He presents himself when she's at work, of all times, appearing out of nowhere in the few seconds she has her back turned and leaning casually against the counter. Later she'll tell herself that she didn't give him the satisfaction of any reaction at all. It'll be a flimsy lie, but a consoling one.
And there are a thousand and one things she could imagine him having to say after a year; "I need a room," isn't one of them.
But he says it, and it gives her the chance to gather her wits and tilt a doubtful eyebrow at him. "We're booked solid. It's high season, Logan -- you can't just walk in and get a room."
He actually looks surprised to hear it, and she's tempted to laugh. "Then where the hell am I supposed to stay?"
"Try a hotel," she suggests, and then hardens her gaze. "Go away, Logan. Please."
He does the unexpected again, shrugging easily and pushing away from the counter. "Okay." A college-age kid passes behind and jostles him with her frame pack, and he glances over his shoulder with a frown. "Xavier didn't tell me," he says like an afterthought, when he looks back at her.
"He's the only one who knew."
"And he didn't tell me, so don't get pissed at him. I did damage enough to his desk, and he still wouldn't talk. I had to find out another way."
"How?" she asks, curious despite herself.
He just looks at her enigmatically, and leaves as quickly as he must have come in.
She expects him to be on the street when she finishes her shift, lurking, waiting, refusing to back off as requested. But he's not, and he's nowhere to be seen as she walks down the street and selects produce at a vendor. He doesn't slip into her train car at the last second, he isn't lying in wait when she gets off at the end of the line, and he isn't loitering outside the gates of her apartment building,
By the time she goes to sleep that night, she's started to wonder if she imagined him showing up at all.
She has a very steady routine that varies only in insignificant ways. She wakes up -- always alone; she never brings anyone to her apartment -- and gets ready for the day with a practiced efficiency. She smokes a single cigarette as she walks the three blocks to the Metro station, and she keeps an open book in her hands as she waits for the next train because she's found that pretending to read is the most effective way of avoiding uninvited conversation.
Nine stops would take her straight to work, but she always goes further and switches to the B line to emerge at Notre Dame. St. Michel is relatively quiet early in the morning, and she likes to walk up it slowly, window-shopping until she slips into a small café for her morning coffee. She buys a copy of the New York Times at a kiosk and then heads up past the Pantheon, weaving her way through the maze of side streets until she gets to Mouffetard, where it's a quick and easy walk to the hostel.
There, she spends the day checking guests in and out, handing out brochures and maps, giving directions and advice, and chatting with anyone who's inclined. She flirts a lot, because it's safe and fun and easy and it makes the college boys happy, and that makes her manager happy. That day she can't quite muster the enthusiasm, though, as she keeps watching the door with trepidation.
Logan doesn't show. She gets through her shift and lingers just long enough to get a few minutes on the internet terminal in the lobby, so that she can send a single short email to Xavier: Logan is here. How?
When she heads out it's still early afternoon, and she usually kills time by wandering, or shopping, or going to museums. Today she walks slowly around the neighborhood, edging around tourists and flipping through racks of clothing and bins of CDs. She talks briefly with a few shop owners she's gotten to know, and she's just pondering what to do for dinner when she feels a familiar presence at her side. "Are you following me?" she says irritably.
"Yeah. Hungry?"
She sighs. "You're buying."
After some thought, she takes him north, to a tiny Moroccan restaurant in the 19th arrondissement. She allows herself some amusement with Logan's disgruntled confusion at the entire subway system, but doesn't tease as she buys him a ticket and tells him not the throw it away until he's back on the street. She gave up the right to tease, she knows, the minute she left New York.
The train is packed and she's forced to stand close to him for most of the ride, pressed awkwardly against his side. It empties out gradually as they get further from the main tourist areas, but she finds herself reluctant to move away and she wraps her arm around the rail and leaves it up to him.
He stays close. They don't talk at all, but every once in awhile she glances at him and finds him watching her steadily, his gaze intent and disconcerting. She always figured he would be furious if he found her, spoiling for a fight, but he seems relaxed and content to play along with her reticence.
It makes her nervous, and she has no idea how to deal with the situation.
Not until they're seated and waiting on their couscous does she take a deep breath and look at him. "Are you going to tell me who told you?"
"What makes you think someone told me? Maybe I just tracked you down."
She narrows her eyes. "No. I didn't leave any tracks, or you would have found me within two months."
"Maybe I wasn't looking back then."
"You were." She stares at the table, old guilt resurfacing. "The professor told me you were, as soon as I left. He said you were pretty pissed off."
"You just fucking disappeared," Logan snaps, his voice suddenly hard. "Did you expect me to be happy about that?"
"Did you expect me to stay?" she retorts. "Honestly, Logan. How could you not see it coming? I was a mess and you know it."
"How was I supposed to know? You didn't exactly talk to me about it."
"Letting you play hero wasn't going to fix anything." She presses her lips together tightly as the waiter sets the couscoussier on the table and dishes the food out. When he's gone, she glares at Logan. "I'm not going to apologize."
