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As far as ‘Ro was concerned in this state, it was the perfect way to start a morning: waking up snuggled against strong male muscle, her head resting on a shoulder literally laced with steel and, thanks to Logan’s healing factor, ridiculously soft skin underneath her hands. Stretching and rubbing against her lover, ‘Ro yawned – exhausted from a long night as unexpected as it had been pleasant, and even now, the morning after, as satisfied as a cat who’d stolen the milk.
Seven months since Jean and Scott and the Professor had died, seven months since that horrible thing that hadn’t been, couldn’t have been Jean, and for the first time, ‘Ro felt safe, and warm, like she would never have to move.
You go, girl!, that voice in her head that sounded so suspiciously like a younger Jean cheered at her, and, for a change, instead of opening up that vast black hole of mourning inside of her, she had to suppress a giggle, as if she was a teen.
The body next to her twitched when her team mate awoke, emitting a grunt of surprise when he grew aware of her, one that didn’t sound entirely displeased.
“Hey there,” Logan muttered. The arm underneath her moved as if she had no weight, drawing her close. She chuckled sleepily. “Didn’t figure I’d still find you here.”
“I have to leave,” ‘Ro agreed, although her limbs just refused to obey any commands. “It’s got to be noon. The children have to be wondering if we’ve been kidnapped.”
“Let ‘em wonder.”
“Tempting. I have a finances meeting with Warren at one.”
“Let him wonder, too.” Before she could react, Logan had turned over, rolling her onto her back and drawing her thigh up to wrap around him while he softly bit her throat, all his body communicating with hers in a swift and subtle language she’d never have thought this man could know. Maybe it had been inevitable, she thought – them ending up in bed together. Her running the school and he, against everybody’s expectation, still here and rebuilding the team for her. Maybe it had been inevitable.
A night of wine and laughter and bonding over the shared misery of memories, knowing where it would lead, and letting it happen.
“Appointment, Logan,” ‘Ro gently told him when she could think again, shuddering when he growled against her throat.
There was a school to run, though. There were responsibilities.
Don’t forget your responsibilities.
Detangling from the embrace, her feet softly touched the ground.
“Careful now,” Danvers was saying. “Start bringing her down gently. Yes, just like that. Auto will tell you what to do when it’s time.”
It was later the same day. A beautiful bright summer sky opening up before the cockpit, so clear that feeling it out with her powers made ‘Ro shudder. Despite that, she was grimly holding on to the pilot’s seat from behind while the Blackbird jerked underneath Rogue’s fight to control the landing.
Compared to her curvy frame, Dr. Carol Danvers was a tough tiny blonde in her mid-forties, whose bristle coolness made it easy to believe in her ability to lift a whole car with one arm thanks to her impenetrable bones and skin. She didn’t seem impressed by her flight student’s inability to keep the jet steady yet, even if she was hovering an inch over her own seat to buffer the jerks. She was the most important addition to the school’s staff as of yet.
“This is going well enough,” ‘Ro said, addressing Danvers and refusing to look at Rogue while she did. No – she corrected herself with an inner sneer. Marie. ‘Ro had allowed Marie to stay on and help out because she had needed Logan to stay – it was as easy as that. “Drop me off at the school, Carol. You can teach the lesson as well on your own.”
“How about you drop me off too,” another voice remarked. ‘Ro turned her head to see their second newbie on the team, Domino approach from the rear of the jet. Bizarrely steady on her feet despite the fact that she wasn’t holding on to anything, the young woman was leisurely snapping a piece of bubblegum. “Still don’t see why I should learn how to fly. I mean…” She smirked. “I’m a probability manipulator, right? I ever need to fly that thing and it crashes, I just teleport everyone out and guess what? Strangely, no one dies.”
“Forgive us if we don’t all blindly worship the seven gods of fortune,” Danvers said wryly. “I’d rather place my trust in statistics. Like the one that shows how you’re less likely to die on a plane flown by a licensed pilot.”
“You’re up next, Neena,” ‘Ro agreed. “This is one of the fastest manned air-breathing jets in the world. I’d rather not leave it to chance whether we’ll still have it tomorrow.”
“Yeah see, but that’s the thing with chance,” Domino gleefully replied. “The high price only makes it more of a challenge.”
‘Ro smirked. Danvers snorted.
“Follow the offset on the screen, standby to switch to manual.”
“Got it,” Marie said through gritted teeth and brought the jet down, fortunately without ever addressing ‘Ro.
Nothing’s like it was before, Charles, I know, ‘Ro apologized in her head, staring into the blue of the sky. Sometimes, she still expected the Professor to answer.
These aren’t your X-Men anymore. But I hope it’s alright that I’m making them mine.
Logan showed up at dinner that day, an unusual occurrence for him, as he tended to flee the school for burgers and beer in the evening.
Taking a seat next to Marie, he smirked suggestively at Ro from across the staff table.
She froze entirely for a second, fork sinking back to the plate.
Oh come on, ‘Ro, young Jean scolded her, petulantly, but the meal on her plate now tasted like ashes. Smile at him or something, or you won’t get laid again.
In private, Jean had always been surprisingly cheeky, and it was hard not to listen to that echo of her voice. Jean had used to be the one who edged her on, reminding her that she was supposed to have some fun, to have a life. That she wasn’t supposed to be a headmistress all day.
Jean, ‘Ro reminded herself firmly, had become the Phoenix and died, and that was that.
Clearing her voice, she drew her eyes away from Logan and didn’t, didn’t blush. She didn’t look at him at all.
Instead, she talked to Bobby about lesson plans.
Bobby had taken charge of Scott’s math classes, surprising everybody by deciding to stay at the school as a substitute teacher while they were rebuilding and expanding the staff. Eventually, he would have to go off to college like Kitty and Piotr, who had left for law and art school respectively. But for now, ‘Ro was glad to still have him here. It had felt too much as if everybody she knew was gone.
Hank was beaming at her from her computer screen.
“I’m splendid, Ororo, thank you kindly for asking,” he was saying, managing to sound like a politician and a good friend at the same time. “And from the files you sent me, I take it Warren is still tormenting you with his investment plan.”
‘Ro grimaced, feeling herself relaxed in the presence of her dearest friend. She had moved to Charles’ old office early on, but the comfy armchair behind the desk was all hers, and she’d curled up in it like a cat. “The stock market will always be beyond me, Hank. He says we should… reinvest in Exxon shares? I’m hardly able to follow.”
