Disclaimer: All the guys at Marvel; you're my heros, I would appreciate it if you didn't sue...pretty please?
Sidenote: This is the last chapter, I'm slightly sad. Oh well, I hope ya'll have enjoyed it so far, it's been fun. There's more lyrics at the bottom to end the story out, I think they're quite appropriate. Please enjoy the rest of the story!
I went back to my room and locked myself in, crying myself to sleep. I was on close watch, though, and had someone in my room at all hours of the day and night checking in on me. It was like that for weeks, up until I felt ready to go back to college in Arizona. Everyone treated my differently there, thinking still that I had been kidnapped. I didn't want to be treated differently or special or in any way then I had been treated at Xavier's school. The longer I was gone, the more I missed it. I missed Rouge, the Professor, Storm, even Scott. And Logan, missing him wasn't even the way to describe how badly I wanted to see him. I tied writing him but I never sent the letters knowing that my hard, flat words would never be able to explain to him what he meant to me and how badly it killed me to lose him. My whole personality had changed and everyone noticed. I was once outgoing but I felt withdrawn, knowing that there was a place that I could fit in and college, as much as I loved my friends there, wasn't the place I was meant to be. I didn't feel at home anywhere and wondered if I ever would again.
I cried myself to sleep almost every night for my first month back. After a few more weeks I began to open back up again, but I wasn't the same person anymore, I had become someone else. I wasn't dependent on other people, I didn't care about petty things and my humor had sunk to a new low, becoming more sarcastic then ever. Even my style had changed drastically. I had bought myself a pair of cowboy boots and a leather jacket. Everyone wanted to know about my cross necklace but I never told them, it was something all too personal and complicated to explain to anyone who hadn't felt it for themselves. And my sleep, sleep didn't treat me so kindly, it didn't care that I was heartbroken. It didn't care that I just wanted to go to sleep and dream of the person that I missed for the rest of my life. No, sleep was the one thing that knew my secrets and wouldn't let me drown myself in it. Sleep deprived me of itself, causing me to think. To think of my life and how it had once been, I wondered if what I had done had actually helped the mutant situation. I wondered if I would ever be able to help anymore. I wondered if my parents would ever trust me again and if their miss-trust was worth all the mutants not having to worry for the current time. I wondered if Logan missed me or thought about me as much as I did him. Sleep danced around me, taunting me and making me wonder if Logan had just left me and fled to the arms of a string of nameless woman that he would, without doubt, pick up in random bars and diners. Would he fall in love with someone else, had he? He was the first man I ever loved and there was something about his unlike any other person I had ever met. No one had left an imprint on me as he had. No one had ever gotten inside my head as he had. He haunted me and the only safe place I could find to hide was in my dreams, where he would never leave me and would continue to love me for as long as I needed. Sleep knew that and wouldn't allow me to believe it. That's why I was surprised when I went to bed one early night in May and quickly drifted off to sleep, not waking the entire night. When I woke late the next morning, I found something lying on the pillow beside me. I reached over and picked it up, knowing what it was as soon as my hand grasped it, not having to look at it. I was startled by it and sat up in bed.
"Where did this come from?" I asked my roommate Julie, holding up the rosary that had been laid next to me while I was sleeping.
"Some weird guy said it was yours and asked me to give it to you,"
"How long ago?"
"Just a few seconds ago, he stopped me as I was coming inside,"
"Did he leave?"
"He started walking away after he handed it to me and I said that I would give it to you,"
I jumped from my bed and searched frantically, looking for a pair of shoes. I found a pair of flip-flops under by bed and quickly slipped them on and began heading out the door.
"Which way did he go?"
"Uh, the left, I guess, why?"
"I need to talk to him,"
"Do you even know him?" she asked, following me.
"Was he fairly tall, have weird hair, mutton chop sideburns and smell like cigars?"
"Yeah,"
"Then I know him,"
"How?"
"I can't explain it to you," I said, getting onto the elevator, as Carls and Burkley followed us.
"Can you explain why you have a rosary? You're not Catholic,"
"I know, it has a different meaning to it,"
"I didn't know they had different meanings?"
"They don't, I don't think,"
"Then what does it mean?"
"Well…we never vocally established what it meant, but its original purpose was to protect you,"
"From what?"
"I don't know, just in general,"
"Why is he giving it to you now? You have plenty of protection; I don't think anyone's too worried about that anymore,"
"It means something else now,"
"I thought you said you never established what it meant?"
