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Secret Burdens
Chapter Eight: Pushing


"The most jarring realizations are those about yourself."


Rogue stepped slowly from the stairwell to the floor of the foyer. She sighed heavily before turning to enter back into the kitchen. She stood in the threshold and found Ororo standing behind the island counter as she had when Rogue left her to run after Logan.

Ororo was standing eerily still, her eyes shut. Rogue could see the light static going through her hair.

Rogue stepped forward hesitantly. "Ms. Munroe?"

Ororo opened her eyes to look at Rogue, showing the light gleam of wetness against her whitening eyes. "Yes, Marie?" she croaked.

Rogue swallowed heavily. "He's leaving for good. I know that look of his."

Ororo cocked her head. "And how do you see that as my concern?"

Rogue stepped closer so that she was just in front of Ororo, as she searched her eyes. "Storm, he will only stay if you ask him to."

Ororo furrowed her brows, shaking her head slightly. "Marie, you are gravely mistaken if you think that anything I have to say will be of any importance to him." She drew in a deep, rough breath, bracing her hand against her chest. "And you are also mistaken if you believe that I desire him to stay."

he closed her eyes again, and Rogue could make out the dampness creeping out of the corners of her eyes.

Rogue steadied herself, grasping for Ororo's arm. She stared heavily at her when she raised her eyes to the former mutant. "Maybe not for the reasons I'm thinking of, but I know you have reasons to need him here." Rogue eyed her steadily, inclining her head with meaning. "And I know you don't want something else you'll end up regretting."

Ororo glanced between Rogue and the staircase just before the front door, her arms held stiffly to her sides. She returned her eyes to Rogue, who gently lowered her arm from gripping Ororo. Ororo took in one last deep breath as she hardened her features and turned to the staircase.

Rogue sighed as she watched Ororo take the stairs up to Logan's room, all the while hoping there wouldn't be blood to clean up afterwards.

* * *

Logan tossed the few t-shirts in his bureau to the bed behind him. He raked his arm across the dresser, tumbling all the contents into the bag he held at the edge. His breathing was coming in heavier bursts and he could feel the itch of the adamantium beneath his skin. Logan grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor and the t-shirts he had thrown to the bed, shoving them into his open pack. He was about to yank the bag over his shoulder when he heard the light footsteps coming up the stairs. He had an instant to recognize the person's scent before they had reached his room and unceremoniously slammed his door open.

Ororo stood in his doorway, her shoulders pulled back and electricity sparkling around her fingertips.

Logan straightened up sharply, his lips pulled back in a snarl. "What the fuck do you - "

"This time," Ororo bellowed, "you will shut up and listen!" She squeezed her palms into fists.

Logan was so taken aback by her tone that he didn't speak initially. But it was only a moment, before his eyes narrowed sharply and he advanced dangerously toward her. "Get out," he ground out lowly.

Ororo slammed the door behind her, also advancing toward him, her finger raised in his direction. "You want to know honesty, Logan? You want to know something no one else does?" she asked shrilly.

They met in the middle of his room with Ororo shoving her finger in his face. "How about this then?"

Logan grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, forcing her back. "I said get out." His eyes were wild as they stared her down.

Ororo flailed in his grip, trying to pull herself free, but Logan had a grip on her like he'd never had before. If it was any other time she might have actually felt an inkling of fear. But she was too far past fear. Ororo was so far from even the vicinity of fear she didn't think she even remembered what that felt like with him.

"Get your hands off me!" she yelled. She grasped at his arms, digging her nails into his skin just before she shot a wave of electricity threw her hands and into Logan.

Logan roared in pain, tearing his hands from Ororo's shoulders and rearing back. He gripped at his arm, then flashed his eyes toward her, unconsciously crouching in tension, ready to leap toward her again.

Ororo was caught by the sight and sucked in a breath, trying to steady herself. But then she remembered her anger again in a flood of rage. Her eyes blanked white faster than Logan had ever seen and her hair whipped around her face threateningly.

"How about this for honesty, Logan?' she bit out. "I actually let you hurt me."

Logan blinked, his nostrils flaring. "What the hell are you talkin' about, Storm?" he roared.

