Logan was the thirteenth one.
I didn't think about it until later, until far later when I was curled up safe in my bed with the door locked and the rain pouring down the window outside. I didn't think about it because I'd tried really hard not to think about him or his mind or his thoughts or anything that would remind me of why I wasn't seventeen inside me like I was on the outside.
But he was the thirteenth one.
I remember when I was little, just old enough so that I knew my numbers, I rode in an elevator with my papa. It was the first time I'd ever been in an elevator, and I remember how my eyes looked reflecting from the shiny metal and how the buttons were big and round and had little bumps on them that papa said were so the blind people could see.
And I remember how I ran my fingers over each one and said the numbers out loud, because I loved the smile papa got on his face when he was proud of me. And I got to twelve, and I stopped, because I knew there was supposed to be a thirteen, but it just went to fourteen.
And I asked him why, and that's when I learned about thirteen, and how it wasn't a number that most people liked. He told me it was unlucky, so that people built their buildings, but didn't put a thirteenth floor in.
And I still remember how I didn't say it, but I thought it--I thought that if luck was so stupid that it could be fooled by tricks like that, then I would be lucky my whole life.
Of course, by the time I dragged my freezing body into his trailer, luck was running so crazy that I wasn't thinking about fooling it anymore. I wasn't thinking about the fact that I'd hitched rides with twelve men before him, some for just a few hours, some for a couple of days--but twelve of them.
Logan was number thirteen. The unlucky number.
I'm still trying to decide if that's true or not.
He aged me, that's for sure. He aged me at least thirteen years by the time he walked back out of my life the first time--and it wasn't just because I had his memories. I had Magento's memories too, and they didn't age me, they just made me feel tired and a little scared.
It wasn't the memories. It was seeing myself through his eyes.
The first twelve were all old. I chose them old because even though I was innocent, I knew that kids like me could get hurt, and even though anyone trying to do the horrible stuff that mothers whispered about in the dark to me would probably end up dead... I didn't wanna take the chance. I didn't wanna kill them.
There were some things they all had in common. They all offered to call my parents right off, and the one who told me I looked like his granddaughter even went so far as to say that his son would take care of me if I was running from a broken home. If I hadn't been what I was, maybe I would have gone with him.
Course, if I hadn't been what I was, I never woulda had to run to begin with.
They were all talkative, too. They wanted to know about me, about where I was from, if I was doing okay. If I was too cold or if I needed them to pull over and get me some hot cocoa. I was careful, I was really careful up until the end. Number twelve was the youngest of them all, a big quiet bear of a man who didn't talk much but gave me a little food.
I was starting to think I'd fooled luck. No one had tried to rape me, no one had tried to rob me, I'd gotten as far as Canada, and even though I didn't have any money, I was convinced that I could find more lonely old truckers who missed their grandkids.
But Logan was number thirteen, and that's when luck caught up to me.
I wasn't attracted to him. I'd turned that part of me off when David started going into convulsions. I didn't want another boy to look at me ever again, because it hurt. It hurt because right when it happened, right when it started--I got all his thoughts and what he was thinking wasn't very pretty.
He was thinking freak. He was screaming it in his head. Horrible, revolting freak. That's what I was to him, and it hurt and it scared me and I didn't want to give anyone else the chance to make me hurt inside like that again.
Logan scared me. He was everything that every man I had ever met wasn't. I'd lived in a civilized southern town, where they still had their picnics and even if we dressed modern, it looked like something straight from Gone with the Wind. Men didn't growl and take off their shirts and beat other men into the ground. That's what animals did.
And the way he looked at me scared me more. Like he was trying to decide if I was a deer he could pounce and rip to pieces, or a fox that was going to bite him if he turned his back. And I remember, sitting on the stool, thinking that... and then realizing that I was thinking in animal metaphors, and everything was animal because that's what he was to me.
I made up my mind to avoid him. If I had to stay in that town starving for days I would... but I wouldn't climb into his car and let him have me trapped.
