He was everything she could have ever wanted on first glance. Nothing about him came up short on her measuring stick — in fact, if anything, he rendered that old ruler obsolete within the first two seconds of acquaintance. Those first two seconds were most likely the last two, Rogue realized with a twinge of disappointment as he went back to drinking his Labatt Blue, barely acknowledging her soft hello with a nearly imperceptible nod. It was probably for the best, she thought, the way her luck with men was going.
Taking a deep breath, she twirled her tequila sunrise around in the condensation that had gathered under her glass, wishing the ice would hurry up and melt to water it down. There was too much grapefruit juice for her taste. At least, that’s what she told herself when she didn’t want to admit that the tequila was much stronger than she had imagined and much less romantic than the Eagles had made it sound.
She was, she admitted, too old and too young to be here. High school kids and college sophomores ran away from home on ill-planned road trips, and people whose lives were wasted beyond rescue spent all their time in cheap dives swilling even cheaper alcohol trying to forget. *Some dance to remember, some dance to forget,* she sighed to herself, wondering when it was that Mike the bartender’s incessant playing of the Eagles’ greatest hits had gotten so settled in her brain.
She’d obviously been here too long if she was ordering drinks and holding inner monologues based on the jukebox selection, she decided. At any rate, twenty-six was a perfectly miserable age to be spending her evenings alone here, she thought, and her life was *not* beyond all rescue; she was just experiencing a temporary setback. She picked up her tequila sunrise and tried to screw up her courage to just down it all. Everything in her wanted to hold her nose to dull the taste, as she had done when taking medicine as a child. But the gorgeous stranger on her left ruled out that option; she might’ve done it if only Mike was there, but she was not going to admit what a sissy she was in front of *him.*
Just as she raised the glass to her lips and closed her eyes, preparing for the bitter taste, the door swung open and a blast of the biting December wind slammed into her. She could’ve sworn her skin froze on contact. Shivering, she upended the glass of tequila sunrise and swallowed about half of it before she could think. Slamming the glass down, she yanked her coat up around her neck and threw a blistering glare toward Mike as he ran to close the door.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized quickly. “Faulty latch. Wind gets too much for it sometimes.”
“Dammit, Mike,” she growled.
“Hey, I said I was sorry,” he threw back sourly. “Can’t help the wind.”
She nearly stuck out her tongue at him, but again was reminded of the presence of the stranger on her left. He was ruining everything, she decided with a frown. She realized her mood was rapidly going south and decided to make her way to the jukebox and put on something a little more…upbeat. If she could find anything.
Fishing for quarters in her pockets, she rubbed the thin metal discs between her fingers as she hunched over the glowing orange plastic. Her other hand nimbly skirted through the musical selections, unsurprised to find that most of it was country and oldies. *And not even the good ones,* she sighed as she looked in vain for even a Beatles tune. Finally she found something she could live with – some unknown she barely remembered from the early nineties – and returned to her seat, only to find that the stranger had somehow managed to sneak out without her even noticing that the door had opened again.
“Where’d he go?” she asked Mike before she could think about it.
Mike shrugged. “He just got up and left. Paid his tab and yours.”
“Mine!?” she gaped, not even waiting for Mike’s confirmation before she took off for the door. She caught sight of a dark figure several meters ahead and sprinted for it, pulling her coat tighter around her and calling into the wind, “Hey, wait! Hey, mister, wait up!”
He stopped and turned with the air of someone who had been caught trying to sneak off. “Listen, darlin’, whatever you’re sellin’, I ain’t buyin’,” he told her as she reached him.
“I’m not selling anything,” she said with a note of offense. “I just wanted to know why you paid my tab.”
He shrugged. “Figured as slow as business is up here, I’d save you the trouble of having to work it off. I figure if you’re gonna pay *that* much for a drink, it might as well be somethin’ ya like, and you didn’t seem too happy with the sunrise ya had.”
