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05. Logan’s Glum

Summary: Not much about Logan…or Ororo for that matter, well, not directly. (Title from ‘Logan’s Run’)


For Ororo, the mansion even with all its luxuries, with all of its cleanliness (.especially after the repairs), even with all of the life there might as well have been a cold, unfeeling grave…a living tomb of sorts.

At first, in the days following their return from Alkali Lake, it had been…easy. The somber air that hung in its halls made it easier for her to ignore her own pain, almost as if dissipating it. She did not try, or even have the time to analyze herself, sit back and think…and ask herself few very important questions.

‘What could we...I have done to prevent this from happening?’

‘Why couldn’t I have saved her…saved my best friend?’

And last of all…

‘Why did it have to be her? Why not me?’


She knew that just like Jean, any of them would have and still would lay down their lives for each other and those around then. She knew that Jean, as an adult, had made a decision, not only for herself but also for the children.

She knew all that…

…and knowing that did not make things easier.


‘If only I had had the courage, the inner strength, the poww...’

---

ThudThudThud

“Rogue. Hey, Rogue! Open up.” The sudden thumping against the door and the unmistakable high pitched tone caused the person within the room to slip up, her finger pressing onto the last button she had it on, the word ‘power’ stretching out into a comical ‘powww…’ of old time cartoons and comics.

Had it been any other time, even Rogue would have laughed at it…but not now. Moreover, not only wasn’t she in a chirpy mood, she also wasn’t feeling very sociable. If anything, she wanted to be left alone…alone with her thoughts, closed off within the living prison that was her body.

Using a gloved hand to wipe away at her damp eyes, she cleared her throat and called out, her voice slightly hoarse. “What’d ya want?” She hadn’t thought that anyone would look for her here…well, anyone except Jubilee and to an extent, Kitty.

“What are you doing in there?” Returned Jubilee. Trying the stubborn door knob and failing again, she gestured towards Kitty to do her thing, to phase them in…only to get a head shake from the other girl.

“Why?” Questioned the Asian firecracker, contemplating whether to try to kick the door in or paff the lock out.
“Its Mr. Logan’s room,” Kitty pointed out the obvious only to get a, “I know that,” shot back at her.

“So that…”

“Go ahway.” Rogue’s voice muffled through the wood interrupted Kitty’s explanation. “Ah’m working.”
“Rogue,” this time Kitty was the one who spoke. “We were looking for you.”
“Whaht d’ya want?”
“Uh…we,” hesitating with her answer, Kitty turned to Jubilee, who picked one of many answers from her arsenal and ran with it instantly setting all the blame back on her perky yet somewhat naïve roommate.
“Kitty couldn’t find her laptop. We were wondering if you had…”

“Ah have it. Ah’ll give it later…tehll Kitty thanks.” There, that ended that particular line of conversation.

“What do we do now?” Questioned Kitty, deliberately keeping her voice low. With the way Rogue had been acting lately, even she was worried now.
“Well, we have three options,” Jubilee was quick to the mark. “One, we could get in and see what exactly is she so busy with that she had to retreat to her Fortress of Solitude.” She started using her nickname for the way Rogue used Logan’s room, even more so during his absence.

Not only did the feral Canadian give Rogue a free run on his room, he had even gone so far as putting up an extra bed in one corner. It (the bed), served two purposes, one to allow Rogue a place to rest when the nightmares made staying her room too unbearable, and secondly so that she wouldn’t be in danger of getting skewered if and when Logan drew one (a nightmare) from his own treasure chest.

The day he was leaving with Ororo, Logan had taken out his keys and turned them over to the girl. Ever since that day, Rogue was found more in that room than in hers, the reason for which both Kitty and Jubilee had suspicions about but never questioned her. They were pretty sure it had something to do with Bobby, after all, he too had all of a sudden done a one-eighty on his personality and become a younger version of how Mr. Summers was…or rather how he used to be.

“I told you I am not going to phase into Mr. Logan’s room,” Kitty ended that option. “Not even when he is not there.”

“Hmph,” Jubilee frowned, more at herself than at Kitty. Maybe she should have given a more dedicated try at confusing Kit-Kat. Well, onto the next option. “We could just go and let her come out herself.”

“And three?”
“We could bang on the door, call out loudly, yell a lot and get everyone …”

“I vote for option two,” Kitty didn’t even let her complete describing what lay behind door number three.

“You sure?” Jubilee questioned, still contemplating about her third option.
“Yup.” Pushing herself away from the wall she had been leaning against, Kitty started down the hall. “Now come on, TBS is showing ‘Paperback Hero’. If we hurry we won’t miss much of it.”

“No way am I going to go subject myself through that sap-fest again, ” Jubilee’s yelled behind her friend’s back. “What is with you and Hugh Jackman? How many times have you seen this movie?”

