There had only been one time in his entire life, or what he could remember of it, that he had seen her cry. And true to the phrase, she had broken his heart. Literally. Or he had. He had slashed into his chest until the pain had become too great to stay awake. He hadn’t wanted to anyway. No, he wanted to take the punishment for being that one that had made her cry.
Why had she cried? Because he had told her that he was leaving again. For good this time. And the tears from her eyes had fallen quietly at first, growing in intensity with each footstep that he had taken in the opposite direction.
It had been his darkest hour.
One of the kids had found him in the garage ten minutes later after he had taken the time to think about what he had done. His blood had been pooled around his fallen body, like oil.
One drop for each sin.
No one had told Rogue about the accident in the garage. They didn’t want her to worry about Logan. They didn’t want her to know that this time his body hadn’t healed like it was supposed to. There had been too much blood loss, and the gashes in his chest had almost done their intended job. His heart wasn’t repairing fast enough.
But somehow she knew.
They had been shocked to find her wandering down to the med lab, the predator in her (thanks to Logan) on full alert. She had first encountered Ororo as she was walking back to the main levels of the mansion. The goddess had done her best to keep Rogue away from the med lab door after a brief warning and a very one-sided attempt to hold her back.
The superhuman strength was quite handy at times.
They had found Ororo unconscious in the hallway, a concussion to show for her efforts.
In the med lab Jean and Hank had looked up as Rogue opened the door. Immediately they both left Logan on the table, his wounds left uncovered as they had been changing his bandages when she had walked in. She couldn’t see him laying on the table like that. They knew what it would do to her.
One person was already going to die of a broken heart. They didn’t need a second.
Picking Hank up like he was nothing, she threw the furry, blue mutant out into the hallway, locking the door to the lab. When they had made the facility, the lab had been one of the safe places
No one was going to get in.
Jean stood in front of the table, shielding Logan from Rogue’s eyes, as much as he could be covered. Her small form didn’t do much in the way of blocking the view.
Rogue walked over to the table, pushing Jean out of the way like she was nothing, and at the moment, she wasn’t. There was no one in the world other than the man on the table, and nothing else that mattered to her.
Jean had lain on the floor, giving a mental call of help to Scott and the Professor while Rogue stood at the table, looking over Logan’s gashes and streams of blood. They had cleaned him up, but his bleeding still came from some of the deeper wounds a little over six hours from when it had happened.
Reaching down, Rogue ran a gloved finger over Logan’s cheek, willing him to open his eyes and look at her. Anything to open his eyes. But he was too far gone, and she knew it. Somehow, she knew.
Running her fingers down his pale, grey skin, she traced the lines of the largest of the cuts, one that went from his collarbone to the bottom of his ribcage. It was still dripping blood onto the table below.
“Logan,” she had whispered, leaning down to him. “Logan, what did you do?”
Not getting any sign from him, she began looking around the room for anything that would help her reach him. Anything that would make him look at her.
Jean.
The fear in the doctor’s eyes was unmistakable as Rogue walked to her, slipping the gloves off of her hands as she went. She tucked them into her pocket as she leaned down, looking into Jean’s eyes to convey a silent apology. It was a message she didn’t care if the doctor got or not when there was a task as great as the one at hand.
Reaching out, she placed her hands on either side of Jean’s face, holding her in place as she sucked the power from her, willing the telepathy to enter her body. It was the only way.
The job finished, she laid Jean on the ground, careful that her head didn’t hit the floor too hard.
Walking back to the table, the powers she had borrowed were quickly used to make sure she had control. She would need control when the others arrived. After all, she didn’t want the team interfering with her plans.
Standing behind Logan, she placed her hands on either side of his head, careful not to touch him as she used her mind to reach out to him. To that place between life and death where he was being held captive. That dark place.
“Marie?”
Turning around, she saw Logan standing in the fog, the white mist curling around his body like smoke. And he was even more beautiful than she had ever known him to be.
“What are you doing here, darlin’?” he asked, the concern very apparent in his voice. “You‘re not…?”
“No, mah body is fine. Ah borrowed Jean’s gift for a bit to come and talk to you.”
“What’s there to say?”
Rogue walked through the fog, wrapping her arms around his waist as soon as she got to him. She needed to feel him, to know that he was there and not already that far gone.
”Why did ya do it?” she asked, the emotion thick in her voice.
“You cried,” he answered, pulling her even tighter against his body. Laying his head against hers, he breathed in deeply while trying to hold the tears at bay. “You were crying and I had to do something to right the problem.”
“Tryin’ ta kill yourself wasn’t the right thing ta do.”
“There’s a fine line between right and wrong,” he explained. “Sometimes that line gets a little blurry when I’m not thinkin’ clearly.”
“Come back to me, Logan,” she said through her sobs. “Things can be the way they were with you and me. We don’t have to fight anymore. Ah’ll even move your things back in.”
Chuckling, he looked down at her. “It’s too late for that, darlin’.”
“What do you mean too late?” she asked, the panic high in her voice.
“It’s over.”
“Logan? Logan!”
Logan had faded from view as she came back to herself, sitting on the edge of the table. She hadn’t known that she had moved. Looking down at Logan, she saw his eyes flutter open to look at her. There was a quick smile shared, and then nothing.
He was gone.
“No,” she cried, reaching down to hold his wounded body in her arms. “You can’t go, you just can’t.”
There was a pounding on the door, and she looked up to see Scott through the small window, his face full of worry as he struggled to get through the door. He had brought others with him.
Through her tears, she began looking around the lab for anything to end the suffering, to end the pain that she felt at Logan’s loss. She needed to be with him, alive or dead.
Seeing a scalpel on the counter a few feet away, she let go of Logan’s body, laying it gently back on the table. Floating quickly over to the counter, she picked up the steel instrument, running the blade over her thumb to test its sharpness.
A line of red appeared as she came back to his body, dripping her blood onto her lover. A drop for each sin.
A few feet away she could hear Jean waking up, her moaning loud in the peacefulness of the lab.
It had to be done. She had to finish it.
The blade glinted grey and white in the light from overhead, the red on the edge from her thumb even more beautiful a color than she had even known it to be. And there was more.
Her arms, her fingers, her wrists.
All dripping blood onto Logan. A drop for each sin.
A stream like kisses against his pale skin, flowing into his own wounds, pooling with his own blood on the table. And together they were long gone into the mist. To that dark place.
But they were together.
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