Penumbra
by Elizabeth

Keywords: X-Men: The Movie fic, post-movie, Scott, Logan, Jean, Rogue, Scott POV
Category: Slash
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Distribution: My site http://www.ficorama.net and Kate Bolin's x- men movie slash archive if she's interested. Anyone else, please ask.
Thanks: A debt is owed to Shana's magnificent fic "More Than Sometimes," and I thank her for being so brilliant and so inspiring. Thanks also go to Molly, whose fabulosity knows no bounds.
Note: I admit to having no knowledge of the comic-verse and to having cheerfully embroidered a past for Scott.

Sometimes he thinks Rogue might know. But only sometimes.

Sometimes he sees her sitting in a classroom as he walks down the hall. Once she was in an empty one, eating crackerjacks. He watched her fish around in the box for the prize and smiled because it was nice to see that. Happiness doesn't come easily for her, though he's never seen anyone want it more.

But then she licked her fingers and he realized--

No lying to himself, he promised he was going to stop that--he watched her slide a finger into her mouth and then back out again; watched it emerge, glistening, and thought of desire for the impossible. And more than that he thought of what was inside her, of memories that belongs to another, and wanted.

he realized that all the looks she and Bobby had been shooting each other might lead to something. Maybe something dangerous, maybe something not. But still, something he needed to keep an eye on. He watched her pull the prize out of the box and open it, saw her fold the paper that surrounded it into a tiny square.

And how easy it was to watch her, pretty Rogue, all earnest face and shiny eyes. He couldn't see her, not really--whenever he looked at her he always saw someone else's face-- but he could imagine the feel of her hair and her soft skin well enough. Jean looked at him sometimes and he knew she was reassured. Knew he loved her, wanted her. Rogue was just wondering and she knew that. Maybe she welcomed it, a little.

Rogue saw him watching her and her face pinked. He grinned in response, easily. Some people have trouble smiling but Scott is not one of them. He's familiar with joy. He likes it. Some people run from comfort but he's always run to it.

She stopped what she was doing, fingers held out in front of her, and he held out his own hand to show her that it was ok, she didn't have to reach for her gloves. He trusted her. She needed that sign and he knew that. He remembered too well what it was like to have people turn away from his eyes, from his sight.

Her eyes darkened and he knew someone else was remembering for her. She stood up, sticky fingers splayed out by her sides. He could still see traces of popcorn on a few of them.

She wiped her hands on her jeans, slowly, deliberately

Cyclops, right? You wanna move out of my way?

and shook herself, like she was an animal, awakening. Like she was shedding one skin and putting on another.

"What do you want?" she said, and her voice dropped. He could almost hear Logan's growl. Even though he'd been gone for a while, he was still around. Always lurking and waiting for just the right moment, which usually seemed to be any moment.

"Nothing." he said. "I don't want anything from you."

Rogue smiled at that, smiled Logan's smile, slightly feral and infinitely mocking. Infinitely knowing. "You sure?" she said.

He wished he could take off his visor and open his eyes, reassure himself that Logan wasn't there. But he couldn't, so he left.

When he got down to the end of the hall, Rogue's frightened voice reached him. Her voice, softer and thinner and far more hesitant. "Scott?"

He turned back and smiled at her. It didn't come as easily this time but he did it anyway. He heard her whisper that she was sorry but he pretended he didn't hear it and kept walking.

Jean was in the lab and she did smile when he came in. He could tell because the curve was still on her mouth when he kissed her. He pressed his palms into her back and kept his eyes open, glad there were some things that even Jean couldn't see.

After Magneto was captured it took a while for things to go back to normal. Xavier was distracted with recovery and then with visiting Magneto in prison and Scott watched his mentor's eyes cloud over with sorrow whenever he discussed "Erik."

It was Rogue, mostly, that made Xavier so sad. Magneto was nothing to Xavier, or nothing he would admit to. But Erik, snarling and screaming out from the form of a seventeen-year-old girl--that gave Xavier pause. It gave them all pause. When she would tell stories that she never could have heard at dinner, reminisces of nights spent in New York in the 50s, they would all stare at the table to avoid looking at Xavier's longing and hurt eyes.

Holding someone tight--addiction to the curve of a chin, to the bend of a knee, to the feel of a hand--maybe not someone you loved, maybe not even someone you trusted, but someone you wanted, wanted soul- deep and in a way that scared you--Scott listened to those stories of Charles and Erik and would grab Jean's hand, hold on tight. He was safe, he told himself. He was safe.

