Author Notes: Originally conceived and written May 1st, though this is highly edited from what Sare saw. The concept, storyline, and required dialogue pieces were dictated to me by Sare Liz over AIM and I kept carefully in the confines of what she said I could and could not do with the rest. Who knew I could be that disciplined?

Dedication: Elizabeth Wilde did a VERY interesting opposite version of this that I just loved and probably never sent her feedback for.

This is an open story. If you feel some strange need to add on to it, feel very free to do so--just, umm, no Evil!Jeans <g>. I just needed to write something NOT Jus and pulled this out for frantic editing. Feedback's not necessary--I just thought people might enjoy it, so feel free to just read.

She was curled up on the couch in the rec room when he walked in, and for the first time in his life, he hesitated, stopping at the door. Watched the line of her profile--God, she was young. Brown hair twisted up, with that streak of white reflecting the light from the television, fine bones of her face. Back so straight it looked as if she'd sewed a broom handle into her nightgown, not giving an inch even in pain.

Rogue didn't need anyone, thank you very much, and she made that very clear with every line of her body.

"Rogue?" So he wasn't Mr. Sensitivity--he was bored out of his mind and insomnical to boot, and staring at the elegantly trimmed walls of his room wasn't doing anything for him at all. Even passive/aggressive hostility was better than that.

A soft warning growl emanated from the general direction of the couch--he thought she probably didn't even know that she was doing it, and he was sure of it when she jerked in surprise, eyes coming up to see him, then flicking back to the television with almost desperate attention. As if ignoring him would remove the fact of his existence--and probably of Jean's existence too.

Fuck, he seriously shouldn't sympathize with her this much. He had to thank God he'd never fallen in love--the results of it never seemed to be worth it, if the girl wrapped up in a blanket on that couch was any example.

Slowly, he crossed to sit down on the other side of the couch, keeping the distance he knew she wanted--a brief memory of her skin beneath his cheek, beneath his fingers, the dark cream he remembered now bleached to vivid white in the dark of the room. She curled her blanket a little closer and frowned, staring into the television with more attention than the movie seriously deserved.

A quick check on her entertainment material--B movie, horror, and Logan reconsidered staying very long. Slasher films were less than entertaining when you've done the live-action version in the real world.

"Thought you'd be upstairs with Cyke this time of night."

Definitely the wrong thing to say. What color she had drained away and then reflared over her entire face, and he took in the scent on her--fuck. Shit. Not just the wrong thing to say--THE wrong thing to say. As if he could have spent a year trying to find the perfect words to hurt her and not come up with anything better. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

"Shut the fuck up."

Rogue, as he had met her that first day, wasn't the type to drop into obscenity at a moment's notice either--he'd take the blame for that too. Share it with Magneto, though.

Two options were available to him--get up and retreat (not in his fucking life) or sit here in uncomfortable silence until the movie was over. Easy one. Grabbing a pillow, he put it behind his back, relaxing into it and stretching socked feet toward the television.

"Don't you ever wear a shirt?"

Random. She wanted him to leave. Hmm.

"Why bother? No one's gonna see me." Except Rogue, who was so incredibly unaffected that he might almost take offense. But not really. Had to grin that she'd managed to avoid looking at him since that first glance and wished for a beer. Did they have beer here anywhere? Shit, these were things he needed to check out before getting comfortable. If Jean was here, she could probably float one (hypothetically present beer) over, but Jean wasn't here.

Thinking on it, he could make a pretty good guess where Jean was, since Rogue was down here.

"You okay?"

It sucked, no question. Rogue was in a nasty position, and if she wanted to be bitchy, well, let her. She certainly deserved an outlet, though he had to admit he preferred she didn't use Jeannie for it. Poor kid, though--what was she, nineteen? Twenty? Too damned young, in any case, to look like her world had ended.

"Sure. I'm great." Pulled the blanket closer and her chin dropped a little--just enough that he saw it and a part of him wanted to reach out, touch her, give her some kind of comfort though he'd guess, saving her life or no, he couldn't be in her top ten list, just on the principle of bringing Jeannie here and screwing the status quo. "Never better."

The rest of him was appalled he had managed to somehow acquire any sort of feeling for her at all. How much more complicated could his life get, anyway? He'd saved her life--wasn't that a pretty nice damn thing to do for someone? He didn't expect her drop naked into his bed or anything in a frenzy of gratitude--though he wouldn't kick her out either if she lost her reason and decided to try it--but would a 'thank you, Logan' be out of the question? Thank you for almost dying for me, thank you for going up there in the first place. Shaking his head, he tossed the thoughts aside. She wasn't in the mood to remember that, and at this point, probably didn't even feel that great about being alive. Love did that to you.

"Sorry, kid." He couldn't expect her to take him very seriously--though he was sorry that she was going through this.

So the Statue had changed him, definitely. Not the least of which is that he'd been pretty fucking amazed he woke up at all. Jean's sudden smile, the quick hug, smelling Scott on her, which told him everything he needed to know about the current status quo at the old Mansion proper. Jean was settling in just fine. Good for her.

And on one hand--remembering how he met Jean, remembering the shape she was in when he picked her up--well, this was good, definitely. For her. Now the result of that particular good was sitting three feet from him, crawling under the blanket as if she wished she could crawl inside her own skin and never come out again.