Something was beginning to fall together in her head and she said suspiciously, “Pay *how* much, exactly?”
He gave her a look that clearly said he hadn’t been born yesterday and didn’t think she had been either. Her hands went to her hips as her Southern breeding made itself known at once.
“Well, excuse me, but Ah am *not* what you *clearly* think Ah am, sir!” she stated firmly. “And Ah’m really not sure Ah want ta know why you thought that, but--” she reached into her coat pocket and fumbled for a wad of bills, “— here’s your money back. Ah’d hate for ya to be deceived about what ya give your money to. After all,” she mocked him, “if you’re gonna pay *that* much for a lady, ya oughta know what kinda girl she is.”
She thrust the money out toward him, but he just gave her a bemused look and turned to walk away without taking it. “Hey!” she shouted again. “Hey! Where are you goin’?”
*Just keep walkin’,* Logan told himself, fighting the urge to shake his head at the girl yelling at his back. She was pretty enough — hell, if he’d really thought she was that kind of girl, he’d have taken her up on it so thoroughly she wouldn’t have even remembered to ask for payment — but she wasn’t his type. He could tell that by the way her nose delicately wrinkled at the sting of alcohol in her drink — and he’d seen the barkeep fix it. There wasn’t *that* much tequila in it.
No, she definitely wasn’t his type. But there was a lot to be said for her, he had to give her that. Big eyes, sexy lips, a voice that could melt butter, and long, brown hair with interesting white streaks in the front. Not that he was partial to brunettes, particularly, but they were nice when they were pretty. And she was one of the prettiest he’d seen.
Truth be told, he hadn’t had a woman in a long time, and Alaska was cold this time of year. But he’d had enough women in his lifetime to know which ones were for fun and which ones were for keeps. This one struck him as a “for keeps” kind of girl, and he really didn’t have time to deal with that right now.
So that was why, despite her captivating eyes and endearing drawl, he was telling himself very firmly to *Keep walking, Logan.* It was also why, he suspected, he whirled so quickly when he heard a short scream behind him. He’d met some nasty characters in the past few days, and the thought of them getting their hands on her wasn’t a savory one.
He let out a relieved chuckle when he saw that she had tripped over some object hidden beneath a snow-drift and was currently pushing herself up off the ground, melting white flakes plastered to her face and clinging to her hair and eyelashes.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded testily, and he just grinned wider.
“You’re gorgeous when you’re angry,” he quipped, knowing it would have the effect it did on her. Her eyes flashed and her ears turned pink — although that could have been the result of just having been face-down in the snow, he conceded. Still grinning, he walked back to her and extended his hand in an offer to help her up. She didn’t take it, but pushed herself to her feet and brushed ineffectually at the snow clinging to her front.
He raised an eyebrow, but stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched her for a moment, ascertaining that she was all right, before turning and continuing back toward his truck without another word.
“Hey!” he heard her shout, and rolled his eyes. She just didn’t give up, did she?
“Look, lady, I already told you, I ain’t buyin’,” he growled, turning to face her, exasperation plainly written in his posture. Sure, she was cute as hell, but that didn’t make up for her annoying persistence when he’d already said ‘No.’
“And I already told you I’m not selling,” she snapped, coming toward him, still trying to brush the snow from her coat.
“Oh, so you’re offerin’ me a free ride?” he leered. “Well now, that’s a different story altogether.”
“I am *not* — ” She broke off abruptly, clenching her teeth in frustration. Why wouldn’t she just leave it alone already? “Look, just let me pay you back for my drink, okay? It’d make me feel better, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Promise?”
“Do you want your money back or not?” she demanded, striking a pose of utter vexation, one hand on her hip, the other thrusting the wad of bills out toward him.
“Nah, you keep it,” he told her magnanimously. “I’ve spent a helluva lot more than that on women who weren’t half as amusing as you turned out to be. ‘Sides, I’m headed back to Canada and don’t particularly wanna go to the trouble of gettin’ my money changed at the border.” Truth was, it was actually why he’d paid her tab. He needed to get rid of his U.S. denominations before he hit Canada because he sure as hell wasn’t advertising that he’d been across the border.
