* * * * *

I left Remy's necklace on his desk and it was over, as simple as that.

No, shit, it wasn't simple--I wanted it to be though, which shows that my education hadn't extended far enough to remove the rest of the monochrome. It was a nightmare that I hated to remember. It was looking into his eyes and acknowledging a lie that'd I'd never spoken.

It was playing the proxy of Jean with Remy standing in as Logan, and there was another color in my life called shame, and when I saw Jean sitting with Ororo at lunch, I knew I didn't hate her anymore, even if I wanted to.

I finally got to be her. It wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

"Don't look like that."

Scott sat down across from me, and maybe it should have annoyed me he seemed to be eating with the same appetite as always. I checked what he chose--salad and apple pie and that sensible glass of milk, possibly for its calcium value--then glanced at the steak on my plate that had been addictive on sight yet I'd barely touched since sitting down. I pushed some green beans across to sit in artistic parallel with the mashed potatoes and considered telling him that there was something about the world that was very wrong when you were in love with someone and couldn't hate their lover.

"Don't look like what?" I frowned at him, putting down my fork before I began to use it to stab the meat again.

"Like you deserve a scarlet letter. Stand up on the tables and announce it if it will make you feel better." He took a neat bite of salad but I caught his smile and couldn't help returning it.

"It's been awhile since lit class, Scott."

"For you. I have to read the book every year. I can quote it."

"You *have* quoted it. In normal conversation."

Another quick grin. I noticed the fact his back was to Jean and Ororo--and I noted Jean's eyes were on him.

"What happened with Jean this morning?" He looked up and damn him if he looked completely unsurprised by my question.

"Just curiosity." Back to his lunch.

"That's not what it sounded like to me."

Both eyebrows jumped but he took another forkful of salad and how the hell did he eat at a time like this, anyway?

"She's very--"

"Logan asked me." I thought about that, about what he actually hadn't asked. "Sort of. In his Logan way."

Now I had his interest, and I couldn't figure out why. Thoughtfully, he finished the mouthful and glanced down at the croutons. I looked at them too, but they just didn't seem unusual enough to really warrant that much interest. Stale bread. Call it whatever you want, it's stale bread in a square shape. With seasoning.

"What did you tell him?" There was something unusual in his voice, not quite curiosity, not quite interest--not quite hope. Not quite anything I could identify easily and I gave up trying.

And why the hell was I worried about that, anyway? I picked up my fork and poked the steak.

"It's already dead, Rogue." He sounded amused. "Well?"

"Nothing." I swallowed, staring down at the steak like it was an enemy about to pounce. "He--he guessed. Are you going to tell Jean?" I was playing defensive today.

He shook his head.

"No." No explanation necessary, thank you. I poked my steak and finally picked up my knife.

"Remy came by my office a few minutes ago."

There comes a time in your life where you have to face the surreality of your existence. This was one of those times. When your ex goes to talk to the guy you just slept with while you've been obsessing over the guy you're in love with.

And the knife fell and I looked up, saw Scott's eyes fixed on me, concerned. Only a few shreds of lettuce and carrots were left on his plate, alongside the lone crouton I'd been looking at. I looked at it again and it was still stale bread, but it was better than facing that cool regard.

"You want to talk about it?"

Talk about it? I didn't even want to think about it anymore. Another mess of colors I was leaving to fate to clean up for me.

"Is that why you're here?" I asked shortly, got my knife, and cut off a piece of meat. Speared it on my fork with Loganish intensity, chewed rebelliously. I was hungry. That was it.

"No. It's lunch." He placed the salad plate back on the tray and took the pie. Looked at it, then sighed. "Rogue, don't be so defensive. I'm not trying to pry."

I looked at him in disbelief.

"Since when?"

His head came up sharply and he stared at me for a moment--and he laughed, and it jerked more than a few heads around to stare at Scott laughing at me.

Including Jean's.

"I deserved that." He utilized his napkin and dropped it on the plate, tacitly agreeing to leave the subject of Remy and my former relationship alone. "Actually, I came in here to see if you wanted to go into town this afternoon. I've got some errands to run and I thought you'd like to go shopping."

Actually, that wasn't a bad idea at all and I cut another piece of meat in a less aggressive frame of mind.

"All right."

* * * * *

Logan met me for lunch the next day and it was like nothing had happened.

