That night she dreams of the last time she saw Logan. He'd woken her in the middle of the night with a tightening of his arms around her and soft kisses to the side of her neck, and a mumbled, "Gotta go. Some wayward babe needs gathering."
She'd yawned and twisted around to kiss him sleepily. "Who's going?"
He grinned against her mouth. "Summers."
"Christ. Try to remember that he really is more useful alive, okay?"
"If you say so." He eased her onto her back and leaned over her, pressing one knee between hers and rubbing lazily against her thigh. "But I prefer your kind of...usefulness."
She laughed and slid her fingers through his hair. "That's good to hear. You wouldn't be of much use to *me*, otherwise. Speaking of..." She pulled his head down and kissed him hard. "Do you really have to leave just yet?"
And Logan groaned, drawing back slowly. "'Fraid so, baby. You know Xavier wouldn't send us out at this hour unless he's worried. We'll finish this when I get back."
He'd kissed her once more and then left, and she had almost gotten back to sleep when she felt Xavier probing gently at her mind. "Logan will likely be gone at least two days," he told her. "Now is the time, if you truly wish to go through with this."
Two hours later she was in a car, her entire life packed into three suitcases in the trunk, driving west away from the slowly rising sun, and she'd gotten through a long year before Logan walked back into her life and blew all her fatalistic plans to hell.
Time for a new plan, she thinks when she wakes up. The only problem is that she's fresh out of ideas.
She goes to work as usual, but skips all of her ordinary indulgences. She arrives half an hour early and sends the night attendant home in a grateful whirl of bleary exhaustion, and then drifts through her day stuck in a hazy fog of tumultuous thoughts. At the end of her shift she leaves quickly, not in the mood to stick around and chat with backpackers.
As soon as she steps outside, she wishes she hadn't. Logan is waiting on the sidewalk, and when she sees him she stops short. "Hi," she says automatically, too startled to do anything else.
"Hey," he returns, his face betraying nothing. "Pick a place -- I don't care where. We need to talk."
She stares at him for a minute, weighing her options. The stony look on his face is what decides her; she's pretty sure that if she refuses, he'll either have it out with her right on the street or follow her until she gives in. Neither possibility is at all appealing. "Okay," she agrees at last, and walks away.
They don't speak along the way. Logan stands several feet away from her on the train, and she stares at the floor rather than meet his steady gaze.
She takes him to her apartment, and doesn't bother worrying about how carefully she protects that space. It's just a small one bedroom in a suburb on the outskirts of the city, but it's hers and she's always guarded it jealously. Maybe it's their history, or something like guilt, but she can't quite bring herself to worry about keeping Logan away from it, not now that he found her in the first place.
He peers around curiously after she lets him in, and stuffs his hands into his pockets and nods. "Nice place."
"It came furnished," she murmurs, locking the door behind them. "Do you want something to drink? I have beer, and water, and...right. Beer."
His face finally cracks into a smile. "Thanks."
She ducks into the kitchen and grabs a couple of bottles from the fridge, and then takes him into the tiny living room, where she curls up on the couch with her feet tucked under her. "So."
Logan sits on the front edge of the only armchair and leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees and letting his bottle dangle in a loose grip. "Kitty found out," he says bluntly. "A couple of months ago. She took a little peek at Xavier's email for me."
She hadn't expected that. "Kitty," she echoes. "Kitty Pryde hacked the professor's email...what, did you threaten her?"
"No. Just asked. She and Jubilee were never all that pleased with Xavier's silence on your whereabouts, so she wasn't too tough to convince."
"Oh. So they both know."
"Yeah. They agreed to let me come see you first. Just...don't be surprised if you hear from them after I go back."
"Which is when?"
"Tomorrow. I'm taking a train back to Frankfurt, meeting Summers near there on Friday."
"Oh." She sighs and sips her beer. "Then I guess the jig is up."
"Yeah, sorry." He watches her thoughtfully. "Marie...that shouldn't have happened, last night."
She stiffens and smiles tightly. "No? I was kind of glad it did."
"You're lying."