“There indeed is a future in that industry again. Saudi Arabia has started producing stupendous amounts of oil, completely shaking up the market. It appears that they are recruiting mutants to drill it for them, and offering them exemption from some of their anti-mutant laws in exchange.”
“Brave new world,” ‘Ro said.
“So I hear your recruitment efforts for the X-Men are almost complete.”
She nodded. “Betsy will be joining us soon – I wouldn’t have felt comfortable without a telepath at the school, and it had to be one we can trust. Betsy owes Charles for helping her control her telepathy without asking her to leave England to learn it. She’ll be teaching literature and French, too, and Domino will eventually take over my history class. Logan is happy that he can stop rearranging the training schedules to figure in new arrivals, too.”
Hank raised a bushy eyebrow at her. “Concerning Logan, I notice a lack of implication that you expect him to leave any day.”
‘Ro hardened her face.
Waking up snuggling as if it hadn’t been a one-night-stand at all. Bodies moving in tandem, kisses and sweaty skin and feeling as if she could lose herself, as if she had lost herself in this man, his ability to grasp her with all his senses, who seemed to know her better than…
“Let ‘em wonder,” he’d said.
Two weeks after Alcatraz, Kurt had answered her desperate plea for him to return with an e-mail that said he was sorry, but after what Stryker had done to him, he didn’t feel comfortable joining a team such as the X-Men just yet. And while ‘Ro had been in such dire need for help, she’d still felt relieved. Kurt held a special place in her heart, and she didn’t have time for distractions.
Sleeping with Kurt would have been disastrous, she knew. Logan, on the other hand… well.
“Oh, just trust me on that one,” she waved it off. “He’ll leave.”
It all went to hell when Betsy Braddock arrived.
The whole team had gathered to greet her when her slick blue Mercedes SLK appeared in the driveway. The youngest on the team, Bobby and Marie were probably nervous to meet the new team members for the first time – except Marie will never be on the team, ‘Ro corrected herself stiffly. As usual, Domino was chewing on a piece of bubblegum. Carol kept checking her watch, as if she’d rather be somewhere else.
Logan was there with his arms crossed in front of his chest, and ‘Ro steadfastly fixed her eyes on the car. It had surprised her that Logan had made it his business to always greet new staff alongside her, until she had understood that he considered himself the first line of defense against infiltrators.
Betsy was a strikingly beautiful woman, tall and skinny as bone, her tantalizingly short black hair artfully redirecting attention to her strong cheekbones and big eyes. A successful fashion model back home, she still looked like her nerves were shot just from the prospect of arriving at her new life.
‘Ro’s inner Jean cheered at the sight, because while ‘Ro had only ever talked to Psylocke on the phone, her friend had spent many a summer visiting her in England; she’d respected her a great deal.
A sharp sense of loss flooded ‘Ro. Betsy was tall as Jean had been tall and equally kind, but despite her telepathy she could never be Jean, could never replace that missing friend.
“Thank heavens I’m finally here,” the telepath said nervously and put away her sunglasses to offer ‘Ro her hand. “I swear I had a tractor in front of me from the moment I left Manha…”
Except ‘Ro never heard the rest.
White light exploded in her head the moment her hand clasped Betsy’s, and all she could hear was the other woman’s alarmed, “Oh God I am so sorry…” before she felt herself sway.
Her mind, inexplicably, latched on to the last thing she had been thinking of – Jean – with unnatural force.
Jean, ‘Ro thought and, Oh God she’s dead and, I first met her in Manhattan, why haven’t I thought of that in so long, we met in Manhattan and she had pear smeared on her face and she took me to her apartment and we…
“What the fuck are you doing!”
Logan’s growl was the next thing she heard. Panting hard, ‘Ro came to, crouching on the pebbles of the driveway, instinctively reaching out and calming the hail pouring down before she even consciously noticed she had made it appear.
“It just happens sometimes! Have you never been jetlagged? It’s harmless, you brute!” Betsy sounded exaggerated. “There probably was some sort of old memory at the edge of her mind and my power drew it out. It happens. It’s inconvenient, but there are no consequences whatsoever.”
“She gonna be fine,” Domino chimed in. “Happened to me too when I met Bets that one time. Got a nice bit of flashback from when I was three and got my leg broke. Hadn’t even known that was in my head.”
Belatedly, ‘Ro noticed that Danvers was kneeling next to her, firmly gripping her wrist and counting beats with her eyes on the watch.
We went to her apartment and she offered me to shower first, even though there were bits of pear smeared all over her cheek.
She was so beautiful that day.
For some reason, it was hard to regain control of the sky, that always felt like a part of her moods. The hail had transformed into rain, thin like a veil, but the clouds continued to mourn.
“Logan,” Marie was saying with alarm, as if she’d just been struck by a thought.
“Draw out memories like that.” Logan’s gruff voice was filled by a strange restraint. “You can do that on purpose?”
A pause.
“I can try.”
Rain was falling and falling and falling and ‘Ro, crouched to the ground, felt like she wanted to cry.
“It only happened that one time,” she would tell Hank later that day, pacing up and down her office while Hank’s eyes followed her, filled with empathy about a tale he’d never been told before, despite everything.
“I’d been in New York for five days,” she would say. “I’d come from Cairo on a ship.
“Lesbianism, bisexuality – I didn’t even know the concept yet.
“I only knew I wanted her.”
She had barely been eighteen.
All her life, she had travelled. Leaving the town that had worshipped her like a goddess when she was a child, her parents had taken her everywhere – Congo, Chad, Sudan. When they had died, she had continued the travels on her own. There had always been food she could steal, rain to conjure in exchange for some bread, if she was careful about who she approached. She’d ended up in New York City like that, hitchhiking on a ship: A city more massive than anything she’d seen, buildings upon buildings covering the sky. She’d been hungry, almost starving, and not at all prepared for the Western world – people staring at her hair everywhere, suspecting the worst.
Her head covered with a stolen hat of knitted wool, she had been hungrily eyeing the mangos on a fruit stand, careful attention on the shopkeeper who was, in turn, keeping an eye on her.
None of them noticed the girl with the tattoos before it crashed against a customer, another one – fan of red hair – on her heels.
Flurry of motion in the corner of ‘Ro’s eye, and suddenly, everybody was screaming.
