Chapter Text
"Rogue. Rogue? Rogue!"
Marie was cocooned in darkness. From somewhere far away, a voice was calling out to her, bidding her to heed to the sound and light that crouched at the threshold of her awareness. The voice called her by a name she neither recognized nor understood. Rogue? No, she was no rogue... her name was Marie, she was good…
Her mind summoned the last thing she remembered before the dark came. Someone stroking her forehead. Ma? No, she hadn't done that in quite a long time now, not since she was a kid… not since she realized she was a…
"Rogue, wake up. C'mon, girlie, you gotta wake up!"
Her eyes snapped open.
Her name wasn't Marie. And this wasn't her bedroom in the respectable two-story home in the respectable Meridian neighborhood in which she'd spent the first fifteen years of her life. This was a dorm room at a school for mutants, hundreds of miles from home. Her name was Rogue.
And her roommates—Jubilation Lee and Kitty Pryde—were both staring down at her like she'd died and risen from the grave.
Oh, crap.
Oh, crap!
Rogue tore off the quilt—leaped out of bed, so quickly that her two roommates rolled back on their heels to avoid getting kicked. "Did I fall asleep?" she cried out. She could just kick herself.
"To judge from the snoring?" Kitty commented dryly. "Yes."
"Dude." Jubilee's eyes were huge. "I thought you said it was happening tonight! Weren't you supposed to be gone by now? What the heck happened?"
"Logan happened." Rogue groaned as her feet hit the bathroom tile. The memory was returning to her now, all broken up into bits and pieces, but resolving speedily into a whole. She seized a toothbrush and a tube of Crest from the sink and started brushing vigorously to get the taste of sleep out of her mouth.
Kitty's forehead crinkled. "Logan happened? What's that supposed to mean?"
"He was just here," Rogue said between swipes of the brush. Lord help her, she was going to get toothpaste everywhere. Her mind was a muddle. "He was fixin' to go and he wanted to say goodbye to me first."
Kitty looked even more puzzled. "And that made you fall asleep because…"
"Because I was tired." Rogue was as frustrated having to explain it as she was at the fact that she had let it happen at all. "I was waiting up for him a while. I had to. I knew he was goin' to come looking for me before he left. And then I just—I dunno. Fell asleep."
Comprehension steadily grew on the faces of the two other girls as they worked out what she wasn't telling them. They exchanged a long, impish look.
"Ohhhh. So he said goodbye. And then he tucked you in. That's so sweet." Kitty linked her arms together over her slim frame, a Cheshire cat's grin spreading on her face. "Hey. Spill. Did you get the goodnight kiss too?"
"Lucky," Jubes put in saucily. "Wish he'd give me one."
Rogue blushed. From the moment she laid eyes on him Jubilee had made no secret of the fact that she found Logan totally hot. Which translated to no end of teasing from her regarding Rogue's "special relationship" with him. "Y'all shut up and help me with my stuff."
"On it, ma cherie." Kitty dragged out a bag from beneath the bunk she and Jubilee shared. It was the smallest piece of luggage the girls had in their possession—a pink and black duffel bag, emblazoned with a large stylized letter that could have been a J or a K (Jubes and Kitty argued to this day over what the letter was and thus who was the rightful owner of the bag). Rogue was pretty sure the letter was a K and that it belonged to Katrina Kelly next door, but she wisely kept her mouth shut on that point.
She made a rushed inspection of the bag's contents. Was there anything she was forgetting? X-Men leather suits. Socks, underwear. Gloves. Toothbrushes with toothpaste. Pajamas for herself and Bobby. Beef jerky (she was partial to it now). And a small Zip-Loc bag of about twenty bucks in quarters.
She had the thought that maybe she should pack more toiletries, or even a hairbrush, then dismissed it. The trunk was going to be very, very, very tight squeeze. Only the essentials would do.
"Logan told me what car he's taking," she said, as if confirming to herself what she thought she'd heard him tell her. She raced to the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste, then hurried back. She pulled the smaller of the leather suits out of the bag and began to disrobe. "Mr. Summers is giving him his Mazda."
"Man." Jubilee clicked her tongue as she shook her head. "It's like he gift-wrapped this for you and he doesn't even know it."
"Yeah." The sting of guilt lanced Rogue's heart like a snake bite. Sleeping in notwithstanding, things were shaking out in her favor. Almost too much so. She was suddenly quite certain that her plan would succeed. All she had to do was beat Logan to the car.
Stupid—that she'd fallen asleep like that. She had been tired, sure, but she hadn't yet reached the point of exhaustion—something she'd partially feigned, in the hopes that would prompt him to say his farewells. She could have rested her eyes until he walked out and been fine. But then Logan had gone and done the surprising thing—stayed by her bedside, stroking her hair like she was a kitten, committed to seeing the job done. It had felt so warm and so nice that time went all fuzzy and indistinct on her. And now here she was, almost twenty minutes later, struggling to get out the door.
Just like I'm a kid. Like I can't get my act together. She was fit to snarl.
Boots next. They were a shiny black pair belonging to Jubilee. Jubes assured her she had never worn the shoes and wouldn't miss them. Rogue and Bobby couldn't talk any of the X-Men in training to surrender their shoes—and the idea of wearing used footwear was none too appealing, anyway—so she made do with the next best thing. Bobby had his own boots, an ancient pair of his granddad's that he wore whenever his father took him fishing up at Cape Cod. Bobby'd had no opportunity to fish at Xavier's—owing to the school being situated over an hour inland from the coast—but at least the shoes would be seeing some use now.
