Bobby was the first to realize that Rogue was gone.
He’d come knocking on her door like he did everyday; waiting to take her downstairs for breakfast.
When there was no reply, Bobby knocked harder; causing a hollow echo to sound off the hard wood.
“Rogue? Rogue?”
He could have assumed that she’d gone to breakfast without him; with Jubilee, Kitty and Pete instead, but Bobby just couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
-------------------------------------------
Logan lay awake on the grubby motel bed listening to the even breathing emanating from across the room.
All the muscles in his body were tense, so much so, that he didn’t even realize it until he tried; unsuccessfully, to relax.
["Waking nightmares are the worst because it’s realities way of saying ‘Fuck you!’.
The painful images that run through your head when you’re awake have that sinking tinge at the end.
About the same time you realize that you’re not going to wake up… not ever."]
Logan felt that way just then.
He felt that way all the time, truth be told, but he’d never recognized it so clearly.
"Don’t make me do this."
"Do what?"
"This."
"I don’t want you to go."
"I’ll be back for these."
"Here, these are yours."
"She’s a little taken with you."
"My heart belongs to someone else."
"Logan!"
"Go, I’ll be fine!"
"But we won’t."
Translation?… "But *I* won’t."
There were soft curves under Logan’s hands and warm breath on his face and it was Jean and it was Rogue and it was *fucking* confusing.
The saddest part was that in some less twisted (or more, Logan couldn’t figure out which) way, that had really happened.
And as the masochist that he was, Logan actually wished that it had been about looks and about sex.
At least then there would be options.
Mystique would be more than willing to create any fantasy that he so desired.
But it wasn’t about either of those things and Logan didn’t know if he’d ever find out anything more than what he was told or if it even mattered.
For a split second Logan thought about leaving.
Leaving and maybe revisiting a few failed suicide attempts with a bit more knowledge about his mutation.
For a split second, Logan thought that leaving would be his only option against strangling Rogue in her sleep for the mess she had created.
He was fully aware at that moment of their heart to heart, but all of it began to fall away as he really came to terms with the fact that in no *fucking* way, shape or form were they ever going to be okay again.
He needed Jean. He needed her and to Hell with hurting Rogue.
“JEAN! JEAN!”
Rogue woke up bleary eyed and trying to sort out the details of the day before. Death might have been a better surprise.
“JEAN!”
“Logan! Why the fuck are you yelling!”
“Jean, I need you!”
Jean came to the fore, Rogue mutely disappearing within her own mind.
“Yes?”
“Tell me why she did it!”
“What?”
“Tell. Me. Why. She. Did. It!”
“I told you why. Beyond that, I can’t say…”
“You can’t or you won’t?!”
“A little of both.”
Logan began to cry.
“I LOVED YOU! I would’ve killed for you! I would’ve died for you! I would’ve moved Heaven and Hell for *YOU*!… And you couldn’t just wake the fuck up?! You couldn’tve done something to stop this kid from setting you, me and herself on fuckin’ fire?!”
A long moment passed before the silence was broken.
“No. And I wouldn’t have done something if I could have.”
The voice sounded low, cold and distant.
“I was dying Logan. I don’t believe in the after life, I will never see Scott again… I thought that if I took what was being offered- that a life with you, any life at all, would be better than nothingness. I can’t go back… I won’t… I’ve spent too much time in dark nothingness.”
Tears were streaming down Rogue’s face, but Logan knew who the tears were really from and what they were really for.
In that moment, for the first time, Logan truly hated Jean. And for the first time, he truly understood her.
-------------------------------------------
After asking a few more people if they had seen Rogue, Bobby went to the Professor.
"Rogue’s missing."
"I know."
"You do? Where is she?!"
"Please Robert, come sit down."
-------------------------------------------
Glass shards from an old mirror fell to the floor as Logan shattered it. He looked at his reflection in the remaining pieces and knew what he had to do to stop the psychosis.
"Romeo and Juliet."
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