Rogue felt as if her eyes were glued shut. She tried to open them, with little success at first. Finally, she managed to pry open one lid. The sight that met her straining eye was a surprising one, although perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey, yourself,” Logan replied. He rose from the chair he’d been lounging in and came to stand beside her. Rogue felt a little disappointed when he made no move to take her hand.

“That was kind of a dumb thing you did, you know,” he stated bluntly, his eyes betraying the fact that he’d been worried. “You should have told us what you wanted to do. You could have pushed everything into Jubilee and left nothing for yourself.”

Rogue glanced over at the bed beside her, but it was empty. She felt her face go pale, but before she could make herself ask the question, Logan’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“She’s fine. Jean let her go up to her room to rest an hour ago,” he told her. His lips quirked up in a half-smirk. “Actually, Jean had to order her not to leave her room for at least one full day. Jubes didn’t take that very well, but I think she might listen.”

“Maybe,” Rogue said. She was unable to think of anything else to add, so she sat up. The tug on her arm as she moved caused her to look down at the unfamiliar sight of an IV line stuck in her skin. It had been a long time since she’d needed one of those. The last time had been when Carol was still recovering from the accident…

“You both took a while to wake up,” Logan was saying after a momentary silence. “Must have been a result of whatever it was you did.”

Rogue knew that he was fishing for details, but she didn’t feel like talking about it yet. “How long was I out?” she asked instead.

“A day. Not too bad, all things considered. I can get you some dinner, if you’re hungry,” he said hesitantly.

Rogue’s lips curved up at this sign that he wasn’t sure how to handle things between them, any more than she was. He didn’t know if she even wanted him around. Did she? Would it be easier to forget everything that had happened from that moment on and just start life again, no strings attached from the past to hold her down?

Looking from where Logan’s hand now covered her own to the concern and doubt in his eyes, Rogue knew the answer to that. The past may have been behind her, but there was no way she could turn her back on it. She wasn’t able to forget it all and start over, and for the second time since her mutation had manifested all those years ago, she felt sure that a decision was both completely hers and completely right. She turned her hand over in his and squeezed his fingers carefully, letting her smile widen.

“How about you get me out of this joint, and we go scrounge up something to eat together? I bet you haven’t had anything in a while, either,” she said. The hope that lit his eyes was enough to make the frozen part of her heart melt. Just like that, he had taken the numbness away, just as he had done so much else for her in their brief history.

“I think that sounds like a plan,” he said. She knew that he wasn’t just talking about the dinner, any more than she had been.