“You’re going to Canada?” she asked eagerly, all traces of irritation vanishing to be replaced by particularly keen interest. He bit back a groan. This was not good. “What part?”
“Whitehorse,” he lied. He actually had no idea where he was going, but hell, the Yukon Territories sounded as good as anything. He might go there. Maybe.
Disappointment flickered across her face for a moment, and she bit her lip. “Really?” she asked, her voice straining to sound light. “Could I… hitch a ride, you think?” His face must have showed the disbelief he was feeling at her words, because she quickly stammered, “I’ll pay you, of course — ”
“No.”
“…N-no?” Her mouth remained in a little pink ‘o’ long after the sound of the word had been blown away by the winter wind. It almost made him feel guilty. Almost.
“No,” he repeated, just as firmly.
“H-how about j-just f-for a l-little while?” she stammered, and he noticed that she was beginning to hunch over against the cold, her teeth chattering. If she thought it was going to win his sympathy, she was damn wrong.
“Look, darlin’, I don’t know what your deal is, but I ain’t takin’ you nowhere.”
“B-but I w-want to get out of here,” she pleaded. “J-just to the next t-town. I’ll get a ride w-with someone else there.”
“Sweetheart,” he started derisively, then stopped, looking at her pale face. Her lips were beginning to turn blue around the edges. Damn fool woman; fell into the snow and now she was just standin’ there in the wind. “Oh what the hell,” he snarled. “Come on. Next town’s not that far away.”
He turned and walked toward the truck, hoping she could manage to follow without tripping this time. He kicked himself the whole way.
*Stupid, stupid, stupid,* she kept telling herself as she followed her surly savior to his truck, casting a longing glance at the Jeep that sat over to the side of the bar. *Her* Jeep. She could get to the next town if she wanted to; it wouldn’t be a problem at all. In fact, if he really did drop her like he’d said, she could just whip out her cell phone, call Mike, and bribe him into bringing the Cherokee to her.
So why, then, was she so desperate to ride with this man, even for just a few miles? She couldn’t have answered that question truthfully if her life depended on it. Aw heck, she figured. If nothing else, it would be a nice change to her normal day of waking up at the cheap hotel across from the bar, watching mindless drivel on TV until a respectable hour to start drinking, and then sitting and talking to Mike while she pretended that she liked the alcoholic beverages he served up.
The Professor had strongly suggested she take some vacation time, however long she needed to get away from the stress, and she had decided to spend it on a road-trip across North America. It had started in Westchester, New York and had taken her due west to Seattle, then north until she hit Middle-of-Nowhere, Alaska. She’d always wanted to go Alaska, but now that she was here, she didn’t know what to do. It was just miles and miles of white, at least where she was, and she’d suddenly lost her motivation to be anywhere else.
Her mouth curved bitterly downward as she reflected on the reason for her lack of incentive. Jubilee had called her on her cell phone two days after she’d pulled into town and magnanimously offered her the couch at her apartment in the city when she got back from her vacation. Rogue hadn’t understood her offer or why she was making it, and Jubes had gone suddenly quiet. Her explanation of, “Well, um, Remy moved all his stuff out of your room yesterday, and then he, uh, kinda went into Betsy’s room and, erm, hasn’t been seen since. Thought you might not want to hafta see him for awhile,” was one that Rogue didn’t find particularly comforting, and suddenly, just like that, she was stuck in Alaska with no more wind in her sails.
*Until now,* she thought, regarding the handsome stranger with an odd mix of excitement and nervousness as they climbed into his truck. He was the first person who had made her want to get out of this hell-hole since Jubes’s call, but she also knew nothing about him. *Well, heck,* she mused. *Just one more adventure for the Rogue, comin’ right up.*
She wasn’t really scared of him; if he tried anything, he’d regret it. But he was still capable of making her life miserable for a little while… *Although really,* she grumbled, *how much worse can it get?*
She quickly decided she shouldn’t have asked that question when she glanced back and saw the inside of his camper that was attached to the truck. *Man, I miss my Jeep already,* she thought wryly.