"Not entirely," she says, shrugging. "There's something to be said for getting fucked senseless."
"Cut it out. You don't do crass well."
"I'm not trying to *do* anything. I'm just saying...you never did that before. Not with me."
"There's a reason for that."
"What -- I'm too sweet and innocent?" She raises her eyebrows mockingly. "You were afraid it would offend my delicate sensibilities? Christ, Logan, did you ever know me at all?"
"I'm starting to wonder," he bites out, and downs the last half of his beer in one go. "Tell me why you left."
"No." She stands abruptly. "I'm gonna make dinner. Do I need to make enough for two?"
"Yeah."
He follows her to the kitchen and sits at her tiny breakfast table while she puts a pot of water on to boil and pulls pasta and a jar of sauce from a cabinet. With nothing left to do but wait, she turns the small hand crank to open the window a few inches, and grabs an ashtray and an open pack of cigarettes before sitting across from him. "Help yourself," she invites, lighting one. "Unless you have a cigar."
He has one, of course, tucked into the jacket he's slung over the back of his chair. She can hardly believe he's been wearing that thing at the height of summer in Paris, but it hasn't seemed to bother him. They smoke in silence, until she stubs out her butt and gets up to check the water. Only then does he mutter, "I never wanted to treat you like that." She just bites her lip and stays turned towards the stove, and he adds, "It was important that you -- that you knew how much you mattered. That you knew you were different from...other people."
"I knew," she says softly, and pours pasta into the pot in a dry, rattling cascade of noise. "But I kinda figure I stopped being different back when I left without a word."
"Never cared much when anyone else did that." His tone is oddly measured, guarded and even, and she finally turns around to look at him, still biting her lip. "Never thought much about how they might be feeling, either, until last night."
"They were fine," she tells him dryly. "They weren't in love with you."
She realizes too late what she's just admitted to, and her eyes widen slightly as his narrow. But even as she wonders what her mistake will cost her, he lets it slide. "Fair enough," he says slowly, and leaves it at that. He leans back in his chair and sticks his cigar between his lips, and she swallows hard and pivots back to watch the pasta boil.
She finishes cooking quickly and efficiently, and sets a heaping bowl and a fresh beer in front of Logan as he puts his cigar out. Sliding back into her seat with her own bowl, she stares down at the food and takes a deep breath. "Listen," she says carefully. "I don't really have any right, but...I've missed you. And I don't want you feeling bad for last night. I really *wasn't* trying to be crass before."
When she risks a glance up at him, he's not quite smiling but he looks more relaxed, like she's managed to put his mind at ease. About that, at least; she's not fool enough to imagine that anything else between them is at all better. Part of her wants things to be, but she has no idea how to achieve that so she just picks up her fork and starts to eat silently.
And the thing is, she has so many things she wants to say to him. She wants to explain, but she can't; she buried the truth deep inside her when she left, and has no desire to let it back out in the open. Because the truth is that she's sorry for a lot of things but not for leaving, not for taking the only option she thought she had. The truth is that she's never blamed him for her problems, but her leaving did have a lot to do with him and the lingering residue of his personality in her mind.
Some people might appreciate the irony of him finally being willing to commit, only to lose her in part due to his own wandering ways. She's not among those people. She resents the traits she picked up from Logan more than any of Magneto's cynicism, or John's wealth of bitter rage; as causes went, those had far less to do with her walking out on something she would have wanted, would have rejoiced to have, if only she'd never pulled anyone else into her head.
But then, she can't really put it all on him, not fairly. She made the decision; she went to Xavier and explained that she wanted things she couldn't have, and that as long as she stayed she couldn't appreciate everything else. Now she thinks of that request for help as a plea for her life, for her freedom, for her last hope of retaining some ownership of her thoughts and emotions, and she still struggles to forget the sadness on Xavier's face when he acquiesced to all of it.
Sometimes she wishes he had refused. Sometimes she longs to be back in New York, still caged in circumstance, and sometimes she wonders if happiness is all that worthy a goal after all.
Sometimes she thinks she should never have bothered hoping for anything more.