He just caught me before I even got a real chance to go for food and asked if I wanted to eat in town. And it was probably shock that made me say yes--oh hell, lying to myself is an art I haven't quite mastered. If he was willing to forget the entirety of the day before, I was nakedly desperate to do the same thing. So nakedly that I wondered if he could even guess the reason why.

As I said, particularly perceptive he is not. But nor is he stupid.

We had hamburgers and Logan did something as unLoganish as anything I'd ever witnessed. He began to talk. Without questions, prodding, Marie-type nagging. Told me about some of his activities while he was away. Told me about Canada and how he'd visited Calgary this last time and told me about how high the snow had been on the roads and trying to get the bike through it.

"I wish I could have seen it." My voice sounded wistful even to me. Imagining the high snow, the cold, the unsettled lengths of it that must have felt like they went on forever. I took another bite and played idly with the fries remaining on my plate.

When I glanced at him, there was a look of startling intensity that I couldn't identify before it was gone and he shook himself.

"You've seen snow."

"Not like that." I remembered a childhood dream--what, three, four years ago? God, it seemed like a long time since Cody and tracing that map with my fingers. "New York, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Calgary, Anchorage." It was a murmur, more to myself than anything. It'd been my litany a long time ago--hitching rides between places, drawn steadily north like a magnet dragged me, following the route that I'd planned before I knew what I was.

Logan was quiet for a moment, looking inscrutable and I wondered if he was thinking of Jean.

"Why Canada? I've been there, darlin', and there ain't that much to see."

I rested my chin on my hand, abandoning the hamburger's remains to consider the question.

"Because it was an adventure, I suppose."

"No." A pause. "What you were doing in Laughlin."

Shit. I blinked, stammering out something, reaching for my drink, unnerved that I didn't have an answer--even more unnerved that he'd asked the question. His hand caught mine inches from my soda, and I set my teeth at the rush it still gave me when he touched me--every time. Nothing had diminished it.

"I don't know." And I didn't. But he didn't let go, as I almost expected, didn't draw away in confusion or try to evade the sticky slope of emotional mud--hell, he started this one.

"Familiar?" It was soft and I didn't expect it, didn't know what to say. "Something normal. Something that made sense, that linked you to who you were."

To that little girl in that room, tracing a map and a different life completely. A girl who didn't have to wear gloves and scarves and long for touch, the thing she wanted most now that she couldn't have it.

"Yeah," I whispered.

And he was looking at me again and I thought--God, I thought I could finally understand what was behind his eyes if I just had enough time--and then he let go and it was gone, shattered, and I pulled my hand back quickly. Grabbed my cup and took a cooling drink while he started putting all the leftovers on the tray beside us.

* * * * *

Remy hung around me like a bad odor and Scott--well, Scott was Scott, and he didn't wince when he saw Jean and Logan together anymore. And if I hadn't known him, if he hadn't changed so much in my mind, I never would have saw the signs of stress around his mouth and the way his smile never seemed quite as natural as it once had been.

If no one else would ever guess what it cost him every day, I did. And I knew better than to ever let him see I knew.

That night, we took a pillow and two blankets outside--and what was it with me and the Great Outdoors, anyway?--and he made love to me under the moon.

"So you ever going to tell me exactly what drew you to Jean?"

I think we were pretty damn healthy, actually. These were Adult Discussion Topics. We just happened to be mostly naked and post-orgasmic when we discussed.

"You mean you're not going to accuse me of falling for her looks?" Scott lifted himself on his elbow to look at me and I blew a breath out in disbelief.

"I know you better than that."

"Hmm. Well, actually, it was a lot of things--her calm, for one." He gave me a rueful smile. "I wasn't always--as stable as I am now."

I got the oddest images of Scott in black leather on a Harley, something from 'Rebel Without a Cause'. Then shook my head quickly. The unlikelihood was astounding.

"You're kidding."

"Well, despite popular belief that I was artificially grown, not raised, I had a relatively normal childhood."

"Until the change."

"That's a very diplomatic way of putting it, Rogue. I'm impressed." He shook his head. "Anyway, when I got here, Jean was here too." He slid onto his back, staring up at the sky. "I don't know--it was everything about her, I guess. Not one thing or even all, because she annoyed me too." A twitching of his lips. "We fought a lot."