“She stole my purse!” That was the redhead, gibberish in English for ‘Ro – and “Fucking muties, stop ‘em both!” That was somebody else. ‘Ro had twisted around, on edge from days without sleep and with too much anxiety. The customer had been knocked over, and – with superhuman speed – one of the girls had knocked over a stand, but the redhead deflected the pears flying at her with a wave of her hand, determined look on her face, going after the first… Except she couldn’t, because people had grabbed her, holding her struggling form.
She’s dangerous! Help me! Stop her, please!
It was a voice in her head.
Despite the shock, ‘Ro had reacted without thinking, acting on instinct. Her eyes had turned white, and a minor tornado was forming in the middle of the street, wildly making the stand’s canvas flap.
One flurried motion, and she’d tripped the tattooed woman, making her fall.
A kick against one of the captor’s knees, and the telekinetic was free.
People were screaming. Chaos had broken loose.
“Stop her! She’s a…”
For ‘Ro, just more gibberish. But there wasn’t time for the redhead to repeat the words in a language she knew, anyway. ‘Ro had twisted towards the woman with the tattoos, but she, faster than any human could possibly be, had sped off; in her stead, a man was coming at them with a threateningly raised wooden bar. If there was one thing ‘Ro knew, it was when it was time to get the hell out, so she grabbed the other woman’s shoulder, dragging her along. She didn’t have to tell her twice.
They ran until the crowd of pedestrians and cars had closed between them and the stand, until they couldn’t anymore, their frantic exchanged looks becoming triumphant and becoming amused. When they stumbled to a halt in an alley, they were both chuckling in-between their attempts to catch their breath.
“Can you understand me now?” the redhead had had to repeat it three times until the spoken words miraculously translated themselves into Swahili in ‘Ro’s head, but she didn’t even think to find it anything but exciting, young as she was.
“She calls herself Callisto,” the redhead managed. “She stole my purse. I’ve got the keycard to my hospital in that purse. She and her gang want to break in and rob the drug supply. I can report the card stolen, but she still needs to be stopped.”
“You read her mind,” ‘Ro stated, pieces of the puzzle coming together.
“She was broadcasting,” the redhead defended herself, as if it had been an accusation.
‘Ro curiously eyed the girl from bottom to top, never having had a chance to have a conversation with an American before – none that didn’t consist of them screaming at her, anyway. She was a sharp dresser, as far as ‘Ro could judge it, fancy rich person clothes and fashionably trimmed red ponytail.
Strands of hair had come loose though, sticky from where it had been hit by fruit, and bits of pears were covering one of her cheeks. She didn’t seem to care. All that seemed to matter for her right now was that Callisto had escaped, and that reporting the theft of her keycard wouldn’t be enough.
‘Ro decided she’d never seen anyone that appealing before, magically drawn towards everything about the girl.
“I’m Jean,” the girl said. “Do you want to go and grab some food?”
Jean was twenty-two at the time, interning at a hospital and studying for her medical degree. She was living in a tiny two-room-apartment on a seventh floor of a run-down building that she shared with a roommate – “A norm,” she said, incomprehensibly, “but she’s alright.” But the roommate wasn’t home.
Later on, Jean would tell ‘Ro all about Xavier’s school. Later on, they would go on an adventure to find Callisto in the sewers, feeling like X-Men together before the X-Men even had a name. ‘Ro would meet Charles and learn to understand all of Hank’s long words even in English and listen to how Scott thought she should try and use her powers to fly. But that was then. Now was the apartment, smelling of dried tomato sauce and laundry detergent, the place where Jean offered ‘Ro to use her shower first.
“Your boyfriend,” ‘Ro stated when she detected a young man’s picture on the desk, smiling, but his eyes were covered up with arrogant red glasses.
Jean smiled. “Not yet,” she replied. “But I might just marry him one day.” She stood up. “How about soup?”
An hour later, both of them had showered. ‘Ro’s belly was full. There were no bits of pears on Jean’s cheek anymore, her wet hair turning crimson in the soft light of dusk.
“We don’t have a couch,” Jean said, offhandedly, as if ‘Ro staying overnight was a given. “We’ll have to share the bed, if you don’t mind.”
It had been a while since ‘Ro had slept in a bed that didn’t sway in rough waters. After the shower, she was feeling wonderfully clean, and pretty again. Slipping under the blanket next to Jean, she felt so attracted to her that it hurt.
“I find you very pretty, too,” Jean muttered sleepily, as if it had been an offer – one that ‘Ro had made aloud.
They both moved at once.
Jean’s lips were incredibly soft.
“The two of you never spoke of it again,” Hank concluded in a gentle voice.
‘Ro wondered when he’d gotten to know her that well and what it said about her that he’d been able to conclude that from this tale.
“She was in love with Scott,” she pointed out.
She was suddenly missing that young Jean with her crimson hair and the pear bits on her face, so hard that she could have shattered right there.
“You’re avoiding me.”
‘Ro twisted around.
It was days after Betsy’s arrival, days full of meetings with Warren in town and feeble attempts to get the team in shape, to get the students used to this final assembly of staff while they prepared for SATs. There had been problems with Domino, who some of the girls loved and some of the boys loathed, accusing her of playing favorites, when Domino’s heart really just flew out to any orphan without a home. Too many problems to solve, too many places to be. ‘Ro feared the day Bobby would go off to college, and leave the male student body with only a cigar-smoking, foul-mouthed professional killer as a role model.
A professional killer who was now stepping out of the shadows of the hallway in front of her office, where he had been lounging while waiting to catch her on her way out of class.
“Logan,” she said breathlessly, stumbling backwards automatically to retreat from his wider frame.
Instinct, she told herself, he’s a killer, I’m a fighter. It’s instinct to retreat from him.
That’s all.
Except it wasn’t the strength Logan was hiding underneath his leather jacket that made her bump into the wall when he came closer – it was the whiff of leather and cigars that clung to him and that she had started associating, so strongly, with the soft feel of his skin, of his lips on her throat. All of her body was crying not to step away but be close.
His palm hitting the wall above her head, he didn’t touch her, didn’t press against her at all, no matter how much a part of her suddenly longed that he would.
“What’re you doing to me, ‘Ro?” Logan muttered, searching her face. “This some sort of game? Because I’m not sure I’m liking the rules.”
