He awoke alone the next morning, half naked and sprawled out across the exam table where he and Rogue had drifted off. He scrubbed a groggy hand over his face, then looked at his watch. It was early. He still had time to go and talk to Rogue before she went down to breakfast...and, more importantly, before she bumped into Jean.

He quickly tugged his clothes on, then headed up to Rogue's room. He paused outside of her door for a few moments, taking a deep breath as he collected his thoughts. When he was finally ready, he raised his fist and knocked.

There was no answer, so he knocked again. When he was once again met with silence, he opened the door and peeked his head in.

"Rogue? Darlin', you here?"

There was no sign of her, either in her room or the bathroom. He turned at the shuffle of movement behind him as a group of students began to head down the stairs. He noticed Drake in the group and went over, tugging him aside by the shirt.

Hey kid, you seen Rogue arou-"

His words were cut off as Bobby suddenly turned and launched himself at him.

"You bastard!” he yelled, fists swinging through the air. “You fucking son of a-"

"Whoa!” Logan stumbled backward a bit, only barely succeeding in stopping the kid from hitting him. He grabbed Bobby by the shirt collar and forced him, flailing and cursing, into Rogue's room.

He shut the door behind him and spun Bobby around, slamming his back against the wall to try and knock some goddamn sense into him. “Calm the fuck down kid. The hell are you blubberin' about? Where's Rogue?"

“She's gone,” Bobby said between panted breaths. “She left.”

“What do mean she left? Where did she go?”

What followed next from Bobby's mouth was a string of incoherent words, his anger twisting his sentences to the point that Logan almost couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Then Bobby began sputtering about some box that Rogue had looked into, and suddenly it all fell into place. Logan felt his heart sink as Bobby looked at him, eyes dark with disgust.

“She knows all about the bet you made with Dr. Grey,” he said.

“Shit,” Logan said under his breath, teeth clenched. He let go of Bobby's shirt and took a half-step back, fist coming up to press against his forehead as the situation sank in. “I gotta go find her.”

He turned and opened the door. Bobby stopped him just as he was about to step out into the hallway.

“Don't bother,” he said, the tone of his voice strangely ominous. Logan turned back. Bobby had his head leaned back against the wall, eyes staring emptily ahead. “She saw you with Dr. Grey last night.”

Logan stepped back into the room again and closed the door behind him. He took a step toward Bobby, eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“She saw you, Logan,” Bobby said. His voice was hoarse with rage. “That's why she looked at your memories. She saw everything.”

Logan lowered his brow, a growl thrumming in his chest. He was getting real fucking tired of being talked to in circles. “Kid,” he said. “The fuck are you even talking about? I wasn't with Jean last night, I was-...”

What happened to him in that next moment was something he thought only ever happened in fiction. The earth seemed to shift beneath him, his world spinning around him as the walls closed in, making it hard to breath. For awhile, it seemed all he could do was stand there staring dumbfounded at a clearly disgusted Bobby Drake, his mouth hanging open like a goddamn imbecile as the truth of what had happened the night before hit him.

He didn't even realize that he'd moved until he found himself on the other side of the room, the collar of Bobby's shirt once again twisted in his clenched fist.

“Listen to me,” he ground out, a growl rumbling in his voice. “This is really fucking important. You need to tell me where Rogue went, and you need to tell me right now.”

“I don't know. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.” Bobby's face contorted with hatred. "You sick son of a bitch,” he said, voice thick with tears. “I could kill you for what you did to her."

He shoved Logan hard enough to force him backward a few steps. Logan stared, stunned, as Bobby rolled his shoulders, and turned to leave.

He stood there, in the middle of Rogue's empty room, the blood in his veins running hot and cold all at the same time. His teeth clenched and he felt a blood vessel about to burst in the middle of his forehead. His hand curled into a fist at his side as he went to the door and ripped it open.

"Jean?” He stormed toward the staircase and barrelled up the steps. “JEAN! Where are you, you fucking cunt! I'm gonna kill you!"

Jean's eyes went wide as he burst into Scott's office, all but taking the door right off its hinges.

“Shh!” she hissed, quickly getting up from the desk and rushing past him toward the door. “Keep your voice down, the students will hear y--OW!”

She'd barely gotten the door closed before he had a hand wrapped around her upper arm, spinning her around to face him.

“Good,” he said, lips curled back in a snarl, and before he could stop himself, he had a hand clamped around her throat. Her eyes went wide as his fingers dug into her jaw. “I hope every last soul in this goddamn mansion hears what I have to say to you after the stunt you pulled last night.”

She let out a choked sound, struggling to free herself from his hold. He growled, holding her up until her high heels barely brushed the floor. Panic flickered across her face. “Log-”

Her eyes went very dark for a moment, and then he felt an invisible hand wrapping around his, peeling the fingers back and crushing them until he yelled out in pain. He let her go and she stumbled backward, coughing and gasping violently as she struggled to catch her breath.

The unseen hand squeezed around his, so hard he though the adamantium would break. He crumpled to his knees, snarling and growling as the pain ripped through him. Jean rubbed her neck, looking down at him with dark eyes as she subdued him.

“What do you want, an apology?" She said between raspy breaths. Logan looked at her in disbelief.

She straightened up and smoothed out her skirt. "Once you've had a chance to calm down from...all of this..." She paused to wave a hand through the air. “You'll see that everything worked out exactly the way it was supposed to."

He stood up from the floor, eyes narrowed at her. "For you. That's what you really mean, right?"

She blinked at him. “So...what, you're in love with her now?” When he didn't answer, she stood back, half-laughing her disbelief. “Give me a break, Logan. You didn't love her. You wanted to have sex with her, just like you wanted to have sex with me once upon a time. A lot of men would call what happened last night 'killing two birds'."

