A series by November

Chapter 22: If I Was Your Man

Rogue was in her philosophy class when her cell phone rang. She dug it from her bag and read the text message.

Come see me when you get home. I have a favor to ask, not urgent. X.

Rogue picked Maggie up at school and they went right to Xavier’s office.

"Hello ladies, come in."

"Hi Professor," Maggie said.

"Hello Maggie, how are you today?"

"Fine. I went to school and we colored and we did this thing with pegs."

"How’s the Montessori thing going?" he asked Rogue.

"It’s great. Very mutant-friendly. If we get any more young children I strongly recommend it."

She sat on one of his chairs and said "so what‘s up?"

"Well we have a bit of a logistical problem. I have a favor to ask but I wanted to make sure I asked you first because I didn’t know if you would be comfortable with it."

"Okay, well try me."

"Scott has the flu."

‘Oh, no. Is he ok?"

"He will be. He will be unable to teach any classes for a week or so, I’m afraid."

Rogue immediately saw where this conversation was going.

"Unfortunately the class is rather large and I don’t think Logan could handle it on his own. I am wondering if you might step in for Scott. I understand if you’re not comfortable with this."

"No, I’d be happy to help out, my only concern is the logistics. All my classes are during the day."

"If we could find someone to watch Maggie for you, would you be able to do it in the evening?"

"Depending on when in the evening, sure."

"Why don’t I call Logan down and we’ll work out the logistics."

"Okay."

Maggie squirmed down from Rogue’s lap and Xavier picked up the phone. He tried to call people on their cell phones whenever possible, as the telepathic pages were somewhat intrusive. "Hello, Logan. Rogue has agreed to help us out. Could you come to my office? Thank you."

Xavier hung up the phone and looked at Rogue. "How are your spring classes working out?"

"Really well. Statistics is easy. Calculus is kinda hard but it’ll be good to get it out of the way."

"If you need any help I’m here. Calculus always came easily to me."

"Momma, can I color?"

"Sure, honey." Rogue pulled out the colored pencils she carried everywhere and gave Maggie one of her notebooks. "You can sit on the window seat if you want."

Logan knocked softly.

"Come in."

She turned her attention to Logan. "Hi."

"Hi," he said, with a small smile.

"Logan, your class is at what time - one to two-thirty, Monday, Wednesday and Friday?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, Rogue, what is your schedule like on those days?"

"Umm, Monday and Friday I could do it if I left exactly at two-thirty, but Wednesdays I have an art seminar so I can’t until after dinner."

"One day a week isn’t so bad to cut into extracurricular time. Logan, if we have Wednesday’s class in the evening will that work for you?"

"Yeah."

"The only thing I’ll need is for someone to pick Maggie up at three and watch her until after the class, make sure she gets supper."

"I can do that," Xavier said. "I can send someone for her and I’ll watch her. Shall we say six-thirty ‘til eight on Wednesday?"

"Works for me. I’ll be able to have the Magster in bed on time." Marie smiled at where her daughter was coloring.

"So you both will be able to start with tomorrow’s class?"

"That’s fine," Rogue said. "Come over after dinner and we can go over the curriculum."

"Okay."

After they left Xavier sighed. Being in the same room with two people who were screaming projections of love, lust, and fear for each other was exhausting.

He sent off a quick email to Scott.

From: ProfX@xnet.org
To: Cyclops@xnet.org
Date: February 3, 2004
Subject: intro class

It’s arranged. And by the way, my money’s on six weeks from today.

X

Logan sat down for a hasty dinner before meeting Rogue. He noticed that the conversation stopped when he sat and this upset him. He had been getting along well in the last few months, he thought. They’d stopped acting afraid of him. He tried to figure out the reason for the change but luckily he was preoccupied with his meeting with Rogue and forgot about it.

After Logan left, Jubilee sprung into action. "Okay, Bobby wants this week. I’ve got the week after, then Storm and Jean, then Scott, then Carter and Esther, then the professor. Any other bets?"

"In three weeks," John said.

"Oh, and Darla wants six weeks." Storm said.

"Allright. All betting is closed."

Marie shut the bathroom door and stared at her reflection. She couldn’t shake the sense that, even though Scott was really ill, that Xavier was scheming. It pissed her off, but she couldn’t prove it, or even say what gave her that feeling.

She brushed her hair and threw it back over her shoulders. No sense putting makeup on, he’d just seen her.