I tried to imagine that. And while the leather and motorcycle were amusing but unlikely, Scott fighting with Jean was something I couldn't even comprehend. Absently, I traced the line of his arm with one finger, thinking.

"So?"

I started a little.

"So?"

He smirked--he does a very passable smirk--and caught my hand.

"Tell me about Logan."

Oh damn. Well, I walked right into that one.

"I don't know." I'd never actually sat down and quantified my emotions--that's not something I do. When you're carrying around extra memories, examining your emotional reactions is secondary to controlling them. And the three men who inhabited my head hadn't exactly been the most in-touch-with-their-feelings people I'd ever run across. "Because he cared, I guess. No one had in a long time."

By the look on Scott's face, that wasn't going to cut it. I rolled on my side, tucking my arm under my head, and prepared to take a trip through my own brain.

"When we met--I guess you know about that, right?" Scott nodded and I blew out a breath, half-wishing I could just retell that and let him make something out of it. "He didn't leave."

I reconsidered the statement under Scott's curious gaze. As if he was really interested. As if it was important to know.

"It was--I felt safe." The utter disbelief was written on Scott's face so clearly I hit his shoulder. "Don't look like that. I didn't even know him and I felt completely safe. And--that wasn't natural for him, what he did for me. Not then--maybe even not now. But he did it. And there's the whole saving my life bit, which I guess would lead to a definite rush of feeling."

"That's gratitude, not love."

I snorted softly, caught a piece of my hair to twist nervously.

"Isn't it? It's--it's just him." What the hell was it? Two years ago Scott had made us all write essays on love sonnets and I'd worked on mine for days, trying to define something that no one had successfully defined in history, wondered why the hell he thought a class of mutants could manage what a few thousand centuries of human civilization had not. "The way he can smile when he wants to, the way he tries so hard to break out of what he's been all these years." Thinking of all the things that annoyed me about him--his temper, his lack of patience, his intense, almost pathological need for control, his arrogance--and he was among the most arrogant people I've ever met. That perfect surety he carried like a cloak--I looked at Scott for a minute. "Just everything. Even the things I don't like."

I couldn't explain it any better than that--because he was the first person to voluntarily touch me, because he talked to me, because I knew him like I would never know anyone else--because he'd given me something that no one else ever could, ever thought about, ever wanted to.

Acceptance. Perfect, unasking acceptance, of who I was, of what I was, of everything I'd ever be. Because with him, it was always enough that I was Marie.

Scott nodded slowly, maybe understanding the things I didn't say, that didn't translate into words. Maybe not.

"I can see why you two don't get along," I tossed out, just to see him jerk a little.

"Besides the obvious?" There was an edge in his voice. I simply grinned.

"You're a lot alike.

I had his full attention and Scott sat straight up. I also had genuinely shocked him, and that was fun as all hell. And I laughed at the expression on Scott's face.

"That's not true."

Sometimes Scott doesn't see colors either.

"Arrogant, strong, confident, demanding, not easily cowed, not easily impressed, reserved--do I need a categorical list?" I couldn't stop my smile--Scott was torn between looking offended to looking just--well, like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. I'd guess behind the glasses there would be that deer in headlights expression.

What was really getting to him was he really couldn't deny any of the similarities--once they were sitting in front of him. But he was trying.

"He's rude. He's violent. He's--"

"Logan. The product of a different kind of life." I considered the man in front of me, coming to an interesting conclusion. Best keep that to myself. "I'm not saying you're twins, Scott, so cool down. I'm just wondering if most of your problems stem from the fact that you are so much alike. You just channel your--characteristics--differently, that's all."

He laid back down and looked at me.

"And this is supposed to help me sleep?"

Before he could finish the sentence, I moved, slipping down on top of him and pinning his hands to the blanket. Heard his breath catch.

"Who said anything about sleep?"

* * * * *

Ororo was in her office.

I'd been putting it off, not knowing what to say to her, since the last time we talked--not sure if she could read on my face what I'd been doing and considering how she felt about Jean and Logan--

--well, I didn't want to face her disapproval. I'm quite a coward, truth be told.

"Why aren't you talking to Logan?"

Serenely, she finished typing up whatever the hell she was typing and turned around to look at me. Still calm, still serene. Smiling gently.

"Perhaps we should have lunch." In a single graceful movement, she rose from her chair, saving her work, and dipped her hand into a drawer to pick up her keys.