"Yeah, thanks. So what I need to hear." There was almost no heat in her voice--just a sort of cool acceptance. Very Rogue, that. It had been the second thing he'd noticed about her. How very distant she could be when she chose. Which was now. And he couldn't blame her for that either.

"Shit happens." Oh so smooth. Why the fuck was he still here? Better in his room or go outside and have a cigar or maybe count the tiles on the ceiling again and see if he could get the same number three times in a row--it was no where in his job description that he counseled jilted mutant girls, even pretty, vulnerable ones who looked like they'd shatter on a breath.

A twist of her head--anything resembling cool was gone again, replaced by angry heat.

"What the fuck would you know about it?" The blanket slipped and he got a glimpse of the creamy skin of her chest--don't stare, Logan, she wants to vent, she can't do that when you're mentally mapping her cleavage--then jerked his eyes up to hers. Blinked a little at the intensity--and no, she wasn't like that when he met her, but he didn't think it was his influence in her either.

It was something else entirely.

"You think you're the only one in the world who ever got hurt, darlin'?"

"I'd have to give a shit 'bout other people to care. Forgive me for focusing on the fact my life just fell apart because you brought that bitch here."

"And you're so sure that she's the only reason?" Defend Jean--well, he couldn't seriously do that. She'd known what she was doing and she was big girl--and hell, he wasn't blind and so what if he'd never been in love himself, he knew the signs. Cyke had fallen for Jean at first glance, and that didn't say much about his fidelity or the stability of his and Rogue's relationship. It was like a force of nature--he'd known it from the second they'd seen each other, and it was only a wonder Rogue hadn't picked up on it the first time Jean and Scott met.

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

Logan sat back, contemplating the TV and wondering why the hell he was even trying to justify this. This *certainly* wasn't in his file of talents. And he sure as hell didn't want it to be. He was getting the hell out of here.

One glance back at her and everything stopped. Just *stopped*, because he'd seen heartbreak before and he'd seen--shit, he'd seen a lot in his life, dirty as it got, and in the brown eyes was reflected more than rage, more than pain or fear or anything else--below it all was pure loss.

That he related to. That he knew intimately, and he could walk away from hurt pride, but he couldn't walk from that.

He wasn't going to baby her through this, though. She deserved better.

"If you were gonna work out, Jeannie wouldn't've made a damn bit of difference, Rogue. Maybe he woulda wanted her--but you know it's more than that, or he wouldn't have walked away from you so easy." He wished, suddenly, he knew how to couch that in gentler terms. But he didn't, and he rather thought she'd appreciate the blunt more than the roundabout.

"That's not true." Edges of tears--damn, did he want to handle this? No, not a crying Rogue, he had no idea what the hell to do with that. Taking a breath, he looked away from her eyes and stared at the curl of white hair that had escaped her twist and was clinging to her cheek.

"It's true and you know it." Took another breath, decided to get this all out at once. "Look--do you *want* someone who walks away that easy? Say I'm wrong, say you two are meant to be or whatever that crap is--you like the idea of your meant to be boy sniffing every few years or so at another woman? Look--yeah, you two were together and you wear the ring like it's proof of ownership or something--but you wanna belong to someone who'd walk like that and that fast? Say it burns out with Jeannie and he comes back to you--say it happens." Though privately, Logan had to think that he'd never in his life seen any two people click like Jean and Scott. God save him from that--gave him the creeps, frankly. "Then you just say okay and let him back in your bed--and have to wonder if any other woman'll do that to him? Shit, baby, you wanna marry him--what the hell kind of risk would that be? You wanna feel like this regularly or something?"

Her mouth trembled and she stared at him--and then there were tears, slow, rolling down her cheek though she didn't make a sound. Catching her hair so it clung to her face, but she turned away, too fast, staring at the floor for a what seemed like an eternity.

Somehow, she didn't look surprised, though.

"Get the hell out of here."

A pause, and Logan stood up--no, this sure as hell wasn't a retreat, it was being tactful, and who knew he was even capable of it? Then turned, looking down at her for a moment--and she looked young. God, so young. Too young to waste her life on someone who wouldn't appreciate her, that was for certain.

"Am I still in your head?"

A jerk around, shoulders stiffening--and why she was down here suddenly came together with a click. Jeannie wasn't in Scott's room, Scott was sleeping alone tonight. She wasn't down here because she'd been completely defeated at all--

"Yeah." A whisper.

--she was down here because of him in her head. He had just verbalized probably every single thing her head had been trying to tell her up there and she was down here trying to tune out. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Interesting, but shit.

"Rogue--"

"Please." And she looked up at him--and maybe she was seeing him for the first time. Actually *seeing* him in front of her, not as the Bringer of Jeannie or The Person Who Touched Her--but Logan. Just him. Big brown eyes and trembling lips, but something else there, something he couldn't define. He wanted to, though--suddenly wanted to sit down and find out what else he'd been telling her in her head, what else she was figuring out on this night, because it couldn't just be her relationship with Scott Summers that was keeping her from her bed tonight. He didn't think she was the type to let go that easily.

"Okay." Uncomfortable thoughts. He turned and walked out, but couldn't stop himself from a single backward glance that lingered on the fall of her hair, covering her profile. The tight clutch of the blankets to her chest and the soft sound of her hitched breathing.

He wondered if she'd sleep tonight. Then wondered, suddenly and inexplicably, if he would either.

The End