A series by November

Chapter 51: Jealousy

That night, after Maggie was in bed, Logan showered and crawled in to bed next to her.

"Marie?"

"Yeah love?"

"Do you want me here?"

She looked at him, astounded. "Yes! Logan I always want you here. But tonight, I need you here."

He slipped his arm under her neck and spooned tight against her. "Love you M’rie."

"Me too." They were quiet for a half dozen breaths.

"Logan? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"When that call came from Cody, you were jealous, weren’t you?"

"I’m sorry."

"Logan, you don’t need to be sorry for your feelings. They just are. You need to be a little bit less protective of me, though."

"I don’t know how."

"Scott and Charles, they just wanted to help."

"I know that now. I didn’t know that giving the debriefing would help you hold it together. I’m actually really grateful to him for that. And I told him so."

"Good for you."

Long seconds of quiet.

"Are you mad at me? For what I did to your dad?"

"No. You can kick harder than me." She smiled.

"I’m serious, Marie."

"No, Logan. I’m not mad. Not a bit. There’s overprotectiveness, and there’s sorely deserved vengeance. They’re two different things."

"I have a score to settle with that man. And your mom too. That night at that shitty bar I met the most wonderful person I’d ever known in my life. And she was thin, and scarred, and running scared. And I put that blame squarely on your mom and dad. I won’t lie to you, Marie. I wanna kill them."

"Me too, sug. And I love you for caring so much."

"I do." They kissed sweetly.

"The impression I got was that you didn’t want me on the mission. And that bothered me. I don’t know how you felt because there was no time to talk, but I got this feeling like, when I ran out of here and down to leave, that you were angry."

"I don’t want you on missions. Ever."

"Logan-"

"Let me finish, okay?" He pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Gimme some credit. I’m not a total caveman."

She laughed softly at the image of Logan in a leopard skin toga.

"I don’t want you on missions. That’s not to say that I forbid you to go on missions because I don’t own you. It doesn’t mean that I don’t trust you on missions. You’ve done nothing but impress the hell out of me since I’ve known you. The way you took charge was totally amazing. I’d trust you with my life, and not just in combat. The reason that I don’t want you going is because I’m afraid of losing you. It’s very simple."

"I feel the same way. I could never fall asleep until you were back. Even when we were barely talking to each other. I sweat and look at the clock until you’re back. So I understand you, one hundred percent."

"I’m glad."

"And I wanted to thank you for picking up the pieces for me. You tucked Maggie in and got her up and took her to school and you took care of me and ran interference with Dr. Pileggi and god, Logan, I love you for it. I trust you."

She had told him that she loved him many times, but her saying that she trusted him made him dizzy. "You make me so happy." He held her close and she felt the strong warm metal hold.

Later, his hand was moving aimlessly on her side, and she spoke. "It would be so hard for me to do this without you. I’m tough, I could do it, but I’m so goddamned glad you’re here like this right now."

"Me too." He kissed her temple.

The next morning was Friday. He took Maggie to school again. Logan acted like her father without any conversation between him and Rogue. Neither of them dared broach the subject of permanence just yet. Things were going too well and they were both afraid of fucking it up.

Logan undid Maggie’s car seat and deposited her on the driveway of the Montessori school. She reached her hands up for him and he was a bit confused. He bent over and she hugged him and kissed his cheek. "Have a good day. I love you."

It was the morning ritual she usually shared with Marie. She ran off into the school. He saw the director and she waved at him. He waved back, somewhat stunned. He got back into Marie’s car and drove back to the mansion. He touched his cheek.

The Wolverine was not supposed to get warm and fuzzy from a little girl’s kiss. He was totally losing his edge.

On Saturday he insisted on Marie getting out of the house. He made phone calls and organized an outing for him, Marie, Gillian, Xavier, Scott, and Rakim and Maggie to go to the science center in Bayonne.

He may not have known what she needed during the debriefing but he was dead on now. She sat in the van between Maggie and Xavier and told them all about the other excursion with seven mutants in a van, and John’s blues song. Charles and Rakim were very amused. Two times she caught Logan glancing at her in the rearview mirror, noting that she was smiling and talking.

Marie enjoyed herself more that day than she had since they’d been at the beach. She was able to forget all about her father for most of the day. Logan was fascinated by an exhibit on cockroaches. It made her skin crawl. Maggie stayed for a long time at an exhibit on prisms and refraction. Marie stayed with her and watched the many crystals turn and cast rainbows on the round room. It was very soothing.

