No one was supposed to know. No one was supposed to get hurt.
He should have known better, should have remembered that nothing in the short part of his life that he could recall had come easy, and very little had gone right.
It was too good to be true, the night Jean showed up in his room and told him that she and Scott were "on a break." Some part of him knew it, and didn't question.
He'd fantasized about having this woman in his bed for the past four years. Now Scott was in Alaska, alone, reacquainting himself with the family he'd thought was dead, while Logan was fucking Jean every night.
It should have been heaven, but it quickly turned into hell.
Nobody talked about it. No one was supposed to know, though people with rooms on the same floor couldn't help but overhear Jean's moans and Logan's growls as they went at it all day and all night. So nobody warned Rogue.
She was supposed to be down in Florida on Spring Break with Jubilee. He never expected to see her walk into the weight room while he and Jean were having sex.
His senses alert even during sex, he'd caught the vague but familiar scent and looked up to see her staring in shock, and then running from the room. He didn't think much of it at the moment, with Jean moaning his name and convulsing around him, but the look in Marie's eyes was the same as it had been the night he'd stuck his claws through her chest. An image that was burned into his brain, his nightmares.
Two days later she was back at college and he could avoid thinking about it, as he avoided thinking about anything that might have a negative impact on his little fantasy world.
He'd made Jean promise not to look into his head without his explicit permission, so she didn't realize anything was wrong.
And then it was summer.
Scott called to say he was staying with his father a while longer. He was reluctant to return to the place that had been his home for so many years, to see the woman he'd thought would be his wife go to another man's room every night. No one had to tell him what would happen once he was gone. He knew Jean didn't love Logan, and he hoped to stay away long enough for her to work him out of her system, long enough to remember how much he (Scott) loved her and long enough to learn how to forgive her.
But the kids -- Rogue, Jubilee, all the ones who had no family, or no family who wanted to know them -- came home.
And Logan suddenly realized that he'd missed her. Not so much while she was gone, but now that she was around, he missed their walks and their training sessions. She trained with Hank now, or Storm. She avoided him and he let her. He didn't owe her any explanation, he told himself, he was a grown man, she was a kid, and he could fuck whoever he liked.
But her eyes, those velvety chocolate eyes that were too old for her fine-boned face, haunted him.
He mentioned it to Jean. "Does Marie look okay to you?" he asked one morning over breakfast. "She's never around anymore."
Ororo sniffed and rose from the table. Logan knew she disapproved of his relationship with Jean, and for the life of him he couldn't figure it out. It wasn't jealousy. God knows, he'd hit on her often enough in the years before Jean made herself available, and been turned down at every pass.
Jean shrugged. "She's hurt that you and I are together, Logan. She's had a crush on you for a long time."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "That ended years ago, Jeannie. Believe me, I'd know." She sighed, but didn't look convinced.
Later that day, he finally cornered Marie in the stables. She had just come back from a ride and he noticed how attractive she looked with her hair windblown and her skin flushed. He was amazed at how the jodhpurs clung to her long legs and slim hips, and the t-shirt she wore outlined high, full breasts. His little girl had grown up into a damn fine looking woman, he thought, feeling an unexpected stirring in his groin.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she replied, not looking up. She attempted to walk past him.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Can we talk?"
"I'd rather not."
He slid his hand down her covered arm and into hers. "Please?"
"You actually taking time out of your busy sex life to remember I exist?" she snapped.
He blinked. "No need to be hostile, kid. You're the one who's been avoiding me."
"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want to interrupt you while you're -- otherwise engaged. Which seems to be all the time." There was anger in her tone as she tried to pull her hand away. He wouldn't let her go.
"Kid." She frowned and he shook his head. "Marie, listen to me. You're my family. You're the only one I got--"
"Seems to me you got Jean all the time and in every way," she muttered.
"Marie," he said, and there was a new note in his voice, one neither of them had ever heard before. He was pleading with her. She stopped moving and met his eyes for the first time.
"I don't want to lose you," he said.
"I was never yours to lose," she said, knowing it was a lie, and walked out.
Jean came to see her the next morning.
"Logan was just trying to make things right with you."
Rogue looked at her, eyes narrowed. "If he hadn't screwed up in the first place, he wouldn't have to."
"What's the screw up, Rogue? That he ignored you or that he and I are together now? I realize that you're hurt, but you can't take it out on everyone else. It's not our fault. It's not anyone's fault."
"Of course it's not," Rogue spat. "You're so perfect -- fucking perfect Jean Grey and your fucking perfect little life. You had Logan in your bed before Scott's spot was even cool. You ever think how you might have hurt him? How you're gonna hurt Logan when you realize you don't love him and he's not what you want? You ever think about that, Jeannie?" Her voice twisted the nickname scornfully.