"I didn't come for an apology." He pokes at his food, staring at it doubtfully. "What the hell is in this?"
"Lamb. Eat it; it's good." But she just picks at her own, and finally blows out a frustrated breath. "How are you, anyway? I mean, aside from..."
"Aside from you?" Logan shrugs. "Been okay. Xavier's kept me busy when I wasn't out looking for you."
"I heard Jubilee finally won you over," she says with a small smile. "The professor said something about her helping you avoid a few bullets..."
"Shoved me into a fucking mud puddle, is what she did," he grumbles. "Laughed her ass off over it, too...She's a good kid."
"She's a -- she was a good friend. I miss her."
"That's your fault." No sympathy at all in his voice, and she tips her head in acknowledgment. He eats silently for a few minutes, then sits back and stares at her, his arms folded over his chest. "She misses you, too. So does Kitty. And Summers, and Hank, and 'Ro, and Bobby, and pretty much fucking everyone you ran out on like they didn't mean a goddamn thing."
She winces; she can't help it. "Are you only angry on their behalf?"
"You know the answer to that."
She's not sure that she does. If nothing else, she certainly doesn't *understand*. She knew, when she left, that it would hurt him and infuriate him and do pretty much everything she'd never wanted to do. But she'd also thought that those very reactions would do what she couldn't manage face-to-face; she'd thought she would be cutting the ties that bound them effectively enough that he would get over it, get over her, write her off as something best forgotten.
And the more time that passed, the more she thought she'd been right. Xavier told her, somehow managing to infuse simple typed words with concern and regret, that Logan had stopped demanding to know where she was, had stopped talking about her at all, and she'd assumed some measure of success.
Until he walked in again. She doesn't think she knows the man who would still bother with her after a year, and it makes her wonder if she ever knew him at all.
"I don't, actually," she finally admits. "I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to anything having to do with you."
"Also your fault."
"Dammit, Logan, I know that!" Wincing, she closes her eyes and counts to ten before looking at him again. "Could we just finish dinner in peace? I don't...I don't want to do this."
After dinner, completed in an awkward silence, she turns away from the Metro stop and just starts walking. Logan falls into step beside her without comment, and they walk for a long time, not speaking, until she realizes she's led them all the way to the foot of Montmartre. "Wanna go up?" she asks. "The view is great."
He doesn't bother looking up at the basilica, but keeps his gaze trained on her. "Sure."
So she sets off up the hill, dodging throngs of people in the crowded streets and heading straight for the steps of Sacre Coeur. Once at the top, she finds a relatively clear spot and drops down to sit on a step and look out over the city. "See?" she says, as Logan sits next to her. "All lit up and beautiful."
He makes some sound of acknowledgment. "You like it here."
"Well enough," she says quietly. "I've gotten used to it."
"Is it home?"
She turns her head to catch his eye and hesitates. "Not yet," she says evenly. "But it's what I've got."
She stands before he can reply and starts back down. Her pace forces him to focus on keeping up with her, and she doesn't slow until they're back at the foot of the hill. "Where are you staying?" she asks, catching sight of the Metro entrance.
Logan pulls a scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it from his pocket, and hands it to her. She notes that it's in the 15th, and rolls her eyes at his expression when she asks if he knows the stop. "Never mind," she mutters. "Come on."
"I can get a cab," he grumbles, when she reaches the subway entrance and starts to head down. "I hate these fucking trains."
"Logan, you're all the way across the city; a cab will cost you an arm and a leg. This is easier and cheaper. It's also how I'm getting home, so you either come *on* already or we say good night here and now. Which will it be?"
He frowns, but follows her. It only takes her a few seconds to find the right street on the wall map, and not much longer to look at the line guide she keeps in her purse and figure out which route to take. She opens her mouth to give him directions, and then thinks better of it and sighs. "You're not that far out of my way," she tells him. "It'll be easier than explaining the connection."
"It always smell like someone took a piss in here?" he asks as they walk to the platform.
She grins quickly. "Only when someone has. Which is...well, usually."
His expression actually makes her laugh, and she's still smiling when the train pulls in and they get on. Slipping into a clear spot near the doors, she watches him thoughtfully. "How did you get here, anyway? You can't fly commercial."
"Mission in Germany three weeks ago. I told Summers I needed to follow up on some leads and we could figure out how to get me back later."
"It took you three weeks to make it here from Germany? Did you *walk*?"
"There really were leads," Logan says flatly.
She feels her expression soften involuntarily. "Anything?"
"No."
They fall silent and remain that way for several stops, and through the walk to their connecting train. It's just crowded enough to force them to remain standing, and as it moves out of the station she looks up at him and finally asks the real question that's been plaguing her. "Why did you come?"
"You really have to ask me that?"
"Yes," she says after a moment. "Six months ago, maybe not. But...what do you expect from me, Logan?"
"I don't know," he admits quietly. "Maybe what I've already gotten, a chance to make sure you're okay. Maybe an actual explanation."
