He had been sitting in the library of all places. No one except Marie had any idea of how much he liked to read. As he had wandered around dreary, freezing cold Canada, there had been little else to do: read, fight, read, fight. Of course, there had been women, but none who had held his interest for more than a night or two. Until now. Everyone, even the Professor and Jean, saw his attentions to the young brown-haired woman as either brotherly or paternal. He had been back for nearly a year and they still didn't know. They didn't know that he loved her like he hadn't loved anyone for as long as he could remember. She owned him and even she didn't know it. Her gentle smile made him melt while her hesitant touch made him angry because she shouldn't be afraid of physical contact. He made a point of touching her at least once every day: an affectionate squeeze of the arm or a heavy hand on her shoulder. Sometimes he even got to hug her. Those were the best days.
He had been in the library when she had walked in with two of her friends. They had been whispering quietly. Marie saw him and waved shyly before sitting down to a pile of reference books with a pen and notebook. Logan lay down his book--a leather-bound copy of The Grapes of Wrath--and left the spacious room. He had felt an overwhelming desire to walk over and place his hand on her back and whisper something sweet into her ear, but he didn't want to embarrass her in front of her friends. So he left.
Logan walked into the highly-polished corridor and headed toward the stairs, his quiet, empty bedroom being his desired destination. As he reached the foot of the staircase, his ears pricked at the sound of two unmistakable, high-pitched giggles: two of the younger girls, both of whom had ridiculously violent crushes on him. The elevator would have to do for today, he decided as he walked in the opposite direction and prayed that his receding figure would escape the young ladies' notice. Logan reached the elevator and pressed the "up" button. The doors slid open after a moment and he stepped inside, not even noticing who was standing just within, someone else he could have done without running into: Scott Summers.
He fought the urge to turn on his heel and stalk out but a sort of recently acquired control stopped him. He set his jaw and nodded at the younger man. Likewise, Scott returned the nod in the polite manner that suited him.
"Good morning, Logan."
"Morning," he said in a low, gruff voice.
"Where to?"
"Third floor."
Scott leaned over and pressed the corresponding button on the panel across from him.
Jean Summers walked out of her classroom just as Logan walked into the elevator. She could see her husband just inside the doorway. Her telepathic ability only confirmed the obvious: the older man was not pleased to see who would be sharing the elevator with him, even if only for a minute or so. Ororo came up to Jean and smiled at the scene her friend and teammate had been observing.
"Wonder what would happen if they got stuck in there..."
"I shudder to think," responded Jean.
"I'm actually a bit curious."
The redhead turned to the white-haired woman.
"You're not serious?"
"As a heart attack."
Jean smiled in spite of herself. It would be sort of fun... And the day had been so uneventful so far... She wasn't worried about her husband--she knew the two men would do little more than argue and irritate the hell out of each other. The elevator doors had closed and the light indicating the floors had climbed to the number two. Her brow furrowed a little as she focused on the elevator mechanism, managing to stop it and engage the emergency brakes with a series of loud metallic clangs.
"So that's done. Now how're we going to hear them," asked Jean.
"We can listen in through the emergency surveillance system."
With devilishly sly grins, the two women rushed to the security room, shoes clacking excitedly on the hardwood floors.
Marie looked up from her notes when she heard what sounded like the tolling of a heavy church bell. Jubes rolled her eyes and went back to work. Marie noticed several other young people look up from their books for a moment before returning to their activities with little more than curious glances at fellow students. She looked at Kitty, who shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention back to her notetaking. Rogue did the same.
Wolverine and Cyclops were very busy ignoring each other when their transportation shuddered and came to a grinding halt.
"What the hell!?"
The two men exchanged withering glances at their simultaneous exclamation.
"Nothing ever breaks here," said Scott with a puzzled expression. Logan said nothing, however, he was sorely wishing he had taken the stairs, giddy adolescent girls or not. The young man across from him opened a panel below the numbered buttons and picked up the phone inside.