“Ooh, buts he’s sooo dreamy,” Kitty slowed down to fan herself. “Sooo…hot.”
“Sooo Gay!” Jubilee supplied with a scrunched up face. “Even more so in that movie and that Broadway show he’s in. Anyways, I’ve got the perfect movie lined up for us. A kickass one, just right for my monthly ‘pay per view’ choice.”
“Oh, which one?” Kitty inquired, frowning at how she had splurged her own one movie per month allowance on Van Helsing. Even poor Hugh with all his hotness couldn’t hold up that movie.

“Pirates of the Caribbean,” answered Jubilee, complete with a mock brandishing of a sword…well, in her case, her pen.

“Oh. Really!” Well, guess she could made could with Orlando and Johnny. Together, the two of them could fill Hugh’s gap….almost. But what would Jubilee want with a movie like that? Did she have a crush…

“Yeah,” Jubilee snapped her fingers. “Did you see the zombies in that.” ACK!
“They look real enough to be alive.”

“Huh?!” Even at the best of times, Kitty wasn’t sure about Jubilee’s sanity and at times like these, she didn’t even dare to try to make head and tails of how someone perpetually hopped up and by her own admission ‘bursting at the seams’ horny girl like Jubilee could find zombies more interesting than Johnny or Orlando or even Hugh. Not that she’d allow him to horn in on him. He was just hers.

However, all those thoughts fled as the girls caught sight of Peter and Bobby coming up the front stairs, their destination same as the girls.

“Kitty,” taking her roommate’s slip wrist in a tight grip, Jubilee murmured in her most commanding voice. “Phase. NOW!”

---

Back in Logan’s room, feeling even more sad than she previously was, Rogue was berating herself at the way she had treated her friends. After all, it wasn’t like they wanted anything else than to help her….just like good friends should.

“An’ whaht did Ah do?” She wondered aloud, as if voicing her question for the permanent resident of the room.

‘Turn them away.’ The answer, just as the question, came from within her. ‘Ya shouldn’ have done that. Ya ain’t even a good friend.’

And that only made her feel even worse. Yet another thing she couldn’t do like normal people.

Even her efforts of self help by writing her own thoughts through ‘Ororo’ weren’t helping.

“After all, Ms. Monroe ain’t evah gonna feel like muh, feel so useless, so….alone.”

---

Back in Africa,

What neither Rogue nor even her co-authoring roommates knew was how close she was in her depiction of the way the ‘Real Life’ Ororo was feeling right now, and that her conscious had raised its head against her treatment of Logan wasn’t helping things at all.

The truth was, even though she knew herself that she needed this, Ororo couldn’t feel as if she was running away, from her responsibilities, how she should have acted…how she should have stayed back at the mansion.

In the month between returning from Alkali Lake to when she came here, Ororo could count on her fingers the number of times she had left the mansion grounds, seemingly afraid of what would happen if she did. After all, look where the previous trip got her….got Jean. If they had stayed back, they would have been able to stop Stryker and mercenaries at the mansion itself and things wouldn’t have gotten out of hand. Jean would still be here. She would still have been alive.

‘Death is just another step in the never ending circle of life.’ How easy was it to say those words and how difficult to actually live with them.

‘It is easy for Mother Nature.’ she had started to curse, stopping herself as she realized the duplicity of her words. After all, how could a mother, be it human, animal or even nature, how could she find the passing away of any of her children…easy.

And yet, as with everything in nature, life continued around her. Jean’s passing might and did affect those near her but in the larger scheme of things, if had about as much effect as drop of water in a engorged river.

But who would tell that to Scott, after all, he and Jean had literally built a small world of their own with and around each other. They had so many plans, a few of which Jean had confided with her best friend. They were planning for their wedding, a small ceremony, just within the mansion boundary, but out on the open ground. Jean was going to invite her parents and Scott, Scott had even chosen who he wanted to be his best man. All that remained was putting the plans into action, making the dreams a reality….the same dreams that would forever remain just that, dreams.

Just not for Scott.

For him, those beautiful memories and mental visualizations of his and Jean’s plans, they had turned into nightmares, ones that even in the light of the day never left him alone.

Ororo had seen him many a time, walking towards the gazebo, walking along the path that the very first batch students of the students, them, had built with their own hands. At the time it had all been an exercise in ‘fine tuning’ their powers, to try and use them for constructive purposes and not just fighting. It was the same path along which Scott and Jean had taken their first steps together, their hands hesitantly searching out and entangling with each others.

The gazebo used to be their special meeting place, and even now, with his clothes ripe from having been worn for more than two days, his cheeks hollow, his gait tired…even now, even after all that, Scott still made a point to visit the gazebo at least once a day. And every single time, he had something of Jean’s with him, a piece of clothing, her journal, even small things like the brush she used or her towel that had (to him) still carried some remnant. He held them close to his heart, as if trying to use his heart beat to form a link with her in the afterlife, similar to the psychic one they had before….before she was taken away from him.

---

Still lost in her thoughts, Ororo lurched forward against her seatbelt holding, noticing for the first time that they were in what looked like a small town.