All seven of them watched an Omnimax film about the moons of Jupiter. Marie wasn’t sure if Maggie could sit through the whole thing, but she watched it raptly and wouldn’t shut up about it. After, Marie went to the bathroom and found out that Logan had bought Maggie nearly a hundred dollars worth of books, stickers and toys related to outer space. Thus began Maggie’s obsession with aviation and space travel. When they walked back toward the van he carried Maggie high on his shoulders and she sang and chattered triumphantly. The adults all smiled.

"He’s good with her," Scott said. It was one of the rare times he acknowledged that he approved of their relationship.

"She’s good with him," Marie said.

"Is he treating you right?"

"Scott, do you really have to ask?"

"I guess not."

"You guys gonna let us babysit?"

"You maybe. Not him." Scott grinned. He was kidding. In fact, his trust in Logan had become rock solid. They didn’t have too many things in common, but in fact he had grown to like Logan a lot.

Rogue flicked his ear with her finger. "Ouch! You little brat!" He lunged for her and she bolted, giggling.

She screeched, running in front of Xavier’s chair and ducking behind Rakim. She dodged left and right. "You little bitch," he stage-whispered so that the kids wouldn’t hear. She stuck her tongue out at him and ran up in front of Logan.

"Logan, protect me! Scott's bein' mean!" Logan smiled, glad to see Marie laughing and lighthearted, until Scott caught her and gave her a light noogie. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t anyone else touching Marie. He knew it was nothing, and it was stupid, but still he wasn’t happy.

That evening they went for dinner. After Scott drove home and she sat next to Logan, leaning on his shoulder. He played with her hair and wondered what he‘d ever do if he lost her.

The next day was Sunday. Rogue hadn’t had the heart or energy to go see Cody or Kayla, and on Saturday they had been gone all day. On Sunday morning she let Logan sleep and went down to the medbay to see Cody. She kissed Maggie on the forehead and said to her "don’t get too close to Logan if he starts tossing and turning. I’m goin’ downstairs for a minute."

"Okay." Maggie didn’t look up from her outer space coloring book.

When she got to the medbay Cody was lying on a bed with a dressing on his stomach. The cut had been deep and it required sutures to muscle as well as skin. He was arguing with someone on the phone. "I don’t give a shit, Stephanie. I don’t care. Kayla needs me. Yeah, but you’re not eleven years old. Deal with it. You’re not a child. No. No. Dammnit, I’ve gotta go."

"Sorry," he said, set the phone down on the nightstand.

"S’ok. How’re you doin?"

"I’d be a lot better if my wife wasn’t acting like a needy child."

Marie’s eyes widened. She hadn’t noticed the wedding band on his finger. "I didn’t know you were married."

"Two years," he said. "Can you help me sit up?"

"Sure." She lifted him under his arms and fluffed his pillow.

"Damn, you’re strong."

"All that superhero training."

"What the hell is this place?"

"A private school."

"Private schools don’t have top secret Air Force Blackbirds."

"This one does" she smiled enigmatically. "Hey, where’s Kayla at?"

"Xavier took her out with Gillian."

She sighed. "I’m so glad we got there in time."

"You saved our lives. Thank you."

"I almost killed you six years ago, Cody. It was the least I could do."

"That wasn’t your fault. And hey, what a way to go." He grinned. He still had his pretty-boy appeal, roughened only slightly around the edges by age and stubble and cuts and scrapes. Now it did nothing for her. She wondered if her tastes had changed so drastically in six years. She didn’t want to think that they changed in one night in Laughlin City.

"It wasn’t a way to go! It was awful. Your face, got all these veins in it and you were in horrible pain… it was awful."

"Please don’t tell me you actually feel guilty about that."

"Damn straight I do. My mother kicked me out of the house."

"I’m not your mother. And I know you didn’t mean to hurt me."

"How did you know that?" She asked quietly. "Everyone else just assumed I did it on purpose."

"I dunno, Marie. Just because I’m from Podunk doesn’t make me a narrow-minded asshole."

"Hey. Don’t get your dander up. I’m from Podunk too, remember?"

He smiled. "Yeah. I remember."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"My mom and daddy? How’ve they been?" She was still shuffling cards in her mind, looking for the one that would explain them all. She knew she would never find it because it didn’t exist. But she asked anyway.

