Hey hey, I'm still alive! I'm a bit rusty, but still RoLo trash. Please enjoy this chapter. As well, please be reminded that I'm 0% American, so any knowledge of Thanksgiving I have is unfortunately 100% gleaned from pop culture. Fortunately, pop culture also includes Addams Family Values so... I just did my best.

Over the years, the Institute had acquired a fair population of students and staff from all over the world. So when Thanksgiving rolled around, most of the mansion residents treated the holiday as they would any other holiday of the year. The few who did celebrate it tended to spend the weekend with their family. The rest simply stayed home, though if enough were in the mood, they would prepare a dinner that was just a little bit more luxurious than was their norm.

There were quite a few new faces that joined the Institute in the last months. So while Charles hadn't been particularly traditional about Thanksgiving dinners in several decades, he thought it was a good idea when Ororo suggested they all have a nice, quiet dinner together. She brought the idea to rest of the Institute and, to her surprise, received quite a few volunteers and suggestions once she voiced out her idea of everyone getting to add a native dish of their choice to the menu. It quickly became a larger-scale project than she'd anticipated, but she didn't mind the extra work.

Then, three days before Thanksgiving, Charles sent Ororo, Jean and Warren out on a mission involving brewing mutant unrest in Jersey City. Rogue had come along "just in case", but they'd all hoped that with the team Charles had handpicked, they could all smooth things over with a bit of diplomacy.

A fight between extremists from both pro- and anti-mutant sides had spiraled out of control and the police couldn't put out the fires (both literal and metaphorical) by themselves. Storm and Rogue had been helping in putting out the flames, when gunshots rang out from the crowd.

And that was how Beast suddenly had two patients down in the medbay coming into Thanksgiving weekend.

-x-

Rogue woke up early the next day, and as soon as Logan heard she was finally awake, he shouldered his way into the infrmary and brusquely asked her if she wanted to borrow his healing factor.

"Woulda given it to ya last night, but apparently you need to be awake for it to work best." He said grumpily. He hated seeing her hurt when he could simply lend her his mutation, but Charles and Hank convinced him it was best if she was conscious for the exchange.

"... Pretty much, yeah." Rogue said tiredly, eyes still closed. She'd only touched him for four or five seconds, but his healing factor was already knitting her cracked ribs back to condition. "This way I can do it without drainin' ya to death. 'Roro would be mad as hell if she woke up only ta find you dead asleep."

Logan didn't reply. When Rogue opened her eyes a fraction, she saw him looking over at Storm, a few beds away.

With a bit of Logan in her head, she could remember how tense he'd felt when he and Chuck were sitting at the control room, keeping in contact with Red and Wings as they flew the Blackbird back from the mission. How a chair had splintered under his grip when he'd seen Jean limping down the Blackbird's ramp, concentrating fiercely to use her TK to transfer Ororo onto a waiting gurney. How he'd yelled at Hank to let him into the fucking medbay already, only for Hank to throw him bodily out because he couldn't work with Logan hovering about. How Charles and Jean's reassurances that Ororo's injuries were no longer life threatening had done little to reassure him.

Luckily (or unluckily), she also had traces of Storm in her head from when she borrowed her powers the night before. So while it gave Rogue a perspective of aspects their relationship that she definitely, really, honestly didn't need to know, it also helped quite a bit in dealing with a difficult Logan.

After a few more minutes of letting him brood and letting the borrowed healing factor finish its job, Rogue sat up and stretched. Logan looked at her warily. "... Shouldn't ya be sitting down?"

She glared at him. "An' letcha keep broodin' like that? Nah, we're gonna get outta here. C'mon." She swung her legs over the side of the bed and strode out the door. Logan blinked; Rogue had an attitude, but he distinctly recognized that stride and that posture as someone else's.

He realized it wouldn't be very smart to argue with her right now. Especially if she still had bits of Ororo's personality and powers left over from the night before.

-x-

Rogue gathered what remained of the students into the Rec Room and wasted no time in letting them know that Ororo would be upset if they let all their Thanksgiving plans fall by the wayside just because she was out of commission.

"So here's what we're gonna do," she said with Logan's growl and Storm's commanding presence. Everyone, right down to Charles, was slightly afraid of her and hadn't had the heart or courage to argue. "We're gonna have that dinner come hell or high water. An' it's gonna be amazing. Hank, you'll be on kitchen duty. Take the New Mutants with you; maybe pare 'Roro's menu down a bit if we need ta, then figure out who's in charge of makin' what." She paused, barely giving the New Mutants scrambling to their feet a second glance before finding her next target.