Just as promised, he knocked on the door in fifteen minutes. Before Rogue could call out for him to come in Maggie went to the door. She was wearing the tiara from her Halloween costume and mismatched boots.

"Hi, Logan," she said, and ran back to her room. He looked somewhat perplexed, not because of her odd clothing choices, but because she was so cheerful to, and unafraid of, him.

"Hi, come on in, sit down." She gestured to the dining table. She glanced at Maggie in her tiara and boots, and laughed. "Something to drink?"

He thought that she was so beautiful when she laughed. And for a second it was all he could think. Finally, he gathered his thoughts. "What do you have?"

"Um, Pepsi, Labatt, Yoo-Hoo, and some nasty thing..." she shook the half-empty pitcher. He could faintly smell spoiled milk, and something else. "Umm, never mind." He raptly watched her confused expression, then the exaggerated grimace she made upon sniffing the pitcher. She poured whatever it was down the sink and ran the water.

"Labatt's good."

"Labatt comin’ up." She uncapped two and set them both down on the table. She grabbed a notebook and pen from the coffee table and sat down opposite him.

"Okay. So tell me about this class."

"Okay." He took a swig of beer and put it down. He flipped through his papers. "This is the course outline thingie that Scooter made. We’re about here." he checked week five with a pencil.

"Katas. How do the kids like this part?"

"They love it, because they don’t wind up aching after."

"So you really are a hard ass."

He just grinned, and she looked back to the syllabus. "What’s this?"

He leaned over, covertly smelling her while he looked at the paper. "Kicks and blocks." Vanilla, faint cinnamon.

"You seem to have this under control. I don’t see why you need me."

"Mostly to have someone to demonstrate on."

Oh. She contemplated one and a half hours of being his crash-test dummy and wasn’t sure she liked that.

"What I usually do is have ‘em do some yoga stretches, some calisthenics, and tomorrow I’ll review forms from Monday. That should be about half of the class right there. The rest of the time we’ll do kicks and blocks, maybe some sparring."

"Sounds easy."

"Should be. Mostly you’ll need to make sure they’re paying attention, correct them if they’re doing something wrong. They’re all pretty good."

He looked at her. Her fingers were curled slackly around her sweating beer bottle. She was so beautiful. He took a sip of his beer and looked away. "How well do you remember your forms?"

"Could do ‘em in my sleep." "Good." He twisted his bottle cap on the table surface, trying to spin it like a top. She looked at his hands. She would never know there were claws there. He was double-jointed. She’d never noticed that before. She wondered if it mattered when they were installing the adamantium.

"So what do I get to teach ‘em?" she grinned.

"Whatever you want. I hear you’ve got some good judo moves, we can do that next week."

"Cool," she grinned.

He looked at her, and had the sense that she was an utterly different person than the girl he’d met in Laughlin City.

"This isn’t a bad apartment," he said.

"It’s tiny, but it’s cheap, all things considered."

"Beats having only a bedroom."

"I know, I’ve lived here for five years. It beats sharing with two other girls." She smiled.

"I can’t even imagine," he shuddered.

It was his secret that he actually liked teenagers, liked the ballsy things they said. But when more than one teenage girl was together things tended to get shrill, to varying degrees.

"So what’s it like teaching with Scott?"

"He’s good," was all Logan had to say.

"He is, isn’t he? I’ve taken his classes."

"You really have been busy, huh?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. I need a vacation."

"You should take one."

"Poor college student here. Someday."

If I was your man, he thought, I’d take you away. Wherever you want.

"So do you have any questions about the class?"

"Not tomorrow’s, anyway."

"Good," he nodded, slowly dragged on the last of his beer. He wanted to do something, anything, to extend the conversation, but he couldn’t think of anything.

"Well, I’ll get outta your hair. You think of any questions, you know where I am."

"Ok." She stood up. Followed him to the door. "See you tomorrow."

He looked down at her. She had warmed to him a bit, and it was progress. He wanted so, so badly to hold her to him, to say something, tell her how he felt, but he didn’t want to fuck it up again.

"Tomorrow. Night, Marie." He said it with his eyes on her, and it was so intense that her pulse quickened. He could do that to her just by saying something in that ever-so-serious tone, and looking into her eyes.

She shut the door behind her and waited until he had stepped away a few paces down the hall. Then she fell into a boneless pile in front of the door, sighing like a schoolgirl.