And luck caught up. Right there, right when I made that decision, luck caught up. Because I saw the glint of silver and something, some god awful thing made me call out to him--
And then I had to run, because he was too dangerous and was gone from the bar, and everyone was turning their eyes on me, the little girl who'd tried to help the mutant... and I knew I had to run, because I was going to get hurt. Really bad.
So I did what I had said I wouldn't do, and I made him number thirteen.
At first it seemed almost strange. He didn't talk, so I tried to, because I was used to talking. And I knew I sounded childish and silly, but it was better than just sitting there in that small, confined space with all that quiet intensity.
And his eyes. He didn't look at me much--but I didn't like the way he did, because it wasn't the way the old grandfather trucker looked at me. It was like the way David looked at me, only worse because he was older, and dirtier because he tried to hide it.
And then things were moving so fast, and he went flying through the windshield and got up and was still worried about me, so I thought maybe I'd been wrong, maybe I didn't know what men's looks meant, because he was acting like a guy who was worried about his kid sister.
Which was pretty much the last time I saw him until he stabbed me.
My gift works in a funny way. And since I can't really test it out without hurting people, I just have to fumble along trying to straighten it all out in my head after something's gone wrong.
But it was only the second time I'd touched someone, so I didn't know as much then as I did now. When I felt that rush of worry and fear thunder through me from him, I thought that it was all he was feeling... because I thought I was getting all of him.
I didn't know then that I was only seeing his conscious thoughts, because his subconscious thoughts would weasel their way into my subconscious and become my own.
That's why I still kinda liked him after that. That's why when he came to me on the train and said he's take care of me and wrapped an arm around me, I didn't mind. Because he wasn't pushing at anything, he wasn't trying to get into the places where I didn't want people to go. I was so sure I knew what he thought and felt about me.
The problem with subconscious thoughts... they only reveal themselves when they have reason to. So I thought I was safe, but I didn't know what was inside me that he'd put there.
And I felt safe for about five minutes, and then I felt anything but safe, and then I didn't feel anything at all because Magento had drugged me and when I woke up, I was inside a bag, slung over someone's shoulder.
I didn't see him again until I was strapped into the machine, and everything that was me was being pulled out through the pores on my skin. And not just me--David went first, every thought I'd ever had of him slicing out of my body, and even though it was painful and horrible, I couldn't help being grateful--because I couldn't hear him screaming 'freak' in my head anymore.
Logan went next, and he was harder because there was more of him there, and he wasn't just sitting quietly. He was clutching at me like he didn't want to leave, and it made it more painful, so much more painful that I started screaming.
And as the bits of him that he'd left inside me started pulling out through my skin, I saw what was there inside me that he'd left behind--and it scared me and hurt me and made me want to never, ever let anyone touch me again.
I saw myself. I saw my skin, all of it bared, and pale against his as he did things to me that I knew would never happen. I saw his hands on my body as if they were my own hands and my body belonged to someone else, and I saw my body respond in ways it never could.
I saw a thousand things he could do to me, a thousand things I could do to me--and underneath it all was this sense of betrayal, because I thought he'd wanted to protect me, and instead he was leaving me naked and trembling and thinking thoughts of things that could never be--
I hated him, in that second. And then those memories were gone too, and I didn't feel the urge to run my hands over my own body anymore, and right about then is when he dropped from above like an avenging angel--like an animal set to mark his territory.
And I saw him, and I cried--but I couldn't remember why because the machine was sucking me out now, all my memories and everything I'd ever known or felt, and it was tugging on my skin so hard that I couldn't think of anything but the pain of being taken out of my skin, turned inside out. Dumped on the floor so that everything that was me trickled away, water sinking into sand.
And that was the last thing I thought until I woke up with his lips on me and the urge to run my small soft hands--hands that should have been large and rough--all over my own body.
And when I pushed him away, I don't know if it was because I wanted to save him, or because I thought I was him...
Jean knew. In the jet on the way back, she knew, because she kept glancing over and catching me when I'd run a hand over my hip, or over my shoulder or trail fingers up and down the line of my neck. And every time my fingers brushed skin I'd jerk them back and stare at them, surprised that they were small and pale and hairless with carefully trimmed nails.