‘Ro swallowed, hard, her mouth feeling dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” If they’d take a breath at the same time, her breasts would brush his chest, she suddenly thought. His voice sounded too close, making his chest rumble. “That night we spent together…”
“…was an accident,” she interrupted him breathlessly. “And will never happen again.”
“Didn’t feel like that at the time,” Logan said. “Didn’t sound like it either.”
“Then I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression…”
“Stop playing your fucking games!” A surge of adrenaline hit her when he raised his voice, moving with almost superhuman speed, but he just hit the wall next to her head with his fist to let out his frustration, retreating immediately, as if he trusted himself even that little that he didn’t dare be close to the woman he… to a friend when he was mad. Turning away from her, she could see his chest heaving once, twice, until he said, very calmly, “You think I take women for rides on my bike every other Sunday just because I wanna fuck them? That’s an awful lot of trouble for a lay, ‘Ro.”
‘Ro closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
They’d gotten close in these last couple of weeks, it was true. Getting to know each other, bonding with each other like they weren’t adults, but people with a life, like she had done with Scott and Hank when she herself was new to the staff. Spending the afternoon on his bike, pressed against him from behind and letting the wind give them speed. Sharing meals. Sharing drinks, in her office, where she’d started keeping beer in her little fridge for just in case he…
But no. It hadn’t meant anything. A hundred times she’d done the same kinds of things with Scott and Hank.
Moving in tandem, sweaty skin and kisses and still trying to be closer together, so close, as if she could crawl into him as she…
He’d muttered her name, spreading her legs with so much care and touching her everywhere, again and again as if he saw her soul and still couldn’t believe…
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” she said, stone wall pressed against her back.
Not all of them, alright. I didn't do all of them with Scott and Hank.
She had to suppress a little hysterical hitch of her breath.
Logan gave her a look as if he wasn’t sure he hadn’t just entered some sort of parallel universe.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said, and turned around to leave with a shake of his head.
“You’re in love with Jean!” she called after him, surprised about how much it came out like an accusation, and he turned his head without ever slowing down his steps. It was enough to see both pain and anger cross his face.
“Jean’s dead. She’s been dead for some time. ”
Not knowing what to do, she just stood there, looking after him long after he vanished up the stairs.
The next time Logan and she talked, he was seeking her out as the leader of the X-Men to propose a plan.
Every ounce the general she had asked him to be when she gave him the team, his tone remained perfectly detached as he outlined the mission, his anger nearly imperceptible. It was an answer all on its own, the one she had demanded he give, yet she hated it passionately.
“New threat, new fun,” Logan smirked around his cigar, map of the City spread out on the desk. “Common thug robs banks. Daily Bugle calls him Vanisher.”
“Guess his mutation, win a cookie,” Bobby quipped, who Logan made attend all meetings, grumpily grooming his future second in command.
“What does he have to do with us?” ‘Ro asked.
“Nothing,” Logan said. “Police’s been having some trouble catching him and his gang. Those geeks you call your team don’t know shit about working intelligence. Take it as a training assignment. I’m not gonna send them after terrorists if they can’t even catch a thief.”
He proceeded to outline his plan, tracing Vanisher’s movements through downtown Manhattan with intel Kitty had provided by e-mail, and Domino had gathered in her old hides. He talked of escape routes and hiding spots and supplies. He’d streamlined the X-Men, transforming them into a paramilitary strike force in a way they could never have been under Scott’s command. On the downside, Bobby looked at him with none of the admiration he had had for Cyclops, but with a good amount of fear.
You can’t have everything, ‘Ro supposed, refusing to be moved.
“You’ve worked with a team like the X-Men before,” she’d said to him one time before that fateful night. He’d hardened his face.
“Most strike forces like that are for killing,” he’d replied.
“I wanna go in with the full team,” Logan was saying now. “We’ll split up. I want to see Iceman, Domino and Danvers go after him, the rest of us chase his cronies down. Marie guards the jet, it’ll get her used to flying it. Everything goes fine, we’ll be home for supper. Plus…” Deadpan, he added, “…there’s a bounty. Wing boy tells me we could do with a little something for the school account.”
‘Ro’s first instinct would have been to smirk right back at him, taking so much joy out of the fact that she could work with him like this, smoothly, like a machine that never ran out of oil. That had been right between them from the beginning, thinking alike, planning battle alike.
All of that was over now, of course.
He was an officer, nothing more, asking permission to lead her soldiers into battle for her.
Such a loss for the X-Men once he leaves, she forced herself to think.
Betsy had told her they were working on regaining his memories now. Just a matter of finding a trigger, she’d said.
Just a matter of time now.
Face determined, ‘Ro looked up. “When are we ready to leave?”
They caught on to Vanisher two blocks down the Federal Reserve Bank, hiding in plain sight right next to Broadway. Iceman had chased after him, Domino and Danvers in his wake, without so much as a questioning look towards Wolverine on his determined face. The rest of them, meanwhile, had cornered the thief’s mercenaries in a side alley down John Street, following them into the sewer system that ‘Ro remembered so well from her first time in town.
Callisto wasn’t here now, of course; she was dead.
Faint rumbling sounds from above heralded that Danvers had let her powers loose, or that Domino had set off one of her infamous improbable chain reactions of chance. Meanwhile, Wolverine was cutting his way through the clammy hide, while Psylocke had conjured her psionic katana against Multiple Man Junior. When the smoke from ‘Ro’s tornado cleared, it revealed a man in a long coat amongst the other, unconscious thieves, maybe in his forties, coughing and trying to work his way into a sitting position with his stick.
When he looked up – eyes flashing red – he rolled his eyes at Wolverine.
“Now who would have thought I’d meet you here, Logan from Canada?” he drawled.
Stepping forward ready to knock him out with a kick to his head, ‘Ro found herself stopped when Psylocke’s hand wrapped around her arm.
“Logan,” the telepath whispered at her with a nod in his direction.
She didn’t need to.
Like everybody except the red-eyed mutant fighting his way off the ground, Logan had frozen. His claws were still extended from the fight; they sheathed themselves soundlessly, as if he had forgotten they were there. Somewhere in the sewer system, water was dripping off the wall, echoing in the silence.
It seemed impossible, but ‘Ro could have sworn that Logan was trembling, looking at the thief as if he were a ghost.
“You,” he said, his voice echoing through the tunnel faintly. “It’s you.”
The mutant smirked at him. “Looks like you found your own way off that island after all.”
“I know you.”