The succession of events that had led to this point seemed to her particularly miraculous. Or particularly absurd. Her views on it changed from moment to moment—one second she'd be congratulating herself, thinking herself the smartest thing for putting this plan together, and the next she'd be mortified, kicking herself at her own stupidity for hatching this plan, for thinking there was any chance in hell it would work.
She couldn't have pulled any of this off on her own, she didn't think. Not without Bobby—he'd been the one to pull in help from Pete and John. The little crew of iniquity they'd assembled were instrumental in getting things off the ground. Now all she had to do was make it to the car and endure forty hours in the horizontal position (she knew it was a forty-hour drive after consulting Logan's memories of the location and creating a route using the GPS device that Kitty—ever the techy—could be found playing with between classes).
Correction, she thought to herself. That's forty hours in the horizontal position with Bobby. A sheen of sweat broke out across her forehead.
A vote, Bobby had said to her incredulously, the day she broke the news to him about going to Alkali. You're telling me all this comes down to a vote?
It was Logan's idea. They all have to say yes or he won't take me.
You know Mr. Summers is never gonna go for it, right?
You don't know that. He might.
He can't stand Logan. There's no way.
But look how long they've been workin' together now. He might say yes.
Well, say he doesn't. What are you going to do then?
I'll have to figure something out.
By yourself? Rogue, I thought we agreed you were coming to my place for Christmas. My parents were really excited to meet you. And… you know, it'd just be… nice. To spend Christmas with my girlfriend.
I know, Bobby, I'm sorry, it's just…
No. No, it's okay… hey.
Yes?
Let me go with you.
Bobby! You can't.
I can. Rogue, I love you. I'll do anything for you. And if this is something you want to do, then… then I want to help.
And so they'd made their plans. Rogue and Logan would go to the teachers—and no matter what the outcome there was, she and Bobby would find a way to arrive at Alkali together.
The only thing that could stand in her way now were her own feelings. She'd fleeced Logan like this once before—but that was an act born of necessity, of her recognizing a kindred spirit. This stunt, on the other hand, existed purely to gratify her own selfish impulses.
Logan would be furious.
She tried not to think about it.
She twirled around in her new outfit for the girls to see, feeling a little silly as she did. "How do I look?"
"You look great," Jubes said. She shot her a thumbs up. "You totally don't look like a BDSM queen."
Rogue quirked an eyebrow at her. "Gosh, Jubes. Thanks." To Kitty: "Can you check out the situation outside? I don't want to run into anyone dressed like this."
Kitty ran to the wall like it was Platform 9 and 3/4s and disappeared. A few minutes went by before she reappeared, her ghostly form rematerializing before she could sink through the floor.
"Coast is clear," she reported. "No one in the halls or foyer. You're a go."
Rogue made one last check of her bag, pulled it to her shoulder. She swept her eyes across the room one more time—she wouldn't be seeing it for a few more days. Jubes and Kitty beamed at her.
"Be safe out there, girl," Jubes said, while Kitty waved and said, "Break a leg."
"Excuse me." Jubes held up a hand, shot an appalled look at the other girl. "Break a leg? I'm sorry, Kit Kat, but does she look like she's about to go on stage?"
"Don't call me Kit Kat. And who's saying anything about stages? I'm wishing her good luck."
Rogue's smile deepened. The girls had these sorts of skirmishes at least once a day—twice on weekends, when the three of them were all stuck together like glue, without the benefit of classes to distract them. Best to stand back and not get hit by the shrapnel. It was part of why she loved them so much.
"Break a leg doesn't mean good luck."
"Uh, yes it does."
"Okay—yeah—it does, but only when you're about to go out and perform. Again—do you see Rogue about to perform something?"
"What's your definition of perform? Because I think she's about to perform a pretty excellent caper."
"No. You carry out a caper. You execute a caper. You don't perform a caper."
"Who died and made you the language police? Sure you can perform a caper."
"Kit Kat, you're confused."
"And you're a grammar Nazi, Jubilation." Kitty rolled her eyes to the ceiling before turning back to Rogue. "Break a leg, Rogue. In fact, break both of them."
Pointedly ignoring Kitty, Jubes saluted at Rogue and tipped her a wink. "Vaya con Dios, as they say. Go show the world what you can do."
Rogue felt something that was close to tears prick her eyes. Even if it was just for a few days, she was going to deeply miss her roommates—her friends—the pair of ladies who had accepted her as one of their own from her very first week here at Mutant High. "Thanks so much, y'all," she said, her voice low, grateful. "And if I don't see you again before Christmas… Merry Christmas."
Kitty, their native Chicagoan, smiled wide, made a finger gun at her, and said: "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal."
.
.
Kitty was right. The coast was indeed clear. It seemed most of the kids had returned from their weekend haunts and were hunkered down in their rooms. It would have been a ghost town, except—
"Bobby," she said, the breath leaving her body as surprise gripped her. The plan was that he'd wait for her to come find him in his dorm—but here he was now, standing right in the middle of the corridor, wearing jeans and an oversized green sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was Rogue's favorite—the result of a collaboration between Peter and the graphic tee department, complete with a too-cool-for-school X School logo. Bobby had let her wear it loads of times, which always drew weirded-out looks from Logan when he saw it.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't wait any longer," Bobby said. He looked out of breath, like he'd run all the way here from the boys' dorm. "Pete saw Logan heading up to the Professor's office. I think they're in there talking, I don't know what about. But he's probably not gonna be there much longer." His eyes flicked up and down, taking in her form-fitting costume. She'd never dressed this provocatively before. "You look good," he said, sounding a little blinkered, and then he blushed.
