She was halfway between waking and sleeping when it happened. The sudden addition of weight to the bed startled her. She could see his eyes and teeth gleam in the darkness.

"Shh," he whispered, putting his hands on her shoulders and pressing her down into the softness of the mattress.

She looked up at him, eyes widening involuntarily when his hands slid down from her shoulders to cover her breasts. She gasped and arched into his touch -- it was everything she'd ever dreamt of and yet like nothing she'd imagined.

Her legs fell open naturally as he moved to cradle his body between them. She felt the hot ache throbbing where he rubbed against her. The friction -- even through the denim and cotton of their clothing -- caused a sudden wetness she knew he could smell.

"Logan," she hissed as his mouth followed his hands, first licking and then sucking at her nipple through the thin cotton of her t-shirt. She didn't want him to ever stop, and to make sure he didn't, she hooked one leg around his thighs and grabbed his ass with both hands, her hips unconsciously matching his rhythm.

"Yeah, baby, just like that," he murmured, moving his mouth to her other breast. "So good, baby. So sweet."

She froze. 'Baby' was for the women whose names he didn't know or couldn't remember. She knew that from his memories, and from his joke about the number one rule of sex -- never use the wrong name, or you won't get a second ride.

Her hands came up between them and shoved at his chest. He looked at her in surprise. "Baby, what's wrong?" he asked, voice husky with desire. She could smell the whisky on his breath.

"Get out, Logan," she said, too tired for anger, willing herself not to cry until he left. "Don't come back until you're thinking of me."

He recoiled as if she'd hit him. "Marie--"

"So you do know my name, huh, baby?" She emphasized that last word sarcastically. He opened his mouth to speak, but she continued, "I'm not her substitute. You can't fuck me just because Jean chose Scott instead of you." Her voice was perilously close to breaking. "Now, get out and we'll try to forget this ever happened." He could tell she was serious. She swallowed convulsively and he saw she was fighting back tears.

He levered himself up off the bed and muttered, "I never meant to hurt you, kid."

She flinched almost imperceptibly at the endearment. He saw it only because he knew her better than anyone -- or thought he did.

"No," she replied, "but you did." She sniffed, and it tore at his heart. He left quietly, stumbling a little. He had done enough damage to their friendship and knew she'd never forgive him if he stayed and watched her break down.

---

She avoided him for the next week, and he let her. He had no idea what to say to her. He knew he was a dick. He'd tried to use her to ease his pain at Jean's rejection. He'd never made a serious play for the redheaded doctor until recently. She'd somehow seemed more welcoming to his advances. He'd known that she and Scott had been fighting -- hell, everyone in the mansion knew it. He'd thought that after five years of being held at arm's length, he'd finally get a shot to love her, to make her love him.

Then Jean had come to his room and told him that she valued him as a friend, but she loved Scott and always would. And he'd sought out the nearest source of comfort in which to drown his pain. A couple of bottles of whisky, and then Marie. It took a lot to get him drunk, and he never did his best thinking on the rare occasions he did get hammered, but this was a new low, even for him.

Marie.

Dammit, how could he even think of using her like that? How could he have thought she'd let him? She was a better person than that -- she was one of the best people he knew. Not that that was saying much, considering the people he'd known before settling down in Westchester five years ago. But even amongst the X-Men and the students, Marie was different -- better.

She'd been through so much shit, had him and Magneto both in her head, yet she had managed to maintain a certain sweetness and openness of character that drew people to her like honey draws bees. He never stopped to think that it was his presence that allowed her to maintain it -- that she wasn't like that when he wasn't around. He just didn't want it to stop, didn't want to watch her close herself off from him because of his own stupidity.

He finally realized that facing her wouldn't get any easier if he kept putting it off, so that Friday night -- one week to the day -- he went to her room.

He knocked lightly and heard her call, "It's open," in a dozy voice. He walked in, and it finally struck him, after all these years, that she wasn't out on a date or with her friends, and he didn't know why. He'd always accepted that she'd be there when he needed her. She always had been -- even when the others went away to school, she'd stayed and attended college locally.

He'd never given much thought to what she needed. That was going to change right now, he told himself. He had a lot of shit to make up for, six years worth of shit, and it was going to start tonight.

She was lying on the bed on her stomach, reading. She swung her feet back and forth, and he could see the girl she'd been, the girl he'd picked up on the side of the road. Then she rolled over and he could no longer tell himself she was a child.

She wasn't wearing much -- having her own room in the far reaches of the mansion allowed her to escape from the layers of clothing she wore to protect the world from her deadly touch. He could see her the outline of her breasts -- sans bra -- underneath the white camisole she wore, and her legs stretched endlessly out of the plaid flannel boxers he knew she'd stolen from him.

Looking at her made his breath catch in his throat. She was beautiful, and her skin -- miles of it, exposed to his eyes only -- seemed to glow like porcelain in the warm, yellow light of the room.

