Morning came far too soon. Rogue had slept fitfully the rest of the night, not managing to get into another deep sleep cycle, and Logan was loathe to wake her when Scott came and knocked on his door at five am, to tell him they would be leaving in an hour. Logan showered and dressed, and double checked his bags before he finally went to Marie, letting her sleep for as long as possible.
"Morning darlin," he whispered, as she stirred to his gentle caress.
"Is it April already?" she asked, with a sleepy smile.
"You wish, I'm leaving in about twenty minutes, going to miss you kid," he told her softly.
"Nah, you're just going to miss my cooking," she said cheekily. Logan chuckled, and they chatted for a while longer, neither wanting to say the one word that would mean he would have to get up and walk out of the room.
After about fifteen minutes, Logan finally pulled away from her. Tugging the chain of the dog tag he wwore from around his neck, and slipping it around hers to hang over her heart. "I'll be back for this," he commented, in lieu of saying 'goodbye'.
"You better be, April tenth and not a day later... be safe," she replied, reaching up to offer him a chaste kiss, "And don't forget to call."
"I won't, now you go back to sleep darlin, love you.” He gave her one final kiss, as he tugged her blankets back up to her nose, and left her room for the final time.
He got to the plane hangar just as the bunker doors above the sleek machine were opening and quickly boarded, stashing his bags behind a cargo net and buckling himself into the seat he had sat in on the mission to rescue Marie. He couldn't help the prickle of doubt at leaving her any more than he could help the roll his stomach did as the jet lifted off the ground. He hated flying, he hadn't been able to pin point exactly why, though he did have distinct memories - which he believed were from the second World War - of parachuting under the cover of darkness into war zones. Those memories always left him dizzy and nauseous, in a completely different way to memories of the lab, and often with phantom aches in long healed limbs from hitting the ground too hard. He tried to sleep on the flight but failed miserably, eventually settling on snacking on some jerky Scott tossed at him when asked if breakfast was served on this airline. Other than that, they really didn't speak much on the trip, once they landed was a different story however.
Scott helped him unload the extra bags of supplies he had acquired to begin repairs, and in return Logan offered him breakfast and coffee. Scott declined breakfast but accepted a coffee, it would be his second that morning but he had a feeling it was going to be a long day. He idly chatted with Logan about what repairs needed doing, the windows, and their framing, were the biggest issue. The rest of the damage appeared to be largely superficial thankfully, though some walls were likely to bear the deep gouges, from both mutant’s claws, forever.
It wasn't until he was ready to leave that Scott finally broached the subject he'd been wanting to mention for days. "Look, Rogue's going to be happy at the school, she's already started making friends," he said, as he stood at the bottom of the jets gang plank, "If you care about her at all and want what's best for her, you'll leave her alone and stay away from the school, she doesn't need an old man hanging around reminding her of mistakes she's made in the past."
Logan said nothing, initially, but the steaming fury in his eyes was enough to encourage Scott to make a hasty retreat.
"If you knew Marie half as well as you think you do, you'd know that is the biggest pile of steaming horseshit that could have come out of your mouth. If you think Marie thinks anything she's done is a 'mistake' I can tell you she doesn't, because Marie's learned lessons you never have and knows that every experience in your life, no matter how shitty, makes you the person you are, and Marie is a damn fine little woman, more than happy with who she is, and comfortable in her skin, and if I hear you've been trying to tell her otherwise, you won't be able to fly far or fast enough on this fancy ass plane of yours to get away from the ass kicking I will rain down on you. Think about that on your way back, flyboy."
Logan stalked back into the cabin once he had said his piece, his first order of business would be making sure he could get a signal on that phone and calling Marie. She would want to know he had arrived safe and sound.
--
Over the next few months they spoke on the phone regularly, most nights in fact. Logan kept Marie updated on his repairs to the cabin, and the antics of the wildlife that initially managed to sneak inside. Marie in turn happily filled him in on her days, schoolwork, activities with friends, reassuring him Scott and Jean weren’t harassing her about him.
Sometimes they would just talk about nothing, what the weather was doing in each location. Logan claimed to be bored and missing her one day and sent her a picture of his ‘replacement Marie' he had made in the snow, a horizontal snowwoman in a naughty pose. Marie had laughed so hard she gave herself the hiccups, and the next day she sent him a risqué picture of a certain male appendage, also fashioned from snow, claiming it as her replacement Logan.
Each phone call was harder than the last to end, some calls lasting until the batteries on their respective phones died, the call bill was horrendous but worth every minute.
They sent each other Christmas presents, though Logan’s arrived late due to another snow storm. Marie receiving a beautiful bearskin throw, like one of the ones at the cabin, and Logan getting a framed photograph of Marie, and a flannel shirt saturated in her scent; he also found a pair of panties tucked in the pocket which he enjoyed very much.
New Year’s passed without much fanfare for the both of them, though Marie started a count down of how many days until he would arrive back. On Valentine’s Day Marie was surprised to receive a bunch of rose’s from a local florist, with a simple ‘Thinking of you’ scribbled on the accompanying note card. She lamented her lack of forethought in sending something for Logan but he just shrugged it off and said it wasn’t necessary, or the point of a gift; she promised to make it up to him though.
The phone calls stopped on April first, and Logan took over the countdown, sending her daily messages, accompanied by a picture of wherever he was that day, as he began to make his way back East.
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Chapter End Notes:
When I went to post this chapter I decided it was too short so everything from the "--" was made up on the fly this morning, I appologise for any typos I might have missed :)