Author: Callisto Wales
Title: none, yet
Distribution: I don’t really care where it goes, just drop me a line of you decide ta borrow it.
Disclaimer: Marvel... Bryan Singer... Twentieth Century Fox? Probably a bunch of others, and maybe not the ones mentioned here.... But not me, nosireebob, an’ Ah’m not makin’ one red cent!
’Ship: Uhmmmmmmmmm... at most, there’s some Rogue/Gambit-- only mentioned, actually.
Rating: PG (really, more G--nothing bad)
Feedback: Yes please!! [email protected]. Or, if you prefer, [email protected]
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Um, yeah. This is my first X-Men fic, but not my first fic ever. And I’m kind of bad at one-shots-- I tend more toward the long sagas. Except I don’t usually finish them. And... ummmmmm..... There’s bound to be OOC-ness and stuff, especially since I don’t really identify with Logan at all, it just seemed right to write from his viewpoint. And I’m more into the characters in the cartoon and comics and stuff, so I transformed the people into characters more like that. And yes, this is third-person narration. And.... Well, this is only 5 pages handwritten and I finished it within a week of having the idea and it’s all short and WILL NOT have a sequel (I hope), so I’m proud of myself. That’s about it. And that’s a whole freaking lot of A/N.



He was back.

It had been three years, but he was finally back.

Even though it was two o’ clock in the morning, she had been waiting for him on the front steps, welcoming him with a tight hug.

“Ah thought somethin’d happened to’ ya....” she confessed into his shoulder.

Logan smiled at Rogue as she released him. He noticed that his tags were dangling around her neck. “I told you I’d be back,” he reminded her. “And you keep those.” he added as her hands rose to remove the tags.

“Well, yeah, but ya didn’t say when.” she said accusingly.

Logan nodded, giving in. “So. We gonna yap out here ’til sunup, of do I get to go inside?”

Rogue smiled at him and opened the heavy oak door, with very little effort, he noted. After the were both inside Logan tugged the door shut with considerably more difficulty than Rogue had exhibited.

“There some trick to that door or what?” he asked, eyebrow arched.

Rogue’s smile fell. “Not really.” she said evasively.

“You’ll tell me about it later?” Logan assumed.

“...Yeah.”

“Great.” he said sincerely, wanting to know all of what had gone on in his absence. He caught several unfamiliar scents scattered about the entry hall. “There a lot of new students?” he asked. There was one particularly strong, obnoxiously spicy odour that Logan took an immediate dislike to. He disliked it even more when he realized that the scent was all over Marie-- Rogue, masking her own vaguely sweet one.

Rogue nodded distractedly in response to his question. Logan was getting somewhat frustrated, but forced himself stay calm. “So, where’s the rest of the welcome wagon, eh?” he joked casually.

“Asleep, Ah guess.” Rogue said. Suddenlky, her face broke into another beaming grin and she attacked Logan with a hug, flinging her glove-encased arms around his neck. “Ah missed ya.”

“I missed me too,” Logan teased, patting the girl on the back. His sensitive hearing detected several stes of footsteps on the stairs a couple of flights up, two pairs of lighter steps and a heavy one he recognized as Scott’s. He could smell the sniveling do-gooder... And Jean and Ororo, too.

Rogue released him as the others appeared on hte lanking, Scott yawning and Ororo wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“You’re back.” Scott stated unnecessarily, his mind still dulled by sleep. Or just naturally that way, Logan thought.

“Yeah, nice to see you, too-- dick.” he muttered.

Jean frowned slightly at him, then cleared her throat. “We were wondering if you were coming back.” she said pointedly. Not ‘when’, ‘if’. They obviously hadn’t thought he would keep his promise to Rogue. At least she had had some faith in him...

“You could have called once in a while or something!” Scott said angrily.

Ororo stepped in to smooth things over before the tempers could escalate further-- the two men were returning to their old habits already, even if Scott’s anger was justified. “I’m sure Logan would like to settle back into his room and get some sleep.” she said, ever the peacemaker.

Scott relented with a glowing red glare at Logan, who sneered back. He took his cue from Ororo and went upstairs to hid room, which apparantly hadn’t been touched while he’d been gone, judging by the collected dust.