"Thanks. You do too." Bobby's blush deepened. "John's got the cigars?" she asked.
"Yeah. But he's getting antsy. He's starting to think this is all some scheme to bust him with the teachers."
"He just has to wait five more minutes." Rogue pulled out Bobby's suit, neatly folded for him, and pressed it into his arms. "Here. Put this on."
Bobby goggled at her, face redder than ever. "Here? Now?"
Rogue's lips quirked up in a laugh. She desperately wanted to kiss his face when it looked like that. "No, silly. In the bathroom." Then: "What about the jacket?"
"John's got it," Bobby assured her. His nose wrinkled. "Not sure I look forward to smelling like an ash tray, though."
"It'll be okay," she said. "Let's go." But before she could get going—running, more like—Bobby suddenly moved towards her, eyes flickering with some new resolve.
"Hey—hey," he said. And suddenly her jaw was resting in Bobby's hand, cradled tenderly in his palm, just for an instant. The effect was immediate—a heady mixture of worry, love, and fear arced down her spine like a bolt of electricity from the heavens. It was the fear Bobby felt that brought her down from her high, born of the hamster wheel of flurried activity she'd been trapped on. For the first time she noticed how scared her boyfriend looked.
"Bobby!" she admonished him—half of her disapproving, half of her wishing he'd touch her like that again. "You've got to be more careful."
"I know." Bobby was shaking—less from fear than from the energy theft her touch engendered. She felt him—his thoughts, his worries, his hopes, his fears, his dreams—dancing across the surface of her skin, before disappearing somewhere inside her, gathering like a knot in her chest. He took a deep breath or two and managed to pull himself together. "I'm sorry, I should have given you a heads up. It's just…"
He held her hands in his then. Rogue beheld them with puzzled reverence, as if he was about to slip a ring on her gloved finger.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Rogue looked back up at him, startled. "There's still time. We could still call this whole thing off." When she didn't answer, he went on. "I can get my dad on the phone right now—tell him John's uncle bailed. He won't be mad or anything." The earnestness in his face intensified as he regarded her, palms pressing over her clasped hands as if raising them both towards heaven. "I'd really love it if you stayed with us for Christmas."
Now that her mind had slowed down—now that she was thinking again—Rogue knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to do the normal thing. More than that; she wanted to do the normal thing with Bobby.
Christmas with the Drakes was sure to be a dream—her mind called up the traditions that Bobby had told her all about in the weeks leading up to the holiday, that his family lived and died by. Caroling around the giant evergreen in the Boston Common, sipping on hot chocolates and singing themselves hoarse. Helping Bobby's granddad wrangle the recipe for his famous saltwater taffy—a gargantuan task that required the labor of the entire Drake brood, aunts and uncles and cousins stretching candy into untidy ropes in Bobby's granddad's tiny colonial-era kitchen. The no-holds-barred Scrabble game his parents would break out as soon as the hand of the old family clock touched midnight on Christmas Eve.
Her heart thrilled to the idea. Until she remembered—as she always did—what else normal would involve.
She thought of offering nervous, tepid smiles to each of the Drakes as she dodged handshakes and hugs—of fielding careless touches from the little ones and well-meaning comments from the older folks, most of whom would likely not be able to resist offering up some form of my goodness, dear, aren't you roasting under all those clothes? She thought of sitting alone with Bobby in his bedroom as she had with David, desperate to touch him—and just as desperate not to kill him with her need.
Family were people who knew and accepted you just as you were. And even Bobby—he'd confessed to her—hadn't told them who he was. They didn't know that Bobby had been fifteen the day he played touch football with some of the other boys from school and one of his teammates—a way bigger kid that Bobby had innocently thought of as a friend—decided to hell with sportsmanship when Bobby fumbled the ball and whaled on him until he cried. He'd never told them how the sky had opened up with ice and hail and how Bobby's tears were suddenly so hard they cracked and splintered on the ground where they fell, sending curls of frost spreading out across the grass and freezing the dirt solid. The bully fell on the field of ice and broke his arm in three places.
Folks later on put it it down to freak weather—the odd snowstorm in May—but Bobby had instantly known the truth. He hid in his room for weeks, cowering, until Professor Xavier paid his dumbfounded parents a visit and convinced them that prep school was just the thing their son needed to help shake him out of his teenage funk.
Rogue had no doubts that Bobby's family was every bit as wonderful as he'd said. But somehow it was still easier to whisper: "This is something I need to do, Bobby."
He nodded, unhappiness forming a tiny knot between his eyebrows as he gently stroked her fingers once and then let his hands drift to his sides. She'd disappointed him. Rogue found herself wishing, not for the first time, that Bobby would be a little more selfish. Going to the lake was just something she had to do—as much to prove something to herself as anything else. Bobby could make a different choice. He didn't have to put his own Christmas in jeopardy like this.
But another part of her was even more glad that he was coming. Because she was the selfish one—wanting to have her cake and eat it. To be both mutant and girlfriend. She suddenly remembered what she'd said to Logan, and her heart lost a beat.
Bobby's not going to stay with me, not when I'm like this.
Bobby's blue eyes wandered to the floor for a moment. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth, like he was considering what he was about to say next very carefully, before drawing his eyes back up to her.
"Rogue." The word caught on a ragged breath. "Should I—be worried? About Logan?"
"Worried? What…" Bobby's look grew more significant, and her mouth fell open. "Oh my God, Bobby! No. Logan's like…"
My dad, she wanted to say. Instantly. But she couldn't. That word still called up images of Owen D'Ancanto—the family patriarch, the man to whom she was expected to pledge all her loyalty, all her love. To assign that title to someone else—even Logan—seemed unthinkable. She couldn't even say father in her own head. Not even in the dark of his room, where she slept with his jacket draped over her tight, a talisman against the nightmares that still caught her out in her own bed.