"Hello? Jean? What're you doing in the security room?"
A pause.
"Oh...umm, okay. Well, the elevator is stuck so could you have maintenance give us a hand here?"
Another pause as his wife responded.
"What do you mean they're not available!? Look, just get us out of here!"
"Feelin' a little nervous around me," Logan asked with a wicked smirk. He just couldn't let that one slide. Scott leered at him silently. Go to hell he mouthed.
"Right back atcha, One-Eye. And tell Jeanie I said hi."
This time, Scott offered no words, only a crude hand gesture that meant the same thing, all politeness now forgotten. Then he turned his attention back to his telephone conversation.
"Fine, Jean, fine. Of course we can behave. Yeah...bye."
He hung up the phone and slammed the little door shut.
"We're stuck here until maintenance finishes repairing a window in the greenhouse."
"I thought you said nothing ever breaks around here," Logan said.
"So today is an exception. Is that a problem?"
"No," he responded curtly as he leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. Scott did the same on the other side of the elevator. After a brief silence, he spoke.
"I know you just do it to annoy me."
"Do what?"
"Flirt...excuse me, try and flirt with my wife."
"Think whatever you want, Cyke."
"I've decided that it doesn't really bother me anymore."
"Is that right?"
"Yes. You're not in love with her and I don't think you ever were. Infatuated, maybe, but not in love."
"And what makes you say that," asked Logan lazily as he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes.
"You're in love with someone else."
His eyes flew open and his head snapped up
"Excuse me," he said, his voice dangerously close to a growl. Scott was unfazed, however.
"My vision may not be the best there ever was, but there are some things that I can see clear as crystal."
"You know what!? Fuck you! I don't fall in love ," he said fiercely, knowing that it wasn't true.
"Maybe you didn't while you were traipsing around the Canadian wilderness, but you do now and you have fallen...hard. And she's still just a girl."
He didn't say anything, but merely grimaced and stared at the floor between his legs. He was angry and he wanted to say something to hurt the self-confident little shit across from him. What did that damned kid know about anything. And then Logan thought of someone else he called "kid" in a rather futile attempt to keep himself from thinking about her like he wanted to.
"You're thinking about her now, aren't you?"
"Fuck off."
"Does she even know?"
"Who?"
"So you admit there's a "who," now, do you," said Scott triumphantly.
Dammit cursed Logan silently. He didn't say anything for a moment.
"You ought to get your goddamned nose out of other people's goddamned business."
"I won't. Not this time. You're all wrong for her and you're both going to get hurt."
"Since when do you care about whether or not I get hurt?"
"Maybe I don't. But she is so fragile... We all know how she feels about you. You'll break her if you're not careful. And you're never careful."
That stung, no matter how tough he thought he was. That hurt like hell. Someone was telling him that what he had feared most was true: he was too much of a monster, an animal, a raging beast. Funny, then, how all he wanted to do now was cry. He stared up at the ceiling, willing the burning in the corners of his eyes to stop.
"She needs someone stable who won't run when things get difficult."
"You mean someone like you," he managed to spit out despite the painful lump in his throat.
"No ...I mean...I just... shit," Scott said, looking at his hands, folded in his lap. Taking a deep breath, he continued.
"We need a strong team and a broken-hearted Rogue and a mushy Wolverine aren't going to facilitate that. I just want what is best for the team."
"Well right now, I say fuck your team."
"Look, I've been trying to think of how to say this for a long time and it's not coming out right. I only want you to see that it won't work so you might as well end it before it starts...before anyone gets seriously wounded."
"AND WHO," Logan shouted, his voice rising furiously,"MADE YOU THE JUDGE OF WHAT'S BEST!!!! YOU'RE SO FUCKING OBSESSED WITH YOUR GODDAMNED TEAM THAT YOU DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT UP!!!!"
He stood up, towering over the team leader, who also rose to his feet. Silvery claws popped out of his forearms as he faced Scott.