He heard Rogue go up to her room, followed by Jean and Ororo.

“I’ll tell the professor in the morning. He’ll probably already be able to sense Logan’s presence, but just in case... I don’t want to wake him this early.” Jean was saying softly, presumably to Ororo.

“Rogue? Are you alright?” Ororo asked.

Rogue didn’t answer for a while. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about something?” Jean asked.

“Ah just... don’t know. Ah’ve waited for him to come back for three years, and... the dreams... and it’s like... Ah don’t know.” she said.

Dreams. His dreams? Yes, he realized, my dreams. Poor kid... He wouldn’t wish those dreams on anyone.

“Ah’d kinda like ta sleep now...” Rogue said pointedly. Logan heard Jean and Ororo going to their rooms.

Logan found that he couldn’t sleep, so he went down to the Danger Room as quietly as he could and beat the tar out of various computer-generated opponents for the rest of the night. He would have kept at it for longer, but at around 6:00 Xavier interrupted him by coming into hte room, causing the holoprogram to freeze automatically.

“Did you have any luck with Canada?” Charles asked.

“Nothin’ but a blown-up lab and fried computers.” Logan replied shortly. That wasn’t the whole truth, but who needed to know?

Charles knew this, of course, but he didn’t press Logan. “Would you like some breakfast?” he asked instead, leading the way to the dining hall, which held only a few students at this hour. Rogue was there with a few others; pf those, Logan recognized Kitty Pryde, the girl he’d seen run through the door of Professor Xavier’s office that first day, Bobby Drake, St. John Allerdyce, and Jubilation Lee. There were a few tohers, but Logans’ eye was drawn to a young man with long, untidy brown hair sitting across from Rogue, leaning forward and talking to her earnestly.

“Dat’s not it at all, chere, really!” he was saying as Logan moved closer to the table.

Rogue looked up and smiled brightly at him. “Mornin’ Logan.” she said cheerfully. “You gonna join us?”

Logan had to stop himself from wrinkling his nose as he caught that sharp spicy scent again. He shook his head to indicate that, no, he didn’t plan to join the group at the table.

Everyone at the table turned to look at Logan, and Jubilee waved a little while Kitty smiled warmly. Logan made a point of looking at hte young man’s face and was a little surprised to see the burnign red-on-black eyes in the handsome visage, which, at the moment, held a rogueish grin. He stood to introduce himself and Logan discovered that this young man was the bearer of that strong spicy odour that had assailed his nostrils everywhere in the mansion save his room.

“Don’ b’lieve we’ve met. De name’s Remy LeBeau.” he said, offering his hand. Logan stared at it skeptically. “It’s called a handshake, mon ami,” Remy said, withdraeing his hand.

Rogue shot Logan a pleading look. “My name’s Logan, kid.” he said reluctantly. “Listen, Rogue- I’m going to talk with Chuck for a while, but make sure you come see me later.” he said gruffly, and turned back to where Charles was sitting, observing.

“You don’t like Remy.” Xavier said. No emotion; just statement of fact.

“No.”

“She does.”

* * *

For the next few days, Logan spent as much time as possible with Rogue. She talked nonstop, filling him on on what had happened in the three years that he had spent tracking the ghosts of his past in Canada. Then she told him about all the new students that she could think of.

After that, she seemed kind of uncomfortable, kind of antsy, like she wanted to be someplace else, or... something. She wouldn’t say it outright, of course-- Rogue was too sweet to do that-- but she would excuse herself and go do things with her fellow students.

At Lunch on Logan’s seventh day back, Jean approached him. “Can I talk to you in my office?” she asked. Logan followed her out into the hall.

“Logan, it’s been three years. She’s changed.” Jean said, jumping right in.

“Yeah. So she’s been telling me.” Logan replied. “So?”

“Did she tell you about her... enounter with Ms. Marvel?” Jean pressed.

“Ms. who?” Logan looked blank.

Jean sighed. “A couple years ago, after you left, Rogue took a trip over the summer break. Somehow she met up with Ms. Marvel, a mutant with superhuman powers. Rogue won’t tell us how, but she has... permanently absorbed this woman’s powers, and her entire identity. Th eprofessor has put psychic walls in Rogue’s mind to keep Ms. Marvels’ personality from displacing Rogue’s, but it’s still there. Rogue also took her powers. Now, in addition to her own tactile powers, Rogue has superhuman strength, invulnerbility, and she can fly.” Jean finished.