It wasn't simply because of growing up in the Bible Belt, either—where you were expected to worship both your parents like they were God. But because even Owen D'Ancanto had loved her, in his way. Even if it was tempered with hardness, and anger, he had shown moments of real tenderness, too. Of bending towards her, the way Logan did. The difference was that Dad's love filled her with confusion and Logan's didn't. Logan could be gruff sometimes, prickly—but never mean. Never hard.
"Like what, Rogue?" Bobby pressed, desperate to fill the silence that fell over her. "What is he to you?"
She shared his worried stare for a long moment, then broke the contact with a nearly imperceptible motion of her head. "Not like that," was all she could murmur. It sounded pathetic, and it was. She nearly cringed.
Bobby gave a short, exasperated—and hurt—huff. She didn't blame him at all. "Well, if you can't tell me, then it makes sense, right, if I'm a little—look." He closed his eyes as a deep sigh fetched up within him, raking a hand through his hair. "It's—I'm allowed to be stupid about this, right? I'm not being crazy?"
The blue in his eyes looked nearly gray as he opened them again, held her gaze. He sounded like he was actually seeking an answer from her. Rogue shook herself a little. Sometimes she forgot that Bobby was just as new to all this as she was. They were each other's firsts, after all—there were so many things they still didn't know.
"You're not bein' stupid at all," she hurried to assure him. "It's me who's the problem."
"Don't say you're a problem," Bobby said, equally urgent to put her at ease. His eyes softened. "You're amazing, Rogue. Totally amazing. I'm sorry. I know you love me. I need to chill."
"Bobby, I've never loved a boy as much as you." And that was true. She had liked David, liked him a lot, but they hadn't even gone steady yet the day she tried to broach that distance, ended up changing both their lives forever. Even like had almost killed him.
If she loved Bobby, how much more was she going to hurt him?
When's he gonna get the hint and leave?
Her eyes hurt and her throat got tight if she even began to think about it. Better to spend Christmas in a hole in the ground. At least she wouldn't be alone there.
.
.
A hole in the ground was the farthest thing from her mind, though, as the Mazda wound its way over the icy roads that cut a path along the slopes, revealing spectacular views of peaks and valleys, dipping and rising from the ground like crooked fingers. There was snow everywhere, absolutely everywhere—the conifer and pine trees were lousy with it. It was like being inside a scene from one of the miniature Christmas villages her great-aunt collected—she nearly expected Santa and his reindeer to appear over one of the slopes at any moment. She held Bobby's hand in her lap as she took it all in—his covered, hers free and bare—and exulted in the gentle sensation of his fingers brushing up and down her palm.
Hours earlier, Logan had come rapping on their motel door—and well before nine. Maybe he'd suspected the kids were sneaking in a necking session and was determined to break it up. He'd only been half right—she and Bobby had been under the covers, cuddling, when the brisk, no-funny-business knocking shook them both out of the dream like cold water'd been poured on them.
Logan didn't have much reason to worry. She and Bobby hadn't gone too far—not really. Partly out of respect for Logan, partly because it would be difficult, but mostly because she wasn't ready. It was one reason why she sort of wished Logan had stayed in the room with them. Adult mediation, adult guidance—she remembered how Logan had told the X-Men she wasn't grown up, only growing up, and she felt there was still a place for that now. Bobby, for his part, was a perfect gentleman. Even so, the kissing and petting had nearly set her brain to boiling.
They'd hurried themselves out of bed and flung on their outfits. Logan sneered when he saw the leather. He turned on his heel without a word and together they all headed down to breakfast. Rogue and Bobby ate their weight in children's breakfast cereal (Froot Loops for her, Frosted Flakes for him), buttered toast, scrambled eggs, and waffles. Logan had only a few bites of the eggs—and a whole mess of black coffee—and as they left the motel, she saw him fist a wad of crushed wrappers from his pocket and drop it in a trashcan. She bit her lip to keep a smile from coming on as she slid into the backseat of the sports car with Bobby.
The drive through western Canada was like experiencing time both slowed down and sped up. You'd travel along a valley for what felt an eternity, and then suddenly a mountain would spring into view, eating up the sky and the scenery, so that it seemed that nothing in the world existed but for those dark, unscaleable heights. It stamped upon her the indelible impression that she was a visitor to an alien planet. Bobby said nothing but gripped her hand tighter.
Logan didn't seem as remotely impressed as her and Bobby. He remained cranky, his teeth clamped on a cigar all through the morning—probably so he'd have an excuse to avoid being drawn into a conversation. For some reason he never lit it. Any question they posed to him was either met with a grunt or a response so terse it might as well have been one. In the interim, Bobby and Rogue turned to one another to stay entertained—asking each other trivia questions and playing I Spy.
"I spy something brown."
"The National Park sign we just went by?"
"Nope. Think closer."
"The trees?"
"Closer."
"Oh—I got it. Logan's cigars."
"Bingo."
Logan made a hn sound. He reached for the CD player and hit play on one of Mr. Summers's rock albums. The music blared as he turned down all the windows to let in the air. Rogue had never heard its like before. The lyrics were esoteric, strange—more like diary entries or philosophical musings, penned by an awkward professor and then set to music. The guitar weaved wild, unconventional melodies in perfect concert with drums and bass and vocals. And the vocals, too—those were really weird. The singer wailed the lyrics with an earnestness that was at once deadly serious and winkingly playful. After several songs Rogue was no closer to telling you whether the singer was a man or a woman.