Instead of telling him anything, she finishes her food and flashes an awkward smile, and stands to take her bowl to the sink. She washes it quickly and sets it in the drainer, and then takes a moment to focus before facing him again.
But when she goes to turn back around, Logan is already close behind her. She'd forgotten how silently he can move when he wants, and she sucks in a sharp breath when she steps back and collides with his chest. "Sorry," she says softly.
"Don't be," he murmurs, just before his lips graze across the side of her neck. She stiffens for a moment, startled and wary and confused, not quite certain when his mood shifted or how she missed it. But she quickly decides to hell with it and wills herself to relax. "How about we leave off the apologies? Neither one of us ever means them."
The feel of his tongue flicking against her skin makes her sigh and drop her head back against his shoulder. "Okay," she breathes, and arches as his hands come around to cup her breasts. "Not sorry. Oh god, Logan..."
"Marie. Shh." He slips one hand down and then under her shirt, strokes her stomach with light pressure and sucks gently at the skin behind her ear. "Raise your arms." She does it without hesitation, and he hooks his thumbs into the hem of her shirt and lifts it off slowly, fingertips trailing over her skin and raising goosebumps along the way. When she starts to lower her arms he mutters, "leave them," his voice just on the cusp of rough.
And he unhooks her bra and eases that up and off, too, and then his fingers curl around her wrists and guide her hands to the cabinets above the sink, press them there for a moment. "Stay put."
A soft whimper escapes before she can even think to stop it. Logan just chuckles quietly, right against the back of her neck, and goes back to touching her. Her stomach, her breasts, the curves of her waist, the small of her back -- every bit of exposed skin. He rocks his hips once against her and she moans and bows her head, watching his hands move. She always did love to *see* him touch her; tracking every slow, calculated caress with her eyes has always made her tremble and ache that much faster, need him that much more. He knows it, too, and he concentrates on her front so that she can see. He rolls her nipples between his thumbs and index fingers and licks halfway down her spine and back up, and she's shaking with desire long before he slowly unfastens her slacks.
A quick shimmy of her hips sends them puddling to the floor, and the same with her underwear once he pushes them down her thighs. And when she realizes that she's naked and stretched out before him in her *kitchen* of all places, she moans and moves her feet further apart and pushes back as best she can without taking her hands off the cabinet doors. "Please," she whispers, somehow managing to stumble over such a simple word.
He obliges readily. He presses close against her back, an incongruous wall of solid heat and uneven clothing textures, and slides one hand down across her belly and between her legs. The first brush of his fingers makes her jerk involuntarily and gasp, and then he works her so easily it's clear he hasn't forgotten a single thing he ever learned about her body. She can barely keep her eyes open to stare, fixedly, at the play of muscles in his forearm and the fingers of his free hand resting lightly on her hip, and then he nips once at her earlobe and says -- *orders*, "come for me, Marie," and she does, crying out with it and going from tense to boneless in the space of seconds.
He catches hold of her before her knees can give out, turns her around carefully and wraps strong arms around her and finally, finally catches her mouth in a slow, deep kiss that neither of them lets end even as they start awkwardly stumbling out of the kitchen. But then she yelps when her elbow cracks against the door frame, and starts giggling helplessly. "Ouch."
Logan presses his face into her hair and laughs, his arms tightening around her briefly. Then he suddenly stoops a bit and lifts her off her feet. "Gimme some directions, here."
"Left, then first door on the left again," she says, suddenly breathless. "Logan --"
He cuts her off with a quick kiss and moves into the hall. "Just to warn you, there's not a whole lot I want to hear you saying right now."
"Oh? What would you want to hear?"
He doesn't answer right away. He sets her on her bed and she curls up on her side, tucking a pillow between her arm and her head, and watches him undress. He does it slowly, not drawing it out but not in any rush, and then he stretches out next to her and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Could stand to hear a few things," he finally tells her, his eyes slightly narrowed. "You asking me to make you scream, to make it good, to make it last."
She stares at him with wide eyes and smiles slowly. "Want me to talk dirty, Logan? Want me to *beg*?"
