Title: New Beginnings
Author: Helena
Email: queen_c@gmx.net
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic belong to marvel and fox.
Summary: A nightly watch, five years after Jean’s death.
Author’s notes: Not strictly a sequel to ‘New hope’, but kinda written in the same vein.
Thanks to: Catlin, for very in-depth comments, as always :) and, again, a huge thank-you to j.marie t. for suggesting a title, super-speedy previewing and correcting my mistakes, so I could post this while it’s still fresh :)
She found them on the back porch, sharing a companionable silence while Logan blew smoke rings into the night air and Scott sipped on his bottle of beer.
For both men, this nightly watch had become a ritual in the last five years, a quiet reminiscence of bittersweet memories and dreams buried with the woman beneath the lake.
With a melancholy smile, Rogue mused that Jean had not only saved all their lives that day, but also bound those two men together with a bond that was reinforced by blood and death and was stronger than any animosity they might still have held against each other.
Even in death, with an ease that had been unique to her in life, she had realized the impossible; the man who had lost his love had found a friend, consolation; the man who had so frantically been chasing love, a companion, had found a brother, and a purpose.
Rogue studied the two men quietly, their faces half-hidden by the dancing shadows the small candle between them cast over the porch, Logan’s features darkly illuminated by the glint of his cigar. She noticed the tight set of Scott’s jaw, the thin line of his lips, and knew he wouldn’t be long now. Another ritual; he would go out into the night and not come back until the morning, when the light had made the shadows disappear and the world looked, once more, like there might be, maybe, a new beginning. But at night, tonight, he had to be alone, become one with the darkness that was so close, so *close* to death, but not quite.
With an imperceptible nod to his companion, Scott jumped off the porch and strode away into the dark woods. Noiselessly, Rogue slid into his seat, on the top of the stairs, her knee almost touching Logan’s.
He cast a look in the direction Scott had disappeared and frowned. With a sigh, he blew out another ring of smoke.
“He’ll come back. He always does,” Rogue said quietly.
“Sometimes just when you think you’ve beaten the odds and come out OK, life will smack you in the face.” He sighed wearily.
“Do you want to talk?” She always offered, and he always refused. But tonight, she felt like he might, maybe, finally share what he felt, lean on her a little, after all those years others had been leaning on him. As team leader, when Scott was so crushed with grief that he didn’t know how to go on, much less tell others what to do. As a protector when the loss of a valuable X-woman had made itself felt in battles. As a friend, when Storm had been drawing further and further into herself.
The silence stretched out between them, and she prepared herself for a night of quiet watch, when he suddenly, quietly, spoke.
“First after she’d died, all I could think about was that now I’d never have her. The more years pass, the less I think that, and the more I feel sorry for Scott…for everybody else, that she’s not around. Weird, huh?”
Rogue smiled into the dark. “Nah. Just goes to show that you’re a good guy.”
He snorted. “Right. The night before she died, I told Jean I could be the good guy, if she only chose me. She said no. And she was right. I’m not a good guy.”
“You are,” she argued gently. “You’ve held things together where they were destined to fall apart. Scott, Storm. The professor.”
“Someone had to.” He shrugged. “And the fucked-up part is, I’m grateful that I got that chance. I’m grateful that she *died* and gave me that chance.” Another puff at his cigar made the red round light at the tip glimmer and cast a soft light over his face, over his contorted features, painted with anguish and self-disgust.
With a sigh, Rogue slid over until she was pressed against his side, and leaned her head against the railing next to his.
“Jean would’ve liked to see how you get along with Scott. What you’ve become for the team. She cared about you.”
Yes, that she had, in that way Jean had cared about all of those around her, like a motherly spirit that encompassed everyone at the mansion. Rogue smiled at the memory. Even when she’d had the mother of all crushes on Logan, she hadn’t been able to hate the woman who had tried so hard to make her feel at home, like part of a family. She had been the older sister Rogue had never had, always knowing when to be stern and when to be comforting. Like any little sister, Rogue had known about the simmering attraction Jean felt towards Logan…but even more than that, she had known that Jean was too much in love with Scott, cared too much for Logan to ever let that attraction manifest itself.