And when I leave I don't know what I'm hoping to find—and when I leave I don't know what I'm leaving behind…
It kept them occupied, listening, for an hour or two. And quiet.
But Rogue couldn't stay quiet when they reached the first lake.
It was so stunningly beautiful her first response was to stop breathing. Its surface was shimmering turquoise, along which banked a halo of clouds so delicate and soft they appeared unreal—like the finest of paint strokes. The lake's reflection was a perfect mirror of the clouds and sky above, so that it looked like there was a second sky inside the lake, yawning down into eternity. If you jumped in for a swim you might just go into a freefall instead, limbs pinwheeling helplessly through the air, falling forever. The thought brought on a full-body shiver.
Set back a ways in the mountain that cradled the lake, grounding the scene to reality a bit—but equally grand in its own way—was a sprawling chateau, eight floors tall, dotted with hundreds of windows that no doubt peeked in on cozy apartments. But it was the lake that captured her imagination, ruled her thoughts.
"Wow. That is something." The understatement of the year. She found herself wondering aloud: "You reckon it's got a name?" She wasn't asking anyone in particular, so she was surprised when she got an answer.
"Louise," Logan said.
Bobby nudged Rogue, mouthing he speaks through a comically curled hand. Rogue giggled. Logan didn't turn but gave a canine twitch where he sat—Rogue could have sworn his ear literally cocked towards them like a dog's. It had the desired effect—Bobby snapped back into his holding position next to Rogue, his back as straight as it could go against the leather upholstery. Rogue patted his hand.
"What makes it look like that? I've never seen a lake so—green."
For a long moment she waited. There was silence.
"Glaciers," Logan finally said. "It's glaciers. Makes some kind of powder that sits on the water and refracts wavelengths. That's why it's turquoise."
He sounded defeated.
"And what was that building?" Rogue turned to look back, already disappointed to see both building and lake disappearing behind them, fading like a dream. "A hotel?"
"Ski resort."
"Have you ever been there?"
"No."
"Do you ski?"
"No."
She looked at Bobby. "Have you ever been skiing? I haven't."
"Yeah. My parents used to take me and my brother to Yawgoo when I was a kid." He gave a disbelieving shake of his head. "Nothing like this, though. That mountain's a whole other ballgame."
"It's beautiful," Rogue said, wistfully.
"Yeah."
"Makes me wanna stop and get a closer look."
"We're not stopping," Logan informed them.
Dang.
.
.
There was no way he was letting them traipse around in that stupid leather.
Logan was resolved to it when he made his first stop for fueling, a few hours past noon. They were getting weird looks, the fit already didn't look that comfortable on them—but most of all, he simply couldn't stand the sight of it. It was like the kids were already consigning their futures to those of fucked-up comic book superheroes. He just hoped this field trip would help purge whatever strange teen rebellion was possessing Rogue from her system.
They were going to have to stop for the night soon. He hadn't allowed himself to drive like a maniac, but he skated just a little above the speed limit for most of the way, one eye and ear out for any mounties. They would be about a half hour's drive from Alkali by seven tonight, if he timed it right. There he would find them a place to sleep, and a proper dinner.
But not for a few hours yet. "You hungry?" he asked them as he pulled up to the nearest pump. He already knew the answer. Rogue's stomach made tiny but perceptible grumbles, and Bobby had been eyeing the signposts that advertised the various fast food joints coming up on the route with unusual interest. Logan could go forever with little subsistence—and was focused intently on just making his destination in time—so the thought of food had slipped his mind. Mostly he'd just been wishing for a smoke the whole time, but he remembered what'd happened the last time he smoked in a car with a kid.
Sheesh. They could have told him. He was no teddy bear, but it wasn't like he would have ripped their heads off if they said they were hungry.
He parked the car and they got out. He counted out thirty bills and held them out to Rogue. She looked at them, uncomprehending, until he gave a jerk of his head towards the convenience store, pairing it with a meaningful look. She sent him a grateful smile and skipped up to Bobby with the cash, who assured him he would pay him back, and the two of them went inside. Logan committed himself to the task of hooking the fueling nozzle up to the tank and watching it fill the car with premium.
Another car came down the road and swung into the filling station parking lot. It drew up to the pump behind him, coming to a slow, screeching halt. The door opened and the driver planted one foot down hard on the pavement getting out, disturbing the pebbled dust around Logan's feet. Another moment passed, the door was swung closed with a teeth-rattling bang, and Logan heard the fueling nozzle clunk as it was ripped from its cradle. Everything the guy did—had to be a guy, he smelled like a guy, moved like a guy—seemed to be executed with some measure of violence.
Logan ignored him.
But only for a minute or two. As they both stood fueling their vehicles, he could feel the stranger's eyes rove over him once and then stop. Could feel them brightening with interest, or maybe recognition. Well—Canada was a big place, but the world was small. It wasn't impossible that maybe this person had seen him before, and thanks to his hair—which had proven impossible to tame by any means on earth—he didn't exactly cut an inconspicuous figure.
He kept his head down. There was no need to let the guy get a good look at him. And his mind had already produced a fairly reliable profile of the stranger based on the sounds and smells that were coming off of him. It took the length of four or five breaths for Logan to determine that the stranger was heavy (from the way his lungs rattled wetly each time he breathed), that he'd had a couple hits from a bottle before getting behind the wheel (smelled like Molson—fine for what it was, but he'd always preferred Moosehead), and that he suffered from a profundity of facial hair (if the atrocious aftershave topping it all off was any indication).