Ororo steadied her rising chest. "I stupidly thought that you were worth getting to know, that you were worth any form of human decency! I actually thought that your pain from Jean's death was real and that there was something unspoken that connected us, if only in the smallest of ways." She could feel her voice breaking with the threat of tears.

Logan ground his teeth together. "You don't know the first thing about what I felt for Jean."

Storm swallowed thickly, trying to control her voice. "Yes, apparently it was more self-absorbed than I previously thought," she spat.

Logan stepped toward her, leaning over her threateningly. "Shut up, Storm. You don't know anything!" he yelled.

Ororo stuck her chin out defiantly. "Oh, but I do. I know that you used your feelings for her as a way to cut off everyone else. You drove away Marie. You drove away Charles, as much as he tried to reach out to you. And for what? For a woman who never loved you back!"

"You don't know that!" Logan shouted to her, raising a finger to her face. "You have no idea what Jean was feeling either! You never bothered to even ask. You never cared about her enough to." Logan tore away from Storm to pace back toward the bed.

"What?" Ororo screeched. "How dare you! I have always cared for Jean. She was the closest thing I will ever have for a sister. I will never know a person like her again, but I cannot get her back by dwelling on her dead memory."

"Well, it ain't dead to me!" Logan yelled as he whirled around to face Storm again. "Don't you get it, Storm? She's dead because of me! Chuck is dead because of me! As long as that guilt lives they will always haunt me."

Ororo stepped toward him, her brow furrowed with frustration. "And you think you are the only one haunted? Logan, they were my family." Ororo blinked back hot tears, fiercely trying not to break in front of Logan. God, just not in front of him. "My family!" she cried, her hand clutching at her chest. She swiped angrily at the tears threatening to overflow. "They were all I had in the world Logan. All I had. And in one swift instant, gone." She ground her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut. "Charles was the only father I had ever known. And Jean...I mean, God...and Scott..." Ororo gripped even harder at her heart, feeling its harsh pounding against her ribs. Ororo opened her eyes to glare at Logan.

All he could do was stare at her while the salt from her tears flooded his nostrils.

"Do you really not know?" she asked, her voice finally cracking. "Can you really not know that I also lost someone I loved?"

Her eyes bore into his as their heavy breathing filled the room. "I also loved. Deeply. And unregrettably."

Logan's feet were heavy upon the floor, grounding him as immovable as he searched Ororo's eyes. "I know," he finally answered. "I know. I mean...I tried to know." Logan took a step closer toward her. "That's why I wanted this fucking trust thing. I had to know." Logan's voice was still heavy, pierced by his labored breathes.

Ororo stared at him, shaking her head unbelievingly. "Can you really be that selfish?"

Logan stopped in his advance, anger flashing back across his features. "What?"

Ororo looked at him incredulously. "Must you completely dissect another person's past and pain in order to ease your own? Do you not realize what you are doing to me?"

Logan furrowed his brows at Ororo's questions. "What do you...?"

Ororo closed her eyes painfully, tears clinging to her lashes and Logan was so struck by the sight that he forgot to take a breath for a moment. "I wanted to believe you when you asked for trust, Logan. I did. But I cannot continue to do this to myself." She pulled the hand from her chest as she opened her eyes again. "I kept this part of me in the far recesses of my heart for so long that I do not think I can bear it again." Ororo drew in a deep breath. "I am sorry, Logan. But I do not think that I can keep my end of the deal. There are still some things too painful to say. Even to myself."

"Then you're a coward, Storm." Logan stood deadly still.

Ororo glanced at him blankly, her eyes ebbing white. "I do not deny it, Logan. But then, so are you."

Logan set his jaw tighter, his nostrils flaring.

Ororo eyed him suspiciously. "There are things even you do not speak of, Logan."

Logan reigned in his anger as he opened his mouth to speak. "Then I guess we ain't ever goin' to trust each other."

Ororo swallowed, her throat dry with the force of tears and shouts. "Something else is stopping you than just the fact that Jean did not love you."

Logan leaned toward Ororo. "Don't push it, Storm."

She stepped closer toward him, easing herself toward the wall of the room he had planted himself at. "Or the fact that it wasn't even Jean in the end."