“Yeah, and I hope you remember enough of me this time around to know you owe me one…”
“I remember…”
Logan’s voice was threatening to die, and it seemed like he was desperately trying to grasp something, anything in his mind, but it kept slipping away.
The other mutant had shut up, frown appearing on his face.
‘Ro had never so badly needed to move.
“I know you. You were there. I woke up. I’d been… I’d been fighting… somebody, somebody I…”
Psylocke’s grip tightened around ‘Ro’s arm.
The former model hadn’t had a big career by missing a chance that materialized right in front of her face.
Her arm was up, pointing a command at Logan.
But it wasn’t the katana she was conjuring up this time.
“Logan.” Her voice had changed, too, becoming unearthly and overbearing. “Logan, remember! You can remember all of it! Now!”
“What the fuck did you do to him!”
Iceman had called in, and Domino had arrived with him at his side, teleporting Logan to the jet while Angel and Danvers tied up the other mutants to leave for the police.
Storm didn’t notice any of it. She didn’t grasp that Iceman’s team had arrived with empty hands, the Vanisher still on the loose. She didn’t have time for anything but the red-eyed mutant in his long coat from the moment she arrived in the jet herself.
Not minding his restraints, she picked him up and pushed him against the wall.
“Whole story!” she spat at him. “Now.”
“Looks like Logan found himself a friend,” the man drawled with a smirk, and again Psylocke was the one to stop her from… even ‘Ro didn’t know what she would do, except that she wouldn’t stop doing it until he talked.
“Storm.” The other woman’s voice was alarmed. “He doesn’t know.”
“I want to see that man hurt as little as you do, darling,” the mutant said, picking himself up. “I owe him a couple dozen lives... of people that he killed for me.” Shrugging his coat back into place, he looked over her shoulder, disregarding his chains. Fleeting concern crossed his face. “But I suggest you get him the hell out of here before the police can find him. You make him remember what he lost, it won’t be happy sunshine – that much I know.”
“You’ll tell me everything you know right now,” ‘Ro managed, her words clipped, through gritted teeth.
Behind her, she knew, Logan was crouched on the floor, gripping his head without noticing Marie fluttering around him, calling his name. She knew he was desperately trying to open his mouth and scream, but only suffocated moans emerged.
Inexplicably, his memories had made him sick.
“No. God, please, no.”
Danvers had to fly the jet. ‘Ro sat crouched next to Logan, muttering in his fever dream. For once, she felt unbothered by Marie who was doing the same, trying to calm him, trying not to cry.
“Take it out,” Logan muttered in a low growl – in French. Wildly, he was switching languages, one of which she thought was Japanese, and once, he clearly said, in startling mangled Swahili, “A hose. You have to do it with a hose.”
Calling for somebody named Victor, voice laced with reverence and hatred and amusement in turn.
Those were always in English, but his accent changed.
‘Ro focused on keeping the sky clear and blue, granting Carol an easy flight. Keeping an icy kind of calm and bringing them home – that was what mattered most.
There hadn’t been a lot the red-eyed mutant – Gambit – had been able to tell, except for how he’d been stupid and young when he and Logan had briefly met, during those dark days before ‘Ro’s time, when the government had sometimes come and taken mutants away as if they were toys. There was barely anything he knew about Logan, barely anything he hadn’t told Logan the last time they’d met – on a Gulf coast island, close to Pascagoula, Mississippi, which ‘Ro had never heard of.
When they arrived home, ‘Ro harshly told Iceman and Domino to escort the man to the Danger Room, to detain him there, and to do it well. The amused look he threw her way when they dragged him out of the jet, a determined Marie looking for answers in their wake, just hardened the iron ice sheet inside of her.
Oh how she wished there was a way of blaming that man.
This was about Logan, after all. Logan didn’t get sick. Logan couldn’t get sick.
He could only lose his mind.
A sleepless night later, ‘Ro was waiting, sitting on the master stairway, when Logan came walking down from his room, taking two stairs at a time – moving with startling quiet for somebody his weight, but not as quiet as somebody who cared about who heard.
He’d never cared who heard.
It was strange, ‘Ro thought numbly, how she always was the one who saw him out. She hated it; it made her feel impotent.
She rose. Logan paused. Having crossed half the foyer on his way to the door, he acknowledged her presence by ever so slightly tilting his head towards her without turning around – a tall wide frame melting into the shadows of the hall.
Automatically, she asked herself if he looked different, if his memories had made him another man, but there was nothing she could make out, all of his silhouette still painfully familiar.
“I knew you would be gone before the children got up,” she said, although she knew that there only was one child that mattered, and that Marie wasn’t a child. She wondered, too, if Marie had intercepted him before her. Marie wouldn’t try to stop him though, ‘Ro knew. Marie understood about wanting to leave. She’d only want to say goodbye, and how would she find him again. She wasn’t ‘Ro. “I’ve known since Carol told us you’d be fine.”
“’Ro…” he said, in a flat voice.
“We don’t care what kind of man you used to be,” she said in a hard voice. “We only care who you’re now. You know that you’ve become a part of the family, a part of the school. You’ll always be that no matter what.”
“You gonna tell me that you people need me here?”
“No,” ‘Ro said. “Because you know that we do.”
“I know about the kids, the team,” he replied, in a tone as if the words tasted ever so foul on his tongue.
The school and the team would never be enough to hold him here.
Back stiff, she waited for him to say more.
There were things she could have said, she knew. She could hear their echoes in her mind, where some of them sounded like Jean. It made her clench up more.
Silence stretched.
Again, ‘Ro felt herself feeling for the weather, the sky. But it was bright out there, and blue, hesitant clear morning sun and not a cloud in sight.
She hated that, too.
An almost imperceptible change ran through Logan’s body when he eventually picked himself up, resolved, straightening the duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
Having waited for her long enough.
“And, nah,” he said. “They don’t.”
Then he was gone, and the door heavily fell shut.
I need you here, ‘Ro thought, testing out the words. But she didn’t say it, so the only person who could have heard would have been Psylocke, had she been awake, and ‘Ro doubted that she’d understand how much they meant.
They found the door to the Danger Room wide open, and Remy LeBeau gone. The lock of the door had been overridden by Logan’s code, and they found a cheerful message burnt into the wall with a charged metal stick: I hope we’ll meet again soon, cherie. In an obscure twist that had entirely passed ‘Ro by, he apparently was addressing Marie. The temperature around Iceman had literally dropped at the sight.
