"Fuck!"

Rogue kicked the side of her car hard enough to dent it. The car, unimpressed by her superhero strength, continued to sit on the side of the road, doing a fine job at not going anywhere.

Logan had asked three days ago if she wanted a new one. She'd almost said yes, but then she'd remembered the reason she was talking to him on the phone from a thousand miles away, and she'd laughed the way she'd laughed the last ten times he'd offered to buy her a new car. The words weren't for him as much as they were for her, and she'd smiled as she'd told him, "I can take care of myself, Logan."

She held her breath until he said it, and even though he'd said it before she couldn't help the thrill it still gave her. "Never doubted it, kid."

She could call Logan. She had a cell phone in her glove compartment, and his was the only number on speed dial. One little button to press, and he'd give her anything she wanted.

Rogue leaned through the passenger side window and popped open the glove compartment. Her fingers were steady as she punched three numbers, leaning against the side of her offending car.

"Directory assistance, what city?"

She paid the extra fee to have the operator connect her directly to the towing agency, and muttered her mantra under her breath one more time. "I can take care of myself, Logan."

---

Her grades arrived in the mail with her credit card and bank statements. In the beginning, she'd dreaded opening mail. She wasn't good at budgeting and spending money, and the credit card bill always seemed to be a lot bigger than her checking account balance.

She dropped her mail on her tiny desk before dropping her shopping bags in the living room. Two she ignored, but from the third she pulled a greek urn. Her living room had only two chairs, an overstuffed chair that Logan had gotten her when she moved in, and an old lazy boy she'd rescued from campus.

Settling the urn next to the lazy boy, she returned to her desk.

The phone rang as she opened her credit card bill, and she let the machine pick it up. There were things she had to say to Logan, but she wasn't ready. And she knew it was Logan. It always was.

"Hey, this is Rogue. I'm either not home right now or I'm sitting right here, ignoring your call. Leave a message and I'll get back to you."

Rogue smiled as she looked at the zero balance on her credit card. Without thinking she picked up her bank statement.

"Growling doesn't count, either."

She'd managed to save a nice bit from her student aid, and her savings account had been augmented by her part time job and the occasional gift from friends. She had learned over the past few months to balance a budget and find a bargain, and she'd done it herself.

The answering machine beeped, and as usual, Logan didn't seem pleased to be speaking to it. "Uh, hey. You there, kid?"

Rogue stared at the phone as she picked up her last piece of mail, her end of term grades. She opened the letter carefully, and looked down.

A.

A.

A.

A.

"Bye."

A.

Rogue reached for the phone quickly, knocking the answering machine off the tiny desk in her haste. "Logan? Are you there?"

The dial tone was a soft buzz in one ear as the answering machine hit the floor and replayed his message.

She sat back down in her chair heavily, staring at the three pieces of mail on her desk. A full checking account. A zero balance credit card. A perfect school semester.

She looked around her apartment, at the life she'd built to prove to herself that she could do it. There was really only one thing missing, and the irony was that it was the one thing that would be effortless to get.

Rogue reached for the phone.

---

The conversation went better than Rogue had dared hope, though it was clear that Logan hadn't understood the subtle hint about the urn, and she still had a slightly silly smile on her face the next morning as she tied her shoes and slipped out of her apartment, locking the door behind her.

The smile fell off her face when she looked at her parking space. Her beat up clunking car was not where she'd parked it the night before. In fact, it was nowhere to be found.

Rogue frowned, nearly tripping in her haste as she ran down the stairs, marching up to the idling car that was parked where she'd last seen hers.

The window rolled down as she approached, and Logan stuck his head out. "Need a ride?"

Rogue stopped.

She opened her mouth, and closed it again.

Logan opened the door on the car and walked around the side of the car. He took Rogue's backpack and deposited in the trunk.

Rogue blurted the only thing she could think of. "Where the hell's my car?"

Logan smirked, jerking his head towards the shiny car behind him. "That's your car. Now help me bring my bags upstairs, and I'll unpack while you call in sick to work."

Rogue blinked. The last time she'd seen Logan was when he'd driven up with her to help set her up in her apartment. She remembered the sadness in his eyes as he drank cheap wine from the bottle.

This Logan, with his sparkling eyes and his rare smile was not the Logan she remembered.

This Logan was happy.

But he was here, in Alaska, not twelve hours after he'd been in New York. When she'd asked Logan to come to Alaska, she'd assumed he'd, well, drive.

The hilarity of the situation hit her suddenly, and she giggled. "Oh god, you asked Scott to fly you up to Alaska for a booty call?"

Logan looked slightly miffed as Rogue doubled over on the sidewalk, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

She faintly heard the car turn off, and the car door slam. Startled, she looked up, and took a stumbling step back when she encountered Logan a few inches from her face.

"You told me to come as quickly as I could." Logan's smirk was back, and he lifted one shoulder self-consciously. "Xavier seemed to like the idea of someone being up here to look after you."

Rogue tilted her head, frowning, but her frown disappeared when Logan smiled--a real smile. "I told him you were doing fine taking care of yourself. But he did send this along."

She looked at the basket Logan was holding, filled with gourmet cheese and wine, and glared at Logan.

"You told him about the cheese," she pouted. "Just because it was in a jar..."

"Didn't have to tell him," Logan replied, and that smile just kept getting wider and wider. "He's a psychic."

His smile warmed some part of her that she hadn't realized was cold, and she returned it shyly. "I guess I'm going to go call into work, then."

Logan's smile turned into something else--and the look in his eyes was far more than friendly. "You do that, darling. I'll be waiting with the cheese."