"Goddamn you for judging me," he said in a vicious, throaty whisper. The claws suddenly receded and the torn skin between his knuckles healed in seconds. Logan backed up and sank back down onto the floor heavily, knees up and head in his hands. In an quiet voice, he said,
"What happens to you when you look at Jean? Anything?"
Scott was taken aback by the sudden change in attitude in the man before him. He instantly felt guilty because he knew he was being an asshole. It wasn't supposed to go quite like this... He took a deep breath.
"I get weak. In my knees. My heart...beats a little faster and my fingers itch to...to touch her."
"When I see Marie, I see everything I can't have but WANT more than air and water and food. All that shit about weak knees and quickening heartbeats and itching fingers? Just her presence in the same building does that to me. I can hardly think straight when I'm around her. Oh, god... She wrecks me..."
"The team leader just stared and sat down again. He was definitely the biggest asshole on the planet right now. It was strange how he had noticed Logan's captivated stares and out-of-the-way efforts to touch Marie, yet had never truly given the man credit for what was behind those stares and touches, even if he had recently chided him for falling in love. It wasn't a short-lived infatuation, or mild affection, but burning, heart-wrenching, stomach-twisting love--exactly what he himself felt for Jean. Now he turned his attention back to Logan, who was sitting across from him, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. He was sure that the man's eyes were starting to redden and burn with tears that he was too strong to shed. For the first time in his life, Scott Summers knew what it felt like to be truly blind.
Long before the men had launched into their rather heated conversation, Jean and Ororo had asked the surveillance room staff to give them several minutes of privacy. Now, as they listened to crackling silence, the two women regarded each other with guilty faces. They should never have heard what Logan had said and they should never have placed him in a situation that forced him to reveal feelings that it was his God-given right to keep private. Jean closed her eyes and disengaged the emergency brakes while restarting the elevator machinery. She had known that Scott had something on his mind regarding Logan, but she'd had no idea that it was something so important.
"I never should have suggested it," said Ororo, breaking the quiet.
"I shouldn't have gone along with it," replied Jean.
They switched off the microphone and left the room as the staff members reentered.
The elevator restarted with a jolt and the two occupants stood up. It wasn't long before they reached the third floor.
"I'm sorry," Scott mumbled as Logan walked out. As he had expected, his weak apology was ignored. Standing partly out of the elevator, he couldn't help but notice the slower pace with which his teammate walked and the definite hunch of his broad shoulders and the droop of his head. How could he possibly fix this one?
Logan just kept walking down the corridor. He passed his room and had to double back. Once he reached the door, he wrenched it open and slammed it shut so hard that the frame shook. Flinging himself onto his bed, he grabbed a pillow and buried his face in it. He didn't cry or yell. He just wanted to hide.
Scott walked out of the elevator once he reached his destination and headed for the suite that he shared with his wife. He entered and stood staring out of a window by their bed. A few minutes later, Jean entered and stood beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder.
"You know what happened?"
"Yes."
"I messed up so bad, Jeannie."
"Me, too. I made the elevator stop. Ororo and I... It was just supposed to be a joke... We never meant for him to have to share that."
He heaved a sigh and cursed under his breath. He wasn't feeling much like a hero today.
"It's okay, love. It's mostly my fault."
Jean hugged him tighter, her show of affection only making him feel more guilty. Looking out the window, his attention was captured by a lone figure walking across the grass toward a bench sheltered by several towering trees. It was Rogue and she looked like she always did: cold and lonely. He had often noticed that even when she was laughing, even when she was around people who accepted her, she seemed sad and old, a tragically beautiful, untouchable girl who was becoming a woman. Yet, she might as well stay a girl forever for all the good being a woman would do her. He shifted and Jean pulled away, looking at him questioningly
"I need to go talk to someone," he said and left the room.