And after I growled at her when she caught me and hunched over on myself protectively, she got really wide eyed and looked down at Logan, who was shirtless under her hands and already covered with bandages. And I could hear her breathing, "Oh god," but it didn't mean anything to me. Nothing meant anything to me except for touching myself with hands he thought were his.
I didn't bother to try to stop him. It was like he was awake inside me, and he was in control. I remember hearing Jean and Xavier talking once about my gift, and Jean thought that the reason it had taken Logan so long to wake up and start healing again was because he wasn't in his own body, he was in mine, and I had to let him go before he could find his way back.
I could have told her it was bullshit. Everyone seemed to think I was enamored of Logan, that I was in love and clinging to him inside me. I just wanted him out. I would have gone back into the machine again if they could have promised me that I wouldn't have to feel turned on by staring at myself in the mirror anymore.
I snuck into the medroom the night before he recovered. I hadn't been sleeping, and I was feeling like a caged animal, which I'm sure was really him feeling like a caged animal inside me. So I snuck into the room where he was resting, and I wrapped my hands around one of his large ones, and I leaned down and placed it over my heart, his fingers spread wide and his thumb resting along the curve of my breast.
It was the strangest sensation in the world. It was Logan touching me, and it was Logan touching himself, and it was me touching myself, and I wasn't sure who was happier, the Logan inside me that there was finally a hand he recognized as his own resting on my body, or me, because the hand sliding over my chest and stomach wasn't small and covered in fabric.
Then he stirred and grunted, and the hand tightened around my waist and when my eyes flew open, I saw that his face had little streaks of blood over clean, unmarred skin, and I knew he was back in his own body, and his body was healing, and I knew I had to get out before he woke up.
And then my fingers fell to the sides of the table he was resting on, and clenched around the metal to keep me standing, because his hand slid over waist and back up to cover my breast, only with my hands not guiding his, it was different. His fingers knew where to touch almost better than my own did, and they were his... and the Logan inside me was suddenly very, very quiet and very, very intense--and I could tell all the concentration was going into touching me.
It felt better than anything I could remember, his hands hot through the fabric of my clothing and focused on marking me, on imprinting the feel of his touch on me. In spite of myself the slightest moan fell from my lips, an exhalation of breath as his hand ghosted past a nipple. And at the sound of my voice, his hand returned and my knees nearly buckled as his fingers pressed slowly, knowingly, and oh so good before skating away to touch more of me.
His hands slid over my waist and my hips and my stomach, down the back of one leg and up my back a little, never very far because he was still lying on the table, his eyes closed, and I didn't even realize he wasn't really awake until his fingers strayed up towards my neck, and one callused fingertip brushed my skin.
I stumbled back with a gasp when I felt the jolt, and his hand fell back to the table and for a moment I was afraid I'd killed him--but he was still breathing shallowly, and that's when I crawled from the medlab back to the girls bathroom and threw my clothing off. And when the water in the shower was hot, I sank to the floor in the corner and wrapped my arms around my legs, because it was the only way I could be sure my hands wouldn't start running over my own body without even noticing it.
I hated him for the two days it took him to recover and get back on his feet. I hated him and a sick little part of me wanted him, which made me hate him even more because he'd turned back on the things in my body that went along with being a woman, and it didn't seem fair to me because I wasn't allowed to be one.
Jean came to tell me that he'd woken up, and I just growled at her. And because no one even tried to understand what was going on inside me, Jean just gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder and told me not to worry, because all of Logan's quirks would fade soon and I'd just be me again.
I laughed, and she must have thought I was crazy, throwing my head back and howling with laughter--but it was funny that she was a telepath and couldn't even tell what I was thinking.
Because I'd never be just me again.
He left for the first time that next morning, went jogging on out and the only reason I even talked to him was because he was still inside me, and I knew the best way to make him run would be to ask him to stay.