And besides Erik there was Logan. Rogue would follow Jean around, the gaze in her eyes not that of a tentative girl, but that of someone who knew what Jean wanted better than she did. Rogue would go up to Jean after class, leaning in so far that Jean would retreat into her chair, her spine pressed against the back of it so hard that sometimes there would be red marks on her skin at night. Scott would rub them and she would sigh and arch into his hands and murmur and sometimes he wondered what she would do if it was Logan leaning over her.

And what would you do?

Logan didn't contact anyone in the school and they all watched Rogue run to check her mailbox every day for one month, then two. After two she didn't bother anymore and Scott sat with Xavier why he talked to her. Rogue said she didn't mind that she hadn't heard from Logan and that she was fine. Her voice quavered and Scott knew she was lying. He could hear tears gathering inside her, welling up in her throat with each sound she made. He reached for the box of tissues that Xavier kept in his second desk drawer and turned back to see Rogue's hand wrapped around Xavier's, the fabric of her glove a dark contrast against his skin. She was murmuring something in another language-- German, Scott thought--and her eyes, when they met his, were blank and not interested in him at all.

After she left, he stood up and tried to think of something to say to Xavier. I'm sorry sounded too trite and the rest would lead to revelations that he didn't think he wanted to know about. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more stories.

"I worry about her," Xavier said. "All those memories inside her and no way to release them, no way to touch anyone--we must take care, Scott. She is very fragile."

He nodded and put the tissues away. "I'll keep an eye on her. Jean says she's starting to cope with having Logan's memories, which is good."

Xavier steepled his fingers together. "And you? How do you feel about having a reminder of Logan around?"

He shut the drawer so fast that caught his hand. He looked down at his skin, at the rapid whitening of all the flesh around what was caught in the drawer, thought about all the blood pooled down in his fingers, about how it was trapped, unable to move. "It's fine."

"Scott...."

He pulled his hand free and flexed it by his side. "I said it's fine. Jean loves me. I know that. Logan was just....Logan."

Xavier's wheelchair moved towards him again. He listened to the hum of its motor as it moved across the carpet, suddenly too loud in a too-quite room. He heard Xavier take a deep breath and thought of stories again, thought of Rogue's stories of New York

Thought of watching someone move across a room, the way exhilaration and desire hits you so hard that you feel sick; not for this person you think, not now, but there they are and your heart beats for them and you wonder about the scent of their skin

"Please don't say anything else." he whispered and heard the rasp of Xavier's hands as they clenched around his wheelchair arms once, then twice.

He left the study then, pulling the door shut behind him slowly. Jean was teaching class but she came out into the hall when she saw him walk by. "You're upset," she said carefully and he nodded.

"Logan," she said and he nodded again.

"Don't worry," she told him and her hand touched his face, a hesitant butterfly stroke that grazed his skin. He leaned into her fingers. It was much easier than thinking.

"You know that I love you," she whispered. "I'd never throw away what we have. Not for anyone."

Jean needed more practice at reading minds. He encouraged her to do it; he wanted her to stretch her wings and fly. Sometimes he thought that maybe he wanted her to guess all the things he kept hidden inside himself.

But only sometimes.

He always says Jean was his first love.

If pressed, he'll mention the high school girlfriend that broke his heart, who left him when it became obvious that he was evolving into something more than human. Usually, no one presses. No one thinks that he had a life before Jean--most of the students seem to believe that he sprouted from Xavier's head fully grown and his heart already in Jean's possession. He doesn't mind that most of the time.

Sometimes, when Rogue tosses her hair back and snarls questions in Logan's voice, he sees something in the corners of Rogue's big no- longer innocent eyes, sees the depths of a winter-bright gaze that push aside the layer of self he's constructed and then he thinks that she

He

might have guessed a corner of the truth. Might see further inside him than anyone else ever has, even Jean. Might see what it cost him to have his heart start beating again once, might see how afraid he is that it will stop for someone else and that he'll stop being safe.

There was someone before Jean. Someone he loved.

He told Jean this when he first realized he loved her, told her as he sat with her in the garden of Xavier's house and held her hand. After he finished talking, she smiled the sweetest smile he'd ever seen. "I'm glad," she said. "I'm glad you had someone that loved you." Her hair blazed red under the bright light of the sun and in that glow anything was possible. He fell for Jean because of the understanding she offered, for the scent of her skin, for the touch of her hand. He kissed her for the first time that day and he didn't hesitate at all. He left his past behind when he walked back inside the mansion with her, her hand wrapped in his, feeling the pulse of her wrist beat against his own.

He's the King of Pretending and Jean has always let him have his kingdom. She's let him pretend that his past could be left behind; she let him pretend he'd forgotten it.

