At 2 am the scent of tears hit him even before he reached the kitchen door. Logan hesitated, his hand braced on the door ready to open it, as he wondered whether he really wanted to get involved in the school’s latest teen drama. But then a quiet sniffling and an even quieter voice mumbling in obvious misery made his mind up. Damn, he thought, It’s not one of the students. It’s Marie.
“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked as he burst through the door.
Rogue jumped in surprise and choked on her ice cream. She dropped the spoon with a clatter and beat her chest with a closed fist as she coughed.
“Dammit, Logan!” she wailed hoarsely.
“Shit, you okay?” he asked, crossing the room swiftly to slap her on the back a few times.
“I…’m…f…ine,” she gasped between slaps, angrily shrugging his hands away. She plopped back onto her barstool and looked around for her spoon. Finally spotting it on the floor, she scowled at him and demanded, “Get me another spoon.”
Logan hastily complied. She dug back into her carton of ice cream. It was regular chocolate, he saw, which was always a bad sign. He took the stool next to her and waited in silence, knowing that she’d eventually talk to him. Rogue cast him several baleful glares over her spoon and didn’t speak until the spoon was scraping the bottom of the container.
“Men are assholes.”
Logan blinked. “No argument there, kid. Any man in particular?”
“Andy!” she spat.
“Your fiancé?”
“Ex-fiancé,” Rogue growled, slipping off the stool and stalking to the refrigerator. She jerked open the freezer door and started rummaging around for more ice cream.
“Shit,” Logan said softly. “What happened?” They had only been engaged for a couple weeks.
Rogue returned to the island and pried the lid off a container of coffee ice cream. “I told him,” she mumbled around the spoon in her mouth.
“Told him what?” When Rogue stared at him pointedly, Logan swallowed hard and muttered, “Oh.”
She snorted. “Yeah.”
“It shouldn’t matter though, kid. You took the cure. You’re not a mutant anymore.” Rogue ignored him in favor of her ice cream. As he considered the situation, a thought occurred to him. “Why the hell’d you tell him anyway?”
Rogue sighed and dragged a hand tiredly through her hair. “He would have found out, Logan. They screen for the x-gene on all blood tests. And you have to have blood tests to get married.”
Logan grunted. Life had certainly dealt her a shitty hand, he mused, going over the past ten years.
As if echoing his thought, Rogue began ticking items off on her fingers. “You know, as mutations go, mine sucked big time. That’s the first place my life went wrong I suppose. Then it was takin’ the cure and Storm bein’ so pissed she didn’t talk to me for months. Then it was Bobby – prick,” she muttered, “breakin’ up with me ‘cause I didn’t jump right into bed with him after I got the cure. Two months! Two friggin’ months is all the time he gave me before he hopped into bed with Kitty, Logan. And he had the nerve to call me a frigid prude. Ha! Iceman callin’ me frigid. Not my fault the jerk never asked my opinion on the matter. I would o’ told him that my mama raised me right. Like a lady. No sex before marriage. Did everybody think I got the cure ‘cause I was horny, Logan?” Rogue met his eyes directly, challenging him for an answer.
He gave her honesty, just like he always had. “Most of ‘em, yeah. Sorry.”
“Idiots. Is that why Storm was so mad at me?” she muttered, turning back to her ice cream. She scowled as she took another spoonful. She hated coffee ice cream. “So, after that, even though I was touchable,” she mumbled between bites, “once they knew I wouldn’t put out, none o’ the guys here wanted to date me. Is it so wrong to want to wait for marriage, Logan?”
Leaning forward, he snagged the spoon from her, which she gave up with minimal resistance. He helped himself to some ice cream as he considered her question. “No, kid, there’s nothin’ wrong with it,” he finally answered quietly.
“Really?”
Logan scowled at the slight tone of disbelief in her voice. “Listen, kid, I know I get around some.” He raised an eyebrow when Rogue let loose an inelegant snort. “All right, I get around a lot. But I’m tellin’ you, there’s nothin’ wrong with having principles and stickin’ to ‘em. You decided to wait for marriage, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s decent. Honorable.”
Logan panicked when she gave him a watery smile and sniffed a couple times. Seeing his expression, Rogue flapped a hand at him. “Relax, Logan, I’m not gonna blubber on you.” Despite her reassurance, he saw her physically wilt. Her head dropped down and her shoulders hunched inward. The salty scent of tears grew stronger. “It’s just…I thought Andy was the one, you know? I really thought he wouldn’t care. Those damn tests they ran after Alcatraz,” she continued, “to better understand mutations? That’s why I’m in this mess.”
Logan frowned. “How’d you figure that?”
“Before that, they thought only males could pass on the x-gene. Those stupid tests at Worthington!” She slammed her fist on the counter. “They gave me the cure, made me think I could finally have a normal life. The one I always wanted, the one with a husband, kids. Maybe a dog. Then they take it away less than a year later by tellin’ me I can still pass on the mutant gene to my kids.” She blinked rapidly, the first few tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily and looked at him imploringly.
Not knowing what to say to make it better, Logan just went with his first thought. “You can still have kids, Marie. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love them just as much even if they were mutants.”
“But Andy wouldn’t!” she wailed and broke into wrenching, shoulder-shaking sobs. Feeling useless, Logan rubbed her shoulders a bit. When she just cried harder, he sighed heavily and pulled her into a tight hug. As her sobs quieted to watery hiccups, Logan tried again.
“You don’t need to get married to have kids.”
Rogue reared back and stared at him, her lips pressed together in a tight, angry line.
“Uh…wrong thing to say?” he asked nervously.
She wilted again. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s just another thing I feel strongly about. I know I would be a wonderful mother, but I don’t think it’s fair to any child to deny him a father.” They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. “I suppose I can start tellin’ guys upfront that I carry the x-gene, but that’s hardly likely to lead to a second date, is it? And if I don’t tell them, and I’m lucky enough to get another marriage proposal, the damned blood test will trip me up. It’s just that I’m starting to feel like I’m not going to get many more chances, you know?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Logan protested. “You’re only twenty-seven. You’ve got plenty of time and plenty of chances.”
Rogue gave him a sad smile. “Do you really believe that, Logan?”
He met her eyes, and despite the faint flicker of hope he saw sparkling in the brown depths, he just couldn’t lie to her. “No. No, sorry, kid. I don’t.” The brightness in her eyes faded quickly and she nodded gracefully. Feeling guilty that he was, ultimately, the one to kill her last bit of hope, Logan searched for something to offer her. Something that was still honest. “Even if you’re not married, you could still work something out where the kid would have a father.”
Rogue frowned. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“Like…like what if the father’s just a good friend? Somebody you know who wouldn’t care if the kid’s a mutant, somebody you can count on no matter what?”
“You mean a sperm donor who would stick around?”
“Yeah…I guess.”
Rogue snorted. “You’re the only friend I have, Logan. You gonna volunteer?” she asked with a light laugh.
Clearing his throat as a frown settled over his face, Logan shrugged. “Let me think about it,” he said.
Rogue’s laughter died abruptly and her eyes grew wide. “What?” she breathed.
Logan shrugged again, feeling uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. “I said let me think about it for a while. You do the same, kid. We’ll both think about it for a few days and then we’ll talk.”
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Story Notes:
I needed something to distract me from Gauntlet.