I woke up screaming against Logan's chest, into his shirt; kicking him with my feet and punching my fists against shoulders and into his stomach over and over again.
I was still screaming when he had sat up and pulled me up with him, shaking me to make me snap out of my hysteria.
Eventually, he simply covered my mouth with his hand and pressed my body against his chest again.
At some point I must have realized that there was no reason to be scared anymore. I caught my breath and shut my mouth, looking at Logan with big eyes.
He was fine. I hadn't hurt him. It was just a dream. He was okay.
It took a few seconds to sink in, but when it did, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I wrapped my arms around him, holding on as tightly as I could, pressing my face against his shoulder.
“You're okay,” I whispered in the greatest relief I had ever felt. “You're okay.”
I should have known earlier. I did have Magneto in my head but I didn't have his powers anymore. Even if he wanted me to, I wasn't able to use them to hurt Logan. I had been so terrified by my nightmare that I had forgotten all about that.
Logan gave me a minute to calm down before he gently pulled out of my embrace to be able to look at me.
“Rogue,” he said solemnly. “Talk to me.”
“I had a nightmare,” I replied, carefully trying to avoid what I knew was coming.
I was going to tell him everything, because I'd never been good at keeping secrets from him. Everyone else was no problem to deal with, I could even be quite sneaky when I needed to be...but Logan always knew when I was hiding something.
“I...I was hurting you. Magneto was...he made me do it. He...does that sometimes.”
“Give you nightmares?”
“Yeah. And he makes me do stuff...oh God, Logan, I don't wanna tell you this.” I turned away, hiding my face. He remained silent until I felt ready to go on.
“I know what caused the fire in my room,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I know because I did it. I set my room on fire and then I set myself on fire and then...I jumped.”
I saw the terror in his eyes and quickly carried on, before I could start crying yet again.
“I did it because of Magneto. He can make me do stuff even though I don't want to; he can make me hurt people. And I was too much of a danger to everybody around here...I didn't want anything bad to happen, you know? I didn't want to kill anyone, Logan...”
“So you were gonna kill yourself?” he asked and now he was the one with tears pooling in his eyes.
“Well, yeah...but it didn't work...they called you and you came back, and you - ...I'm so sorry...”
“Why didn't you talk to anyone? The Professor? Jeannie?...anyone?”
“I don't know...I guess I couldn't...I didn't want to tell anyone...”
“I'm glad you told me,” he said sincerely, taking my hand into his. “I promise I'll help you.”
“Can you, though?”
I appreciated his concern, I really did, I just couldn't believe there was much he could do.
Logan sighed and pulled me back into his arms, stroking my hair. “I don't know. But I'll try. I'll do anything. You know that.”
“I know,” I whispered.
I had seen it, I had felt it. Losing me was just about the worst thing that could happen to him. I didn't really understand it and it hadn't made sense to me before...I hadn't thought about any feelings he might have for me.
I had been too busy fighting with my own demons to think about what my inner Logan was getting at when he got pissed every time a boy at school talked to me. I hadn't paid much attention to any of the people who had talked to me, really. And I hadn't even dared to imagine he thought of me as anything but a little sister.
And my feelings for him...well, that was a whole different story. I used to think this was a schoolgirl crush on the hero of my dreams who had saved my life, yada yada...and nothing more. But it was actually far more than that.
“Logan, I...I think I...”
“I know,” he repeated my words and managed a small smile.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I never should have left you alone with all this...and I'm never gonna do that again, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied, not quite realizing what all of this was going to mean eventually. But for now, it meant Logan would stick around and I could definitely live with that.
“Listen...I...I feel like I fucked up. I mean, I promise to take care of you and then I leave and you go jumping out windows, I mean...”
“It's okay, it wasn't your fault,” I tried to calm him down but he was obviously still very worried. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Rogue...just tell me one thing...”
“Yeah?”
“Do you still want to die?” It came out as nothing more than a whisper and I felt his arms tighten around me.
I didn't know the answer to that question. I had never wanted to die, really. I had wanted Magneto to go away and leave me alone to live my life. But since that wasn't possible, I had taken the lesser of two evils; ending my life instead of eventually ending someone else's.
It wasn't a death wish, it was damage control. An extreme form of it, I had to admit, but that was still what it was.
Logan noticed my hesitation and I caught a glimpse of his emotions when his presence inside my head sent waves of fear and loss through me.
“No,” I finally said. “No, I don't wanna die, Logan. I never wanted to die, I just wanted this to end...”
“You can fight it,” he whispered into my hair, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “I'll help you. I'll be there every time you wake up from a nightmare or sleepwalk or whatever it is he makes you do and I'll be there whenever you get scared or feel like you'll lose control...”
A distant yet strong feeling of warmth was beginning to spread over me, soothing my fear.
It took me a moment to realize what it was: Hope.
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Chapter End Notes:
so that was my lame-ish and predicatble ending ;)
thank you so much for reading and reviewing and putting up with my weird ideas throughout the story =)
thank you so much for reading and reviewing and putting up with my weird ideas throughout the story =)