There was a heavy clank as the stranger docked his nozzle. Began a slow, plodding, meandering walk up to him. Logan kept his eyes pinned to what he was doing.
"I know you," he said when he was close enough to breathe his foul breath down on Logan. Yeah—definitely Molson. His voice came on low, thick. A smoker, too.
"You don't know me." Logan hoped he understood a fuck off when he heard it.
The stranger didn't get the warning. Or maybe didn't care. "No. No, I do know you." There was a long pause. "You're the Wolverine." Logan didn't react. "Whitehorse, ‘95. The Den of Thieves. You took down the Blanco Bronco." His low voice got even lower. "I got taken to the cleaners thanks to you."
Shit. Logan remembered the place and its stupid name. The Bronco was a young guy with something to prove—had just kept sinking punch after punch into him, even after every bone in his hand snapped right down to the wrist upon contact with the steel bars that were Logan's ribs, and all before Logan had even made a move. It hadn't helped that Logan had been halfway to blackout drunk that night and forgot to sell a single one of the kid's punches. Thirty seconds after the bell rang he took pity and hooked one into the kid's stomach to bring on a clean knockout. He was finished in Whitehorse after that—had made a point to never pass through again. Apparently some people still remembered.
"So maybe don't go to Vegas," he replied. Still trying for indifference.
The man chuckled. A heinous cocktail of amusement, malice, and rage crossed Logan's nostrils. For the first time he looked up.
The man facing him was even larger than he'd guessed. At least six foot three, some three hundred pounds and change. And whiter than the snowy peaks of Alberta. His aftershave was clearly no measure of good grooming, to judge by the patchy copper-colored scruff that ran up and down both cheeks. The rest of his head was completely bald. He wore a black vest over a shirt at least one size too small, and straining across the breast of the shirt was a large orange lapel that read "Buzz."
Logan locked his eyes onto the man's face. Stared. Usually his stare was mean enough to drive away even the nastiest pit bull wanting a piece of him. Buzz's blue eyes only burned brighter with contempt, though. So he was big and stupid.
"You know, it came out later you rigged the whole thing," Buzz continued. "Heard you and the bookie made sure you were always goin' to win."
Logan held his stare. Calm. Stay calm. There were kids in that store. "Nothing was rigged."
"Sure it was. You had your tricks. You made it so you couldn't be beat."
Logan knew exactly what the man was putting down. He refused to pick it up. Couldn't afford to make him angrier. He said nothing.
It was the wrong move. Buzz seemed to think he had struck a nerve. His face split with a victor's grin. "That's a real nice car," he said, peering around the hood of the Mazda. "You buy that with all the money you stole?"
"I didn't steal shit. You people just bet on the wrong horse. It happens."
Buzz gave a hard, contemptuous sniff. "You people. Yeah."
Logan's gaze flicked down to the docked nozzle and back up to him. "Don't you have somewhere to be heading?"
"Sure, sure." Buzz sniffed again and scrubbed a filthy hand across his face. He stepped away, and for a moment Logan thought there might actually be no brawl today, until the man reached one arm through the open window in the front of his own car, a dreadful vehicle so beset with rust it had to have come straight out of Ontario.
"Say," Buzz said. He pointed with two fingers from his other hand in the direction of the convenience store. "Those kids just like you?"
Logan looked. Rogue and Bobby were coming out of the store, carrying brown paper sacks. They were holding hands.
A clear slap rang in his ears, tearing his gaze back. A bottle of Molson was landing in Buzz's open palm now—swinging down again and again, each thump louder than the last.
It might as well have been thunder. Logan's head filled with snow. He was a lost TV signal, all satellites down, no connection, no phoning home, ET. The nozzle in his hand began to crumple. The adamantium bit clear through his skin as his fist clenched, splitting it at the seams like it was plastic wrap. Blood and oil dripped to the pavement.
"You leave those kids alone."
The answer came out of him before he even knew he was saying it. But already Buzz was taking a step back—not because of fear, he was too stupid for that, too stupid to see the signs, but because he was already decided on his goal. He was going to go over there and hurt those children. The high stench of mal intent stung Logan's nostrils like burned whiskey.
He could hardly hear what Buzz said next. It was meaningless nonsense, just noise. Logan's eyes crazily tracked the movement of his feet as they bore him another few steps in the children's direction.
"Yeah? Look at ‘em—even dressed like freaks."
"Leave them alone."
"I bet they're not made of iron, or whatever it was broke Steve's hand. You goddamn muties aren't all as untouchable as you thin—"
The nozzle was on the ground and Buzz was in the air—lifted there by hands so tightly wound into fists on the lapels of his fake leather that huge, irreparable holes were already starting to tear it apart. The bottle in his hand hit the concrete plinth and shattered as Logan slammed him up into the wall of the fuel dispenser. Beer spilled all over Logan's shoes.
Logan was shouting something—what, he didn't know.
Another sound penetrated the demented orchestra inside his head—Buzz screaming back, his face red and pinched with terror.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I wasn't goin' to lay a hand on ‘em, really, just please don't—"
"Logan?"
Rogue's voice. It halted him like a slap. Logan's fingers opened and Buzz dropped to the pavement with all the grace of a bag of wet garbage. When the snow cleared away from the edges of his vision he saw Rogue, standing there, just feet away, her eyes and mouth wide with panic; and Bobby, standing before her, eyes fiercely set on him, one arm thrust out in front of her to prevent her from coming nearer.
For a moment they all froze, as if captured in a spectacularly absurd photograph. Then Logan rounded on the man, who lay before him on the ground, stunned and shuddering.