"No." The train jerks as it goes around a corner and she sways against him before she can steady herself; his hands come up to grip her upper arms, gentle and strong all at once, and as she takes a moment to appreciate the near-unfamiliar experience of being so close to him, she realizes she can feel him, half-hard against her hip. Without looking away from his eyes, she presses closer and slides her hand between them to cup his crotch. "I guess you were expecting this, too. Or were you just hoping? For old time's sake?"
He shoves her away with a low growl. "Fuck you, Marie."
She just shrugs and shifts her gaze to the window, watching the dark interior of the tunnel slipping by. "If you want," she murmurs, and hates herself for it.
Eight stops later, a nearly unbearable length of time spent knowing that he's watching her and bristling with anger, she finally looks at him again. "This is you."
Logan frowns at her for a few seconds. Then he takes her hand without a word and pulls her with him as he exits the train and heads for the escalator. He doesn't let go even after they're on the street, where he glances around and seems to get his bearings within a few seconds.
Three blocks to his hotel, a tiny place sandwiched between private apartment buildings with ground floor businesses. A booth just inside the entrance serves as a lobby, and Logan waves his key as he passes to indicate that he's a guest. He still doesn't release her hand, just keeps pulling her along to the back where there's an elevator that's barely large enough to fit both of them. It shakes the entire way up, a slow journey to the sixth floor during which he says nothing and doesn't even glance at her. She just goes along, curious as to what he's going to do; her best guess is that he'll sit her down and try to make her talk, because she can't quite believe that he really does want her.
Not enough to let her get away with her behavior, at least. The one thing she's always known better than to do is try to lead him around on a leash, and she knows full well that she was pushing his buttons on the train.
Apparently he doesn't care. As soon as they're in his room and the door is closed, he yanks her to him so fast that she barely has time to pull in a startled breath before his mouth is on hers, hard enough to bruise, and she realizes she didn't lead him into anything.
She just gave him the invitation he needed to treat her like the stranger she's become. All night she's been veering back and forth between someone he knows and someone wearing a familiar mask, and she'd finally crossed the line and confirmed that she isn't the girl he knew, not anymore.
Part of her is thrilled by it. She's always wondered what he'd been like with other women, before her; she had vague impressions of raw, meaningless, anonymous sex, of rutting against warm and convenient bodies in dark, filthy rooms, but was never able to grasp any details. And he never came anywhere close to that with her, because no matter how rough and desperate they got, he always muttered her name at the end, and he always *cared*.
Now she thinks she finally understands. He pushes her unceremoniously onto the bed, and she feels like the only purpose behind putting his hands on her is to shove her skirt up. The tight denim is uncomfortable, rucked up around her hips, but she doesn't protest. She doubts he would care, anyway; he sets immediately to getting her underwear off, and she helps with that as much as possible until she can finally kick the scrap of cotton to the floor.
And then he fumbles between them to get his jeans open and he closes his eyes just before slamming into her, as if he wants to ignore that it's actually her that he's with. Determined not to make a single sound that would interfere, and equally determined not to betray herself by letting tears form, she grits her teeth and lets him fuck her without mercy or forgiveness or emotion, with painfully tight fingers at her waist and hot, damp, panting breaths against her neck.
He doesn't say anything at all as he comes, and certainly not her name. As soon as he's done he opens his eyes and watches her for a moment, something distressingly blank about his eyes, and then rolls off of her and lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.
After long minutes of terse silence, she gets up. She goes to the bathroom and cleans herself up hurriedly, and takes just a second to glance in the mirror. Her lips are puffy, the skin around them angrily red, and there's a smear of blood on her lower lip that she licks at gingerly. He'd kissed her hard enough to split her lip, and she hadn't even noticed. She's as flustered by that as by the fact that she wishes she could go out and have the entire thing happen again, exactly the same, and she shoves her hands through her hair in frustration -- at herself, more than anything -- before going back out.
Logan sits up as she finds her underwear on the floor and slips them on. "What are you doing?"
Something deep and mean flares in her to realize that he doesn't want her to leave. "Going home," she says simply. She glances over her shoulder at him and smiles tightly. "A girl doesn't stay and sleep after a fuck like that, Logan. She puts her panties back on and hurries to catch the last train back to her real life."
"Marie --"
"Shh." Smoothing her skirt back into place, she grabs her purse from the floor and opens the door. "We both know she didn't come here tonight. Sleep well."
By the time she gets home her brief, cold sense of satisfaction has faded, leaving only unreleased tension and a deep ache of regret and shame. She takes a shower and scrubs until her skin is red, and then crawls into bed naked and soaking wet. Only then does she let herself think about how she'll probably never see him again.
Two days ago, that might have been a relief. Now, she feels like she's lost him all over. She wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn't come to find her at all.
She lets tears spill over at last, and cries herself to sleep.
**end**
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I can't believe I didn't write this years ago. It's a one-shot, but there will probably be a follow-up at some point. Title = love is without pity.