Because I didn't have any better ideas, I followed her out.

It wasn't until we were comfortably seated in the car going down the road toward town that Ororo spoke again.

"I think they have made a bad decision."

She wasn't the only one.

"It's their decision, Ororo." I sounded so wise--I wish I believed like I preached. Ororo touched the signal to make a left turn and looked at me as we paused at the stop sign.

"Yes, it is. That doesn't mean I have to approve of it."

I thought about that--that must hurt Jean a lot. She and Ororo were very close.

"Why not talk to Jean?"

Was I actually sitting here asking someone else to break them up? I bit my lip. Damned colors. Ororo gave me a sidelong look that I forced myself to ignore.

"He's happy." And I shut my mouth tight, tried again to get it out and mean it. "If they're happy--" Well then, if they were happy, fuck me and Scott and how we felt and what we went through watching them and wondering if maybe this would be the day we'd snap. "Well, that's all there is to it."

Her glance at me said more than words.

"You no longer have feelings for Logan?"

I winced and I knew she saw it.

"I love him." Softly. Staring straight ahead, not looking at her. "And--and if I love him, I gotta think of him, right? So yeah, I'd dance on the damned roof if he and Jean split up--but not if it's gonna rip him apart for me to get that wish." With no guarantee he'd ever come to me anyway--damn, that was a selfish thought. I shut my eyes briefly. Tried not to imagine what would happen when it did happen. If it did happen.

"You and Remy have parted?"

Changed subject. Ororo and Scott have a lot in common.

"Yes." No explanation, just like Scott.

"Rogue--" A pause, and I felt her eyes on me, studying intensely, and when I glanced over, I saw what she had yet to say reflected in her eyes. What she knew, what Scott and I were doing, how damned dangerous it was, screwing up an already bad situation. The stuff we were ignoring like there was no tomorrow to worry about.

"What?" I waited--wondering what she'd tell me, wondering if she disapproved, God, wondering if perhaps she'd tell Jean--not necessarily a bad thing. But she did none of those things. After a moment, her head turned and she watched the road again and I knew the subject had been closed. For now.

For Ororo, she was practically chatty during lunch and I almost forgot--almost being the operative word--that Ororo was rarely that simple until we in the driveway of the mansion and I saw Logan and Jean standing in the lawn.

"Damn." I didn't need this today and my cheer evaporated instantly. Ororo must have seen it, because she slowed the car. They didn't even notice us.

"Jean's upset." That was the first thing I noticed, and really, it shouldn't have suddenly elevated my mood. Fuck it, I'm human. Trouble in that little paradise was something that even colors couldn't make me dampen the sudden burst of sheer pleasure, and I didn't like myself any better for it.

"She's been--displeased--with the amount of time Logan spends with you." There was something carefully neutral in her voice that made me turn my head, wondering, and not for the first time, what was going on in her head. Ororo was a mystery, no question. I gave her a disbelieving look. I wouldn't think that, consider that, even try to examine it for all the interesting nuances that could be dragged out of a simple sentence. Those sort of thoughts led places I just couldn't stand to go anymore.

"Wait," Ororo whispered, turning the car into the garage when I began to get out prior to a full stop, so many kinds of against safety, but hey, I'm a poster-child for risk, so go figure. "Rogue--" she stopped short, staring at me again with that intense dark gaze, as if she was looking for something. "Watch what you do, child."

And that was all I got out of her. When I got in range, Jean was already gone--interesting--and Logan turned once he caught my scent. He didn't look particularly upset, smiling when he saw me, nothing shadowing his expression.

A smile just for me and I warmed to it.

"Where've you been?" He came up beside me, an arm over my shoulders--as per standard operating procedure--and I turned my head a little to see Ororo walk inside--maybe following Jean, maybe not.

"Oh--Ororo wanted to grab some lunch. Sorry." I considered, looking up at him with my brightest smile, trying to dismiss what Ororo had told me. "Wanna go for a ride, sugar?"

* * * * *

My relationship with Remy ended privately about a month before it ended publicly. And if you ask me the reason, I can't tell you--it wasn't that I tried to hide it was over. It just never occurred to me--I'd been distracted--and I'm not too good at facing things that I don't want to.

Everything else in my life seemed to be doing some really strange things, so it hadn't exactly taken top priority.

