“Jubilation Lee, Ah swear that if you make me drop these sandwiches, Ah will kick your ass from here all the way back to the mansion!” Rogue warned as her friend bounced up, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
“Promise?” Jubilee asked in a whisper, a somber light in her otherwise laughing eyes.
“Someday, maybe,” Rogue amended. Jubilee shot her a look then subsided, claiming a barstool as Rogue placed the platter of food on the bar before taking her usual place behind it.
“Now, what can Ah get y'all to drink?” she asked, starting with Scott and Ororo. Down the line the answer was water until she got to the end.
“Whiskey.” Rogue hadn't looked at him yet, hadn't wanted to see his usual apathetic gaze fixed on her. Her lips tightened briefly at his order, but she reminded herself that he wasn't her problem anymore, and besides, he was there to help.
“Coming right up!” she said as brightly as she could manage.
Once she had delivered the waters and whiskey, still not looking at Logan, Rogue settled onto her own stool behind the bar. “Thanks so much for coming down here, y'all. This thing, it's really got me worried,” she said carefully.
“We have the particulars from Professor Xavier, so don't worry about briefing us. Why don't you tell us how you've been?” Ororo suggested, cutting Scott off with a look as she bit into her sandwich.
Rogue shrugged. “Ah'm doing good. It's a slower pace here than in New York. Ah've fallen in with a group...” she said, then glanced at Michel. He winked at her.
“Rogue here is what we like to call unofficially a member of the Thieves' Guild here in the Big Easy,” he drawled.
The X-Men stared at her in shock. Rogue blushed and shook her head. “It's not as bad as all that, y'all. Ah'm honest, even if my friends aren't always,” she said, wrinkling her nose at Mike. “That issue Ah had a few ago involved saving the lives of a few of their members, which apparently means that Ah have some sort of call on their immortal souls or something like that.”
Jubilee shook her head. “Dammit, I left at the wrong time, chica! If I had been here for that, we could have gotten into some wicked fun!”
Rogue's expression tightened before she could stop it. “Don't be stupid, Jubes. You might have been killed like some of the others and then would Ah have done? Ah didn't say everyone made it out alive,” she snapped.
Silence descended for a moment before Jubilee reached out a hand. “Sorry, Rogue. I forgot about that. Was she...has it been really hard living with her in your head?”
Rogue rolled her eyes but clasped her friend's hand for a second. “Babe, it's been a piece of cake having a homicidal maniac stuck up there twenty-four seven, let me tell you,” she said softly. She met Jubilee's eyes and smiled weakly. “Ah'm dealing.”
The sound of glass shattering startled them all. Rogue finally looked at Logan. He was glaring at her, his fist clenched around what was left of his glass. Blood, whiskey, and ice pooled in the glass shards under his hand. Rogue felt as if he were trying to strangle her with his eyes...which he probably was.
“Logan! What the fuck?!” she yelled automatically, grabbing a towel and rushing over to clean up the mess. She pried his fingers away from the remainder of the glass, but once she dropped the jagged pieces into the trash can she felt him catch her hand in his strong grip.
“What the fuck is right, Rogue,” Logan growled at her. “We need to talk. Now.”
Rogue glanced at the rest of the X-Men, all of whom had decided that the bar's granite counter top had absolutely amazing patterns that required further analysis, thus they were staring at them very intently. It looked like they were done shielding her, then. Good thing she didn't need a shield anymore. Rogue looked back at Logan and smiled tightly. She flexed her fingers oh so gently and watched his eyes grow wide as she drew her hand away from his adamantium-clad fingers. Rogue knew he was thinking that she shouldn't have been able to do that. She tossed the towel to Michel and told him, “Ah'm going out back for a minute with Mr. Growly here, honey. Ah'll be back in time to collect them all before opening.”
Then she slipped by him to go through the kitchen and office areas, feeling Logan's brooding presence following her. She opened the metal door to the back courtyard and almost had it shut behind the two of them when she heard Michel yell, “No holes in the walls, Rogue! That brick is expensive to replace!”
Silence was thick in the hot air as Rogue leaned against the outside of the building, arms crossed, still looking anywhere except at him. She kicked her heel back toward the brick carefully, mindful of Michel's warning. No holes, not from a casual kick, and definitely not from throwing someone into the wall because she got pissed off at him. The shuffling sounds nearby told her that Logan was pacing around, restless. She was a little surprised at that, to be honest. Despite what the others had been telling her for the past year, she had thought that Logan would get over her leaving fairly quickly. After all, they were only friends. Then again, you don't threaten to kill most of the staff of a school because they helped your friend start a life somewhere else—not even when most of that staff could usually take care of themselves in a fight. That notion had thrilled her when she first heard it, she was honest enough to admit that to herself. He hadn't even tried to find her, though. As usual, he hadn't cared enough. That one burst of anger had obviously been all he had in him for her.
