"Is this real enough for you Rogue?!" asked a feral Logan as he sheathed his claws after slicing a vein in his right wrist.
The blood spurted out momentarily, but seconds later the wound closed; hiding all evidence of the volatile act.
Rogue jumped back startled; her mouth partly open in disgust and fear.
She bumped into the wall behind her suddenly feeling too close to the man she knew as a good friend for years.
Rogue stammered her words; "W-what are ya doin' Logan?!" she asked as something deep inside her started to take over.
Rogue had made the mistake of bringing up Jean only months after her *second* death and even worse by uttering the same phrase spoken with a harsh tone by Storm the day she caught Logan packing; "Why can't you just let her go?"
He looked at her with a contempt that Rogue had never
seen before and spat out his response with fire in voice, "Shut the fuck up, you don't know what you're talking about!"
Logan closed his eyes tightly for a moment before turning to walk away.
Rogue took a breath and let her gaze fall onto her boot covered feet.
"You're too stupid to see what's right in front of you and what's real… you're so hung up on her."
Rogue whispered the words so low that nobody without
freakishly good hearing could have picked up on it, but unfortunately Logan was one of those people and she'd forgotten that small fact.
Without a moment's notice he was hovering over her; jaw clenched, breath ragged and a temper ready to boil over.
"What did you say?", the voice wasn't all together Logan's and the tightness in his tone made the words more frightening than a scream of the most hellish magnitude.
"Is this real enough for you Rogue?!" he asked as he sheathed his claws after slicing a vein in his right wrist.
The blood spurted out momentarily, but seconds later the wound closed; hiding all evidence of the volatile act.
Rogue jumped back startled; her mouth partly open in disgust and fear.
Logan pushed her up against the wall with a forced that nearly broke Rogue's shoulder blade, "Get the fuck away from me!"
Suddenly Rogue's eyes lit up with a strange yet familiar glow and her face became inexplicably calm, "Logan don't… it isn't her fault."
The features on Logan's face softened unexpectedly with confusion, hope and… love.
"Jean?" he asked; his voice shaky.
Rogue nodded and the confusion took over Logan's expression completely.
"But… how?" was all Logan managed to get out.
Rogue bowed her head, but this time in guilt; "It-it was the last thing she did before taking the cure. Rogue loved you Logan… she would've done anything to see you happy… anything."
Realization dawned a few moments later, but for nothing
really because Logan still didn't know what to do with that or any other knowledge which had been foisted on him within mere minutes.
Jean in Rogue's mind? Rogue in love with him? It was all too much to take in.
Pushing past everything else, Logan grabbed Rogue by the
arms and hugged her tightly… the way he would've hugged Jean if it had been her body in front of him.
He cried for his loss and for his gain because getting Jean back would mean losing the first real friend he could remember having and at the same time a girl who deserved so much more than to be a bodily substitute for someone else.
Slowly coming out of his haunted revelry Logan asked a question; one he could have never conceived prior to
the current situation, "Is-is she still in there?"
Rogue looked into his eyes sadly, "Yes… but only as a secondary personality. She held on for so long… I'm sorry."
Logan hung his head against Rogue's shoulder soaking her sweater with the remnants of his tears.
"We have to leave." she said softly, "No one knows about this… I made sure of it, but it won't be long before someone starts asking questions."
Rogue grabbed Logan's hand and brought it to her lips just as he'd done to Jean that night in the med lab.
"I love you." she said looking deeply into his eyes as though she could see into his soul. And suddenly Logan knew that it wasn't Jean talking.
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