Logan met me for lunch on a daily basis, and something was up with him and I couldn't figure out what the hell it was. And it wasn't his behavior exactly--it was the way he watched me. And sometimes I'd wonder if he could get the scent of Scott off my skin or something, and I'd squirm and he'd jerk his gaze away, frowning, then return to normal, or close to it. And Jean looked less and less happy and I noticed that her eyes weren't just on Logan anymore--they were on Scott.

And sometimes, they were on me. And that confused me most of all.

Scott, who damn him could have calmly gone on teaching mutants and being a good administrator even if the world suddenly erupted into fire around him. Probably look at it calmly and then coolly tell us to get in a line and walk to the nearest shelter. Not run, because then we might trip, and no shoving and no pushing.

But the thing with Remy--well, it took backseat. Because I thought I'd been clear and relatively calm and--well, I left the necklace and I said the right things, or the clearest things in the right way. But he didn't get it--or at least, that's what I finally pried out of Scott that afternoon, just after Remy came in the kitchen to announce I was cheating on him. Loudly.

Ororo, Bobby, and Jubilee were the only witnesses. Only Bobby looked surprised. Jubes, as my roommate, was not. Later, Scott told me my face was the perfect color for a scarlet A. The wit of the man.

Luckily, the gods who watch over idiot mutant girls were kind and Logan and Jean were off doing something--and for the first time, I was utterly grateful for that fact, even if it hurt to think it. I remember leaving the kitchen, running into Scott and knocking him against the wall, and I remember crying.

My own little mess came back to haunt me. Everything in Remy's eyes, all that betrayal and anger and hurt that stuck straight down into the bone--that could be Logan. God.

I remember being put to bed and told to stay there, Scott running a calming hand across my hair before walking out. And I remember being so glad that he was going to handle it so I wouldn't have to face the looks of my two best friends, the questions, or worse yet, the sudden comprehension that probably one look at my face would bring.

"So it's you."

I woke up instantly to the sound of her voice, cool and utterly expressionless in the silent room. Pure Jean Grey all over again. In pure hindsight, it took a suspiciously long time for Jean to figure it out, and that, I think, is significant. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Logan still hadn't told her and to this day I have no idea why.

I think it was denial, on both their parts. Pure and simple.

I looked up from bed, saw from behind swollen eyes Jean sitting at Jubilee's desk. Beautiful, utterly composed, watching me from behind unreadable eyes, years of experience and control coming off her in waves, things I'd never have. And it took a moment to process, because nothing showed on her face and I felt the brush of her mind and all those theoretical lessons didn't work when you'd never used them--or even had the good sense to start using them *before* your mind had been touched. Lying was not an option. Or even close to an option. Even in the same city as an option. She watched me, probably saw the run of emotion across my face.

I didn't bother to answer, which was enough answer in itself.

"Why?"

It's funny, how your mind works--because that was the question I'd never really asked myself. The question with one obvious answer.

"Why do you care?"

Jean didn't answer and I hated the look on her face--I hated it because I remembered it on mine, what you had to feel like to have it, the way it twisted you inside. That she was beautiful and perfect and I couldn't hate her for it because she was as hurt as I was--maybe more. In ways I couldn't be--in ways that were foreign because I'd never had anyone to lose, I'd only had a dream that broke.

"I don't know."

Something in me--in that selfish part, in the part that wasn't quite as grown-up, quite as mature, quite as sensitive to color--something there twisted. Something that lifted its head in interest. Filed this memory away for future analysis.

No, no, no. I wouldn't think like that.

"Rogue--" she stopped, and her voice--God, it hurt to hear it. "Was it revenge?"

Revenge? For Scott, for me, for screwing around with the status quo and making life so damned complex, in a way it'd never been before?

"No."

She relaxed a little, but only a little, and I tried to read her face, tried to reach through the control she was still able to keep, find out what drew her here, besides knowing what was going on with me and Scott, besides perhaps some ex-fiancée angst over seeing the man you once loved with someone else--

Why'd you do it, Jean? I wanted to ask her, yell it at her, get up and just scream why she wanted it this way, when it didn't have to be. The part of me that was still too young and didn't understand anything except black and white. The part that wanted to believe so badly that one day, Logan would see me and want me the way I wanted him.