And he thought how he'd tried to use her for his own selfish reasons. How close he'd come to ruining everything that was good in his life. He was a bastard, and he never wanted to be who he was when he was with her. With her, he could pretend to be something better -- a knight in shining armor, intent on chivalry.

"Hey," he said awkwardly, feeling strange for the first time ever at being in her room.

She licked her lips and said, "Hey." Her eyes assessed him and, in his guilty state, he felt she found him wanting.

He walked in, but couldn't settle. In the past, he'd always drop down on the bed and she'd curl up next to him, unselfconsciously, even when she was barely clothed, knowing he'd be prepared. Now, he paced like a caged lion and she sat ramrod straight, legs folded under her, eyes tracking his progress across the small room.

Normally, she couldn't keep still; she'd be the first to break the silence with chatter about her day, or the book she was reading or anything. He loved to listen to her talk, the honeyed tones of her drawl, still evident even after six years in Yankee territory, sliding over his hypersensitive ears like warm silk. But now, she watched and waited. He'd taught her the tactic, never thinking she'd use it on him. He felt himself starting to sweat under her regard.

Finally, he turned and met her eyes.

"I fucked up."

"Boy howdy!" she responded. "You got that right."

Against his will, his mouth quirked in a half-grin. "Gimme a chance, Marie," he said. "I want to make this better. How can I make this better?"

She looked down and swallowed. Her brow furrowed and he knew she was weighing all her options. She might have gotten many of his traits, but some things were all Marie, and that was one of them. He tended to rush right in without thinking -- hell, wasn't that what had gotten him into this whole mess in the first place? -- while she was careful, wary, always feeling things out first. It was why they were such a good team in the field. They complemented each other. In work and in life. Shit, he thought. How did I never notice that before?

"I don't know, Logan. I really don't." She shifted, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her bare arms around them. "I'm not like you." Somehow, she always seemed to know what he was thinking. "I can't just fuck for fuck's sake." He closed his eyes, trying not to show the pain her words were causing, even though they were the truth. "I'm not--" she gave a little grunt, frustrated at her inability to articulate. "I'm not judging you, Logan. I never have. I know you. But for me, it has to mean something." She rested her chin on her knees for a moment and gazed at him.

"Touch," she said after the silence stretched a little longer than she was comfortable with, "it's important to me. It's -- it's never casual. Never. And to do that -- to have sex with you, just as a passing thing --" she looked away and he could tell she was beginning to tear up.

Fuck. There were few things in life the Wolverine was not prepared to face, and a crying Marie was one of them. It made him feel less than human to know that he was the cause of these particular tears. Usually, he was the one comforting her when Remy treated her like shit.

He couldn't take it. He knelt down on the floor in front of her. "Darlin', please," he said, lifting her chin in his gloved hand. "Don't cry."

She sniffed and dashed away the tears that had begun to fall. "I know that you love Jean. You always have. I understand. But I thought, I thought that I was different. I didn't think I was one of your nameless, faceless women. Someone to fuck when you got the urge, or the pain was too much."

"Baby," he began, and then bit his lip when she recoiled, pulling her face from his grasp. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Marie. You're my girl. You have been since I met you. You are different. I, I--" he stumbled over the words. He'd never said them, not even to Jean when he'd tried to convince her to leave Scott.

He went with, "I should have known better. I know how much it means to you to be touched." And he did. He knew he was one of the few people whose hands she didn't shrink from, even now. It had taken the others years to work their way into her confidence. He'd made it the first day they'd met. He'd never thought about that before, about the bond between them before anything had happened to cause it.

"I just want us to be right, Marie." He stood and resumed pacing. "You're the most important thing in my life." That was something else he'd never said before, and her gasp of surprise was almost painful to him.

"I, I don't know what to say to that."

"Then don't say anything. Let me finish." He paused in his pacing, and she was grateful. It was making her dizzy. "When I found out what those bastards made me for, when I thought I was no better than a killer -- an animal -- it was you that made me realize I was a man. That I could be a good man." He faced her again, this time leaning in and lifting her face to meet his, so close that he could feel her breath brush his lips. "There are no words for what you are to me, Marie. None. What we have -- what we are -- is deeper than that." His mouth grazed hers, so lightly that she wasn't even sure it happened. "I don't want to lose that, and I'll do whatever I have to, to make it better. Just tell me you don't hate me."

She reached out and ran her hand over his hair, where it was safe to touch him, and then stroked his cheek over his ridiculous muttonchops. "I don't hate you."

He sighed in relief and settled on the bed next to her. "Thank you," he whispered, slipping a hand through her hair, wrapping one of her white locks around his black-clad finger.

"It's not okay," she said softly. "And it's not going to be okay for a long time. But someday it will be."

"I can live with that," he answered. And he could, because he had to. Because he couldn't live without her.

End