And I needed him to leave. Because he wanted me, and I didn't want anyone to want me. I almost hated him when we stood in that doorway, and his eyes were flying around and looking anywhere but at me. I wanted to take his head between my hands and make him look at me. I wanted to tell him that I knew everything, that I knew it and it couldn't happen and he needed to stop making me want to feel hands on my body.
I wanted to tell him that I'd spent half of the night in the shower the night before, because it was the only place I could have any privacy, and that thanks to him I'd spent the entire time crying and running my hands over my skin and crying more because I hated the feeling of wanting myself.
I wanted to tell him that I wished he really had wanted Jean, because it would be so much easier to deal with wanting to slap Jean's ass and cop a feel, because at least she was another person.
I wanted to beg him to bring me back to his room and to just touch me himself, because I hated how my hands felt against my skin.
Of course I didn't say any of it. I acted like I was a love sick little puppy, and the thought that the object of his lust wanted him back lit a fire under his tail and he was down the road and gone before I could even blink again.
He'd come back and left again twice before it happened, the thing that changed everything. The first time he came back it was strange, because I'd almost gotten used to living the way I had to in order to stay sane with him in my head. I stayed away from mirrors and I stayed away from older men too, because in every glance they gave me I saw brown eyes that wanted to see more of me than I knew how to show, and in every glance I gave myself I saw less of me than there should be.
It was strange, living half in between waking and sleeping, half in between being a woman and being a child, and above all, half in between being me and being him. But I learned to deal with it, and the only thing that had changed was that I lingered longer and longer in the shower, because the man laying dormant inside my head insisted that he be allowed to touch me, and because my hands were all he had to use, that's what he did.
It never did anything to me though. Feeling my own hands on my body was awful, because I hated it and he hated it--he wanted to have it be his hands and he wanted it to make my body feel things that it just didn't feel.
And then he came back, and it all went to hell.
He didn't ignore me like I hoped he would. He didn't treat me like a kid or ruffle my hair or even really talk to me. He sat in the corner and didn't talk to anyone but Scott or Storm or Jean once in a while, and he chewed on his cigar and watched me wherever I went.
If I was in class, he had a reason to be outside the door when I got out. If I was eating lunch, he was in the cafeteria with a tray in front of him, but he didn't eat. He didn't even bother to pretend he was eating. All he did was look at me with these eyes that were running up and down my body and searching for something.
Whatever it was, he didn't find it the first two times he came back, and after a few weeks of skulking around and making me wish I could find a way out of my skin, I'd wake up one morning and he'd be gone.
The third time he came back though, everything was different.
After he left the second time I started walking, because being inside my skin was making me claustrophobic and the only cure was to be moving all the time. I signed up for the defense classes in the mornings, and then picked up some in the evenings. And when that wasn't enough, I started walking at night.
I don't know why it happened. Maybe it was because with all the exercise and working out I'd finally started filling out and looking almost like a woman instead of a scrawny teenager who was trying to pretend she was older and wiser than she had any right to be.
Maybe I just looked like an easy target.
He wasn't much larger than me, certainly not as big as Scott--and I'd been tossing Scott around not an hour ago--so as soon as the surprise wore off I had him thrown off of me and was running for all I was worth, because whoever the man was and whatever he wanted with me couldn't be good for either of us.
I really didn't want anyone else in my head.
He was faster than I was, and when it came down to it he was stronger too, because I'd only been learning to fight for a few weeks and he had strength and height and reach on me, and it wasn't long until I was pinned up against the wall and his hand was around my throat and every time he shifted I could feel his knuckle graze my skin just above my scarf.
I could have ended it then. I could have let my head drop down onto his hand and everything he was would have gone flying into me and it would have been the end of it. He would have hit the pavement and I would have dealt with a sicko in my head for a few weeks--but I was used to it and it was better than a knife in the gut.
I could have and maybe I would have, but he took the choice out of my hands when he kissed me.
He was slimy and disgusting and had beat up his girlfriend before getting trashed to come out and find someone else to abuse because she'd left him. I knew it all in the few seconds after the connection opened and he started pouring into me.
