Title: Space Hurts
Series: Last Call

Rating: PG 13
Verse: Post X3
Summary: When Logan turns to Marie, things go differently than expected.
Genre: Angst, Drama
Disclaimer: I do not own the X-men, Marvel does.
Author's Note: Back by popular Demand, this is the second part.

The phone calls started two days later. First it was a text. Jubes wanting to know why I’d missed training the day before. Then Kitty asking if I was ok, she still didn’t get it. Storm called too, she was worried. She always knows when Logan’s gone out to drown himself; she also knows that it’s me he calls later. She asked me what had happened that night, but she hates talking to machines so she didn’t say anything else. Storm told me once that it’s not that Logan really loved Jean, it’s that she cared for him and he’d never had a lot of that before. And that he cared a lot for her and it really tore him up inside to do what he had to do.

I’m not really sure I believe that. I think he loved Jean, but I don’t think he knew how much or what kind of love it was. He knew she’d never be his, and I think that hurt him too. It hurt me that he never realized that I loved him the way he wanted her to.

It kinda brought me full circle later that night, when I was huddled under the covers in the hotel room, the rain beating on the window panes, my food half eaten on the table. I couldn’t remember having been that miserable. As hard as it was to do, I’d run. It hurt so much then and now, but I’d had to, it was like saving face.

Then the phone rang.

His name flashed across the tiny screen and I got that same flying-sinking feeling complete with a faster heart rate and quicker breathing… I didn’t answer. I can’t. I buried my head under the blankets and tuned out the noise. I fought back the tears.

I should have known that people would start asking questions sooner or later, I’d just hoped that later would have been after the week was up. I was shaking when I realized it had only been about three days, and that Logan could catch up with me if I knew where I was. I don’t think he can find me, and I definitely can’t face him right now. I turned off the phone.

My mind wandered to Cerebro and the fact that I never thought to ask the Professor how easy it is to track mutants who’ve had the cure. Hopefully it’s hard.

My eyes drifted closed and I gave myself a stern lecture about him having needed space and saving myself heartache. He thinks he doesn’t need anyone, and I’m doing the best thing by disappearing. It doesn’t work and I’m clutching his jacket, so instead I fall into a painful dream land.

I jerked awake, tears streaming down my face from an alternate reality that I knew would never work. I’m haunted with flashes and images of my dreams while I dress and gather my things wanting to be on the road. I’m not sure if the need to run to Canada is a leftover little part of the personalities that got wiped clean with the cure, or if I’d just run back to a place that reminded me of him, but either way that’s where I was.

Maybe a part of me ran there because if he tried to find me, he’d know Canada better. I don’t know. I got a throw away cell phone at the next Wal-Mart I saw, turned on my X-Cell long enough to write down all the numbers, then I turned it off and threw it in a nearby lake. I wanted to be across the country, unable to be found, but I couldn’t go further toward Alaska, he’d know.

Two weeks into my running, I started making loops. One night at a diner, a short squat woman with comfy tennis shoes and graying blond hair took my order. I’d been thinking about looking for apartments in the area. Before I got the chance to ask her about nearby openings, she dropped a bomb in my lap.

“You know, there was a man in here looking for you a couple of days ago.” I froze, my fingers trailing over the menu, my mouth slightly open. My heart literally skipped a beat. Immediately I started mentally remapping my route.

“Really?” I asked, trying to sound confused. It probably worked, what with my heart flopping around in my stomach and brain trying to wrap around the fact that he was looking for me.

“Yeah, I know it was you ‘cause he mentioned them streaks of yours. Mighty handsome too. And manly, wish I had me a handsome guy like that chasing me across here and there.” She replied with a knowing glance. “He do something to ya?” She asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to sound annoyed. That probably didn’t work. “What did this guy look like?”

She sent me another contemplative look before speaking. “Black hair, wild unruly, the kind that does what it wants. His eyes were this pretty shade of golden amber, made me think that if he really wanted to he could charm the habit off a nun. Little bit of a beard, needs a shave probably. On a bike, a nice fast one.”

I soaked up all of her description, pathetic in my need to hear about him, even from a complete stranger. Then I swallowed a drink of coffee around the lump in my throat. “I’ll keep an eye out.” I ordered then my food then, and scarfed down everything on my plate when she brought it, getting a cup of coffee to go.

I drove to the grocery, buying enough to last me a week in the Jeep. I stopped at the supply store and bought a high end sleeping bag and a bunch of those little heat packs. Logan was chasing me and asking questions, not two weeks ago I’d been hoping he’d come after me, and here I was, planning on lasting a week in the jeep so no one could get a look at me. I bought three gas cans and some brunette hair dye. The dye didn’t stick, and I thought about cutting them out. Instead I opted for always wearing a hat.

When I finally took off, It was with three gas cans full, a filled tank, and enough groceries to last me for weeks. I hoped no one saw me.

That night I pulled off the road and deep into the woods. The tarp was already up over the roll bars, so I checked all the windows and buckles. I ate a late dinner of canned tuna, crackers, and water and climbed into the cocoon I’d made of my new sleeping bag, pillows, and blankets when I’d pulled over for lunch.

Another stern lecture and one ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ later and I was asleep. The dreams came again.