By unspoken agreement, they neither went after the man, nor reported his involvement with the Vanisher to the police.
‘Ro knew they’d never see him again.
Westchester became too quiet without the Wolverine.
Iceman took charge of the X-Men. But even he admitted that he lacked both the self-confidence and experience to pull a team of vigilantes off for long. ‘Ro had to countercheck each of his training plans, each of his ideas, for his own peace of mind. He was a twenty-year-old boy trying to step into a strategic genius’ and a veteran’s shoes – he was neither Scott nor Logan. Yet they needed him now. If he was still planning on going to college – and at this point he was probably longing for the ease of college life – neither he nor ‘Ro dared bring it up.
None of it helped her keep her concentration on her own tasks. Constantly, she found herself distracted, thoughts wandering off when she was supposed to be debating finances with Warren, preparing the seniors for their SATs, chatting idly on the phone with Hank during free evenings. It seemed that Betsy and Warren were having a fling, flustering Bobby when he had to team them up, by blushing like teens. It seemed that Hank had met a Swiss Olympic swimmer, which they didn’t learn from him but from E!, scandalizing pictures of the two of them fleeing reporters up the wall of their hotel, her clinging to his back. Kitty reported back from Harvard with top grades; Piotr came to visit, abashedly showing them photos of a landscape he had sold. It was good news, all around. Yet to ‘Ro, a surprise gust through an open window, or a lily hanging its head in a vase, could be enough for her mind to digress, like it wanted her to be somewhere else.
While she and Danvers stayed behind to watch over a school filled with flu-infected kids, Iceman led the X-Men to D.C., capturing the Vanisher and proudly accepting the bounty with a little bow after a spectacular showdown in front of the White House, for everyone to see. It was all over the news.
So ‘Ro gratefully agreed when Warren offered to have his PR office answer the reporters’ calls, wanting America’s only mutant school’s take on it all. Alcatraz had given them publicity. The days of quiet seclusion that Charles had favored were history.
Facing Rogue – Marie – had become too much of a strain. Danvers had been okay enough to take up the jet lessons for now. Marie, too, made ‘Ro remember things she didn’t want to think about.
Unfortunately, she had forgotten to take into account that Rogue reminded her of the Wolverine for a reason – when she felt cornered, she attacked.
“You know,” Marie said, coming to a halt in front of her desk. She’d come to her office just before midnight, when the children were long asleep but ‘Ro was still working on grades, like she did every night. And ‘Ro suddenly asked herself how the other woman had gotten to know her schedule that well, when she herself preferred to act like Rogue wasn’t there. “I thought you were just mad at me for taking the cure.”
She’s changed so much, ‘Ro thought, and her inner Jean marveled: It’s amazing how she’s come into her own. But ‘Ro refused to acknowledge the sentiment. It was true that the shy girl who’d hidden herself behind long sleeves and scarves was gone, making way for a young woman with pride, and confidence in her steps. Crossing her arms in front of her chest and crooking her head, with a frown on her face as if she wasn’t perfectly comfortable being here, yet deciding not to give a shit about how it made her feel.
It was the cure that had made her that way, ‘Ro thought, mentally spitting the word out like the curse that it was. It was the cure that had made her a different person from who she had been meant to be, the mutant she’d been meant to be. The cure had suddenly transformed all of them into a disease, when there was nothing wrong with them, and never had been. Marie hadn't been meant to be like this.
“I thought,” Marie continued in her softened Southern drawl when ‘Ro just leaned back in her chair, deciding to wait her out and then chase her away. “I thought, the cure is so dangerous to us – I know that, I was desperate when I decided to take it, not stupid. You just couldn’t acknowledge my case in the middle of a war. We were fighting Magneto. I get that.
“I’ve always respected you, you know.” Marie shrugged, like it wasn’t important that she had. “I still do. You have no idea how much I used to want to be you.”
She made a deliberate pause, giving ‘Ro a brave look. “But that’s not all of it, is it? That’s not the only reason you can’t look me in the eye.”
“I take no personal issue with you whatsoever, Marie,” ‘Ro said with an edge to her voice, telling herself it was even true. The personal was the important part. She took no issue with Marie as a person. She was taking one with her as a mutant. “After all, I allowed you to stay at the school.”
“Sure helped that you needed to stay on Logan’s good side at the time,” Marie drawled with a roll of her eyes. “Except.” She paused, reconsidering her words, and opening her mouth again. “It’s not me, is it, Miss Munroe? It’s never been me at all.” Pressing her lips together, she made sure to not look away. “You made Logan leave, too.”
It was a startlingly childish thing to be accused of – and yet…
‘Ro shifted positions in her chair.
“Marie, I think that’s quite…”
“He wanted to be closer to you than you were letting him, I know he did,” Marie interrupted her. “I could see it in his eyes, whenever he looked at you. But that’s just not how things are supposed to work around you, right? You don’t want to be close to people at all. You shut them out. You used to have Mr. Summers and Mrs. Grey, and Mr. McCoy and the Professor, but I think that was just baggage from when you were young, and it’s just enough friends as far as you care.”
“Marie,” ‘Ro repeated in a darker voice, suddenly having to suppress an urge to get up, to be equal in height with this young girl.
“It’s like they take up so much space for you, you think there’s no more left,” Marie said, voice still quiet and soft but steely on the inside, refusing to stop, more and more words pouring out of her mouth. “Maybe you think you’ve gotten so hurt, or whatever, when we lost the Professor and Miss Grey…” ‘Ro involuntarily clasped her hands harder around the arms of her chair. “But you see, there’s always space left. Logan’s taught me that. And the people in my head.” She tipped at it, as if to give ‘Ro a physical reminder of the power she’d refused to keep. “But you, you’re just scared.” Her voice became quieter. “I used to look up to you so much, but you’re just a coward and scared.”
Now ‘Ro was on her feet after all – towering over Rogue if not by height, then by authority, and angry, delicately placing her fingers on the desk. “Rogue,” she said. “That’s enough.”
“I don’t think it is,” Marie said with her softened drawl, and then, “And it’s Marie.” And she turned around to walk out of the office, drawing the door quietly shut.
Staring at it, uncomprehending, ‘Ro found herself focusing on her breaths, long and steady, in and out. She was mad. She was so mad, she knew the sky was buckling underneath her grasp, and she felt thunder coming, a terrible storm drawn towards the school. She felt unable to stop it, nor did she feel like she would ever want to do so.