He shifts closer and rubs his hand across her hip. "I want you to want this."
Lifting up onto her elbow, she leans in and nuzzles his neck, and reaches to curl her hand around him and stroke lightly. "Just this?" she asks, with a shade of warning in her voice. "Or something more?"
And Logan sighs and presses her onto her back. "Just this. Just...this."
She hesitates for a moment, then winds her arms around him and pulls, urging him on top of her. "I want you," she says softly, honestly. "For tonight, for as long as you can. Is that what you want to hear?"
"If it's true."
"It's probably the only truth I have left." She closes her eyes for a moment and moans as he pushes into her, a slow slide that doesn't stop until he's fully sheathed in her. "*God*," she murmurs, as he withdraws and eases in again.
He does make it last. She loses all sense of time to the easy, steady pace he establishes, to the tumble of their limbs when they roll or shift into different positions, to the skid of his mouth and hands over her body. She lets his voice wash over her the few times he speaks, muttering that she's beautiful, she's so good, he's had so many goddamn dreams about her. He tells her he used to wonder if she would have stayed if he just hadn't left that night, and then he circles his thumb with practiced skill and she arches up against him and cries out as much from guilt as from the release.
He barely lets her recover before doing it again, easily manipulating her over-sensitized nerves and gritting his teeth to ride out the reactive tightening of her muscles. Then he finally rolls onto his back and gives her time to come down, just nudging up occasionally as she struggles to steady her breathing and get her strength back. Even after she does he just holds her there in a loose embrace, finding her mouth and kissing her lazily for what seems like forever.
And when he finally pins her beneath him again and resumes thrusting smoothly, the rhythmic impacts alone are enough to send her tripping over the edge again. As she shudders through the wash of sensation, she has the sudden, strange feeling of being locked into a single moment, of experiencing it more fully than any other moment of her life. Along with it comes a jolt of realization: this is the last time she'll ever be with him like this.
She's sure of it. And the thought, instead of devastating her, makes her feel oddly free. There's no fixing everything that went wrong, and there's no taking away the pain and anger and resentment she caused. There's no going back.
But there is still this. It's nowhere near enough but it's *something*, and it's more than she deserves. She rolls her head restlessly against the pillow, convulsing through the last little aftershocks, and she blinks up at him in satiated exhaustion. "No more," she whispers. "Take what you want, Logan. Finish this."
And he groans and catches her mouth, and manages to gradually build to a frenetic pace that, for all its unleashed desperation, is still nowhere close to *fucking* her. It's too careful and focused, too finely tuned to the movement of his lips over her mouth, her jaw, her neck.
It's too much like it used to be, too full of love. She can't be bothered to contain the soft sounds that escape her throat with every thrust, and the world narrows in a way it never quite has before. There's just soft sheets and mingled sweat and synchronized noises of base desire, the rocking of her body from his momentum and some cresting emotion deep inside her that could be joy or grief, she's not sure which.
Maybe it's both. If nothing else she's not sure whether to laugh or cry when he finally comes and finishes with a few final twists of his hips. So she just clings to him, not quite willing to live through the time when she has to release him from the warm clasp of her arms and legs.
When she finally does loosen her hold and allow her body to go limp, Logan eases out of her and shifts off, sprawling on his back. And she knows that if she doesn't do something he'll get up soon and go; she thinks with a flash of guilt that maybe that would be best, but then rolls onto her side and slips an arm over his chest, a leg over one of his. "Afternoon shift tomorrow," she murmurs sleepily. "I'll buy you breakfast."
He doesn't reply, just jostles her a bit to get his arm under her and wrap it securely around her back. The last thing she's consciously aware of is his fingers, smoothing small patterns across her shoulder and helping lull her sleep.
She wakes up alone under slats of morning sun coming through the blinds. Momentarily concerned when she turns her head and sees the empty space beside her, she relaxes once she realizes she can hear the shower running through the wall. She frowns as she gets out of bed and slips into a robe; she feels sticky and dirty, and most of her body aches in not-quite-pleasant ways.