He yanked back, but his hand had slipped and was wrapped around my throat and so I watched him as he died, watching the realization of what I was slide across his face before the revulsion started pouring through.
Revulsion. He knew what I was, and he hated me. I could see it in his eyes, I could see it in my eyes reflected back from his memories even as he started to fade. And when he slipped to the ground, I was stuck leaning against the wall and trying not to go crazy from how much I hated myself.
And it was only when I was dragging my fingernails down my face and trying to scratch the image of myself as a monster away--it was only then that I realized that Logan had come home for a third time, because it was his hands that wrapped around my wrists and tore my hands from my face.
I stared at him, and this time it didn't matter that his eyes were trying to see something that wasn't there because I hated myself more than he could ever want me.
We didn't talk. There wasn't anything to say, so we didn't talk. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders and let one hand fall to my lower back and he gave me a little push and I started walking because that was what people did when they needed to get somewhere, and I knew I had to get somewhere.
We had to stop a few times, because having someone else in your head is like having a new limb, and it takes time to get used to it. My balance was thrown off and I stumbled into him more than once, but I stumbled away more and that was worse because no one caught me.
My gloves were ripped and my hands were bleeding when he settled me on a curb a few blocks away and just kind of stood in front of me while I stared down at the ground and tried to make sense of anything at all.
It didn't work. Nothing worked except for to breathe in and out, and when I finally had the courage to look up he was standing there, staring at me in that way he'd done so many times before--like he was looking for something.
And he found it, that mysterious thing he was looking for--he must have, because he got me back to the mansion and woke up Jean and waited until I was settled down before disappearing again...
But this time he stayed. And that scared me most of all.
Scott was training me to be his assistant, and he was the one who made me stop. With everyone else I could shove them aside, tell them the hours and hours spent in the Danger Room were for training--teaching myself to fight better and harder and stronger, because if I was going to be Scott's assistant I needed to be the best.
Scott knew better. Whatever reason drove me to fight pretend enemies at night--it wasn't the need to practice so that I could teach others, and he knew it. I think he might have known that I was scared--that I'd learned that being mutant didn't make me invulnerable.
But that wasn't even the real reason. And I think Scott knew that too.
It was him. The feeling of his eyes on me and sharing space and air with him--it was too much. I was more than claustrophobic in my own skin now--I hated it. I hated myself because the drunk lecher I'd absorbed hated me, and I wanted myself because time wasn't enough to erase the desire in my head that Logan felt for me, and with the two of them fighting inside me there wasn't room left for me.
"Enough, Rogue."
I stumbled and fell in surprise and the room fell silent around me. "Scott, I'm just--"
"Enough."
And he lead me out of the room and sat me down in the hallway, standing above me looking worried. "I want you to talk to Jean, Rogue."
"I'm fine." It was a lie, so much of a lie that he looked surprised that I'd even bothered to say it. But anything else he was going to say died as Logan rounded the corner and paused, looking at us suspiciously before pinning me with his eyes.
"You weren't in your room."
The knowledge that he was keeping tabs on me was more than a little startling, but I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to think about staying sane inside my head until Logan left again--because he had to leave sooner or later--and then I could maybe start forgetting about how much I wanted to be touched.
I slipped by him in the hallway and tried not to wince as I felt his hand brush against my arm as I hurried by, but I couldn't help it. His hands were like poison--the slightest touch drugged my mind and brought everything rushing back in colors and sound.
I dreamt of him that night. Dreamt that I was in the shower and running my hands along my body because I couldn't escape the thought of him even there, and then he was there. Just--there. I turned around and leaned into him as if having a naked man in my shower was perfectly natural, and the only thing that happened when his skin touched mine was an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction.
He covered my hands with his own and it felt so strange--so good that I jerked my head back into the wall of the shower as he leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "It's time. Now I can show you--show you how to do it."
At first he just guided my own hands, but the Logan inside me was snarling and before long his hands had replaced my own, and for the first time in so long--longer than I could even remember--touch felt...
Good. Good God, it felt good.