"They’re weird. They haven’t been the same. I blame it on them, though, not you. They don’t do much, don’t really… interact. You walk past them at the mall and they don’t really acknowledge anyone. Or maybe it’s just me."

"They still living on twentieth street?"

"Yeah."

"Did you know the Klan was that active in Meridian?"

"Since all this mutant stuff was in the news. That boy in Pittsburgh. It got a lot of people riled up. One of the assholes who shot him is related to Mayor Kachowzski. My sister Cara - she’s Kayla’s mom - she woke up one night and there was a cross burning outside her apartment building. That was about a month ago. Things have gotten really ugly since then. No one talked to her in school. She came home crying. Then came the death threats. Finally I pulled her out of school and took her to my mom’s. Cara’s deep in denial and she was useless. Technically I kidnapped Kayla but she wouldn’t protect her. I got into a bar fight one night and your uncle made some threats. I picked her up that night and took her to my mom’s. My mom died and my dad’s out on a trucking run so it was deserted. But that was really stupid of me. I didn’t bother to hide the fact that we were staying there. I should have taken her further. But it wasn’t good enough. And that night..."

"Make you a deal, dude," Rogue said. "You don’t blame yourself for not being able to predict the future and I won’t blame myself for putting you in a coma."

"That’s different. You had no way of knowing. I got death threats. I should have known better."

"Bullshit, Cody. You committed kidnapping to keep her safe. That’s a felony. That’s serious. And I’ll tell you what, it’s more than my uncle ever did for me."

"Your uncle Todd is a pig."

Was a pig, she thought, but he didn’t need to know that she was privy to his vigilante killing.

"You got that right."

"He was one of them, wasn’t he?"

He bit her lip and nodded. From the way she was struggling to keep her composure, he knew that that wasn’t all. "What? Who else?"

She was quiet for a long while.

"Marie? What? Tell me."

"One of them was that butcher with the black hair. I forget his name. One was Mr. Delia, from fifth grade. Three of them I didn’t recognize. The sixth one was my dad."

"Oh no. Marie, I’m so sorry."

"He - I… Me too."

They were quiet for a long time. "The seventh one? Who was it?"

"I don’t know. I stopped pulling off their hoods when I got to my dad. I freaked, I totally freaked out. I can find out though. I’m sure it’s in the news. I’ll look on line."

"Okay."

"So how’s Kayla holding up?"

"She’s freaked. But I think she’ll do great here."

"She’s staying? He’s gonna take her on as a student?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, that’s so great. I didn’t know if he would because all of our kids so far are older."

"What about your little girl? I hear you and Logan have a kid."

Marie laughed. "No, well, yes. Maggie’s parents abandoned her behind a dumpster. I found her on… by coincidence. I adopted her about a year later."

"And Logan? Aren’t you guys an item?"

She grinned. "We’re totally an item."

"Ah, do I hear wedding bells in the future?"

Much to her chagrin she blushed. "Cody, that’s a little premature."

"From what I hear everyone refers to you as a unit."

"Maybe so. We’re practically cohabitating."

"I’m jealous. Things haven’t been good between Steph and I for a while."

"She was on the volleyball team, right? Blonde girl? A year ahead of us?"

"Yeah."

"I remember her. Sorry things aren’t going better."

"Yeah."

"So what’s goin’ on with you medically? Did you hit your head?"

"I don’t think so. They said the MRI was normal."

"You were pretty out of it."

"Smoke inhalation."

"I hear that glass cut you pretty deep."

"Yeah. The blue guy had to stitch me up. Damn, that dude has a vocabulary."

She laughed. "He sure does. He’s a great guy."

"So tell me. Honestly. I think I have a right to know if I’m sending Kayla here. What is this place?"

"Well, it is a school. A really good one, in fact. It is a college prep school, that’s not a lie. Have you met Professor Xavier?"

"Yeah."

"He runs it. It’s part school, part...pacifist militia, yes I know that‘s an oxymoron, part advocacy group, and it looks like it might turn into part orphanage soon, the way people are abandoning their kids."

"So you just go out rescuing mutant kids?"

"Constantly. That was my forty-first time."

"Why does he do it? How does he do it?"

"Because he’s a saint. And it helps that he‘s loaded." she shrugged. "That bastard in the white robe wasn’t my father. He’s my father."

"It amazes me that some people can be so bad, and others are so good. It doesn’t make sense."

"Welcome to my world, sugar."

Cody’s gaze shifted to the doorway. "There’s your man, Marie."

Logan didn’t look happy.