After putting on coffee, she's headed back to her room when the bathroom door opens and Logan emerges in a cloud of steam, a towel swathed around his waist and water dripping from his hair. She smiles appreciatively at the sight and can't resist lifting onto her toes to kiss his cheek as she slips past him. "My turn," she murmurs. "Help yourself to the coffee."
He just grunts in acknowledgment; he never was much of a morning person, but neither is she. But then he slips a quick arm around her waist, pulling her back to kiss her thoroughly. "Morning breath," she says apologetically, when she can.
"Don't care," he mutters, and kisses her again.
Once he finally lets her go she can feel her mood already improving, and her shower helps even more. After dressing and pulling her hair into a loose ponytail, she finds Logan on the tiny balcony, looking out at the street with coffee and cigar in hand, back in his clothes from the day before. "I believe I promised you breakfast," she says from behind him, and smiles brightly when he turns around. "I know a place with killer bagels, if you want to go."
"Sure." He bends over to crush his cigar into the small can she keeps outside, then edges around her with a quiet explanation of getting his shoes.
He's actually ready before she is, as she has to gather everything she needs for the day and make sure everything's turned off. The walk to the Metro stop is strangely quiet, like they have nothing to say despite having so much that should be said. Logan lifts an eyebrow at her when she lights a cigarette, as if he's just now decided she shouldn't be smoking; she lifts hers right back at him, offering the pack in silent challenge. He takes one, but just tucks it into his shirt pocket instead of smoking it.
At that time of the morning the train is packed with commuters, and Logan manages to edge her into a corner just inside the doors, putting his body between her and a small group of young men who all glance at her with open interest. She smiles slightly, amused that he's clearly quick on the uptake and has already noted certain risks of riding crowded trains. She's happy enough to have his be the only body pressed against her, and she leans against the wall and hooks fingers through his belt loops for stability.
They stay on the same line until they're across the river, and then she pats Logan's chest and nods towards the doors. "We can walk from here," she tells him, and grabs his hand to pull him off the train and along the platform. It's a bit of a hike but easier than switching trains, and it's not long before they have bagels and more coffee, and she takes him back across the river to the Champ de Mars to sit out on the grass.
"It's...tall," Logan says, glancing all the way up the Eiffel Tower once and then returning his attention to her. She just laughs and unwraps her food. "This the kind of thing you came here for? Monuments and shit?"
"No." She shakes her head and stares out across the long stretch of grass. "I came here because the professor pulled some strings and got me a work permit. I flew into Paris and wound up staying; it was just easiest."
"But why France in the first place?"
"His idea." She shrugs and finally decides to tell him. Maybe it's the morning air, or maybe her brain is addled from too many orgasms, but she suddenly feels willing to relinquish a few secrets. "I spent a month running all over the States, making sure you wouldn't track me down, and I got sick of it pretty fast. I was also pretty broke, and then Xavier asked if I would be willing to disappear and work for him at the same time."
"Work for him --" Logan suddenly stops and glares at her. "Jesus. You're his contact here."
She grimaces apologetically at him. "Caroline, at your service. I don't do much -- just keep in touch with a few people for him, represent his views, keep an ear to ground for local mutant sentiment. And when he IDs new mutants in the country, I go talk to the kids -- help them understand what's happened to them, let them know where they can go if they need help, make sure they know how they can find *me* in a pinch...I sort of stay on call, and Xavier pays well for it. The hostel job is mostly to keep busy."
"I don't fucking believe this. I've spent most of the last year looking for you, and he's as much as said exactly where you've been at least half a dozen times."
"Logan, cut it out," she snaps. His irritation frustrates her, makes her regret admitting to anything. "Either stay pissed at me or get over it, but decide one way or the other already. And don't go back and get in the professor's face about it; all he ever did was help me find a way to live my life and be --"
"What?" he growls when she stops short. "Be *what*, Marie? Happy? If that was what you were looking for, you failed pretty fucking miserably. Anyone who knows you at all can see that you're *not*."