"Yeah?” The snarl was back in his voice as he stepped toward her. “So tell me, Jean, how was it for you?"

She tried to turn away from him.

“No,” he said, growling as he grabbed her arm. He forced her back until his lips skimmed her ear. I wanna know how it felt to you, gettin' fucked like that, knowin' that all I was seein' and tastin' and wantin' was her."

She ripped her arm out of his grip and spun to face him, the look of disgrace on her features telling him all he needed to know. Without speaking, she turned and went to the desk to gather up her papers.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?” Logan asked. He walked over to the desk and stood before her. “I'm askin' you woman, do you know what you've done?"

She looked up from her papers, eyes wide in disbelief. “What I'VE done? What about what SHE did to ME?" There was a shrill, tearful edge to her voice. "What about all of the months that I've been working to get things back to normal with Scott, only to have Little Miss Untouchable waltz in here and-"

"Hey, if you're lookin' for someone to blame for your problems, I suggest you start by lookin' in the mirror, sweetheart."

"Oh.” She stood back, a look of mock surprise on her face. “That's right. Because none of this is even a little bit YOUR fault, is it?" She threw her hands up into the air ."WOW...this is all just classic Logan. Once again the tragic hero. Well, News flash: I didn't come up with this bet on my own. You had a choice."

"You're right, I had a choice,” he said, getting right up into her face. “I chose her. And that just eats you right up, doesn't it?"

She glared back at him with dark eyes, face red and streaked with fury.

"You-..." He moved to strangle her again, but then snapped his hand back, fist balling tightly in his hair. His eyes stung with moistened rage. "You had sex with me. Without my knowledge or consent. You know there's a word for that, don't you?"

"Oh, so, we're going to trot that one out, are we?” She almost looked amused as she walked around the desk to stand before him.

“Tell me, Logan, who would ever believe you? I mean, it's not like everyone in this mansion hasn't already witnessed your humping my leg at one time or another. In fact..." Her hand slid up to her neck, rubbing over the spot where bruises would surely be appearing soon. “Things could have just as easily been the other way around."

Logan's eyes narrowed as he watched her hand move over her throat. "You wouldn't."

She took a step toward him, eyes steely and cold. “You know,” she said, "I really think that, given the circumstances, the best thing for you to do would be to just leave. And don't ever come back."

He took a step closer to her, nose inches away from hers. "You'd just love that, wouldn't you? Bein' rid of both me and Rogue so neither of us can screw up your perfect little life here."

There was a flash of something in her eyes as he said it, and he knew he'd struck a nerve.

"Tell you what, Red," he said, "You do what you gotta do. I'm just gonna have to take my chances."

He turned to leave. He was almost at the door when she said, "Wait."

He wouldn't even have bothered to turn around, except there was something in her voice, some tinge of regret that made his hand stop on the doorknob. He turned to look at her. Beyond the darkness of her eyes, there was a shimmer of something, a shadow of the Jean he used to know shifting there just under the surface. He turned to face her fully.

"You're not going to tell Scott, are you?"

He glared at her, mouth open in disbelief. He started to speak, then realized he really didn't have a fucking clue what to say. Instead, he just shook his head. "You're unbelievable."

He opened the door and moved to step out into the hallway, then suddenly stopped at the scene before him. He heard Jean's heels clicking behind him as she came to see what was going on. She pushed past a surprised Logan and stepped out into the corridor, where the entire student body appeared to be standing, lining the staircases, walls, and doorways.

"What is this?” She said, looking around at the students. “Why aren't you all down at breakfast?"

No one seemed to want to answer. Logan watched as dozens of pairs of eyeballs seemed to fix themselves tight on Jean. Finally, one of the younger students shifted toward Jean and tugged gently on her sleeve.

Logan looked on as Jean leaned down to let the girl cup a hand over her ear. Only Logan would hear the little girl's whisper:

“The intercom is on.”

Jean stood up slowly, her face sudddenly white as the sheets of paper she gripped in her hand. Logan followed her eyes as she looked back into Scott's office. Sitting atop Scott's desk, where she'd been preparing the morning announcements, the switchboard for the P.A. System was blinking green. And had been the whole time.

Logan looked at Jean and huffed out a half-laugh. “Whaddya know.”

Jean turned back to face the growing crowd outside of Scott's office. “All right, that's enough,” she said, voice unravelling with each syllable. “Everyone go back to breakfast. This was just a misunder-”

She stopped abruptly as her eyes fixed on someone in the crowd. Logan didn't need to follow her gaze to know who it was. He'd caught their scents just as quickly as Jean had gleaned their presence. Scott and the Professor. Home a day early.

He watched Jean's face as she turned even paler than she'd already been. A tear brimmed to the corner of her eye and rolled slowly down her cheek.

He didn't have time to stick around for the aftermath. He pushed past the crowd of dissipating students, only briefly locking eyes with a thoroughly stunned Scott and an enraged Professor as he made his way to the stairs.

“Scott, wait,” he heard Jean tearfully plead behind him as she rushed after her fiance.

He caught sight of Bobby, standing speechless and open mouthed at the top of the stairs. He grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall. Holding him still with one arm, he dug into his jacket pocket with the other and pulled out the memory card with the recorded evidence of his tryst with John. He slapped it up against the wall beside Drake's head.

“I'm gonna give you one last chance to help me make this right,” he said.

“Look, she doesn't want-” Bobby said quickly, then he stopped, eyes shifting to the memory card, then back at him. Logan raised an eyebrow.

Bobby exhaled, conceding. “She said something about...Anchorage.”

He was telling the truth. Logan let him go and let the memory card fall at his feet.

“Thanks, Kid,” he said, turning.

Then he bounded down the stairs, and left.