“So what’re you doin’ in Alaska?” she asked. “You live in Canada?”
“Yep,” he answered shortly, and she arched an eyebrow at him.
She decided to try again. “How long have you lived there?”
“Long as I can remember.”
After a few moments of silence as they rolled down the road, she pursed her lips and inquired with patently false sunshine, “Are you always this charming, vivacious, and full of personality?”
He quirked an eyebrow, and his voice carried a different tone that might’ve been amusement, but all he said was, “Pretty much.”
“Joy,” she muttered, crossing her arms and settling back against the seat, only to begin wriggling around in fruitless attempts to avoid the tear in the vinyl that was poking her in the back.
“Hey, you’re the one who insisted on comin’ along,” he pointed out gruffly, and she barely hid her small smile of triumph.
*Ha! Made you talk,* she gloated inwardly, but chose to give him some of his own treatment, remaining sullenly silent.
“I can always put you out *before* we get to the next town,” he threatened, his hand reaching for the gearshift lever.
“No! No, that’s okay,” she assured him quickly, sitting up in the seat and adopting a wide-eyed, sweet expression. “It’s really quite…cozy.”
He gave her a sidelong look that said her choice of words hadn’t exactly made an A on his grading scale, and she couldn’t help but smile at his disgruntled expression. After a few moments, she asked cheerfully, “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it? Unseasonably warm for this area of the country, I hear. In fact, I think we’re due to actually get up to ten below this week! Fahrenheit, of course. I never did get the whole Fahrenheit-to-Celsius conversion thing; just wasn’t my strong point in school…”
He kept his eyes glued to the road, not even giving her a glance, and she kept chattering, knowing she was pushing buttons and not sure she wanted to know what would happen when she finally pushed one button too many. But then again, maybe she did.
*I hate women.* It was the first time Logan could ever remember thinking those words, but they were clear enough in his head at the moment. *Or maybe it’s just this woman.* But damn if she wasn’t turning him sour on the whole female side of the species. She’d been talking for two hours straight, and he was quite honestly shocked that she wasn’t hoarse yet.
She paused to take a breath, and he let out an involuntary sigh of relief. His ears were literally aching. He was thanking his lucky stars as he saw the sign announcing they were pulling into a tiny town on the Canada-Alaska border, but started cursing under his breath the minute he realized the place was swarming with law enforcement vehicles.
“Dammit,” he muttered. He glanced at his passenger and frowned deeply. He really, *really* wanted to let her out here, but he knew better. Not with all the fuzz hanging around. He didn’t know if they were still looking for him or if they even knew they should have been looking, but he knew he’d risked a lot by crossing the border and he wasn’t in any mood to get caught.
“We can’t stop here,” he told her grudgingly. “I can put you out on the other side of town and you can walk back if ya want.”
“Um, no, not really,” she hedged, slumping in the seat and ducking her head so that her hair fell like a curtain on either side of her face, shielding her features from view. He noticed, and his head rang with all manner of colorful curses. If *she* was worried about the cops too, things were really about to get interesting.
He decided to wait and see if they made it through without incident before he asked about it, although he did take a back road – if “road” wasn’t too generous a term for the barely-cleared-of-trees path – that skirted the main part of town. Once all the painfully-obvious-even-without-their-markings undercover police cruisers were distant in his rear view mirror, he turned to face his passenger with more interest than he’d had the whole trip.
“So you wanna tell me why the badges made ya nervous?”
“Not really,” she mumbled, still slouched, still hiding behind her hair. He noticed – with different interest this time – the white streaks tangled in with the brown and nearly snorted. Like hiding behind that oh-so-subtle mop was going to disguise her from anyone looking.
