A series by November

Chapter 47: The More Human Ones

The day after Marie's birthday Logan stayed and he never really left. Contrary to the statement Maggie had made about the cookies, she enjoyed him. She was starved for adult attention. It was this that made Marie realize how much she had grown to trust him. Though her life had felt complete before he was back, she would look up at them together and feel a calm happiness that was new. My man.

She had become charmed with the domesticity their relationship took on. Seeing Logan comfortable was important to her. She hadn’t realized until the night in the greenhouse just how deep his insecurities, and concomitant strengths, ran. She loved him all the more for it, and tried with everything she had to make him feel loved.

They were surprised to learn that he could sleep when he was with her. Days passed in which he never dreamt, never unsheathed his claws.

The week before Labor Day, Logan took them to his friend Johnny’s beach house in Hilton Head. They left on a Monday. Logan had wanted to drive but Marie refused to take Maggie on a twelve-hour drive. Therefore she convinced Scott to fly them down under cover of night on the Blackbird.

Maggie had never been to the beach before. Marie couldn’t fathom what sort of person lived in Baltimore but never took their kid to the beach. Same kind who abandoned her between two dumpsters, evidently.

Maggie woke up the next morning and jumped on top of them. “Oof,” Logan said.

“Momma, let’s go play in the sand.”

“Hmmph,” Marie said.

Logan sat up, shirtless, and tickled Maggie.

“I'm gonna climb up on you."

"Allright. D'ya want me to tuck you under my arm like a football or wear you on my head like a hat?"

"Football!"

"Allright. Let's get some breakfast. Marie?"

"Don't blame me when she steps on your balls.” Marie said sleepily.

“Balls,” Maggie yelled gleefully, bouncing up and down. “Balls, balls balls!”

Marie grunted and hid under her pillow. She slept a bit and when she emerged in her pink nightgown, rumpled and sleepy, Logan and Maggie were eating pancakes.

“Morning.” She kissed Maggie on the top of her head, and then did the same for Logan. “Thanks for cooking.”

“No problem,” he said through a mouthful of pancake. You can take the Wolverine out of the cage... she thought, threading her fingers through his messy hair. She turned the stove on and heated the griddle to make her own pancakes.

“We were gonna make you breakfast in bed,” Logan said.

“S’ok. You guys want any more?”

“I’ll have a few,” he said.

“Magster?”

“No thank you.”

“There’s coffee,” Logan said, tossing a grape into his mouth.

“Hmm. Thank you, sugar.”

“When we’re done eating, can we go play on the beach?”

“Sure Bluie."

Logan and Maggie were waiting on the porch, watching people walk by, when Marie emerged in her new bikini. It was his favorite shade of pale pink and he choked on his coffee when he saw her in it.

“Y’all ready to go?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. She gave him a smirk, then locked the house and shouldered her bag, and picked up her half of the cooler.

It wasn’t until she was in the middle of building a sandcastle with Maggie that Rogue realized how much she needed this, the hot weight of sun on her skin, the ocean cadence. Logan was dozing on his lounge chair, a novel on his chest. Maggie was chattering happily. Marie looked off at the shore and enjoyed the moment.

“Mutie freak.”

Logan had been dozing but his eyes were wide open now. He darted up from his chair and the book fell into the sand. Logan leapt over a row of sunning college students and suddenly had the man by the neck.

“Say that again, Bub.”

“Oh no,” Rogue said.

Maggie just watched the scene dumbly, shovel forgotten in her hands.

Rogue got up on wobbly legs and approached them. Logan elected to merely hold the guy by his neck while Marie did what she would.

“Apologize to my daughter.” she said in the rare, calm, authoritative voice she used on missions. Logan had never heard it before.

“I suggest you do what she says,” Logan says. “She has a mean right hook.”

“Hey, shithead,“ Rogue said between clenched teeth. Logan’s eyes widened with excitement. “Imagine you’re three years old and your asshole parents decide to abandon you in behind a dumpster in South Philly." Her voice was deadly calm, and its seriousness caused even more people to look up. "How would you like that? Bet it wouldn’t feel so good, would it? And she’s the sweetest kid to ever walk the face of the planet. So you’re gonna go over there and you’re gonna tell her you’re sorry.”

People were staring and whispering. Logan tossed him in Maggie‘s general direction.

“Go ’head, dick.”

The man wiped the sand from his teeth and looked up at Maggie. She watched with confused, innocent eyes. “Hey, Kid. I’m really sorry I said that.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie said softly. It rocked his world. He was a member of the FoH and very young. No one had ever showed him as much human grace as this little blue-haired girl.

The parents, however, were less forgiving. He stood up and walked away. He had to walk past them. The mother, a slip of a thing in a pink bikini, was more threatening, more in his space. He didn’t doubt that she could land a fierce punch. There was a crazy mama bear look in her eyes.

The two stood glaring at the man as he walked away. Suddenly, people were clapping. The college students clapped and a few families behind them joined in. Logan and Rogue turned and stared. They were ordinary people, black, white, old, young. An elderly couple. Regular Joes. All cheering them.

Logan barely heard them through the tunnel vision. "I'll be back," he muttered and walked toward the ocean. She let him go.

“You guys handled that really well,” said one of the college girls sitting near Rogue. Rogue turned to face her. She had close-cropped black hair and a shell necklace. Her eyes were honest and open.

“Thanks.” Rogue said. "I appreciate it."

"What a dick."

“People never fail to amaze me.” Rogue said. “Maggie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Momma.”

“She’s adorable,” the girl said.

“Isn‘t she?”

“Totally. I’m Cassandra.”

“Marie.” Marie shook her hand and smiled.

