one night you can be both and it won't matter.

"You don't understand."

"No -- you want to sit back and hope everything falls into place the way you want it to with no effort expended," I snap at her, angry now. "Like some fucking day you're gonna wake up and be able to touch."

I get her hand flat on the table, pressing hard, and she winces. "Maybe you won't," I continue, keeping her hand pinned beneath mine. "Why the hell is it stopping you from doing whatever the hell you damn well want?"

Her mouth drops open.

"Or didn't you learn that yet?"

She gets her wits together enough to shut her mouth. "Fuck you," she spits out, jaw clenching.

"Booths are uncomfortable," I tell her. "Trust me."

Marie doesn't answer, eyes growing distant all of a sudden. She's lost in another memory, and I notice her fingers shaking under mine. I turn her hand over, palm up, and trace the lines with a gloved fingertip.

It looks like she's tuning back in. "Tell me what you remember." I catch her eyes with mine, willing her to stay focused.

"A lot," she answers, sounding wistful, looking trapped. Like she wants to run but she can't figure out how or where to go.

So I slide out of the booth, standing, and I haul her to her feet before either one of us time to think about it. Her scarf slips from her neck to the floor and fuck it, the thing can stay there for all I care.

As soon as we get to the edge of the dance floor, several yards away from the booth, I turn and pull her into my arms. The music's slow, thankfully, but I don't think she's even listening. Her bare hands are fluttering and she tries to break away from me.

"You wanted to dance, right?"

I slip my hands down her back and pull her closer. She looks up at me, startled and scared, and God, I wish she'd relax, realize I've got her, and let herself go.

"What are you doing?"

"Dancin'." Her hands are at my waist, nearly touching me. "Like you wanted."

She turns her head back toward the booth, looking at the gloves left lying on the table.

This is what she asked me for, just a few moments ago -- to dance, to be close, to be like all these other couples around us. Here we are, and she's hardly moving, too panicked to enjoy herself.

It makes me wonder what she thought dancing with me would be like.

"The thing about a fantasy -- it's never as good as reality is," I whisper near her ear, and she lifts her head to meet my eyes.

"You fucked Jean so you'd know?"

She's angry, and that's okay. I'll take that over blind fear any day.

"Nope. Maybe even the reason I don't want to anymore. It's easy to have one and say to yourself that it's better to keep it and ignore anything and anyone else." I slip my hands further down her back, to the bare strip of skin at her waist. I trace the hem of her shirt, watching her face. "But you know that, don't you?"

She stiffens against me, realization dawning as the words sink in.

When she says nothing, I add, "It's even worse to get what you want and find out it isn't what you thought it was."

Marie closes her eyes. "This your new and improved idea of a lesson, Logan?" When she opens them again, she looks at my shirt and not me. "What's the moral this time?"

It's easy. "What do you want?" I ask. "And think before you answer, Marie."

This girl still wears my dog tag almost every day of her life. She's happy when I come back to the school, cries when I leave, and writes me letters while I'm gone. She sleeps in my bed when I'm not home, and follows me around when I am.

She wants to be with me. I know that.

But is it the idea of me she wants? Or the real man?

She can say nothing, do nothing, and keep a fantasy version of me in her mind. She can tell herself we're not together because I think of her as a little sister, or because I want Jean.

Or she can choose me, the real person, and chance finding out I'm not really what she wants at all.

She pulls free of me and I let her go.

It hurts more that I thought it would. And I knew what she'd choose.

"Even now, huh?"

We're done dancing.

Marie turns away from me and goes back to the booth, stopping long enough to snatch the scarf up off the floor. Can't forget that. She grabs the bottle off the table and takes a long drink, and if she feels it burning down her throat she doesn't show it. She sets the bottle back down and picks up her gloves, turning to see if I'm watching.

"Let's go." I want to turn and leave, let her follow along behind me when she's ready. But she's shaken and too scared to deal with the crowded dance floor alone, so I wait while she tucks her scarf inside her little purse.

Once outside, she sucks in deep lungfuls of cool night air, looking up at the moon, at the skyline, at the ground. Anywhere but me.

"How do you know if it's worth the risk?"

She's pissed-off and confused, from the sound of it. How can I answer a question like that?

I want to tell her that everything will be fine, to trust me, that things will work out. But that would be lying, because I have no better idea than she does.

"You don't," I say instead. "You just have to jump and figure that it's worth falling to find out.

Not the answer she was hoping for, clearly. She chews her lower lip for a moment, a hundred different emotions flickering over her face.

"Why don't you want me to wear my gloves?"

I get one of her gloved hands, bringing it up between us so she can see it. "Because it scares you so badly," I tell her. "And it didn't used to."

She stares at her hand, at the leather of her glove. At my hand wrapped around it.

The longer she goes without saying a word, the deeper it hurts. For me, and for her.

Because after all this time, after everything, she's still afraid.