I woke up biting my own arm to keep myself from screaming out loud, and when I ran my hands down my body, for the first time it didn't feel horrible or wrong--it just felt like it was actually okay to feel.
And while I was lying in bed and counting up the days and weeks that Logan had been home, I realized something that was just to crazy to be a coincidence.
He'd been home for thirteen weeks.
I spent the rest of the night wrapped up in my dressing gown next to the window, thinking about luck and Logan and the number thirteen--and how it didn't matter why it had happened--but something had shifted in my head and I knew it was time to stop hiding.
Sitting there, watching the sun rise up over the horizon, I made a promise to myself. Thirteen was going to be the number I claimed as my own, as my lucky number. Because with all the people out there trying to fool luck, I was going to be the one smart enough to embrace it.
In thirteen days--I would make him mine, or I'd have him out of my head for good.
I know that a lot of the people around here think I grew up too fast. And maybe I did, but it wasn't as much growing up inside as it was on the outside. From the moment Logan touched me I was imbued with an overwhelming sense of my own body, of how it looked clothed and how each curve appeared with fabric sliding across it.
And with that knowledge was the certainty that men liked it.
Logan put it there, this insane assurance that men wanted what I was, and even as it was tearing my mind to pieces it gave me an awareness of myself that no seventeen year old girl should have. Because seventeen year old girls are prey to insecurity and low self-esteem, and since I had someone in my head telling me that I was attractive and desirable and perfect, the only thing I could be insecure about was what was inside--and I was.
They all thought I'd grown up too soon. And because of that, none of the other girls really felt comfortable gossiping with me or letting me take part in the girl talk. To them, it was like asking Jean to gossip about kissing boys when they all knew that Jean was far beyond that stage.
I wasn't. I didn't know anything about how to catch someone's eyes or flirt or to even show that I was interested. I didn't know all of the stuff that girls figure out together--and I certainly didn't know how to learn it in under two weeks.
The easiest way would have been to go up to him and tell him, and I almost did. I would have, but when I was walking to find him I found him talking with Jean about something and the tiny bit of insecurity inside me raised it's head and reminded me that all of the knowledge I had--all of my assurances that men wanted me and Logan wanted me most of all--
It was out of date. It was years out of date.
Jean's face looked serious and they were talking in low voices with quick, hurried gestures and I could tell that Logan was mad about something--and Jean was shaking her head and denying whatever it was that he kept insisting...
I was staring at Logan's back and I saw his shoulders stiffen as I walked around the corner and Jean paused and her eyes fell on me and I couldn't read what was in them--I couldn't even begin to decipher the strange almost maternal look on her face.
I smiled and turned and ducked into the door on my left as if that had been my destination, and upon finding myself in the library I tried to find something to do because I could faintly hear the conversation breaking up in the hallway, and I knew because of the Logan inside my head that Logan would be following me into the library.
I waited. I waited for five minutes before I walked back to the door and peered out into the empty hallway, and the small knot of fear in my stomach grew because the Logan in my head wasn't the same as the Logan who was walking our hallways--and no where in my calculations had I expected to have to deal with a Logan who I couldn't predict.
I dreamt of him again that night, in the library. I was standing next to the fireplace and he came up behind me and locked an arm around my waist and pulled me until my back was pressed against him so tightly that I could feel his heart thudding against my own.
"You're ready," he whispered, and his hand ghosted down my body. And then his hands locked around my waist and held me as his face pressed against my shoulder. "Touch yourself, and I'll help you."
And I did, as his teeth sank into my shoulder and his eyes gazed down my body and followed my hands and the only sounds were his rumbling moans and my own, harsh whispers--pleas for help.
I woke up before he touched me, if indeed he was even going to, but my body was awake and alive and I stared into the darkness for a long time, wondering how many more times I'd dream about him before it would be too much and I'd go to him and beg him to make something real.
It took me two more days to get up the courage to go to him, two more days with two more nights filled with images of him and me and hands and bodies and always him whispering that it was time and that I was ready.
He was sitting in his room, just kind of sitting and staring out the window and rubbing his knuckles and his posture was bent over and almost subdued.