“Hell...” Logan murmered, absorbing this information. “That explains the door, though.” This left Jean looking completely bewildered.

“The point is, she’s far from the same girl you left three years ago. She’s grown up a lot, Logan. Remember that.”

“Can I go now, teacher?” Logan joked, trying to pierce the feeling of seriousness.

“You never did tell me who--”

“’Cause it’s not important.” Logan said, standing. He left, and Jean stared after him, deep in thought.

***

Logan watched all the “kids” graduating to full X-Men status after the end of the term. Among them were Rogue, her friends, and that intolerable little thief, Remy. All these energetic young people, all excited about it. Thay only understood a fraction of the responsibilyit that came with the superheroing job. After teaching the self-defense class (how had Xavier coerced him into that anyway?), he know all of them by name. Betsy Braddock, a telepath; Warren Worthington III, a rich kid with wings; Lorna Dane, a girl with green hair and powers like Magneto’s; Kurt Wagner, a boy who looked like a blue demon who was an acrobat and could teleport; Piotr Rasputin, a talented artist whose body could become living metal; Hank McCoy, a genius trapped in the body of a furry blue beast (and quite a fighter), just to name a few. Poor kids don’t know what they’re gettin’ into.

“Oh, they know. That’s why they’re here. They don’t have to be on hte team. Actually, most are just here for a few minutes. Then they’ll head off to the graduation party Jean and Scott are supervising outside.” Xavier said, coming up next to him.

Rogue was talking with Jubilee, Kittym Bobby, St. John, and Remy, who was shuffling a deck of cards between his hands quickly. Sure enough, within five minutes the majority of the students had trailed outside, leaving behind only about a dozen. Logan tapped Rogue on the shoulder and signalled that he wanted to talk to her and led her out into the hallway.

“You sure you wanna do this, Marie?” he asked her.

“Logan, the X-Men have saved mah life a few times, and the world countless others. Ah feel Ah owe it ta the others.” she replied calmly.

“It’s dangerous, Marie--”

“Ah know that! It’s not like Ah can’t handle it!”

“Well--”

“Stop treatin’ me like Ah’m still just a child, Logan! You weren’t here to see it-- wish ya had been, by the way-- but Ah’ve changed. Grown up. Ah know exactly what Ah’m doin’ Logan, so let me!” she exploded, and stormed back into the room.

Logan’s jaw tightened slowy, and with sudden decision, he went to the Danger Room to vent his troubles on a simulation of Sabretooth.

[Epilogue-y thing]

The new members of the X-Men had just recieved their “uniforms” from Storm and Professor X. They’d chosen their codenames long ago, and now those were made official.

Remy, with his trademark trenchcoat on over the abundance of black leather, grinned. “So, what you t’ink?” he asked the room in general.

Betsy, or Psylocke, arched an eyebrow. “Very dashing.” she teased. She returned her attention to Warren-- Angel. The suit really set off his blonde hair for some reason.

“Yeah, shows off your best features,” Rogue said, eyeing Remy.

“An’ what would dese be, chere?” he asked, an amused smile on his face.

Jubilee smirked maliciously. “You know what she means. ‘Ah just love that cute little tight butt o’ yours, Gambit.’” she said in a very fake imitation of Rogue. Rogue turned a flattering shade of pink, while Gambit flushed a deeper red.

Rogue punched Jubilee “lightly” in the arm. Jubilee promptly clutched the offended appendage in slight pain. “Sorry, Ah guess Ah don’t know mah own strength.” she said sweetly as Jubilee scowled.

“Actually, Rogue, that colour looks really nice on you. We have got to find blush like that.” Kitty, or Shadowcat-- it had taken her quite a long time to figure out what she wanted to be called-- said, smiling.

Hank (Beast) held up a finger, about to quote someting, but Bobby stopped him with a hand. “No-- dont’ spoil this moment until I’m done savouting it.” This, of course, caused everyone to erupt into laughter.

_END_