"Get out of here." The man didn't move. "I said get out!"
Buzz stumbled to his feet at top speed and flung himself into the driver's seat of his rusted shit heap. After several moments' panicked fumbling with the keys, he finally had the engine going. He peeled away as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit.
Logan waited until the car vanished around a bend in the trees. Then he turned to look at the kids. Rogue had pushed past Bobby's outstretched arm and was on her knees, trying to recover the soda bottles and cans of chips that had rolled away upon impact with the asphalt—the kids had dropped both their sacks in the shock and confusion of the scene. When she felt Logan's attention on her, she tried to sweep everything into her arms in one go.
"Leave it," he told her. Both of them. "Get in the car."
There was a moment's silence. Rogue looked at him forlornly—like he'd been the one in some kind of mortal danger. Jesus Christ—why did the kid keep giving him chance after chance? At least Bobby had the wherewithal to understand facts. The boy's eyes upon him remained flinty and guarded as he gently coaxed Rogue into a standing position, then guided her into the backseat.
Logan silently lifted the fueling nozzle where it lay—reduced to the appearance of a crushed windpipe—and docked it. Went to the pay machine and took the change it spit out. Thought better of it and left the change. Then he went around and picked up all the snacks, replacing them in the dropped bags. He did it all with his left hand—the one not leaving a bloody trail all over the parking lot. By the time he finished, his right hand had healed up enough that he was certain Scott wouldn't come crying to him later about bloodstained leather.
"Okay," he said once he was back in the car. He arranged the two bags in the passenger seat, conducted a quick check on both children. Neither child smelled or appeared particularly horrified by what had happened—just shaken up. Even so, he felt like he had to ask the necessary questions.
"Are you okay?"
The kids nodded.
"Do you want to go home?"
"No," Rogue said. Bobby shook his head.
Typical. "Okay," Logan sighed.
Rogue's eagle eye observed the ginger movements of his right hand. "Is your hand okay?" she asked, in a tone brimming with concern.
Logan held it in front of his face, flexed the fingers. His torn skin hadn't grown all the way back, but he suspected it would within the hour. The housings for his claws were intact—it had been a small miracle that they hadn't come out and flayed Buzz alive. "It's fine. It'll heal."
There was a lengthy pause. "It looks like the Terminator hand," Bobby suddenly offered.
To Logan's shock, Rogue began to giggle. He spun around in his seat to gawk at the boy.
"The what?"
"The—you know." Bobby was still smiling, but at the expression on Logan's face, his smile dimmed by half a watt, and he tried to explain. "When Arnold stormed the police station and got all shot up, and he had to regroup. A bunch of his skin came off and it was just like, you know. This skeleton robot hand." Logan blinked at him. "You—you did see The Terminator, right?"
Logan stared at him for a beat longer. "Yeah," he finally allowed. "But who the hell wants to be told that?"
Rogue's giggle became a laugh.
Okay. Maybe the kids were finer than he thought. "I'm glad you two find this all so damn funny," Logan grumbled, struggling to turn the key in the ignition with his left hand. The engine roared to life and he nodded at the snacks. "Now who's the Canada Dry and who's the Barq's?"
.
.
Bobby wished he knew how he had ended up in this situation. Love made you do crazy things—and while he had never not believed that, had watched his share of romcoms and Disney movies growing up, he'd had no idea just how fast and how hard love would come for him.
But then, Bobby had always been a romantic. His younger brother Ronny went through girls like underwear—a fact that Bobby found pretty scummy, and frequently told him so—while Bobby held out for true love. It wasn't that there weren't attractive girls out there—especially at Mutant High—and some of them had even shown some interest in him. Last year, Katrina Kelly had planted one on his cheek and asked if he wanted to fool around. And man, part of him did. But Bobby hadn't felt the spark. So, with much regret, he'd had to tell her "no." Katrina's friends gave him looks that could kill for a month.
John—no, he liked being called Pyro these days—starting suggesting that he batted for the other team, while Pete shoved a picture in his face one day, a scribble of a buck-toothed four-eyed nerd sitting patiently at a desk, hands clasped as if waiting to be called on by a teacher. The speech bubble above his head read I'm Bobby Drake, and I'm waiting for THE ONE!
In the end, Bobby had the last laugh. The one had come to him, and her name was Marie D'Ancanto. Even her name sounded romantic, like something out of an Italian opera. The instant he'd first locked eyes with her—a small girl with long dark hair, being led through the hall by Ms. Munroe outside his third period classroom, looking even tinier for the fear, hope, and anxiety shining on her face—something had made his head go fuzzy and his heartbeat jump in his wrists like harp strings.
He tried to play it cool. And with Marie—Rogue, she called herself—it had actually been easier than he thought. His first instinct was to make her feel at ease in this new school she'd arrived in, this new world. The look of awe that flooded her face when he first placed a rose carved from ice on her desk became one of his most treasured memories, one he revisited over and over when he was lying alone in his room.
Rogue was so different from any girl he'd ever known. She was from the Deep South—had the accent and mannerisms to prove it. She addressed people as sir and ma'am indiscriminately, called all sodas cokes—even if they were Sprites or 7-Ups—drank pitchers of iced tea laced with gallons of sugar. Words like like and fine came out of her mouth sounding like "lahke" and "fahn." Her accent was sweet as molasses and adorable as hell. Most of Bobby's friends back home were Southies and all of them—even the girls—talked like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting.