She stood up, and suddenly--and it was so unexpected it froze me in place--I wanted to run up to her, like I'd been able to before all this, tell her how many ways my life was screwed up. About the nightmare with Remy downstairs and the anger I felt that he'd done that and the guilt that I'd used him as a substitute and a way to take the pettiest of retaliations on a man who didn't want me--

But before I could do anything, say anything, she was gone, and I knew I saw her eyes were wet before the door closed.

When Scott sat on my bed an hour later and tried to understand why I was crying, I couldn't tell him, because I didn't know myself.

* * * * *

For two weeks, I kept to myself. And everyone blamed the Remy situation and to this day I have no idea if Logan ever found out the specifics--nor have I asked him, though I suspect that if he had, I would definitely know about it and so would the rest of the school. I was in the library or the Danger Room or curled up somewhere, surrounded by trees and water and air, trying to sort through my own head, trying to believe what I saw in Jean's eyes and hating myself for wanting so desperately for it to be true.

God, Logan would hurt. If it was true.

When he left, I thought the world ended.

It seemed funny to think like that. Funny, because time had brought a measure of acceptance--or so I told myself, strictly reminding myself of what would happen the day, the minute, the *second*, he and Jean ended. And I thought that it was fading, that rush of pain that still hit when I saw them together, when I thought about them together (which I still did more than was really healthy). But no amount of acceptance prepares you to wake up and have Scott's voice tell you Logan was gone and asking if you were okay.

She'd done it. That was the only explanation.

"Are he and Jean--did they--?" I half sat up, and Scott pushed me back down, absently brushing my hair out of my eyes. The lines around his mouth were tight, teeth clenched behind a tightly closed mouth. He hurt for her, even now, despite everything. Like I hurt for Logan.

"I don't think so."

I stared up at him for a minute, my mind blank. Wondering what had happened to make him run--from *Jean* of all people--how she must feel, what it could mean.

The possibilities were dizzying.

"Scott, do you believe in destiny?" It popped out of my mouth without checking in at my head, but it sounded right.

Sitting on the edge of his bed in the blue pajamas I had really learned to like, strained, tired, angry, he considered the question, like Scott always does, and gave me the answer I didn't expect, not from him. Though maybe I should have.

"Sometimes."

I thought about that. Thought about how it felt when he touched me and thought about how much I wanted Logan and knew Scott wanted Jean. Thought about the look on Jean's face in my room and which color meant I was doing the right thing, that meant that I wasn't doing this for every reason but the right one.

"Why don't you go talk to her?" It was a whisper.

He jerked around and looked at me and I saw his hands clench. Before he could say anything, I reached out, covering his fingers with mine, trying to remember what he'd told me about black and white and how everything had all these different colors that meant something. That meant a lot.

I wasn't doing it for the wrong reasons. I wasn't.

And I told myself that even after he left, staring at the ceiling because I knew I'd just signed the death certificate for Logan and Jean's relationship and I hated myself that I'd done what I wanted at the beginning and still wanted even now.

Even if I was doing it for the right reasons.

When I went to my room the next morning, the tags were on my desk. I picked them up and stared at them for a long time and shut my eyes and decided that if I didn't believe in destiny, I had to believe in the colors.

I had to.

* * * * *

"Marie."

It was sudden, the way he appeared out of nowhere, just behind me. And characteristically Logan, by the way. I squeaked something, almost falling over a bush in shock, and I thought he smiled but couldn't be sure.

Hell, if someone had asked me what color the trees were, I couldn't have told them. Logan. He was here.

He extended a hand and pulled me to my feet but didn't let me go and that look was back. That look that was utterly unfamiliar, though I was beginning to think it shouldn't be, that I'd seen it before, though for the life of me I couldn't figure out from where.

"I thought you left." My voice was faint. Shock. Perfectly understandable.

He shrugged, falling into step beside me as we walked and I took in the trees and the grass and tried to figure out why the hell he was here.

He still had my hand, though.

"Have you talked to Jean?" That was the only thing I could think of to say. I don't know what made me say it; we'd never discussed it--him and Jean--not once in the past months.

"Not yet."

His world was still perfect. More or less. And I suddenly felt like a murderer talking to the victim's husband before he knew she was dead. My stomach turned over and I wished, suddenly and desperately and selfishly, that I could send him up and away and hide until he was gone, so I wouldn't have to see what I'd helped to start. Because--because if it wasn't over now, it would be soon.