"No, I'm not!" she says angrily, blinking rapidly to clear a sudden sting from her eyes. "Is that what you want? Fine, I admit it: I'm not happy. Nowhere near it. But...Logan, I'm *okay*."
He understands what she doesn't say, that she never could have been if she'd stayed; she can see it dawn on him, the mix of realization and resignation that she had feared enough to plan her departure exactly as she had. A coward's way out, but she hadn't wanted to face doing this to him then, and she feels sick for doing it to him now. "You wanted me," he says, quietly insistent. "You wanted what we had."
She nods slowly. "Yeah," she admits. "I did. I *do*."
"Then come home."
"I can't." Sighing, she sets her coffee aside carefully and scoots to sit close at his side, facing the opposite direction, and she takes one of his hands in hers and tangles their fingers together. "I won't tell you why, so don't ask; saying it would only hurt both of us more than an explanation is worth. Can you accept that?"
He squeezes her hand painfully, and she lets him. "No. Marie --"
"Logan." She looks him dead in the eye. "You say you know me well enough to tell if I'm happy...do you remember what I was like, before I left? Did you even *notice*?"
"Of course I fucking noticed." The horrible look of accepting a dismal truth crosses his face again and she has to force herself not to flinch away from it. "I thought you just needed time."
"I did. And a lot of other things. Logan, I never wanted to hurt you. I just...couldn't find a way *not* to."
Logan sighs and pulls his hand out of hers, then leans sideways over her lap, planting his hand in the grass on the other side of her legs. "I think I get it," he says quietly, his face so close to hers that she can feel the warmth of his breath. "You needed out, and you knew I'd pick up and leave with you, without a question. But...you needed out of everything, didn't you? Including me."
She's horrified to feel tears welling up. "Not you specifically. Just...*us*. The whole...I couldn't say that to you, I couldn't make myself do it. What I did was so much worse, I know that, but..."
"But it was easier." He grazes his lips against hers in a quick kiss. "It was all you could do." Another kiss, and her tears spill over when she closes her eyes. "That's why you won't come back. This is still what you need."
"It may always be," she whispers. "I can't be who you want me to be."
"Hey." She opens her eyes again and gazes at him; he doesn't look at all happy, and despite his deceptively calm and accepting tone, there's still irritation and frustration written all over him. "I don't want you to be anyone other than who you are. I just wish you would be that person somewhere that isn't fucking *France*, of all places."
"There's nothing wrong with France," she mumbles.
"Except for the ocean and the dozen or so logistical problems between it and me." He rolls his eyes in annoyance and rests his forehead against hers. "You could come back. Not to New York...not to *me*. But to the States, or Canada, somewhere I could actually come see you sometimes."
She considers that; she owes him that much. He keeps surprising her, keeps veering away from the line she once would have drawn to track his behavior, and she wonders if they could actually manage what he's proposing. Live separate lives but still be bound together to an acceptable degree -- she had dreamed of such an understanding, when she was seventeen and in the habit of imagining any number of ways to convince him that they shouldn't bother pretending there was nothing between them, that it could work because she was willing to do anything to *make* it work.
At some point she'd lost the naive conviction about their intertwined fate that had given her so much hope and optimism. She'd bowed down under what felt like inevitable acceptance, and she'd actually been shocked when he held her gaze just a little too long one night and then pulled her against him, when he'd hadn't just let her into his bed but practically dragged her there. She'd let the overwhelming thrill of it sustain her for months.
Until she couldn't do it anymore. Somehow she'd never even considered that all her old fantasies hadn't been designed to appeal only to him, but also to who he'd helped make her. She'd convinced herself that with Logan it was all or nothing, and when she couldn't make all work, she seized nothing with wholehearted desperation.
And now here he is, proposing the sort of balancing act she'd cooked up out of youthful infatuation and a desperation to work within the confines of his habits and issues. She can't help but wonder how exactly they switched roles, how she became the one being longed for and catered to.
She can't help but wonder what she ever did to make him love her enough to try so hard.