"Vocally, but it does mean something else," I said as we stepped off the elevator and walked to the double doors. I pushed them open and walked out into the rain. Carls and Burkley quickly rushed to hold umbrellas over me. I started with a fast pace towards the left in an attempt to catch up with him. There was a corner of a building around two hundred yards away that had a sidewalk which wrapped around the building and lead to the general parking area that wasn't just for students. Soon my fast walk turned into a jog as I began to worry that he would leave before I could see him. Julie, Carls and Burkley all followed me as I turned into a full on run. I rounded the corner and saw a man crossing the street, headed to a parked motorcycle.
"Watch out," Carls said to me as I stepped off the curb and nearly slipped in a rain puddle. I straightened out my walk and continued to run in his direction.
"Logan!" I called out as I ran out from underneath the umbrellas, trying to stop him. He didn't turn around; I knew he had heard me, though. "Logan, please,"
He stopped and slowly turned to face me. I stopped a few feet from him, silently instructing everyone to stay behind me. He let out a long breath, staring at me. "What?" he growled.
"Don't growl at me, Logan, I want to know why you're here?"
He continued to stare at me, looking me over. I was still in my athletic pants and black wife beater that I had slept in, my hair was back to its natural blonde, and plastered to my face from the rain. "To give that back to you," he said, pointing to the rosary I still had tightly held in my fist.
"It's yours; I gave it to you,"
"I don't need it anymore,"
"You don't need me anymore/"
"That's not what I said,"
"It's what you meant,"
"No it's not,"
"Then why are you here?"
"I already lost Jean, alright; I didn't want to lose you,"
"You didn't lose me, you left me," I spat.
"You told me to,"
"No, what I said was that I couldn't go back with you and that my parents didn't want me to see you anymore,"
"Which meant I had to leave,"
"No, we should have figured out a way for us to still be together. Running should not have been your first action,"
"And who are you to talk about that?" he retorted.
"Shut up, that has nothing to do with this," I said.
"Yes it does," he said, walking closer to me. "It's your first instinct, too. Runaway when you get scared, that's why you're all the way down here instead of up there with me,"
"No, I'm down here because I'm trying to move on with my life after you just left me. Do you understand what that did to me, what you do to me? I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't study, I can't even watch the freakin' news because everything reminds me of you and that I just start crying, and no one understands why. I don't care if I did run away from New York or D.C.; I haven't run away from you because I can't. I am so far gone it's pathetic. You said you didn't want to lose me, but how come it's taken you this long to come down here? Why did you just hand over our rosary to my roommate and start leaving? You didn't seem too eager to talk to me, so why did you really come here, Logan? Or was it that you just lost your nerve and you decided to run?"
"I didn't think that you would want to see me,"
"But you didn't give me the chance to tell you whether or not I did, you just assumed I wouldn't?"
"I didn't want to see you if you were mad at me,"
"I am mad at you, I'm pissed. I've wanted to see you since January and when I get the chance, you try to stop it from happening. But you should have thought of what I wanted before you did anything,"
"I did, why do you think I drove all the way down here from New York? I thought you would want that back,"
"But why are you giving it back to me? I gave it to you,"
"Why did you give it to me, Jewel?"
"Because I didn't know how to pay you back for what you had given me,"
"Then you should know why I gave it back to you. I don't deserve it anymore, you do,"
"I didn't say that you were supposed to give it back to me if you thought that you had failed to be held up to my standards. I don't expect you to be perfect, I know you're not, that's why I love you. If I wanted someone who was telling me that they were perfect that I could have gone out with so many other guys, but I don't want that. That's not what makes me happy, you do, but you being gone has killed me and to that you respond by giving me this back," I said, holding up the rosary, "with no reason why and then try to leave. If you don't want this anymore then fine, at some point I'll get over it, I guess. But I want you to tell it to me. I want to hear you tell me, in your words, what you want from this,"
He stared at me for a moment and then strode up to me, standing only inches away from me. I could feel his hot breath against my skin as he stood there, trying to think of what to say. Finally, in a hushed voice so that only I could hear him he said, "I want you and whatever it takes for you to forgive me for hurting you. Darlin', I didn't want to leave you, I wasn't running because I didn't want to be with you. I left because it would be easier for you if I made the choice instead of making you pick them or me. I can't give you a life that they day, I won't ever be able to. I live in a school, I teach kids, I ain't got a lot of money, when I thought about you livin' like that because you didn't want to be without me, I made the decision that you weren't going to,"
"Then you're a jerk for not giving me a chance to think about it. What if I don't care about money and stupid things, Logan? They're just things, I would much rather be living with you at the school than to be here thinking that you don't love me while driving around in some expensive car that I don't even know the name of. Why don't you get that?"