Except it wasn’t thunder, wasn’t a storm. It was rain that softly started sizzling all around, until it covered up all the school.
Marie was wrong about one thing.
‘Ro had never allowed Jean to get close.
‘Ro fled outside, running away from the school, its shadows and memories and narrow halls – here’s where Jean and I laughed.
Maybe, it had nothing to do with courage. Or maybe it had everything to do with it.
And it was all that she could think to do. Get outside, get out under the sky where her spirit resided, slipping out of her shoes half across the patio and leaving them there. Feeling grass under the soles of her feet, wind blowing through her hair, and rain draining her blouse. It was midnight, and the sky was dark, covered with the black clouds she was calling to herself without thinking, drawing them close – calling the storm when it refused to appear by itself. The wind picked up; the rain grew heavier, and lightning started striking all across the sky.
Thunder rolled. ‘Ro was crying, suddenly, tears on her face mixing with those from the clouds. It was only when she was far enough away from the school to only feel it looming in her back like a shadow that she let loose, dropping down on her knees far out in the garden, where nobody would see.
There’d been smears of pear on Jean’s face, and her hair had turned crimson at dusk.
“Not my boyfriend yet,” she had said, “But I might just marry him some day. How about soup?”
Her lips had been so soft.
She’d been beautiful. She had always been so beautiful. She’d made ‘Ro feel beautiful, as well.
She always had.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed, although the rain had turned to hail, drowning out her voice, and nobody was there to hear. “I’m so sorry, Jean.” She couldn’t even have said what she was sorry for.
Jean was gone.
She was gone.
Lying still in the medbay like a corpse.
Never hoping, never allowing herself to hope that the woman might wake up and still be Jean.
Charles said that she wouldn’t be.
Hail kept pouring down, piercing her skin like a thousand sharp knives, and ‘Ro kept it coming, spreading her arms, wanting it to hurt more on the outside as well.
She’d been in love with Jean.
She was in love with Logan now. Painfully, achingly in love.
‘Ro could never have admitted it to herself. Admitting it would have mean she’d have to let them in. It would have meant opening herself up to that terrible possibility that she would lose them one day, that they would see who she was - that Logan would see who she was - that one day they would be gone.
It had been so much easier to push them away, to see them out, closing herself off to see them out.
It had been easier to push Jean towards Scott, already there, to just not get in the way, instead of offering herself up alongside Scott.
Never acknowledging that terrible idea that Jean might have wanted her back.
Tears were streaming down her face.
She was sobbing so hard that she thought she might burst.
Jean might have wanted her back.
Standing back, toasting Jean when she and Scott got it on, salacious smirk on her face when she congratulated her friend. Hugging them when they got engaged, kissing both their cheeks.
Never, never allowing herself to believe… to imagine…
She’d thought, the pain would go away if she didn’t acknowledge it was there. If she could fool a telepath, she could also fool herself.
But it had never gone away. It had stayed, even when her eyes had started falling onto Logan.
She made me feel like I was beautiful, ‘Ro thought, devastation pouring down from the sky.
It hadn’t ever stopped. She’d lost her, anyway. Jean was gone.
And Logan…
She'd thought it would end after that one night. She'd thought he would leave there and then.
But he hadn't shied away at once when she let him see that private side of hers, as she had feared... and hoped.
Instead, he'd reached out. Immediately reached out - like she was all he'd ever need.
So she'd pushed him away.
It felt like she would never want the storm up in the sky to end.
Two days later, Carol Danvers turned out to be a spy for S.H.I.E.L.D., and Rogue’s powers returned.
It happened when the jet was in the air, Domino dozing in a backseat and Marie at the controls, while Danvers watched her from the co-pilot chair. As they would later learn, the doctor was an agent sent by the government to spy on the vigilante X-Men who nobody dared apprehend because they’d saved the world, but who scared the crap out of the Army, nonetheless. Beast turned furious when he heard, scaring the Secret Service agents stationed in front of his office like they’d never been scared before when he stormed towards the Oval Office.
But that was later. At first, the jet was steadily humming in the air, Domino asleep in the back, and Danvers decided that the time had come to try and recruit Marie D’Ancanto into S.H.I.E.L.D.
Marie was, of course, a perfect choice. Legally a human, the whole school knew how she was at odds with ‘Ro. Her relationship with the new leader of the X-Men had been wavering since Gambit, her ties with Westchester had fully shattered when Logan had made his goodbyes – her welcome maybe was slowly running out.
Except for how Rogue was so much more than that. She launched herself at Danvers without as much as a pause.
A struggle ensued. Before Domino could even grow alert and make her way to the cockpit, Marie had grabbed the other woman’s wrist and, feeling skin on skin, pulled, wanting it for the first time in her life, and her powers had greedily answered her call.
All that ‘Ro knew was that Betsy’s voice suddenly appeared in her head in the middle of a class. The next moment, she was racing outside, where she and the other three X-Men found themselves staring at the sky, a reeling dot in the distance spiraling towards the school, growing large.
“They’ll crash into the school!” Betsy had shouted over the growing engine noise and the wind, because ‘Ro’s eyes had already turned white, although of course there was nothing that she could have done against a Blackbird’s force. Bobby, meanwhile, had just stared, mind visibly racing as he tried to find something, anything they could do. Warren seemed lost.
The next moment, the faintest smell of brimstone and a loud POP had filled the air, and Domino was gone again in the blink of an eye, shouting only, “Don’t touch her skin!” before she teleported back to the jet, an unconscious Marie dropping down… and coming to rest floating an inch over the grass.
Then, the jet was already skirting the tree line a hundred yards away, before it surreally scratched the roof of the school, miraculously missing the chimney, and crashing down behind. When ‘Ro had raised herself in the air above the school, Warren following close, it had slid to an impossible halt in the meadow behind it, leaving a hollow of dug up soil in its wake, coming to rest behind the lake without any damage at all since its speed had been suspended after a statistically perfectly unlikely run-in with a gardening shack at just the right angle for that to even work.
Betsy and the children had arrived by foot when ‘Ro set down next to them, and they were all staring when – brimstone and popping again – Domino appeared in front of them, hands clutching her thighs and breathing hard. She’d looked as if she’d run a mile.
“Told you,” she managed between gasps, “it’s not a challenge if you know how to fly.”