He met Daniel when he was eighteen. After his life had wrecked up on the shores of mutation, breaking apart shortly after his sixteenth birthday, he found himself a ward of the state. No one wanted to deal with him--not the couple that had adopted him after his parents had died, not the friends he had--no one. He was sent to a group home in the northern corner of the state, up where the land was still undeveloped and it was possible to walk for miles and never get anywhere.

The home was...it was different, and he didn't mind it at all at first. He had to wear bandages on his eyes all the time--there was no benevolent Professor with mechanical design skills in his life then-- but he'd seen what his eyes could do and accepted it. There wasn't much to do--the state mandated therapy, but of course finding a qualified therapist who was willing to move to nowhere and work with mutants was an impossibility.

At first the freedom from school--from his everyday life--it was a joy. He had no demands, no responsibilities. But as the weeks dragged on into months he started to feel trapped. Smothered. Every day was the same, an endless sea of nothing stretched out in front of him. Once a month the school was visited by various government agency officials and Scott soon grew to feel like a bird in a not very gilded cage. He was on show, and it wasn't one that anyone really wanted to see.

Two days after his eighteenth birthday, he fled the school. Security was minimal--there was nothing around for fifty miles in either direction except scrubby forest; acres of shrunken and wizened trees punctuated by the occasional flat stretch of barren soil. But past those fifty miles were real roads that went to read places and Scott figured he deserved to see the world--even if he couldn't really see it.

He overestimated himself. His senses had sharpened because he couldn't see anymore--but not enough. He spent two exhausting and miserable days in the woods. He finally went back to the home. It was the worst humiliation of his life.

Not only was he unable to leave--no one bothered to try to find him. He was no one. He was a mutant, number 1264 in the state's case files, and he meant nothing to them.

He was allowed to spend one night in the infirmary when he came back and as he lay there, watching the blackness all around him and feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, someone spoke to him. "What was it like?"

He wanted to say 'What was what like?' but the fact was the home was a lonely place and he'd learned to treasure every conversation he got. Most everyone who lived in the home was ashamed of what they were and they all avoided each other studiously, as if admitting that they knew of each other's existence would somehow make their own worth even less. "Strange. Cold. I wish I'd kept going, now."

The voice sighed. "Why....why did you come back?"

"I couldn't do it. I didn't know where I was, didn't know how to keep going." He pushed his hands into the bed, let the tears comes. His mutated eyes burned them as soon as they rose and bright spots of pain exploded across the darkness that made up his sight.

"So you'll just have to try again."

No one had ever believed in him. He'd been an average child, a mediocre student--the only thing he'd ever done that was outstanding was develop an extremely destructive mutation. He sat up and looked towards the voice and he heard the monitor that was measuring his heart rate beep, heard it move into a slightly faster tempo than before.

That's how he met Daniel.

In March, Xavier asked him for a favor.

Spring was coming to the school, slowly. Students were starting to gaze out the windows of the classroom longingly and all of their grades started to slip. Scott's students in his mechanics class forgot everything they'd learned about the way engines worked and he had to re-give the same test twice. He hated failing students.

Jean was teaching literature--she said she liked the break from science, said she liked leaving the world of absolutes behind. He wondered about that, wondered if maybe Jean felt constrained by the life she'd created for herself.

But only sometimes.

He was sitting with Jean in their room one afternoon, grading papers. Jean's feet were resting on his legs and he was idly admiring the tiny curve of her pinky toe. He ran an index finger over it, and she looked up at him and smiled.

"Am I interrupting?"

Jean turned towards Xavier, pulling her feet up off Scott's legs and sliding them around to one side. "Of course not."

There was a problem, which wasn't really a surprise because there was almost always one. Mystique had stopped playing at Senator Kelly--CNN had just broken the story of the Senator's "disappearance." Jean turned on their tv and they all watched as the anchorman spoke of the "tragic loss" that Senator's Kelly disappearance heralded.

"And this morning," Xavier said, "the Birmingham Post Herald ran an article about a mysterious string of killings that occurred in Riverton, a small town near the Alabama/Tennessee border. Apparently, a group of high-ranking government officials was passing through the town on their way to the U.S. Army Military Command in Huntsville when they were murdered--but yet one of those officials showed up in Huntsville later that same day."

They all talked about what they could do. Jean suggested sending a few people to Huntsville, to try and figure out what Mystique had done. She had some contacts in the government still and she started calling people right away to see if she could get some sort of clearance onto the base.

Scott got up and looked at the road atlas he and Jean had bought a few years ago to use when they drove out to Chicago so Jean could go to a research seminar on advances in genetics screening. Riverton sat in the top corner of Alabama, very close to Tennessee.