It was a week and 4 towns later that I noticed it for the first time. I’d taken to wearing gloves because I was so cold all the time, my body temperature going wonky at all hours of the day. I was sitting under a tree at a bench eating a sandwich and reading. I hadn’t heard from anyone that Logan was looking for me still, so I took a break. I spent the whole day in town, enjoying the sights and peacefulness during a lull in my ever developing depression.

I’d taken off my gloves, and was on my second sandwich when my fingers started to tingle. Nothing huge, I told myself. Nothing big. It’s just cold out here. I was getting sleepy too, so I figured a nap in the warm bed would solve both problems. I’d heard of the cure wearing off for some people, people whose powers were so strong, too strong; but the Professor hadn’t thought I was at risk, so I refused to think of it.

I’d woken up two hours later, starving and still tired. My fingers weren’t tingly anymore and I was relieved. I slipped into Logan’s jacket and headed out to the diner. Another waitress, skinny and redheaded sent a shot of pain through me when she smiled a serene smile and asked in low soothing tones what I wanted. I ordered my salad and tried to fight back the wall of depression that was weighing down on me. It had been a mistake to wear his coat today. The smell of him filled my head and I remembered that night, him drunk and in pain over killing Jean, and then I remembered what happened later.

The tears were silently spilling down my cheeks when the redhead brought my food over. “You okay, sweetheart?” I nodded and mumbled thanks before diving fork first into my food. She took the hint and left. I tried not to look at her anymore, because if I squinted, I could see green eyes and high cheek bones under pretty porcelain skin. I paid my bill and took my coke back to my hotel.

The serene quite soothing outdoors held no comfort for me now that I’d descended back into my depression. I showered under the hottest water I could stand, and tried to scrub the pain away. It never seemed to work. I cried into the spray of water, so I wouldn’t have to admit to myself how much it hurt.

I toweled off and dressed, not willing for a repeat performance of me breaking down in yet another bathroom. I packed everything back into my suitcase in preparation for leaving. When I was in this kind of mood, driving helped. The only thing that can get me calm enough to sleep is the faint scent of Logan that clings to his jacket. But that brings back the dreams and the torment is worse the next day. Besides, it’s wearing off. My heart breaks a little more.

I figured that I might as well use it while I can and grabbed the jacket from where it lay; I buried my face in the satin lining and waited for the torment of the dreams to come.

It’s a repeat performance of that night. Everything’s burning and he brings me to the brink and lets my orgasm spill over me. Then he does it again. Instead of heading into the bathroom for a good long cry (which part of me knows is what really happened), I lay in my bed surrounded by Logan. We stay that way until the morning and he’s drinking coffee again at the kitchen table.

I don’t wait for him to speak this time, instead all the love and want and need that I have for him tumbles out of my mouth and lands at my feet and I stare at him waiting for an answer, some kind of answer.

Instead of leaving in a cab, he lets the horn honk away while he confesses his love and need for me. (Part of me knows its childish fantasy, even my dreams can’t be left in peace.) He kisses me then, and carries be back to the bedroom.

I was jerked awake by the sound of a loud motorcycle engine, and I lay frozen in my bed for a split second before I jumped up and peered with my tear stained face through the glass. It’s him. He hadn’t seen me, and I jerked back from the window. My knees were weak, and my stomach was churning. My heart was racing and I was fighting for each intake of breath. He must have been moving to fast, or maybe the wind had carried my scent away, but either way I waited until the engine’s noises were gone and then I waited until fifteen more minutes had passed before I moved to change my clothes.

I had gathered all my things and I pulled on his jacket again. With the gloves pulled on tight, and the hat pulled down low, I tossed everything into passenger seat as I slid in, I can organize it later. I don’t know if he heard the engine, or caught a faint trace of my scent, but I saw him step out of his room as I tore down the road.

It was three doors down from mine, and I found myself torn between glad and sad that I’d traded my old red Jeep and one thousand dollars for a newer green one. The image of him standing there is burned into my brain; I was sure I’d only to blink to see him in vivid detail again.

He had bare feet and a bare chest. His long legs were encased in tight jeans and an unlit cigar hung from his right hand. His dark hair was wild and unruly, and he looked like he hadn’t been sleeping. The moonlight shone off each sharp plane and every hard muscle exposed to the cold night air. He looked like home. It was harder that I thought it would be to run, and I once gain I found myself questioning my reasoning. Why?

I tried to get my breathing to calm back down, as I turned in random directions down each different road I came across. I tried to keep mental track of where I was going, not wanting to end up back where I left him. Standing there in the cold, looking lost and confused and in as much pain as I was in. Why? I questioned myself again.

I mentally calculated how much food I had. It would more than likely be enough, and when I ran out I would just find another small town and use the grocery and gas station. I’d taken to keeping the gas cans full, so that wasn’t a problem. I wondered how he’d found me, because I’d been being so careful. I wondered if he could catch random traces of my scent on the air, and resolved to drive with the windows up.

I knew he’d catch me sometime, but I didn’t know when.

When I was thoroughly lost, I pulled over and parked in the trees. My fingers were tingly as I pulled off my gloves and rearranged the inside of my Jeep, forming my previous cocoon. I slipped off my shoes and rubbed my hands together. I crawled in and settled down to sleep. In my squirming to get comfortable, I heard the slightest muffled crinkle, but was too tired to investigate.

I begged the moon to keep the dreams away.