What a calmly amazing, painfully mature story. Great mastery of language, more so of character - so good to see Rogue maturing into a personality, not just her growing into a woman who can have sex with Logan. Thanks for making this story true to life rather than happy, and for crafting it so carefully.

Author's Response: Thank you so much for this incredibly kind comment. I\'m so happy you responded to the language and the characters. And yes--I\'m more or less uninterested in the kind of Rogue that lives solely through her desire for some sort of romantic resolution with Logan. And I\'m practically allergic to conventional happy endings (or beginnings, or middles, for that matter.) :) Thanks again.

So you wanted to write a story about closeness and it became one big old mess on the way, eh? Yes, luv, that's what it usually does, it seems. Exactly the mess I'm in at the moment, if you allow me the personal note - and I used to be a young married monogamous person, too.
Still think that one love deserves another, completely. But then, fate rarely seems to consider fairness. And in many people's lives, smaller blessings have to be good enough. And maybe this uneasy, precarious balance of three is the best these three blighted, carefully unfolding souls can hope for. It might even be god enough.
On a minor point:
Glad to see the illness of liking secondary characters has a good strong hold on you - there's not enough of that virus around.

Author's Response: Thank you for this lovely comment, as always. I agree about the gift of having one love deserving another, completely--it\'s a gift beyond gifts. But I don\'t necessarily think this is a story in which that kind of love is absent--or a story that is about an \"unfair\" love. Complicated, yes; unfair, no. I think it\'s radically fair, actually. I think in this story, each love DOES deserve each other--and answers each other. What I suppose I am opposing is the idea that because one love deserves another completely, that must mean no other love deserves a place. I suppose what I am looking for between these three, is a kind of love without the violence of ownership, particularly because these are people who have been exposed to that kind of violence in other avenues. A love that admits possessiveness, but that resists exerting possession. I don\'t know that I think this story provides a \"smaller blessing,\" simply because there isn\'t a singular relationship at the forefront; but, rather, the opening of a different way of being, living, loving. And I think that\'s more than good enough of a blessing. There seems to be a fair bit of response that this threesome is some sort of a compromise--a poignant, but still painful compromise--and I would like to adamantly argue against that. While I don\'t deny the possibility of pain in this (or any) relationship, I would rather imagine that there can be things we are capable of that are perhaps not what we have previously conceived of--but are nevertheless not compromises. What we are able to do in the gesture of loving--and knowing--others. The received idea of \"the couple\" and its supremacy is a strong one; I am by no means against it. But moving outside of it doesn\'t necessarily mean moving outside of the realm of fairness. In any case, there is enough precarious balance between two people, especially in either of these two \"couples\"; I don\'t think the precarity in this new relationship comes solely from it now being three, but from being who they are, themselves. In addition: thank you for the comment about secondary characters! I feel like I\'m writing stories about other characters, with Rogue and Logan somewhere thrown in absent-mindedly. I don\'t really ever forget that X-Men is an ensemble piece, and I find this site\'s famous duo much more compelling when they--and their unique relationship--is exposed to the influence and gaze of other people.

"Just looking at him provided answers to questions before anybody asked them: No, you could not run fast enough; No, you did not have a chance." This must be the most apt and concise characterisation of Wolverine I've ever come across. Good job.

Author's Response: Thank you. I\'m so glad you like it. >hugs<

Um... the link doesn't work for me. Any ideas?
Ok, FB. "He didn't want the schools resident to think he couldn't take care of his own." Whoa! There's a sudden sense of pride in an unexpected place! And a timid shoot of belonging to someone, the germination of a pack.And so much amazing consideration.
I love your careful restraint in shining some low-watt light on the workings of the girl's mind.

Author's Response: It doesn\'t work for anyone. I screwed up the link. :~( Thank you so much. You\'re fantastic.

Yeah, that's rough isn't it, if we can't rely on our instincts anymore: two things that feel right and still won't go together. Whichever decision we take, it'll be wrong and it'll hurt someone or other. Us in each case. Sometimes so much that even the decision we take will feel so wrong afterwards that we cannot live it, and it all comes crashing down.
Just rambling.
I'm sure you have a very firm idea of what'S right and what's wrong in this situation here... :-)

Just re-read the last part - good for her! She did get a new conviction out of it so far.
Anda word from the wise for those two: hiding a thing like this damages all three and whatever is between any of them. In this situatio and with the people involved, I'd say honesty was the only "honourable" way. If you have to hide from your actions and lose your respect for yourself, for the one you are cheating and the one you are cheating with, what foundations do you have for anything?

Note to self: HobbitsDIB may not be bashed for starting another WIP. She actually does deluver and it's worth the wait. I'm just really itchy the stories might not be completed, and being as alive as they are they'd stick in my imagination FOREVER!
Hm. Why DID Rogue date all those nicecleancute guys, I wonder? Trying an antidote for the Wolverine, maybe?

