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"I don't need an education
I learnt all I need from you"
— "Medication," by Garbage
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Marie happily tuned in and out during Storm's lecture on the medieval struggle for power between the papacy and various monarchies. She had already done all the required readings, Logan had come back. Various popes claimed that Christ's Vicar on Earth held authority over mere earthly kings, Logan was here for the indefinite future. Henry VIII founded his own damn church when the pope wouldn't give him his divorce, Logan hadn't told her to keep his dogtag.
Rogue frowned a little. That last was a bit worrisome. She had been clinging to that tag like some class ring or something for the past four months, and nowhere in her daydreams of Logan's return had been the part where she offered it back and he took it without a word. It added an unfortunate credibility to the idea that she was too young for his tastes, and that he hadn't intended for her to wear his name around her neck like a "Property of..." label.
She shrugged philosophically. He was back, he liked her, and Jean might think he was fairly cute — hell, pretty goddamn attractive, in fact — but she was also firmly and obviously devoted to Scott. So the field was pretty clear for Marie, if she could just convince him that she wasn't as young for him as the adults around her seemed to think.
At the next few desks over, Rogue's inattention and dreamy smirk hadn't gone unnoticed. Jubilee debated whether or not she could get away with passing a note down to Rogue asking if it was true that Wolverine had wrecked Cyclops' motorcycle, come sneaking back in the wee hours of the morning, and spent the lunch hour doing what Bobby had annoyedly referred to as, "hitting on Rogue." Elbowing Kitty, she indicated their roommate's smug look and raised an eyebrow. Kitty nodded significantly. Not being a telepath, Jubi couldn't tell if that meant that Kitty was confirming the rumors or merely showing that she had noticed the look on Rogue's face.
As soon as class was over, the two caught Rogue on the way out. "Was that *him*?" Jubilee demanded.
"Was that who?" Rogue chose to play innocent, giving them a falsely noncomprehending look.
"Was that Wolverine? The guy you were talking to at lunch?"
"Sam said that the two of you looked pretty cosy on that bench," Kitty volunteered.
"Yeah, he got back last night." Elaborately casual.
Kitty and Jubi exchanged meaningful glances. Four months of watching Rogue fingering her dogtag while staring moodily out various windows, of listening to her going on about how gutsy Logan had been in the snow, in the train and on the Statue of Liberty, and of being woken by occasional Wolvie-the-lab-rat nightmares had left them both firm supporters of her right to fantasize about him if she wanted to. Both having seen him shirtless on his first night in the school after the nightmare-stabbing incident, Kitty was willing to agree to the premise that Logan was more desirable even in his absence than the present, cute, and attentive Bobby. (Jubi was not so sure on this point, feeling that a guy who stayed gone longer than a couple of months without even calling or writing deserved to be thrown over for someone with a better idea of how to treat a girl.)
"Well?" Jubi wasn't willing to play Rogue's game. "What did you talk about?"
"Oh, this and that." At Jubi's glare and Kitty's pleading look, she added, "He told me about where he's been since he left, and what he's been doing."
"And?"
"He went back to Canada, then followed the Rockies south for a while, then sort of wandered back to New York."
"What was he doing?" Kitty asked.
Jubilee cut in with, "Did he really wreck Cyclops' bike?"
"Drinking and getting in fights, mostly, and he says he just scratched it up but it still runs..."
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