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Author's Chapter Notes:
A link to the vid I listen while I'm scribbling this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQHFVOdJbXU&mode=related&search=

I won't even try to claim that the vid didn't give me any ideas, because it did. :)
“Leave or stay, it’s up to you, but you’re a mess. We have to get you cleaned up,” Marie said, raking her gaze over Logan. He had some clothes on, tattered scraps that revealed more than they covered. His hair and beard that had grown were matted mess of dried blood and grime, and stench of sweat, blood and decay rolled off from him in waves.
“Take that outside,” Marie said, pointing at the bath pail that stood in the corner of the kitchen. Logan did as she asked.
“Well is behind the house,” she shouted after him, gathering soap, scissors and comb with her before following him outside. Logan was already carrying a bucket filled with water, and emptied it to the pail. It would take several trips to fill it, and water was cold, but he didn’t mind. Getting rid of the filth would probably help him to enforce the man in him, maybe give him something to keep the wolf at bay.

He had rinsed off worst of the accumulated grime while standing next to the pail. Fresh, cold water from the underground well made his skin tingle, but feeling hadn’t been as unpleasant as he had expected. Now he was sitting in the pail and scrubbed himself with the soap Marie had given to him. She was sitting on the porch of the cabin.

It was hard to avert her gaze from the bathing man. Underneath grit and filth Logan had tanned skin that stretched over fit, muscled body. She had seen naked men before, wealthy and not so wealthy townsfolk who came over her for remedies, but she had never seen anybody quite as pleasant for the eye as him. She soon noticed her thoughts wandering quite different paths than usual. She was openly staring at him, not looking for wounds or signs of illness, but rather admiring, and silently wondering what his skin would feel like against her own. She forced herself to turn her back when Logan stood up, reaching for a bucket filled with clean water to rinse off the soap.

“Better?” she heard him asking, and turned to look. He had dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist.
“Much better. But I’m afraid your beard and hair won’t make it. Too tangled,” she said, trying to stop her voice from trembling. Logan smiled and scratched his jaw.
“I don’t mind. Never have liked a beard, and hair… It’ll grow back. Do your worse,” he said sitting next to her. Few moments later she handed Logan a small mirror and a razor.
“Rest you can do yourself. I’ll go and make us something to eat. I left you some of my father’s old clothes, see if they fit.”

“Rogue…”
“It’s Marie. My real name is Anna Marie, but my father always called me Marie,” she said without turning to look when Logan stepped in.
“Marie… Much better than Rogue…” He practically purred the syllables, and she closed her eyes. There had to be something seriously wrong. She couldn’t be thinking him this way. It was wrong to remember how his skin glistened in the sunlight that seeped through the shadow the tree offered when he bathed. Maybe if she saw him wearing her father’s clothes she could stop thinking those impure thoughts… She turned.

Her father hadn’t been a small man. He had nearly dwarfed the blacksmith of the village just by standing next to him, but it looked like Logan would have done the same to her father. Shirt and trousers that she remembered being actually too big for her father, sat on Logan snuggly, like a second skin. Black, soft leather accentuated his muscled frame, outlined his wide shoulders and narrow waist. Clean shaven jaw, and what was left of his thick, dark mane of hair swept back from his forehead and temples, curling almost earlike peaks on both sides of his head. She had to sit down to cover sudden weakening of her knees. Knowing look flashed in Logan’s yellow eyes. Then he shook his head and chuckled softly, clearing his throat.

“I just came to ask if you would have shoes for me as well. I will pay for all of this as soon as I get back on my feet, of course…”
“There’s a trunk at the foot end of my bed. There should be few pairs of boots, see if they fit. And don’t worry about the money. There’s nobody else who would use those clothes. Consider them as a gift,” she said, amazed of how little her voice trembled when it felt like she was shivering all over.