"Maybe," she hears herself say, arriving at an answer without consciously realizing it. She pauses and blinks in surprise. "Maybe," she says again, and the word rolls out easily, feels comfortable and right. "Not right away but...maybe someday soon?"
His exhale of relief is so slight as to be almost imperceptible, but she feels it whisper across against her lips. "That'll have to be good enough, won't it?"
"Yeah," she whispers. She smiles tentatively and raises her hand to curve along his cheek and feel hair bristling under her palm. When she tilts her head for a hesitant kiss she's terrified that he won't return it, and she can't help but whimper softly when he does. He nips gently at her lower lip and then shifts, sealing his mouth over hers and bringing up the hand he's not leaning on to shove his fingers through her still-damp hair, freeing it from its ponytail and holding her securely in place.
She can't bring herself to stop it, even though their positions are awkward and her back starts to ache. She finally moves with difficulty, somehow getting to her knees without breaking away, and slides a leg over to straddle him. Settling comfortably on his thighs, she slips her arms loosely around his neck and sighs contentedly. "Better," she murmurs against his mouth.
"People are -- mmm -- watching, baby."
A quick shiver runs up her spine to hear him call her that again, after so long. She eases back with a series of progressively shorter kisses, then grins at him. "Who cares?"
He suddenly falls backwards, and she shrieks as he pulls her along. Laughing, she rolls off him and onto her back, and he props himself up on one elbow and gazes down at her. "Nobody, I guess." He drags his thumb across her lower lip, smiling slightly when she kisses it quickly. "When do you have to work?"
"Two. Your train?"
"One. And I need to get my stuff and check out."
"We can walk there -- it's not very far." She raises her arm to glance at her watch, then looks at the tower in the background. "Want to go up first? There's time."
And Logan shakes his head and starts leaning in. "I'd rather stay right here."
Eventually she has to urge him to his feet so that they can start towards his hotel; despite the rising heat, he puts his arm around her shoulders while they walk, holding her close. At the hotel, she sits on the edge of the bed as he gathers his few belongings. She watches him change clothes and bites her lip as he does, and she tracks his hands with wide eyes as he stuffs things into his duffel bag.
He finishes quickly, then leans against the wall and stares at her. And she looks at him, notes everything from his relaxed stance to his thoughtful expression, and she suddenly can't imagine parting ways with him again.
But she knows she will. She gets to her feet slowly, gazing at him, and reaches him with a few short steps. As he folds her into his arms, she tilts her head back and smiles sadly. "Would you mind if I don't go to the station with you? You can take the four line straight there, and I --"
"It's fine," he interrupts. He crushes her to him and rests his cheek against the top of her head, and she breathes deeply and swears to herself that she won't forget his scent, or the feel of his arms, or that if she's perfectly honest with herself, she's glad he found her and came. "Point me in the right direction and we'll get things over with."
They stay like that for a few minutes before leaving. Logan checks out quickly and they walk silently to the Metro entrance at Montparnasse, where she tells him which direction to go as she digs in her bag for a scrap of paper and a pen.
And then there's nothing left to do except lurch forward and kiss him, hard and fast, and press the paper into his hands. "My phone number," she says awkwardly. "You know, in case Kitty didn't happen to stumble across it already. You can -- you can give it to her and Jubilee, too."
"Okay." He seems about to say something else, but just tilts his head towards the stairs and takes a step back. "I'm gonna go."
"Yeah." She swallows hard against a lump in her throat. "Bye."
He starts down the stairs, and she closes her eyes for a few seconds, then abruptly steps forward. "Logan!" He stops halfway down and looks back up at her. "That -- that maybe?"
He just waits, and she licks her lips nervously. "Change it to a probably," she finally says, and shrugs slightly. "Pretty close to a yes."
His only reaction is a softening around his eyes, and a quick jerk of his chin in acknowledgment, and then he turns and disappears into the dark tunnel below.
She stares after him for a minute. Then she glances around the bustling street and walks into the throngs of people. She's pretty sure she'll be giving up her anonymity soon enough.
For now, she'd like to disappear for just a little while.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Follow-up to "L'amour est sans pitié". This title = yet I wait for it.