And she was smart, really smart. Not just about books—but also in ways she didn't like to talk about, what they called savoir-faire, street smarts. Which she'd probably picked up the eight months she lived on the road, before being brought here. He still couldn't wrap his head around that—living without a home and parents for that long, being totally on your own. It made his heart hurt for her, made him want to protect her from anything that would harm her all the more fiercely.
Even the way she kissed was different. His first kiss—stolen from a girl who sat next to him in chemistry when he was thirteen—had set his mouth on fire. Rogue's lips set his whole body on fire. They seemed to suck out his very soul. He wanted more—wanted it desperately—but he knew there were limits to what she could do. The limitations were frustrating. Especially when she went around wearing outfits that covered nearly every inch of her skin, and all he could do was imagine what her body looked like under all those clothes. It somehow got him hotter than if she'd gone around wearing a bikini.
Ronny would have had something to say about it—maybe what a "pussy" he was for not pushing for more, demanding more. But he really didn't give a crap what Ronny thought. Rogue was the captain on this crazy ship of love. Bobby was just along for the ride.
He and his brother's approaches to relationships were just one of the many things that'd been increasing the distance between them over the last few years. Even if Bobby never had a mutation—even if he never had a terrible secret to hide—he had the sinking feeling that he and Ronny would still be just as estranged from each other. The last time Bobby had gone home, for summer vacation, he found that Ronny had moved himself and all his stuff out of their bedroom into their dad's old study, where he played X-Box all day and stacked up empty Mountain Dew cans like he was building a fortress. They'd maybe exchanged all of twenty words between them for the entire three months Bobby had been home—things like pizza's here and where's the clean towels? Mom and Dad hadn't said much about it—only assured him that Ronny was going through a phase. The implicit, unspoken message was that it was just the sort of phase Bobby himself had gone through. Only it wasn't, at all.
Ronny was the one thing that could ruin an otherwise perfect Christmas. Bobby hadn't even phoned him ahead to discuss how things were going with his new girlfriend. He had no idea if he'd behave around Rogue or if he'd say something to her that would result in Bobby's fist landing in his face. Bobby had stressed over it for weeks. He couldn't even bring himself to tell Rogue what Ronny was like these days—which had made the pressure so much worse.
Until a week ago, when Rogue announced there was a chance she wouldn't be going home with him for Christmas at all. Because Logan.
Although he often wished he didn't, Bobby had eyes. He saw the way Rogue looked at him. The way she would blow off lunch with the girls or himself to go find Logan out by what everyone called the Freaky Fountain. She would talk to him right up until the bell rang that summoned students back to class—sometimes even after, lingering to laugh at something he said, or hold his hand in farewell. Even though she was all Bobby's on the weekends—and far handsier with him than she ever was with Logan—the sight still prompted a spike of jealousy, one that seemed to take hours for him to pull out of his heart.
It really didn't help that Logan seemed to like her too—like her a lot.
Which meant he was sitting here now, in the backseat of Mr. Summers's fanciest sports car. Not going home for Christmas. Lying to his parents. Fleeing with his girlfriend a thousand miles away to a hidden military base in the middle of Canada. Canada!
Ronny, he had to admit, would have been impressed if he knew just how far he was going out of his way to defy their parents. Bobby was just scared to death.
Because this trip wasn't just about assuaging his own jealousy. It was also about concern. And—if he admitted it to himself—fear.
When Rogue had introduced him to Logan officially, a few months ago, he went in with the headstrong hopes of leaving a lasting impression on the strange man who had nevertheless earned all of Rogue's love and admiration. The twist of his wrist when they shook hands had said I'm Bobby Drake, I'm Rogue's knight, and no one's messing with her. But Logan hadn't been intimidated at all. He looked at the hand Bobby had encrusted with ice for maybe half a second before putting it down, his expression not even rising to the level of dismissiveness—that's how little impact he'd made.
But Bobby persisted. He would do whatever was necessary to keep Rogue from getting hurt. Whether that was by someone like Magneto, or something closer to home.
A new rumor was going around at school—one that made his blood run colder than the ice that already swam through his veins. About the night Rogue first used her powers on campus. It had come to him on the grapevine through John, who'd heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend. Ordinarily the rumors were beyond stupid—not even Bobby thought Logan had come on to Rogue that night, or vice versa—but something about this one filled him with legitimate alarm.
Rogue never talked about what happened herself. She went suddenly silent, uncomfortable, the one time Bobby asked about it, and asked him politely if he would please just drop it. He did.
But he had been there that night. He had seen the tears in Rogue's eyes as she fled Logan's room, the sob that came out of her: it was an accident. And so he had no trouble at all believing what people were saying now.
They were saying that Logan had run Rogue right through with his claws.
And even so, Rogue was still going to his room to sleep. She was still talking to him in and out of school. She was still acting like that night had just never happened.
Even right now—she was chatting away with him in the car, asking if he'd ever seen a live moose, acting like he hadn't just been two seconds away from beating a guy to a pulp outside a Chevron in broad daylight. Maybe there was a good reason for it, but Bobby had grown up being taught that violence was rarely the solution to your problems. And Logan was proving that he was more than prone to solving any and all problems with his fists.
Something, he thought, was very wrong with this picture.
And so he resolved that he would stick by Rogue's side—whether it was at his place for Christmas or in a hole far beneath the earth.
It occurred to Bobby, a handful of times, that he could be wrong. That maybe Logan was okay. The teachers wouldn't have seriously considered letting him chaperone Rogue if they thought otherwise. To say nothing of what Rogue herself thought of Logan.
But teachers didn't know everything. And he wasn't going to take a chance on maybe.
He wasn't sure at all that Logan wasn't the number-one thing Rogue needed protecting from.