Logan flashed his canines at her, growling, even as she stepped closer still. "I'm warnin' you."

Storm pressed on. "Or the fact that she killed Charles."

Logan spun on her, snarling inches from her face. "Storm, don't you dare - "

"Or that you killed her."

Suddenly, Ororo felt the rush of wind as Logan's fist flew past her cheek and into the wall behind her, his roar of anger accompanying the terrible crunch of plaster beside her ear. Ororo stared wide-eyed at Logan as he panted with rage, his eyes frenzied upon her own. He was breathing deeply, his chest rising in tired pants as he surrounded Ororo's small frame against the wall. His voice came out in a low, threatening growl. "Don't," he started, "don't..." Logan blinked fiercely, his lids already dampening.

"That...," Ororo found her voice was breaking, but she couldn't stop herself. "That your love was useless... to save her."

Logan squeezed his eyes shut, his fist digging deeper into the wall.

Ororo's lip started trembling, and not, she found, because she was afraid of him. Her face fell, and she found the tears starting afresh. Her hand raised instinctively, touching her shaking fingertips to his rough cheek. Logan started at first, his eyes snapping open, before he felt the gentle trembling of her fingertips.

Ororo stared up at him silently, wishing at that moment that she had never pushed him. And not for herself. But for him. Because Ororo knows that look. That self-hatred. She knows what it feels like to carry that kind of weight around. And she knows firsthand how destructive one's own desires could be. She never wanted to remember that feeling. That helplessness. That vulnerability. How the hate doesn't even help anymore.

It was all she felt nowadays.

And she finally felt wrong to drag Logan into that, to make him feel that same kind of defenselessness. Because isn't that exactly what she was fighting so desperately against? Neither of them wanted to peel back their skins and show each other their gruesome little insides. And Ororo thought she was so screwed up Logan wouldn't even know what he was looking at. So self-righteous. So needlessly and stupidly self-righteous. Who wants to bare that kind of ugliness anyway?

She was beginning to realize that Logan wasn't the one doing the pushing.

"It's just..." Logan swallowed thickly, staring into Ororo's white eyes, a breath from his own.

Ororo's hand moved farther up his cheek, cupping his skin with her palm, her eyes never leaving his. She just couldn't stop shaking.

Logan let out a breath, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch.

"Logan," Ororo breathed, so soft she thought he hadn't heard it.

His brows knitted together at the sound of his name leaving her lips. He looked down, unable to look at her any longer. "I mean...it's so - everything's just...God. So fucked up. I'm just so completely, and utterly, and irredeemably, fucked up."

Ororo could see the shudder in his shoulders, the ripple of muscles as he braced himself against the wall. And suddenly, Ororo was struck with the idea that this man was not nearly the person she thought him to be. This was the first time that Ororo admitted to herself that she was scared of how much of a stranger he was.

She didn't want that.

Ororo knew that this went further than just understanding. This was more than just sharing pain at common lost loved ones. Because there was nothing common about it. And if they finally got to the point where they could express their loss unrestrained, then theirs would always be a relationship based solely on that common empathy. That wasn't something Ororo wanted from Logan.

She knew she could never truly understand him. His reasons, his actions, his secrets. If she did, then the importance of trust would be lost on her. Because the point of trust was in leaps of faith. Would it mean the same if you jumped where you knew there was a landing?

Ororo found that she needed that breathlessness. That something to remind her that she was still here and still present. Logan did that. Logan jarred her into movement.

Ororo realized that it had been so long since she allowed herself to indulge in her own emotions. There were too many students dependent on her, too many teachers looking to her for guidance, too many X-Men relying on her leadership. Ororo forgot herself in the need.

Logan threw it back.

"I just want...," Logan's voice was rough in his throat, the words catching themselves along his tongue, "I just want to be over this."

Ororo closed her eyes, breathing in deep as her eyes swirled slowly back from white to blue.

This was it. This was it, Ororo.

She touched her hands once more to his face, lifting his head until he was forced to lock eyes with her. She felt the rugged skin of his cheeks beneath her quivering fingertips. His eyes were dark against her own.

This was it. No regrets.

"Then what are you waiting for?" She leaned in.





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