"Because I know that I do love you and that's not the kind of life I want you to have,"
"But it's not your choice, it's mine. I'm an adult; remember? I thought we had established this rather quite a while back. If you get to make choices for me then I get to make them for you,"
"Like what?"
"You have to take me with you if you leave,"
"I can't, what about your parents?"
"What about them?"
"I thought they wouldn't let you go without them?" he said, jerking his head towards Carls and Burkley.
"I'll talk to them; we'll make a compromise, which is what we should have done to begin with,"
"I can't give you what they can," he said again.
"If that's what I wanted out of life, what my parents could give me, then why was I so happy with you back at the school? All I need, all I've ever wanted, was for some to love me like you did. Didn't you tell me once that all you needed from me was to love you? Why can I ask the same of you, that's all I want from you? Nothing more, nothing less," I said, the rain falling at a hard a heavy pace.
"But you deserve everything that they give you; I want you to have all of it,"
"I've had it for twenty-three years and I know that those four months that I spent there with you was the best time of my life. It was so much simpler than it had ever been. Knowing that you think I deserve all of it, that's all I need,"
"Alright then, if that's what you want, it's your choice,"
"You promise?"
"Yeah, I promise, I swear,"
A small smile crept across my face from corner to corner. "You shouldn't swear," I said with a laugh.
He gave a little smile and shook his head. I had missed his smile so much. "No, it's just you that can't swear, kid,"
"So now you're back to calling me kid again?"
"Well considering that I'm not really sure what to call you, I figured it was as good as any other name,"
"Logan, why don't you just shut up and kiss me?" I asked playfully.
He smiled down at me with the rain dripping off the end of his nose. "As soon as we're not being watched anymore," he said.
I looked over my shoulder and saw that Julie was standing underneath the umbrellas with Carls and Burkley. "Can we have some privacy?" I smirked over my shoulder at them.
"We're not supposed to leave you," Burkley called out to me.
"Everything's going to be okay, I won't go anywhere," I said back.
"Alright, but we're just going over behind that corner. If you go anywhere we'll find you," Carls said.
"I won't go anywhere," I reassured them.
Slowly the three of them walked, huddled together under their umbrellas, to the corner where we had just come from only minutes before. I watched as the moved until they were out of sight, then I turned back to Logan who then pulled me to him, surprising me by the force of his kiss. I could feel that he had missed me, missed kissing me, missed holding me and I had felt the same way. I had longed to feel his lips to mine and was so happy just to be in his arms. I didn't care that it was raining; it felt good on my hot skin. I was happy to be there with the man that I loved, knowing that he loved me and that he would always be there to catch me if I needed him to. After a few moments I pulled away and then asked; "Why took you so long? I miss you so much,"
He nuzzled his nose to mine. "I'm sorry; I missed you, too,"
"Just don't leave me anymore," I said, and then whispered into his ear; "I need you Logan, I hope you know that,"
"I do and I won't leave you again, I promise," he said back to me.
"My sweet Wolverine, I love you,"
"I love you too, Holly,"
Grew up in a small town Trying hard to reach out I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly Wanna feel the warm breeze Buildings with a hundred floors I'll spread my wings
And when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window
Dreaming of what could be
And if I'd end up happy
I would pray (I would pray).
But when I tried to speak out
Felt like no one could hear me
Wanted to belong here
But something felt so wrong here
So I prayed I could break away.
I'll do what it takes til' I touch the sky
I'll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway.
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget all the ones that I love
I'll take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway.
Sleep under a palm tree
Feel the rush of the ocean
Get onboard a fast train
Travel on a jet plane, far away (I will)
And breakaway.
Swinging around revolving doors
Maybe I don't know where they'll take me but
Gotta keep moving on, moving on
Fly away, breakaway.
And I'll learn how to fly
Though it's not easy to tell you goodbye
I gotta take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway.
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget the place I come from
I gotta take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway, breakaway, breakaway.
The End