"I know Scott an' Jean are goin' down to her folks for the weekend, so that leaves Kitty and War', on logistics. You kidlets," she pointed at Jamie, Hisako, Paige. "Are gonna help 'em make sure the dining room'll be all set on Sunday."

"What about us?" Kurt piped up from his perch on the chandelier. Laura stood a fair bit away, but was listening in rapt attention. She'd never seen Rogue like this before. It was oddly awe-inspiring. "Do we have marching orders too?"

Rogue gave him a determined look. "We've got shopping ta do."

"Oh, can I come-"

"No Kitten," Rogue sighed, interrupting her quickly, "It's not that kind of shopping."

"Oh."

-x-

Logan was trailing after Rogue. As planned, Laura and Kurt had come along, but they'd split up at the supermarket entrance to cover more ground. Logan was along because Rogue wouldn't take no for an answer. Storm's presence in her mind was slowly fading, but Logan's own residual stubbornness had been enough to let her win over his, well, stubbornness.

He stood by the freezer, the scowl on his face apparently not enough to scare any of the moms he'd run into while his shopping cart blocked the way. Rogue seemed to be taking her sweet time retrieving the turkeys they'd pre-ordered, and his patience could only be stretched so much...

At his third growl at a passing, unfazed soccer mom, Rogue finally turned around to arch a regal eyebrow at him.

"Will it kill you to pretend to be nice for just five more minutes?"

Logan scowled. "Remind us never to let'cha have this particular combination of psyches ever again."

"I dunno, maybe I'll keep it mind. Can't have 'Ro be the only one who can get ya to buckle down and listen when ya can't even figure out why you're so turned around by all this."

'Cause she isn't always around to do it, was the unspoken second half of that statement, and it hung between them heavily. Logan moodily moved to help Rogue load the two turkeys into the cart, grateful for the distraction.

Once the birds were loaded and the cart got moving, Rogue fell into step beside him. She kept her eyes alert, looking anywhere but at the gruff man she recognized as a father figure. Ororo's psyche had been helping her find the right words to say up until now, but more and more Rogue was finding that she was once again capable of speaking her own mind.

"... I know you're worried. An' maybe a little scared." Logan swiveled a narrowed gaze at her, but Rogue barreled on before he could get a word in. "An' that's okay. She's been hurt before, but it's the first time since you guys started yer thing, an' I guess it's scary to realize how it feels when someone you care about that much is in that much danger."

Rogue looked away, finding Logan's gaze too unnerving to hold. She examined the sweet potatoes on display, trying to split her attention between the produce aisle and gathering her own thoughts, separating them from the last bits of Logan's psyche floating around her mind.

"She's a strong woman though, an' you shouldn't need me or anyone to remind you of that. So just... just trust her I guess. 'Cause she's gonna be fine. 'An maybe let her know how this whole thing made you feel or whatever cause that seems like a pretty big deal." She huffed, turning a little red. Logan's gaze was still on her, so she turned away completely and busied herself with picking out sweet potatoes for the pie she was going to make for their dessert tomorrow.

It took a few more beats, and for her to get the cart moving to the next aisle, but soon a gruff and muttered thanks reached her ears. She shot him a shy, tiny smile.

"Wish you'd done this back home and not at the local produce section though." He grumbled, later, studiously ignoring the nasty looks several mothers were shooting him as they queued up at the cashier. Kurt and Laura had been waiting for them, their own cart filled to the brim with other, assorted food items.

"Eh, you'll live." She grinned. "Plus I'm sure 'Ro's gonna be impressed once she finds you survived a Thanksgiving weekend grocery run. I mean, that's a danger all its own, y'know?"

-x-

In the end, Ororo woke up to little fanfare. Everyone had been too busy finishing final touches for the dinner, so only Logan was there to greet her with tired eyes and a fierce squeeze of her hand. She sat up gingerly with his help, more surprised by the current state of affairs in the mansion than she was by the curt debriefing she got of the mission she'd been on.

"They're really all up there? Preparing dinner?" She asked in disbelief. She'd half-expected them to just do whatever they wanted, never thinking they'd go along with the ambitious dinner she'd planned if she wasn't there to push things along.

"Rogue had a bit of you and a bit of me left over. Not pushin' through with it wasn't an option, apparently." He saw the rush of affection and pride go through her. The resulting chuckle, though weak, made something unexpectedly and overwhelmingly warm blossom from within him.

"I wish I'd seen it." Ororo shook her head, smiling.

He laced their fingers together, the most he could do without hurting her.

"I'll tell ya all about it over turkey, darlin'."

A/N: Mushy, squishy RoLo is good for you! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Also, do leave a review if you can, and don't hesitate to correct me on anything that needs it. Thanks for reading!