“I don’t mean to be nosy, but did they really find her like that?”

“Yeah,” Rogue said sadly.

“And you adopted her? That’s so impressive. You can’t be much older than me.”

“Twenty-two last month. I’ve been through a lot of shit. It ages you.”

“You’re strong. I admire that.”

“Not really. I fell in love with her the instant I saw her.”

Cassandra had immediately liked this white girl with the streaky hair. When Logan came back, he found that Marie had made a whole new group of friends. “Hey Sugar,” she said.

“Hey.” Logan flopped down on the blanket next to her and gave her a saltwater kiss. She wiped the water from his face, tracing the wide set of his eyebrows.

“Logan, this is Cassandra, Ray, Denise, and Terrance. This is Logan.”

“Hi,” he said. “Sorry you all had to witness that.”

“Why? You handled it perfectly.”

“Thanks.” She remembered a time when that would have been way too much social interaction for him.

“You missed the applause. All those people back there were clapping for us.” Logan followed where she was pointing. The old retirees smiled and nodded. The man, who must have been eighty, tipped his can of Pabst to Logan, who smiled ever so slightly.

He still seemed a bit rattled. “You look a little burnt, sug. Let me put some sunscreen on you,” Rogue said.

In truth, it was physically impossible for Logan to sunburn. His healing factor didn’t allow it. He knew it was her excuse to soothe him, to touch him, and he flopped down on his belly and let her slather him with sunscreen. All the while Rogue chatted with the four college students. She learned that they were grad students from Florida. Ray studied genetics and was interested in mutation and planning a doctoral thesis on that subject. He and Rogue discussed it extensively.

Though her hands on his back were soothing him, the fact that Marie was talking to this guy troubled him. And that it troubled him made him feel guilty. Her hands were on him, and the conversation was totally innocuous. Furthermore, neither smelled aroused by the other.

He promised to himself that he would never let her know the extent of his jealousy. It would be unfair to her. Again, he cursed himself for his weakness, his baggage, the gaping rage and hurt and jealousy that consumed him.

Still, her hands moved on him, now openly massaging, rather than applying sunscreen. He willed himself to relax, and focused on breathing.

"If you're interested I'll give you the email addies of two of my friends," she said. "They run a genetics forum on line. Henry McCoy in particular knows probably more about genetics than anyone on the planet."

"Henry McCoy from Stanford?"

"Yeah, you know him?"

"Know of him. I've cited his work like a million times." "He's a cool guy. I'll give you his addy."

Logan was again dozing when Rogue decided that they had had enough sun for the day. “Nap time,” she said.

"Hey, what are you guys doing for dinner?" Cassandra asked.

Marie looked at Logan. He shrugged. "Nothing in particular."

"Come to dinner with us. It's quarter draft night at the Lobster Trap."

“Sure.” They agreed to meet at seven.

They carried their things back to the beach house and quickly showered away the sand. Maggie fussed about napping but Marie was firm. “You don’t have to sleep, you can have quiet time in your room.”

Logan watched her as she hung up her towel and walked naked into the room. She crawled into the clean linens. “You allright, baby?”

“Yeah,” he smiled. She could tell that though there was a lot on his mind, he was okay.

“Love you.”

“You too.”

“Remember when you asked me if I believed in vigilantism?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I do, when it warrants it. But I think there are a lot of times it’s best to just prove them wrong. Prove them you’re the more human ones.”

He nodded, was silent for a second. He knew that as hard as restraint was, their actions had handled the situation a hell of a lot better than him disemboweling the guy would.

“I’m so proud of you. I never heard you talk like that. I have me a kick ass woman.”

“Ain’t no one gonna talk to my child like that. And I’m so proud of you. You handled it perfectly.”

“It seemed to make us a lot of friends.”

“Yeah, it did. You weren’t really comfortable with that, were you?”

“I have a hard time trusting people.”

“Then why did you agree to dinner?”

“Because I know I have to at least try.” He grinned.

“And also ‘cause my kick ass woman can protect me.” He rolled over and playfully nuzzled her neck. He was always mercurial, and now his mood was goofy.

“Damn straight, Mister A Team.” she grinned.

“Hey, do we have to nap or can we have quiet time in our room?”

“Did I mention that you look really hot in those swim trunks?” She got up to lock the door and they made love.

Dinner at The Lobster Trap was a big surprise. Logan found out that Terrance had a black belt in judo so they talked about martial arts all night.

Marie was sitting between Denise and Terrance, who she hadn’t gotten to know quite as well on the beach. “What do you guys do for a living, Marie?” Denise asked. Marie didn’t miss the fact that Logan was glancing at her. He didn’t mind if she outed them, he was just keeping aware of the situation.

“Well, I’m a junior at Westchester College and I teach self-defense at a private school. Also I do some PR for the school and some mutant-rights type PR stuff. Logan’s an artist and he teaches martial arts.”

Despite being deep in conversation with Terrance, Logan choked on his beer. An artist? It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

No one, however, cared about the mutant thing.

After, they parted ways and put Maggie to bed they sat on the porch. He held her feet in his lap and they sipped white wine.

The rest of the week was much the same. On Monday they rented jet skis and went jetting through the each other's wakes, twining lines that wove together off into the horizon. The crew from St. Petersburg left on Wednesday, back to school. Rogue hugged Cassandra and they exchanged email addresses, after extracting a promise that they would visit Florida.

Rogue was slowly turning a deep bronze that made her look even better in the pink bathing suit. Logan tanned also. Maggie’s hair became more and more pale. They spent the next few days on the beach. There were no more comments about mutants.

When they arrived back in Westchester, they were tanned, happy and relaxed.