"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?" I asked suddenly, staring at the ground. He didn't answer for a minute and I came to a stop, forcing him to do the same unless he wanted to drag me--which was perfectly possible, but I figured he wouldn't.

"Can we talk?"

I looked up at him, tracing the lines of his face, wondering how he'd look at me when he found out--wondered if he'd even be here. Taking in the scent of him. That made me pause, because this was something new. Suppressed excitement, nervousness--*Logan* nervous?--and he was practically vibrating with--with what? What the hell was up with him?

"We *are* talking."

"Somewhere a little more private."

Considering that the woods were about as private as you could get, a few sharp words flew to my tongue, but I checked them back and sighed. The idea of the mansion--and what was waiting for him there--God, no. Keep the conversation going. Keep it up if he wanted to do it in the Danger Room. Anything.

"Jubes and Kitty are gone for the weekend. We can go to my room. That private enough?"

Apparently, it was, and he followed me back up. And it was so different to feel his eyes on me the entire time and I kept wondering if there were leaves in my hair or something. When we walked in my room, Logan shut the door behind us and locked it, startling me a little. Then just stood there when I sat down on my bed and waited for him to Discuss Something.

Hell if I knew what.

"I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye. I had--something to do."

He was apologizing. Shit. I began to play with the edge of my gloves--wondering if I should tell him what I did, maybe explain about why I did it, maybe tell him what I'd learned about colors and how I was sorry and how much I wanted him to be happy, even if it had to be with Jean, with someone who would never love him like I did, who'd never understand him.

"Marie, look at me."

I lifted my head and that look was back on his face and something kept trying to click in my head but wouldn't settle enough to do it.

"You still want to go to Anchorage?"

It was a throw out of left field--I don't know my baseball metaphors well, I'm a hockey girl--okay, a puck to the head, maybe. I blinked, trying to come to grips with a question that really--had he actually said that?

"Anchorage?"

And he sat on the edge of the bed beside me and looked so uncomfortable that I wondered what the hell was wrong and if he'd accidentally contracted some sort of mutant flu. Then he stood up again, pacing to the edge of the room, finally dropping his jacket on a chair and I watched him with wide eyes.

"The way you wanted. Niagara Falls, Toronto, Calgary. Anywhere you want to go."

I blinked.

"You want to--you want to take me to Canada?"

Did he leave because of him and Jean--had she--? No--no, somehow I didn't get the impression Logan was doing some sort of weird rebound--that's not how he operates at all, anyway. Which begged the question--what the fuck was going on? I knew I probably could figure this out if I had a few months to think it over, but Logan was right here and I had to give an answer and--

--and *what*?

"Wherever you want to go. Now, if you want to." He was waiting for me to do something--God knew what, but it was important, and I should be able to figure this out, damn it.

And I looked at him, looked for something--something that would bring sense or order or something I could define and understand. And Logan, who lived inside my head, Logan, who I knew better than anyone on earth, Logan--this wasn't anyone I knew. Not at all.

"But what about--" I cut myself off, wondering what Jean would say, what--"Logan, I don't--"

"I love you."

Oh God.

I forgot my gloves, Jean, colors, the speech I had been desperately trying to put together in my head, the way I was going to ask him to forgive me for screwing up his life. I forgot that I was sitting in my room and I forgot that I told destiny to fuck itself.

I remembered that I should probably breathe at some point.

That said, he crossed his arms and waited for me to say something in response. Maybe he let out a breath of relief he'd managed it, I wouldn't be surprised. His eyes were on me like he was stripping me to the skin and that was--oh God, that was good.

After a few minutes of gaping, I looked up at him, trying to find words that would be mature and wise and show my deep appreciation of his candor and be equally able to eloquently express my feelings. They didn't come.

I think my mouth was open, though. The whole time.

Luckily, Logan took my silence as some sort of good thing, because he launched into a sudden torrent of explanations--so uncharacteristic that he must have spent his entire week away composing them. He sat down beside me finally and took my hands. I realized that I was shaking and my mouth was dry and I couldn't catch my breath and everything--everything was just--

"I fucked up. Okay? I get that. And I'm sorry, Marie. If I could, I'd start over completely." He traced my face with his fingers and I leaned into the touch instinctively, still not quite believing. I wanted it too badly. Poor Logan. He was trying so hard to get it out and he looked at me and I recognized that look finally, running it through my mind to match with my memories and--and *God*.