“I made you more cure,” she said when they sat down to eat, and pushed a small leather pouch in front of him. He could hear small clinking sound from inside of it.
“Five vials. Then I run out of silver,” she explained with almost apologizing tone. He took the pouch and tucked it under his tunic, nodding in gratitude and reached her hand with his own.
“You have already done so much for me. I’m almost ashamed to ask you even more. One more thing…”
“Just ask.”
“I’ll be leaving soon. People at the carnival… I doubt they have spoken about me to anybody, but if somebody… If hunters come looking for me, don’t lie to them. Tell them who I was. Tell them what I became. They deserve to know what they throw themselves up against. I was one of them, and I know their every trick.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to. Wolf did no harm to you last night, but I can feel it. It’s getting restless. It hasn’t forgotten who gave me the cure when it tried to take over me for the first time…”
“But what if we tried the cure…” She stuttered. She had an awful feeling that if she let him go now, she would never see him again.
“It won’t work now, and you know it. It would make me a one very sick wolf. Very sick, and very angry. It’s better that I leave now, while I still can. If I hurry, I might get far enough…”
“Might get? Logan… You’re the first person aside my father who has spent this much time with me. Who has spoken to me. Who cares about me. I don’t want you to go. I’d rather take my chances with the wolf than see you walk away again.”

She shoved her plate away and hung her head, cheeks burning from embarrassment. In her haste to convince him stay she had spoken maybe too much. In all fairness Logan had sought her out because of her skills in herbal remedies, nothing more. He had stayed, and sought her again when he had needed her help, but nothing really indicated that he had any kind of feelings towards her. She could hear heavy sigh. Chair scraping against the floorboards. Heavy footsteps. Logan crouched beside her and clasped her delicate hands between his large, warm palms.

“I care about you. That is true. It has been long… Too long since I last felt like this towards anybody. That is why I have to go. The wolf… It would like nothing more than to see you dead. Feel your blood running down its throat. Tear you apart. You have shown me kindness. You have extended that same kindness to the wolf, too. I don’t want to repay that by killing you.”
“But can’t you feel it’s different now? You’re different. Earlier you were very rude. I was afraid of you. But now… You’re different. And the wolf promised not to hurt me…” She tried feebly to argue. Logan let go of her hands, and caressed her cheek with his index finger.
“Don’t cry. Please. Don’t cry because of me…”
“I cry if I want to! I think I have all the right in this world to cry over a friend!”
“Oh, God… Marie, please… You have to understand!”
“But I can’t understand! I coped with this thing a year! Listened and watched when my father… He never hurt me! Never! Why should you be any different?”
“I’m not your father. I’m not your brother. I’m not your lover. Wolf won’t recognize you as it’s own. Only thing it sees when it looks at you is a threat. And even if I were something more than a friend, I would leave. Too many times whole families have been slaughtered because they trusted to the wolf blindly.”

Logan stood up, and pulled her with him, cradling her against his chest. She could feel and hear his steady heartbeat through the soft leather of the tunic. One of his hands fell to the small of her back, the other wrapped around her shoulders.
“I don’t want to leave. If things were different… I was already getting tired of hunting. If it were just me inside my head, I would love to stay. But there’s something else you haven’t even thought about. What would people say? If they knew about me, if I stayed?” His words vibrated through his chest.
“They…”
“They would hunt me down, and burn you at the stake for consorting with the devil.”
“They would have done it after my father killed himself…”
“You wouldn’t have gotten any children even if you lived with your father for hundred years. With me… Who knows, eventually… And I would pass on the curse. People are not stupid, Marie. They don’t want, and sure as hell don’t need a pack of wolves as their neighbors.”

She raised her face to look him in the eyes.
“I’d stay if I could…” He whispered, leaning closer, to brush a chaste kiss to her forehead. She brought her hands to his face, pulling him closer. She was trembling. She had never done this before. When their lips met, she closed her eyes, concentrating to the feelings that the kiss awakened in her. She had initiated it, but Logan took over the control, devouring her mouth hungrily, sharp canines nipping her lips, tongue laving, demanding an entrance.

They parted panting breathlessly. She was swaying on her feet, trying to find right words to voice her plea of him not leaving again. Logan was staring at her with half hooded eyes, his chest heaving.
“I don’t want to go. Marie… I don’t want to go…” He was backing away, towards the quilt covering the doorway.
“I don’t want to go, but I’ll hurt you if I stay…”
“Stay. I won’t let you hurt me.”
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