Carol Danvers was dead. They found her frail body in the jet, slumped next to the cockpit, where it had been thrown by Rogue’s super-strong punch.
“It seems to me that we are witnessing the total absorption of a mutant power by Rogue,” Hank was saying. Having returned from a meeting in the Oval Office that he would only growl about when anybody inquired even years after the fact, his glasses were still slightly askew on his nose, his worried face looming above them on a screen in the lab. “However,” he continued. “As we know, Marie absorbs both the power and the mind of the person she touches, until – in the past – she has eventually fought the onslaught off. I can only imagine – and pray – that this is happening now.”
Whatever Bobby and Marie’s troubles might have been about, the young man’s face seemed tired and old when he rubbed the brink of his face now. Sympathetically, ‘Ro put an arm on his shoulder and squeezed.
Their eyes moved back to Rogue. The young woman – young mutant, ‘Ro reminded herself numbly, mutant – lay unconscious, face peaceful and soft, suspended whole inches above her stretcher in the air. They hadn’t been able to give her an injection – her skin had become as impenetrable as Danvers’ had been.
She seems so young. Young and old at once, ‘Ro thought.
Like us, the memory of Jean whispered softly in her head.
‘Ro shuddered.
It was too much to process at once. Danvers had attacked Marie. In case she’d worked for someone else, they’d have to lock down the school. Betsy was blaming herself because she hadn’t seen it coming.
Someone had to calm the kids, maybe Warren, and the cure didn’t work. The cure didn’t work and Danvers was dead and Magneto would be back, god, Magneto would be back and Rogue was one of them again…
…except maybe she’d been that all along.
“Talking to her will be helpful, I imagine,” Hank was saying softly. “It surely can’t do any harm. Somebody soothing and familiar to her, who makes her feel safe…”
It suddenly seemed that everybody in the room had turned to look at ‘Ro.
She swallowed, hard. It was clear what she would have to do.
The ocean wind kept Mississippi’s heat at bay.
‘Ro moved carefully, remembering another shore at, not an ocean but a lake, sticks and rocks impossibly floating in the air.
“You don’t wanna be here,” she’d said that day, and it felt like that now, although the sky was clear, the ocean in the distance calm and grey.
The ruins of what once had been a power plant and a military torturing facility – so Gambit had said – were littered all across the hills, forgotten, their purpose lost to history – some of them as tall as walls.
Moss had covered most of them, and she wondered how many years it had been.
Logan didn’t look up when she approached, sitting underneath a tree. She sat down next to him, gingerly overlooking the scene.
“My wife died here,” he said abruptly.
Her face softened, thinking of Jean – always Jean.
“I’m sorry.”
“She didn’t marry me because she wanted me.” Between them in the grass, his strong hand moved – opening and closing into a fist convulsively, so powerfully that she could hear how it made the Adamantium crack. “Stryker sent her after me – he forced her, threatened her sister. She told me she’d fallen in love with me over time, anyway, but…” His voice became strained. “I’m not so sure it works like that.
“I loved her,” he added, so off-handedly that it hurt to listen to it. “I loved her how I’d never thought I could. She died down there,” he repeated, nodding down the hill that held the tree. “But I’d just woken back up, and I had no idea who she was. She could have been anybody.” There was so much pain in his voice now. “I didn’t recognize her at all.”
“But that doesn’t mean you didn’t love her enough,” ‘Ro whispered back, restraining herself from doing more than placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
The leather underneath her fingers felt hot from the sun.
Logan, she knew, had suffered from nightmares ever since he could recall. Even without the incident with Rogue in his first night at the school, the students would have found out, the ventilation shafts conducting the sounds when he cried out in his sleep. Post-traumatic stress, the staff had nodded to each other, knowing from Jean how excruciating a procedure he must have suffered to gain his claws, knowing you didn’t get so good at his particular skills without gaining any scars. He might as well be old enough to have fought in the wars the word shell-shock had originally been invented for.
“Maybe it’s best that he doesn’t know his past,” Scott had once told her when it was just the two of them in the staff lounge, fully aware of his own chagrin, “If there’s no way for me to know, I can’t throw him out for it either.”
“I don’t care who you used to be,” she said aloud.
Logan snorted, half of a laugh and half of a sob.
“I killed my brother, ‘Ro. I killed him and I didn’t even recognize that it was him.”
“I don’t care,” she replied firmly.
He leaned closer to her, almost imperceptible shift of his weight – his body, again, communicating with hers like his words couldn’t ever manage.
Her own body was screaming to be safe in his proximity, as well.
“At the school,” she said. “You are the leader of the team. The X-Men don’t go out to kill. They go out to help people, protect them. You are respected, and loved. The older ones look up to you. The younger ones want to be you, and…” She raised her voice when he snorted. “…the teachers and I encourage them to think of you that way. Without you, we wouldn’t be what we are now – and there’s no telling what we could achieve together in another year or two. You’re brave. You’re caring. You’re a good person, and it kills you that you can’t be an even better man.”
Marie needs you, she didn’t say.
I need you even more, she didn’t say just yet.
“Charles would have wanted you to stay for good.”
Logan pondered that for a while, while ocean waves rolled against the shore afar.
“Charles got Jean killed,” he eventually said. “Ever think of that?”
“Yes,” she replied readily, although it was something she hadn’t let herself reevaluate just yet. But Charles Xavier had just been a man, with flaws, like everybody else. She had always known that. “But I’m not Charles. You’d be with me.”
“With you,” Logan replied, as if he was trying out the taste of the words.
“I want you there,” she finally said aloud. “I need you at my side.”
That was why she needed him to return, not because of Rogue. Marie’s struggle would only make him come, but never stay. What made him stay, made him leave, was her these days. Because he knew exactly who she was, and hadn't shied away from it once. He'd only ever wanted to be close.
‘Ro had just been itching for an excuse to seek him out, she knew now.
“Huh,” he said, and stared at the sea.
But his body didn’t move away, and ‘Ro inched closer, resting her shoulder against his.
His arm reached out, as well, wrapping around her waist to hold her still.
I love you, Jean, she thought. I’m sorry that I never told you while you were alive.
She might get to tell Logan, though, one day.
Her forehead was touching Logan’s cheek, and he turned his head slightly until his lips pressed against her skin, saying Thank you and I want you back.
There was no need for more than that just yet.
She knew he’d let her take him home.