It was real. He loved me.

I felt tears in my eyes--I don't want to know when I became such a whiney little female and that would right stop now I kept telling myself, and he brushed them away with gloved hands and kissed me. Without my scarf, bruising my lip, so I got the images from his mind before he pulled back, images that meant everything, that told me more than he would ever be able to say. He untied my scarf, lowering it over my face, brushing his fingertips down my throat, through my hair. Slow, long, warm, a kiss that took my breath, heated my body, and I forgot my name, forgot where I was, forgot that there was anything else in the world except him.

Our fingers entwined above my head, laying me back on my bed, his mouth inches from mine, while he made me promises that no one had ever made me before, that I know he never made to anyone else. Told me things that no one had ever said, ever thought about me.

And finally, he ran out of words and smiled down at me and kissed me again--and it was as if I'd waited my entire life for it. When he growled something and ran his fingers through my hair and I couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up in me, the sheer exultation. And he growled again and shook his head at me when I couldn't stop, sliding his whole weight on top of me, running his teeth over my jaw, biting me through the scarf just below the ear, making me whimper against his shirt.

"I love you," I whispered, watching the look on his face when I said it, addicted to it instantly, promising myself I'd make him look at me like that every day. Promised him things I'd never wanted to promise anyone but him, sliding my arms around him and letting him lift me into his lap and his hands sliding down my back, pulling up my shirt to trace bare skin with gloved fingers. Rocked against him to hear him growl against my hair.

"God, Marie, baby," a whisper in my ear, the brush of teeth across my neck, my entire body tensing when he touched me, when he unbuttoned my shirt and looked at me until I blushed, when he laughed at me and told me I was beautiful and wonderful and about a thousand other things that I never would have expected him to ever say. To me. Tracing my skin, that fine scarf the only barrier.

--and it was everything I ever wanted.

* * * * *

"Scott."

He glanced up from Xavier's desk, and there was something about him that I'd never seen before, something that brought me to a halt, brought a slow grin to my face. Something edged on carefully suppressed energy, maybe even excitement.

This time I understood, and I grinned to myself--they really were so much alike.

"He was already here." And a quirked smile, a glance down at the desk before he stood up and passed me to close the door. We looked at each other for a minute, and it wasn't awkward. And it should have been. "Canada, huh?"

I nodded slowly, wondering why this moment wasn't awkward or uncomfortable or even a little sad. Because it was none of those things.

So we were both getting what we wanted.

"Thanks, Scott. For everything."

And he smiled then, a smile that made me think of Jean and how he smiled a long time ago, unedged in pain.

"Have fun," he said softly, and hugged me and I took in the scent of him for a minute, closing my eyes, shifting him in my head again.

"I'll miss you." And I would, and I grinned up at him and stepped away, watching him lean back against the desk.

"You believe in destiny, Rogue?" he tossed as I walked to the door.

"No." Though a part of me did, in a way. And I tilted my head at him, turning the door knob. "But I do believe in colors."

* * * * *

"You believe in destiny, Logan?"

He dropped our bags in the trunk, looked up at me as if I lost my mind. Slammed it shut, crossed to where I was leaning against the passenger side door.

"Not really." Sliding his hands down my hips, he pulled me up against him and I breathed him in--enjoying the feel of him against me, enjoying the utterly simple and really insignificant moment I was living, content for a minute just to stand still and let the world figure out everything for itself.

So we were running--not exactly uncharacteristic in either one of us. Not exactly healthy either--we were leaving the entire mess behind us for someone else to clean up, though I'd bet Scott was the one that got the car gassed and pushed the keys into Logan's hand with all kinds of good wishes. From the slightly amused look that Logan gave the keys in his hand when he got down here--well, I had my suspicions.

"You have a reason for askin'?"

I smiled, closing my eyes, and slid my arms around him--maybe one day I'd explain about everything I'd learned, everything about colors and being adult and compromising. Opening my eyes, I could see Jean in the distance, and her eyes met mine over a distance of fifty feet that could have been fifty miles, because Logan never saw her at all.

Colors only get you so far.

"Not really," I told him, looking up, seeing that smile that was for me and me alone. "Let's go."

The End