Oh, yoi had an even better day than usual when you wrote this, you must've! :-D Great fun to see Marie lighting up like this, really vivid her sidewalk encounter ("a slice of ... on the last day of Lent" LOL) and yes, Remy is something else entirely, ain't he? Nooooo, Rogue, he'S not playing you, not evah... GReeeeat! Thanks for my first big grin of the day!

Awww... ;-) Thanks!

Author's Response: no probs love, just glad you enjoyed!

didn't see it coming, but perfectly believable. The Wolverine vs. Logan topic has become very much a cliché but you manage to make it credible again, down to the point that even the Rogue needs no more than a glance to remember a somewhat primeval fear. Glad to see that she has wits enough to leave him aone, to accept that no matter how great the love, there's always a part of the other we don't share. Contrary to present female ideology, I don'T think he's being an ass, either.He doesn't try to protect a little helpless woman, he tries to keep his only efuge from being compromised in a fight he has lost too many times - makes perfect sense to me. Doesn't mean that Rogue has to like it, though. You're doing some great writing here!!! :-)

Author's Response: Thanks so much for your review -- I love how much detail you include in your reviews. I actually agree, as much as I make fun of Logan for what he does sometimes, I hope that I\'m always conveying that he does have good reason to do it. It\'s one thing to risk yourself, and a very different thing to risk the ones you love.

Oha, that was something. I believe there's no need for me to add to the many apt and justified praises on Logan realising that Rogue is a fighter on his level. The part I like even more, though, is Rogue understanding enough of the Wolverine to grant him the chance of the kill. Excellently done - you write Rogue a lot stronger than is usually done, and thus she becomes an equal partner at last. Great stuff.
Am also tremendously glad to see that Logan can be made to understand his role as a partner without cringingly soppy heart-heart scenes:

“I should be givin’ you hell right now for locking me in that bathroom,” she said.
Logan grunted in agreement.

There, all done.

I'd like to second Oracle13 in appreciation of cleanly written, dependably updated work - and thank you so much for actually answering the reviews!!! I feel so much more appreciated! :-D

Author's Response: Aw, thanks! It\'s funny, towards the middle of the story I realized that writing a strong Marie was coming so naturally that I was getting worried in the end that I was ending up with a kind of passive, spineless Logan. I didn\'t want a story where Marie just bossed Logan around the whole time and fought all his battles for him. In the end, though, I think the balance shifts back and forth between them, and both are able to show their devotion by how much they act in ways that might be counter to their natural tendencies. I think Marie shows in the first couple of chapters that she\'s naturally kind of empathic and caring, so seeing her be kick-ass for Logan is more fun. And we all know that Logan is tough, so showing how he protects Marie in other ways (seeking help from the Professor, etc.) and comes to an understanding of her strength lets him show that he can be caring and empathic too when Marie is involved. Okay, I\'m rambling. Thanks so much for writing your reviews...they are so much more appreciated than you will know! I actually did a little dance in my desk chair today when I checked my phone and saw a new review had been posted. Glad I have an office to myself. ;-)

Jaq, great to see you back here!!! Language as beautiful as ever, and a very familiar topic dealt with afresh and unusually honest.
"But how the fuck did you say ... Badly, of course. If you were the Wolverine, you just spat it out and hoped for the best."
At last a Wolverine who has enough introspection not only to realise his want and implications but who also acknowledges his way of dealing with it. Great how, well, 'primitive' his reckoning of her times is, how much it seems to link him and his way of structuring his existence with the dawn of mankind. It gives the character temporal depth - an adroit reminder that primitve and simple are ot the same.
Marie "untutored" - one adjective and we have the whole issue wrapped up: innocence doesn't always connote with sweet, but a tutor has both the authority and the responsibility of a teacher. Quite a potential for power on one side and dependence on the other. Is there another imbalance to counteract it, one between his want and the potential it gives her for manipulation? And will she use this chance at power and turn the whole thing into the kind of hell only humans can create? Will he be able to mitigate his and let a relationship grow despite the imbalances? Ah, I relish a story with great implications!!! :-)

Author's Response: I remember your reviews. They are as good as a gift from the muses themselves. Thank you! On introspection - yes. I get annoyed that sometimes Wolvie is drawn as all action and no brain - this is a tragic figure, who perhaps doesn\'t allow himself to think, and sometimes refuses to think, but by God - he\'s a thinker! He wouldn\'t be tragic otherwise - he\'d just be a dumb oaf. But being a feral, his senses can cut through a lot of the guise we put on things, and this story is ALL ABOUT cutting through guise. Finding real. On \"untutored\" - I haven\'t tapped into the power aspect of things. The next chapter (3) touches on it, but there\'s is not a relationship where I see an imbalance of power. (Not in this particular story). Be interested whether or not you agree later. I\'m so glad you\'re enjoying it :D