"I know," the redhead said. "I know people -- you, Scott -- are hurting. I just --"
"Then act like you know. Leave me alone. You wanted Scott and you got him. You wanted Logan and now you've got him. Don't flaunt it in the face of people who'll never have anyone." Jean opened her mouth to respond and Rogue said, "Just go. Get out of my room."
Jean's shoulders slumped and she left.
Rogue bit her lip to keep from running after her and begging forgiveness. She wouldn't regret what she'd said. It was only the truth. Jean had everything, she had nothing. She was getting dressed when she realized she was still wearing Logan's dog tags. Whipping the chain over her head, she flung it across the room angrily. The metal that had been her only tie to the man she loved had been the one thing that kept her sane those nights she suffered with his and Erik's nightmares. Now they mocked her, warmed by skin he'd never touch again, he'd never wanted to touch in the first place. Family. That's a laugh, she thought. Family are the ones who mess you up the most.
Crossing the room to pick the tags up, she came to a decision.
"Charles." A leftover from the days when she could shape metal with her mind, bend it to her will.
He turned from the window. "Rogue?"
"Professor, I -- I think it's time for me to go." Running again? she asked herself.
"If you wish, Rogue. I know you've been unhappy for a while," he said gently. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
She walked to him and, kneeling, laid her head in his lap. She let the tears she'd been fighting for so long -- since that night in the weight room -- out in a torrent. He stroked her hair and sent soothing thoughts into her mind.
"Where will you go?" he asked when she was done and resting quietly, sitting on the floor next to him. They both stared out the window, Xavier thoughtfully, Rogue unseeingly, her eyes focused somewhere far off in the distance.
"Alaska," she answered without hesitation.
"Scott's in Juneau," he said softly.
"I know," she replied.
"You could bring him home."
"Do you really think he'd want to be here now?" she asked.
Xavier sighed. "Logan loves you, you know."
"I know," she replied. "It's not enough."
That night, while Logan and Jean were heating the sheets in Jean's bed for once, Rogue slipped into his room and laid the dog tags on the dresser. She couldn't wear them anymore.
She left the next day, in an old gray Chevy Nova (the Driver's Ed car), the keys to which had magically appeared in her room that evening, probably while she'd been sneaking into Logan's. She had a nice amount of cash in her pocket and a credit card from Xavier. "For emergency use only," she said, smiling for the first time in days. He hugged her, Hank handed her a map and Ororo kissed her hair as she left in the damp, pre-dawn hours, long before Logan would be stirring. She didn't want to take the chance of his catching her, asking her to stay. Because she knew she would.
She drove north for a few hours, hitting Lake George at around nine. She traded in the Nova for a pickup truck that wouldn't be recognizable to anyone following. She was afraid Logan would find her and convince her to come home, as if she could be at home in the place he'd betrayed her. Of course, he was still in her head a little, but the Logan in there had never looked at her as he fucked Jean, so she could live with that.
She knew she was being irrational, that he'd always wanted Jean and never wanted her, but she didn't care. Running was better than staying and dying a little inside every time she saw them together, and she'd learned how to run from the master himself.
Logan didn't notice she was gone until dinnertime. He and Jean had argued over her, and he'd gone into town. When he came back, he went to his own room for the first time that day and saw the tags. He had to blink at the burning sensation in his eyes, unfamiliar with it as he was. It wasn't until he felt the moisture on his cheek that he realized he was crying. Goddammit. The Wolverine didn't cry. He wasn't some fucking pansy-assed frat boy, mewling because his girl gave back his class ring.
Schooling his features, he went to her room. And saw the closet open and empty; the drawers as well. He clawed the furniture until it was less than useless and then stalked off to find Chuck.
"Where did she go? When did she leave?"
"I'm sorry, Logan. She asked me not to tell you."
"Fuck you, old man," he growled, shoving a claw at Xavier's chin. "You tell me where Marie is, or the furniture's not the only thing gonna be sportin' scratch marks."
"Logan!" Jean exclaimed. "Calm down."
"Don't fucking tell me to calm down. Marie is gone and this bastard let her go."
"Perhaps she will be happier away from here," Storm said, her voice soothing as always.
Logan didn't want to be soothed. "Happy? Who the fuck is happy? Why wouldn't she be happy here?" But he already knew. In his own selfishness he'd caused her pain and then acted like it didn't exist.
He sank down into a chair, defeated. She was gone, and she was probably better off without him.
That night he found himself crying, and for the first time ever, he stood under the shower and let the tears come. It was his fault, all his fault. He realized he loved Marie, and it was too late. He'd always wanted what he couldn't have and this time, it was his own fault.
He fell heavily into bed afterward, and Jean tried to hold him close, but he pulled away.
"It's not your fault," she whispered. "No one is to blame."
End
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Life is sucking right now, and I'm having Jean issues, so this is a little sad. I don't normally do angst, so it may be kind of crappy. "No One Is to Blame" is a great song. It just cries out for L/R. Thanks to Dot, Jen, Meg and Pete.