"Logan?"
He didn't turn around. He just lifted one shoulder and grunted. "Hey, Rogue."
The name cut through me, because I don't really remember him ever calling me Rogue. In all the years, from the day when he picked me up and mocked the name, he'd never, ever called me by it.
"Sorry, Wolverine, should I come back later?" And I twisted all the pain I felt into that name, that name that I'd never called him before.
He didn't even twitch. "You can if you want, but I won't be here much longer, so I suppose anything that's important should probably be said now."
So calm. So cool. And he still hadn't turned to face me, which made me even angrier because for some inane, immature reason I was expecting the Logan from my head, the Logan from my dream, and here I was faced with a Logan who wasn't even like the Logan I'd seen two days ago.
I didn't even bother to say anything, because I knew my voice would break on any words I tried to get out, and then it would be him trying to comfort the poor confused teenager who wasn't even a teenager any more and it would be about his guilt and not about anything real that could ever be between us. So I turned and tried to move out as quietly as I could...
But I forgot about him and his hearing. An arm shot over my shoulder and the door closed just as I was reaching for it, and then there was a body stretched out behind me and all I could do was stare at the hand next to my face on the cool wood of the door that I was being pressed into.
"I--" It was his voice that broke, not mine. "God damn it, Marie. Why did you have to--"
His voice sounded almost defeated, and I pushed back against him because I wanted to be able to see his face. He shifted back a little, enough so that the hand on my shoulder could turn me around so that it was my back pressing tight against the door, but he kept me trapped, his eyes darting wildly around before they came to rest at some point to the left of my head.
"I have to leave today, Marie. I've been asked to--" his eyes shifted to meet mine for a moment before he shook his head a little. "I--I accepted a mission from Xavier--and it's not--it's not a safe mission. It's dangerous."
"Why?" So many things he could say--but I was waiting for something that would tell me whether I needed to slip away or cling to him for all I was worth.
He withdrew so quickly that I nearly stumbled, turning his back on me and stalking across to the window again. "They--Xavier told me that it wasn't--it wasn't time for something else yet. I need to keep myself busy, so I figured I could--" I could tell how much he was hating this, the trying to explain, the flailing for something safe to say.
"Logan--" I was going to tell him to stop, but he read something else in my voice and he spun and muttered something that sounded like a profanity.
He was across the room before I could draw a breath, his hands tight on my shoulders. "I don't care what they say--I can fucking well tell you before--"
"Logan--" I tried again, but he shook his head and clenched his eyes shut.
"Don't, Marie. I have to tell you. I have to say it before--I don't care what they say. I don't."
He opened his eyes and they were dark and hot and I recognized this Logan from the dreams and from my head and the way he was looking at me made the bits of him still inside me rumble in approval. "I want you, Marie. I want you and I don't care how many of them tell me that I'm not good for you--I'm done being noble about it. I've been in and out of this place so many times in the past few years, and every time I come in Jean or Scott tell me that it's not time and that you're not ready--and I don't care anymore, Marie. I don't fucking care what they say. I don't even care if I'm no good for you any more, because I just--I need--"
"Shhh." My fingers were gloved and small and dark against the pale skin of his face as I pressed them against his lips, and my head should have been spinning, but it wasn't. Because I knew he wanted me, and it wasn't a surprise. It just felt good to finally have it out in the open.
"Marie, can you--"
"Shhh," I said again, and I let the fingers on his lips slide up his cheek and back down to brush against his lips. "I know. I know it all, Logan. I've known it for--" I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against his mouth again. "I've known it forever."
His groan was everything I could ever want it to be, everything that was good as one hand slid up my arm and held my hand steady against his mouth as his lips slid open and pressed kiss after kiss to the palm and the fingers and the inside of my wrist, the fabric thick enough to hide the wetness but not nearly enough to shield my skin from the warmth, and when he caught the pad of skin below my thumb in his teeth I felt the heat and the wetness and my knees started getting shaky.