Her companion, without even so much as a glance towards her, flung open his door and stepped out of the truck, stretching his body and cracking his neck to work out the kinks that had set in from over six hours of non-stop driving.

As for Ororo herself, knowing what she was supposed to do, she clicked her own belt and door open, slipped out and went through the same stretching steps, frowning slightly at the tension and fatigue along her neck and upper back.

Heaving a sigh, she went around the truck, conversing with the pump attendant to tell Logan how much would he need to pay. Given the language barrier for Logan, it fell to her to do all of the talking, especially in a place like this….their last proper stop for the next three thousand kilometers.

Once she had explained to the young man that he would also need to fill up the four large seventy-five liters plastic containers that Logan had bought for their upcoming journey, she left the two men to their devices, heading towards one of the four shops across the road, fully aware of Logan’s dark eyes boring into her back.

He hadn’t said one thing to her in their two day since their…disagreement at their last town stop almost thirty-six hours ago, and even though she knew that she could say something to break the silence, Ororo didn’t feel too inclined or even capable to do so…just yet. In fact, had she been anyone else, she would have left him alone there itself, taking to the skies and letting him wander by himself.

But that wasn’t her way and what made things even more difficult was that she knew that the only reason that Logan hadn’t left that first night itself was because of the Professor.

Now if only her conscious would stop troubling her.

---

//Flashback//

“Is there a problem?” Seeing him sitting on his haunches next to the rear right tire, Ororo had walked up to Logan, breaking the self imposed vow of silence she had seemingly taken after their hill-top confrontation.

Logan looked up at the serene but totally unemotional face of his traveling companion.

Seeing the blank expression on his face and knowing what was to come next, Ororo almost turned around and walked away. He could have just answered in a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but then it wouldn’t be the him, would it. The Wolverine’s pride, still stinging from her outburst and no subsequent apologies, snapped back in true attack fashion. “You said something…to me?”

Gritting her teeth at being confronted by the same thing that her inner voice had been bugging her out, Ororo responded in her most ‘official’ tone. “Yes.” As for the answer she got for that….

Turning back to fiddle with the tire, Logan grunted under his breath, but loud enough for Ororo to hear him. “Hn. Coulda fooled me.”

That did it, “What is with you?”

“Me?!” One thick eyebrow at arched at her, as letting go of the valve, Logan straightened up to tower above her. “What is with me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let me see,” balling his fists, Logan raised them to above waist level.

-SNIKT- One claw shot out. “I don’t know why I am here, except for why Xavier asked me to. He told me that it was fine with you, which obviously it isn’t.”

-SNIKT- A second one. “I sure as hell don’t want to be in a place where the fuckin’ mosquitoes are bigger than a bear cub.”

-SNIKT- Third. “And seein’ that as there is no way out, for either of us…”

“No one is forcing you to stay here. You could just…” Ororo started only to stop as all three claws from the other hand shot out…all at the same time.

“You know what…” Logan growled, his senses noticing him how the weather patterns around them had started to change.
“What?” The way Ororo stood before him, her own arms crossed at her chest, it only served in making Logan even more angry.

Hazel eyes stared and battled against deep blue ones, with both mutants barely hanging onto their control.

-SNAKT-

“Never mind,” the claws went back in but the words attacked. “Its not like you give a damn about it anyway.”

Fighting an urge to slap him across the face, or better yet electrocute his metal filled body, Ororo did the only thing she could do to make a quick getaway before she truly lost control over herself.

Walking away, she stopped at the front of the truck, and answered over her shoulder. “No, I don’t. Nor do I want to.”

“Feelin’s Fuckin’mutual.” ‘Ice Witch.’

//End Flashback//

---

Now,

“You were right.”

Pulling out on the town, heading along the soon to end road into the ocean of sand stretching out before them, their heads turned away from each other, it took Logan a second to understand Ororo’s words and even more time to respond.

“What?” Though schooled, his tone still carried a gruffness that had seeped these last few days.

“You were right,” Ororo repeated her statement, turning her head to face her grizzled companion, his freshly washed hair rapidly drying and starting to set in their natural wolf-ear points. “There is no way for either of us to get out of this…specially now.”
“…”
“So we should try to get along or at least not be at each other’s throats.”
“Hn.”

“You want to say anything?”

“No.” If she were expecting any other or a more elaborate reply, she wasn’t going to get any. Not from the Wolverine and especially in the current situation.

Once again turning away to their respective windows, the duo resumed their brooding, both of them surprisingly having the same thought swirling around in their mind.

‘This cannot be over soon enough.’

Note: Well, this chapter turned out serious (for this series), but then again, we do begin just after X2 ended, so I guess it worked out fine. As for Rogue n’ her thoughts, it might or might not play a big part but as with Jubilee (and Kitty) her ‘writing’ is more a reflection, either clear or skewed of either Logan or Ororo (or both of them).

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