October
She'd been staring out of the window for an hour before someone actually noticed she wasn't paying attention to anyone. Lost in her thoughts about the long strip of tarmac that led out of the grounds, the sound of geese flying overhead punctuating her world.
Migration, the movements of animals to the winter grounds telling her things were about to change again, it was Kitty who finally punched her in the arm. Bringing her back to the room and the discussion about the best way to spend the few days they had from training.
She had other priorities, turning her gaze inward she could see the Wolverine in her mind getting itchy feet, he'd be home soon. Coming ahead of the winter storms, blowing into her life like the snow and going again as the spring showed it's face on the thin birches that
surrounded the school grounds. He didn't like to see the changes, she knew that but he'd come back every year since Alkali, watching at a distance as they all grew up.
Sometimes she thought she felt him around in the long sticky days of summer, as if she could just reach out and touch him but if he had come, he didn't use the bike he'd stolen from Scott. Smiling as she remembered her first reaction to the sound of the engine, flying out of Bobby's arms to greet him as he walked through the doors. The smile in his gaze as she'd walked toward him, a look she now recognised as possession, he'd looked at her as *his*.
That was until Remy, she'd been sat with him in the large rec room, his arms wrapped around her holding her tight to his chest when Logan had walked in. She hadn't heard the bike, the falling snow had muffled the sound and she'd been unaware of him until he'd found her.
When she'd seen him, she'd fought out of Remy's grip,
enduring the glare she'd gotten from Remy to go and hold him. Remind him that she still cared about him even though things had changed since he'd been home last. She'd tried to ask him where he went that year, he'd
pulled back from her arms and just held them in his own warm strength and frowned. It was the way he held her arms, the way the sides of his mouth quirked downward, the breathing that had shifted to deep sigh's. The look in his eyes, the deep cold look that spoke of things
they both understood without words. The sharpness of scalpels, the stink of antiseptic, faces and half-remembered names, he didn't need to tell her anything more, she knew enough by his expressions. She'd
held him then, apologising for making him think about it when this was his haven, his place where he could believe life wasn't what it seemed to be outside. When he was here he could believe he was normal for a while, unwind and digest what he'd found over the year.
They'd spent time together, meals in the kitchen, walks through the grounds but there was a barrier between them where there hadn't been one before. She'd noticed this time when he'd left in late February, the look on his face as he'd climbed on his bike. His pack behind
him and for the first time a backpack strapped to him, it had hit her then as she'd seen him turn to leave. He'd taken nearly everything this time, leaving only a few things behind, the things he didn't want to damage on the road. She'd bought him a new leather, even gotten Pieter to paint on the back of it, a tribal design that if you
looked at it the right way you'd be able to see his own beetling brows staring out at you. She'd shown it to Jubilee and she'd nearly squeaked the room down, it was in his closet when he left. She'd checked his room after she'd seen him go, the scent of him still strong in there. Looking out of the window again at the gathering
storm on the horizon she could feel him coming home and inside she knew this time it would be the last.
What happened this year would change everything and inside she was prepared to do whatever it took to share whatever time she had left with him. He'd been distancing himself from her, letting her grow up, letting her find her own way, make up her own mind about life. The
relationships she'd had here hadn't been perfect but then
anyone who was with her was dodging a bullet everytime they touched her. He never spoke about where he'd been to her but he spent time with the Professor every day he was here. Seeing him become less troubled each time until the smile was back in his gaze and his movements no longer
looked tired.
Inside her head, the part she still carried of him kept things from her, oh she'd gained a few new skills sure but he was a stubborn bastard who didn't share easily. She'd taken to meditating; trying to calm her mind that sometimes got infiltrated by accident, like the
Remy Incident.
It had been that that had caused their relationship to
break down, it had been a joke, a silly prank but it had almost killed him and left her with a true picture of Remy. He'd charged up a coaster under her drink, she'd been resting safely on his clothed chest, his bare arms safely wrapped around her waist.
As the coaster exploded she'd shot up, her own arms swinging wildly, her head cracking against his chin hard enough to knock them both out cold. Her bare cheek resting against his neck, draining him until Kitty had noticed they weren't speaking and dragged them apart.
She'd woken in med bay with a cracking headache and a whole new view on the world. It hadn't been the extra power she'd had for a while oh no, it had been Wolverine's reaction to him infiltrating what he considered to be *his* territory. For days afterward when she went near Remy she find herself growling and wanting to gut him. It was all she could do just to be civil, she hadn't taken that much from him, but it had been enough to see that he'd never seen their relationship as
permanent. Thing was what she saw Wolverine saw and he didn't like it, not one bit. So they began to drift apart, slowly like ice in the Arctic, the break once done couldn't be healed and she'd taken to meditating to calm Wolverine's impulses down. It was while she was
inside her own head that she realised something that Logan had done to her everytime she'd held him, up till the day he saw her with Remy.
Everytime she'd held him he'd take a breath of her hair, just dig his nose into her head and breathe her in. His arms would tighten around her for just a second, once or twice she'd even felt a rumble run through him as he'd done it. But when she'd hugged him after letting
go of Remy he'd barely held her, he hadn't smelled her,
hadn't purred as his arms wrapped around her. She could have been Ororo for all the emotion he'd put into it and she'd realised this when he was still half a continent away and the summer had been in full swing.
So she'd gone to the source of her information, Wolverine inside her head, prodding and poking the thought form in her skull until she finally got him to admit what the hell he was doing when he held her.
The answer had been simple enough; she'd just been blind to it until now.
Three years had gone by, three years where she could have been sharing things, doing things, and learning what really mattered instead of trigonometry and political history. He'd seen her as his mate, he'd found her, and he'd claimed her as his own from the moment he'd wrapped himself around her on top of Lady Liberty. He made the
decision then and there to keep her alive even if it cost him his own life and inside she knew he'd never made that choice before.
The revelation had stopped he in her tracks and she'd broken several arrangements to take time sorting through her mind. Rechecking and checking the behaviour patterns she'd experienced from him. Seeing it
as an observer for the first time and realising at last why Ororo gave her such sad smiles. She knew Logan was distancing himself from her, leaving it up to her to make the choices she needed to make. He
wasn't one to speak when it came to emotions or feelings, he'd leave it upto you, make your own mind up and then do something about it. So she was going to and she'd make sure he knew exactly what she was thinking, even if she wasn't sure he was ready to hear it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This was my first post on WRBeta and I hope you get time to read it.