"I thought--" My breath jerked from my chest as his mouth skated past the small strip of skin at the top of my glove, and I could feel and hear his low chuckle. "I thought you had to--to go--"
"Tonight," he whispered, and for a moment I felt almost hurt that he was still going, but then he was pulling me against him as he sank onto the bed, my legs falling to either side of his and his hands sliding over me and feeling more right than my own had ever felt.
"I'll be back in a few weeks," he whispered as his hands found my shoulders and slid down to brush so softly against my breasts. "We can--we can wait, and if they don't approve--I'll take you with me, Marie. I'll take you wherever you want to go. To Alaska, or anywhere--" And his eyes got a little wild as he stared up at me. "Would you--would you go with me?"
I had to think a little, and I think that hurt him. But I did have to think, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to trust myself and my heart and my security to him--
"We don't have to wait," I whispered, pulling his hands back to me. "Just--that's enough for now. We can figure it all out, Logan." His hands were warm on me and his mouth was warmer, and by the time he'd guided me to my back and managed to figure out a way to rub against me in all the right places--his fingers had driven me over the edge and for the first time in my life I thought that maybe touch wasn't such a bad thing after all.
He left that night, after holding me against him and swearing ten different ways that he'd be home safe and he'd be with me and that no one could kill him because he was such a tough bastard, and that he'd never get himself hurt now that he finally had me.
But he left, and I think I hated Xavier a little, and I think I hated Scott and Jean a lot even though I knew in my heart that they were trying to protect a little girl with a crush from getting her heart broken.
He said he'd only be gone a few days.
I didn't do much for the first week after he was gone. I just watched as the days crept by, and my eyes kept falling on the day I'd circled on my calendar, the day that was thirteen days from the moment I'd realized how much I needed him... and I knew in my heart that if I hadn't heard anything by then, I'd fall to pieces. Brave facades were all very well, but I had finally learned to feel okay inside my skin, and I couldn't stand the thought of going back to the way I had been.
People started walking lightly after he'd been gone nine days, and Jean and Scott looked guilty and Xavier was spending more and more time inside Cerebro... but every time he left it was with a look of failure on his face.
The thirteenth day arrived, ten days after he'd left me, and I went to bed that night resolved to wake up not caring about anything at all, because if I was going to go back to being closed off and cold and hating my body for the pleasure it would never give me, I was going to do it right. I wasn't going to even care.
He woke me up. Ten minutes before midnight, he stumbled into the room and he was half supported by Scott and Jean was telling him that he had to get down to the medical office that very moment, but he shook of both of them and dropped to his knees beside my bed and kissed me.
His lips were split and I could taste the faint metallic taste of his blood and his tongue slid between my lips and his mouth ground into mine, and I barely managed to push him away before he drained himself completely.
"Sorry," he whispered as he collapsed against the pillow, his eyes haunted. "I almost--I almost left you."
And I knew, I knew it because he was inside my head again, and this time it wasn't lust that sunk into my bones, it wasn't the need to touch myself and run my hands over my body, wishing that they were his.
It was love. He loved me, and I loved myself because of it, and as I trailed after Jean and Scott as they carried him down the stairs, I knew that things were going to be hard and bad and scary, because now that I knew I was in love--
Things mattered. They mattered like nothing had ever mattered before, and because the number thirteen was starting to mean so much for me, I resolved that in thirteen days I'd tell him that I loved him too, and tell him that maybe I wouldn't mind so much if we took a break and went up to Alaska.
And all he said was, "What took you so long to ask?"
That was when I explained about the number thirteen, and as we were driving up towards Canada, he gave me a funny little look and muttered, "Just don't tell me you're going to make me wait thirteen years before you'll marry me or something."
It wasn't a proposal, and we both understood it--but it was something more than a joke too. It was hope.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is dedicated to Molly. Some day, in some distant future, it is my goal to write something that is maybe 1/100th as good as every thing she's ever written. Some day. Maybe. Thanks to everyone who has been looking at this over the past two months I've been writing it. Misty, Nacers, Shana, Donna, Molly, prolly Gowdie too. I can't even remember who I've showed it to--but look! I finished!