Marie sat on the bench under the trees every day to think and observe. It was an excellent vantage point: she could see the entire mansion and backyard from where she was sitting. A lively game of basketball had ensued on the court while Bobby and St.John were trying to recruit enough players for a decent soccer match. She liked to watch--that was much safer for everyone else. Occasionally, if she was feeling inspired, she would bring a journal or a notebook with her and write down anything that caught her attention. Today, there was no notebook, however, only her thoughts. She squinted as she noticed a figure heading directly toward her. Usually, no one approached her when she sat here, knowing that she preferred to be alone. It was Scott Summers, though, and he wasn't slowing down. The red glasses glinted a little in the sunlight as he came nearer. When he stopped, his jaw was set and he seemed nervous. Had she done something wrong?
"I needed to talk to you."
"About what, sir," she asked timidly.
"Oh, you're not in trouble or anything. I just..."
He paused and knitted his brow, trying to find the correct words. Just go for it.
"Logan had wanted to talk to you."
Surprise registered on her face, plain as day and her cheeks began to redden.
"Umm... Do you know what about?"
"No, but I think it's pretty important. You should go talk to 'im now. He's in his room."
She nodded and got up and began walking towards the house while Scott sat on the bench in her place. Her steps quickened as she thought of what he could want to talk to her about. She hoped he wasn't going to tell her that he was leaving again: sit her down and explain exactly why, preparing her for a new round of pain. Not again. She was getting tired of hurting. Her feet nearly flew up the stairs and she trotted down the third-floor hallway until she reached his door and forced herself to calm down before knocking timidly. In a small voice, she said his name.
He lay on the bed--spread-eagle now--and stared up at the ceiling, oblivious to the world. A soft knock shattered his reverie and he sat up.
"Logan," said a soft and lovely voice.
"Come in."
He winced at the harshness of the sound. Marie entered the room, petite and pretty and obviously worried about something.
"Mr. Summers said you wanted to talk to me about something."
"What? I never... What he did he tell you?"
"Nothing except that you wanted to talk to me."
She was leaning forward, like she wanted to come closer. Instead she suddenly burst into tears. He was too bewildered to do anything but watch for a moment and, by the time he moved to comfort her, she had stopped herself and was rubbing balled up fists into her eyes, trying to force the tears back. She shook her head and looked at him, eyes pitifully filled with dread.
"Please don't leave again, Logan. Please... I don't..."
Another strangled sob escaped her thin body.
"I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here. I missed you so much while you were gone. Please don't go so far away again. Please. I would beg if I thought that would make you stay."
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, as if it were only natural that he should stay exactly where he was forever. She sniffed and her eyes widened hopefully.
"You're not?"
"No. And..."
"What?"
"I don't think I could leave if I wanted to."
"Why?"
He didn't say anything. Obviously, good old One-Eye was trying to redeem himself by forcing him to tell Marie, thus pulling everything out into the open and resolving pent up feelings and saving everyone a lot of lonely, self-pitying soliloquizing. At least the little shit was doing something. He looked Marie straight in the eye. Come on... Out with it: confess. He'd never have a better opportunity and she was so ready to hear it.
"I couldn't leave you."
She looked as if a wave of happiness had washed over her and, for a moment, the darkness n her eyes brightened. His hand reached out for hers and she took it, seating herself on the bed next to him. Carefully, almost shyly, he placed his hand on her shiny hair and ran his fingers down lightly. Then he buried his whole hand in her brown locks and pulled them around her face, cupping her chin. His other hand left her own and moved slowly down her back, not heavy and reassuring as was his usual manner, but light and exploring, like a man touching his lover there for the first time. Marie inhaled and leaned into his chest, willing him to hold her in that way that always made her feel protected from any sort of harm. Instead, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back. He faced her and swallowed before speaking in a shaky voice that she had never heard from him before. Say it now said a persistent voice in his head.
"I love you, Marie."
Now that strong embrace that surrounded her with safety and warmth would surround her with love as well.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I don't like the ending but I haven't had a chance to really work on it. This story is definitely in the revision pile...