“Dontcha think you owe it to me?”
“Again, not really,” she tossed back. “Maybe if you tell me why they made *you* so nervous…”
“None of your damn business,” he bit out before he could think it through.
“Exactly.”
She didn’t say another word for the rest of the day, and when they sneaked across the Canadian border by way of a logging road with their lights off in the middle of the night, she was leaned up against the ice cold glass of the passenger side window, snoring softly.
If someone had told him earlier that he’d currently be desperate to make this woman talk, he probably would’ve run them through on his claws, just on principle. But as he pulled the truck and camper into a grove of trees marked for felling, he knew with relentless certainty that they were going to have a conversation just as soon as the sun was up.
If Rogue could have remembered who her cell phone service provider was at that moment, she would have started composing a letter of deep irritation to them, lack of paper notwithstanding. Just because she was trudging through knee-deep snow in the middle of the remotest forest of continental North America gave her cell phone no right to be flashing “No Service” at her. In fact, if anything, she figured it had less right to its digital animosity than ever before.
“Can you hear me now?” she mocked aloud, her breath crystallizing in the air. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, had made her sneak out of the man’s truck and start trying to tiptoe home. It wasn’t logic, she knew that much. She hoped she was even going the right way, but if they had been headed toward Canada, then Alaska should lie westward, ergo, her Jeep Cherokee was right now parked somewhere many miles away, but in the general direction she was headed.
“Oh Auntie Em, Auntie Em, I want to come home,” she sighed. She figured she had to be losing it, but right now she wanted to hear someone’s voice, even her own. She was freezing – *Probably to death,* she thought – and starting to feel a little delirious, like her brain might be shutting down. The sound of words, of human speech, kept her a little grounded. At least, that’s what she thought until she tasted snow in her mouth as she rambled, and opened her eyes to find herself face down on the ground, still babbling like an idiot.
She was starting to feel warm. No, not warm; just numb. Numb all over. Numbness was warmer than the cold, though, and for a second she had the thought that she should just go to sleep, take a nap, and maybe when she woke up the sun would be a little higher and she would be a little warmer…
*Get up,* a voice inside her head commanded firmly. *Get up, you dummy; you’ll freeze to death. Get up and start walking.* Somewhat reluctantly, she obeyed. She knew if she had any sense, she’d start walking back towards the truck, but there were a couple of reasons she didn’t. One, she’d decided that she’d had enough adventure in the north for one lifetime, thank you very much, and she was starting to think it was time to get in her little Jeep Cherokee and redirect her road trip to Mississippi. On second thought, maybe not Mississippi – maybe she’d go to Louisiana, or Tennessee, or Georgia… but at least somewhere that wasn’t so damn cold all the time. Sure, maybe her parents had disowned her way back when, maybe she was on “forced leave” from the X-Men team, maybe her live-in boyfriend had taken their last fight seriously and moved in with another girl, and maybe all she had was what she’d taken with her, but that was plenty, right? She could do plenty with that.
The other reason she was fleeing was more complicated. The guy didn’t need any trouble, and if she’d stayed, she would have led it straight to him. *Damn it,* she growled to herself. *Accidentally rough one guy up and suddenly everyone from the cops to the Mounties are after ya.* She hadn’t mean to hurt the convenience store clerk, and she certainly hadn’t meant to “flee the scene of the crime,” but her panic had been doing all the decision-making for her.
The guy had tried to touch her. He hadn’t been behind the counter; he’d come to chat her up while she was browsing the candy, trying to decide if she was more in the mood for mint or peanut butter. She’d just been polite at first, then she started ignoring him. When he put his hand on the small of her back, though, and acted like he was going to try to slide it under her shirt, she’d decked him without even thinking about it.
*Dummyhead,* she frowned now, thinking about the guy. The truth was, if she hadn’t run, if she’d stayed and talked to the authorities, they probably wouldn’t have started looking for her. They would’ve known it was in self-defense, the kid – Kevin, his nametag had said – would have gotten in trouble for sexual harassment, and it would all be over. *But then I would have never seen that seriously good-looking guy I just ran away from,* she told herself.