Logan leaned back and looked at the sky, slightly cloudy, with a few stars peeking through the heavy blanket of dark blue. She knew that he knew all that, too, and almost without conscious thought, Rogue reached out and linked her gloved fingers with his. She also knew that it’d probably be best to give him more time to sift through any lingering bitterness or hurt, so he could come to her, one day, with a heart free of any burden. The bond between them couldn’t be denied. It never could, not even when he still looked at Jean more often than at her, and she was attracted to Bobby. She had always hoped that bond would develop into something more. Something that probably needed more time and space. But right now, she wanted nothing more than to hold him and heal the wounds of his old love with hers.
Logan flicked the ashes of his cigar onto the lawn. “She didn’t love me. She chose Scott. And she made the right choice.”
Rogue cast a sideward glance at him, but he looked only solemn, not bitter.
“They belonged together,” she said softly, carefully, silently adding, ‘Like you and I do, Logan.’
He nodded. “I thought I could just make her belong to me. But things like that can’t be changed. I know that now.” Rogue bit her lip, suppressing the urge to ask how he knew, hoping that he did because he *felt* now what it was supposed to feel like, but said nothing.
“When she died, I swore to myself I’d love her forever, but I’ve been thinking about her less and less. She was right. She didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her like that either. She was right, and still, I feel like I’m betraying her.”
“Do you really think she’d want you to feel bad for letting her go? She chose Scott. That means she also set you free to choose someone else, Logan,” she said softly.
He looked down at her, his face mere inches from hers, and she was thankful for the dark that hid her face in the shadows, because she knew at that moment her emotions had to be written across her features for him to read like a book. She felt his eyes on her, the inquisitive, doubtful look prickling on her skin until she had to look away, picking nervously at a seam in her glove.
“Even then, it’s not only my choice to make.” He raised her chin again with one finger, protected by her hair, and she could see his eyes glimmer in the dark like the stars above. Clouded, dark eyes, but not totally overcast, and she felt her heart beat faster in her chest.
“The last woman I wanted to be with died only a few days after I stepped back into her life, Marie.”
She shivered at the use of her name, and at the injustice he was inflicting on himself. “It wasn’t your fault she died.”
Logan leaned his head back against the railing of the porch and rubbed a hand over his face. “Stryker was my past.”
She shook her head vehemently. “You weren’t the reason why we were on that mission.”
“There should have been another way though.”
She huffed. “Yes, there should. There wasn’t, though. She chose our lives over her own.”
He gave an exasperated grunt. “And who the hell asked her to take that decision away from us?”
A small smile tugged at the corner of Rogue’s mouth. “She did it to give us the possibility to make decisions *now*.” She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles soothingly. “I think she’d like if we did.” She paused, considering saying more, pouring her heart out to him, but then only nestled closer to him.
Silence stretched between them, so heavy with unspoken words that it was almost tangible. Then, “What if I told you that I love you?”
A warm, contented feeling spread out through her body, joy at finally hearing the words from him, and joy that he’d finally get to hear them. “Then I’d tell you that I love you too. And that maybe the time’s right for a new beginning,” she answered softly.
He heaved a sigh. “If I begin, there’s no way back, Marie. I won’t be able to stop. And what if some day there’s no other way for you? You go and make a choice? I don’t think I could resist the darkness, Marie, I couldn’t. I’ve been in the dark for too long. It’d be so easy to go back.”
She scooted around until she was on her knees, facing him, their noses almost touching, “When Jean died, she gave us the chance to *live*. With everything that comes with it. Take that chance,” she breathed. “Please, let us take that chance, Logan.”
He was quiet for a heartbeat, two, three. Then, she suddenly felt the brush of his lips against hers, and she knew that from the ashes of death and grief, something new and alive was born tonight.
They still sat on the stairs of the porch, wrapped up in each other’s arms, when dawn broke and tinged the dark horizon with a line of light. Thin, but steadily expanding.
From the forest, they watched Scott slowly make his way towards them, pale, shaken, but another survivor of the night. Five years, and the wounds were slowly healing.