Suddenly Rogue found her head framed by two hands that came crashing down onto the wall on either side of her, palms flat against the rough surface. She refused to look up at him, though. Too much had changed, and yet the same old feelings were still there in her, like they had a choke-hold on her. She wasn't about to admit that part, though.
“Why?” Rogue had expected a roar from him. Instead, Logan's voice was almost too low for her to hear. She tried to harden her heart toward the plea she heard in it.
Jaw clenched, Rogue finally stated, “Because Ah had to.”
“Why the fuck did you have to, Marie?” There was the yell she had been waiting for. She needed that. It gave her the strength to yell back because, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't block out his pain. She could sure as hell shout, though.
“Ah got tired of watching you self-destruct, Logan! You needed us to be strong. You needed to go out and get shit-faced night after night, sleep with every woman in the state who would have you, and repeat ad nauseum. You needed to wrap everyone around you up in layers of cotton so tight that we were suffocating just so that you wouldn't run the risk that one of us would be outside of your goddamn control and get hurt!” Rogue said loudly, finally allowing her eyes to flash up to his as she stepped forward, green clashing with hazel, slamming her finger into his chest with every point she made. Since she wasn't being nice, he was forced back a step each time.
“Meanwhile, what did the rest of us want? It didn't fucking matter! What did Ah want? Who cares? As long as Logan is happy, everything is good, right? Fuck NO!” she shouted at him, throwing her hands up in the air. “Ah wanted to live, Logan! Ah wanted to be loved, to be treated as an equal instead of a fucking china doll up on a mantel who wasn't allowed to do anything or be anyone you didn't think Ah should be! Ah got sick and tired of the world revolving around what was best for you and finally, finally got on with my own life because, no matter how good a friend you were, Ah did not deserve that!”
Logan was staring at her as if he had never seen her before, and in a way that made Rogue feel even better. Damn straight, buddy, look your fill because the meek little girl you thought you knew was a fucking illusion, she thought with a twisted satisfaction that did nothing to relieve the lump in her throat.
Rogue let her voice drop some. “And if you're thinking that Ah'm wrong in the way Ah saw things, maybe you should just wonder why everyone in that damn school knew where Ah was and what Ah was doing except you. Why didn't anyone let it slip, not once this past year, Logan?” she asked.
He was stills taring at her with a look in his eyes she didn't recognize. It wasn't apathy or indifference or even mild affection, all the expressions she was so used to from him, and she couldn't take that. Rogue whirled around and walked back toward the door. His voice stopped her.
“Why didn't you just say all of this to my face, Marie, instead of running away?” There was pain there, a pain that made her own heart feel like it was ripping in two.
“Ah didn't think you cared enough to listen to what Ah really had to say, Logan,” Rogue admitted softly, knowing he would hear her. Then she slipped inside without looking back, leaving Logan in that scorching courtyard staring at the gray metal of the door.
Logan glared at the door Rogue had just disappeared through in shock. He felt his hands clench and the claws pop out, but in a way the pain felt good. It was grounding. So many thoughts were running through his mind that it was almost impossible to latch on and finish any of them.
She thought he didn't care.
She didn't want to care about him.
He had suffocated her.
She wanted a life away from him.
Her eyes were dark green. When did that happen?
She was so much more vibrant than he remembered.
Had she been repressing all of that because of him?
She smelled so damn good.
He missed her.
He wanted her back.
She didn't want to come back.
He couldn't lose her again.
That last fragmented thought snapped Logan out of the shock he was feeling. It was true. Somewhere along the line, she had become too important for him to lose. Just seeing her again, being in the same space and breathing the same air, felt right no matter how pissed off she was at him. Nothing in the past year had felt like that. He had to convince her to come back, to give the mansion—and him—one more chance. She was right in some ways about how he had felt before, the way he treated her. Now he had to make it up to her, show her how important she was to him. His mind still shied away from exactly why that was so important. It just was. Rogue was.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, some of you have noted that in "Bye-Bye, Love" Rogue wasn't so much angry as she was resigned. While that is true, she definitely will not appreciate Logan trying to act like...well, you'll see. Because sometimes you can be pushed too far, even by those you love.
Chapter End Notes:
Okay, I know the formatting on the second half was a little weird, but I was trying to show how the thoughts were just kind of floating around in his brain without any cohesiveness.