Maybe it was a good thing the sight of blood on the tile floor had made her panic. She hadn’t meant to hurt the boy that badly; when she’d hit him, he’d gone flying back into one of the metal shelving units and split open the back of his head. She’d called 911 from the store phone, grateful for her gloves for perhaps the first time since they ensured her fingerprints would not be found, and then ran like hell. She hadn’t even thought about calling Xavier to help clean up the mess until later, and by that time, her pride had dug in its heels and insisted that she could do this herself. She didn’t need to go running back to the Professor every time she screwed up.
She wondered if the security cameras even showed her face or the reason why Kevin had gotten his head busted, or if the angle had been bad, had blocked the action. But she’d never done anything like that. Ever. She’d never hurt someone outside the context of a mission or Danger Room session. And she was terrified. Weirdly enough, she was worried what her mama would think if it was out on the news. *And I wonder why they disowned me,* she thought with a self-pitying sigh. The convenience store clerk had been just after she’d crossed into Canada. *Hey, at least I didn’t use the skin on him. Not like, you know, Johnny. I think he got lucky.*
A sound like a twig breaking caught her ear and she stopped suddenly, holding her breath to minimize any distracting noise. She sensed the presence behind her before she heard his breathing, and leaped away, turning as she did. The face she saw made her gasp. “You!”
She’d seen him before, this tall, blond monster who seemed to wear whole animal skins instead of clothes. She’d seen him, and she knew he was bad. He was not someone she would follow into the snow and climb into his truck. He was not someone she would smile at in a bar. In fact, he was the kind of guy that would make her run back to her motel room, throw every lock on the door and stack every piece of furniture against it.
He was coming toward her, and she could only walk backwards, scrambling to come up with a plan. *You know, I’m definitely starting to think I should’ve stayed with the cute guy, ‘cause you are one ugly mister,* she told the guy in her head. She knew she could probably use her skin on him, but he seemed pretty covered in hair. Besides all that, she *really* didn’t want to know what was going on in his head.
Where had she seen this guy before? She was wracking her brain trying to remember. Maybe it was in a friendly context. *Fat chance.* Then she remembered, and all she wanted was to run. She’d seen a picture of him tacked up in a post office in Michigan when she’d stopped to mail a postcard to Jubes. He was wanted in conjunction with the kidnapping and subsequent murder of at least three children and one young woman.
“This is so not cool,” she said aloud. “Auntie Em, I *really* want to go home now.”
To Be Continued...
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
First, I’d just like to say, everything I know about writing A/N’s I learned from Terri, so if the formalities are longer than the fic itself, just think of it as my own personal tribute. Second, this sucker hasn’t seen a beta. So, if it’s awful, forgive me. Third, it’s the first part of a series. Don’t know how long the series will go on, what the point of it is, or if I will ever write the next part. *evil chuckle* Just kidding; the next part is already started. I just have to figure out what’s going on. Fourth, I know, I'm posting a lot lately. Sorry. I'm just trying to finish these fics that have been sitting on my hard drive for over a year and get rid of the damn things before they drive me crazy. :-) Fifth, have I mentioned how much I’m loving the Thirty Days of WRFA lately? Rock on. Thank you to Heather, who encouraged me to finish this story when it was little more than a poem (now deleted) and a few paragraphs of nothing. To Terri, who never complains when I bug her about stuff. To Taryn, who is a friend in so many ways. To Andrea, who has seemingly disappeared into the ether world, but who is a whole lot of fun when she pops up every now and then. (Dude, if you ever come back for long enough, we have got to finish “Cocaine”.) To Matt, who inspired the poem this story sprang from (Shalom, beautiful friend). To Amanda and Anna and Amy, my best friends in the whole wide world and who do their best to keep me straight. I love you all.