And to Mississippi.

He thought of Rogue, of the long sounds of her accent, of her stories- -the only stories that were just hers-- of growing up in the South. In Meridian, Mississippi. Meridian was only a day away from Riverton. He thought of Mystique, who knew the power that Rogue possessed, knew that she could destroy anyone with just a touch.

He looked over at Xavier's face and even though he couldn't read anyone else's mind, he could see that Xavier already knew what he had just discovered. He knew what was being asked. He put the atlas away, carefully, and then spoke. "I'll go to Riverton, just to see if maybe Mystique left any clues there," he told Jean. "You and Storm should go to Huntsville and find out what happened there."

Xavier left then, his chair rolling silently out of the room and down the hall. "Keep in touch," he called back to them. "I'll see what I can find out here."

Jean came over to where he was standing and wrapped her arms around him. "We can leave tomorrow morning. I suppose this will at least give me a break from grading papers on Eliot. If I have to read one more paper that talks about that poem--you know, that one about how March is the cruelest month..."

He pulled away from her, gently, and ignored the spots that danced in front of his eyes. "April," he said. "March isn't a month for anything."

It turned out that Daniel had arrived at the home the day before Scott returned --he'd been transferred in from a large state hospital where he'd been treated for a year. "At first they didn't know what was wrong with me," Daniel told him. "The doctors ran all kinds of tests. But about four months ago, it became obvious that my problem wasn't really something that medicine could fix. And once my parents stopped coming to visit me..."

Scott left the infirmary, but Daniel didn't. He didn't think anything of it at first, just went to visit Daniel every day, guessed that he had some sort of mutation that needed time to stabilize. That happened a lot--the fluctuating hormone levels of teenagers made mutation 's course unpredictable. And he liked Daniel. He liked having someone to talk to, he liked hearing Daniel laugh, he liked that Daniel didn't care that he couldn't see.

But after a month he realized something wasn't right, realized the Daniel wasn't going to leave the infirmary anytime soon. He wouldn't tell him what was wrong at first, just sat in silence while Scott stared at the sound of his breathing and wondered what was going on. "Look," he finally said. "I trust you. Don't you trust me?"

He heard Daniel's bed shift and something cool and dry pressed against his hand. "What's this?" Scott asked, pressing his fingers down. What he was holding gave, a little, and he could feel the faint outline of what felt like cracks on the surface.

"My hand."

Daniel's skin. The thought made his breath catch and he welcomed the feeling. It was the first time in years he'd felt something stronger than boredom, frustration, or humiliation. It was like waking up, it was like turning a corner and finding that you didn't need to go anywhere else, that you'd reached where you were supposed to be. He stroked a finger down the lines on Daniel's palm, knew he was touching the heart of it. He liked that.

But even with those feelings, that exhilaration, coursing through him he knew something was wrong.

"It's my mutation," Daniel said quietly. "Some people get superpowers- -or so I've heard. Some people get laser eyes." His voice dipped into teasing as he said that and Scott smiled. When Daniel spoke about his eyes, they didn't seem like such a curse. "And me...I get this. My skin--all of me--it's turning solid. Like a shell. If my body could live through the transformation, I'd be practically indestructible. No skin that can bleed, no organs that can get diseases or age..."

"Could live though?"

"There's no way I will," Daniel said quietly. "Do you think my heart will keep beating? It's a muscle. It needs to be able to move--to contract and expand--to keep on beating. If my blood vessels turn to bone--if--god, not if--when--they do, they'll be solid. No blood will be able to pass through them. And if my blood isn't liquid..." He broke off and Scott felt Daniel's hand slip away from his.

He reached for it, groping his own hand out blindly. Daniel's fingers met his and Scott felt the smooth edges of them, the cool weight of them. His own hand felt like it was too warm, like his skin was too sensitive. He hated the world for hating mutants and for shutting him away. He hated that he was blind. He hated the he lived somewhere he wasn't wanted. He'd always thought that his heart was dead, that it had been killed by an indifferent god.

But at that moment he felt it beat again, felt the pain and joy of caring for another person bloom inside him. He raised Daniel's hand to his mouth and pressed it to the center of Daniel's palm, knew he was opening himself up in a way he'd never done. It was the purest feeling he'd ever known, to act and know the absolute rightness of it.

He felt the jump of Daniel's pulse under his mouth, felt the slow movement of blood as it pushed through skin that was turning into the cool smooth surface of bone and felt his own heart beat in reply.

He got to Riverton in the late afternoon. He'd left Jean and Storm in Huntsville with the promise that he'd be back as soon as possible. The town was small--tiny, in fact--and he knew he stood out like a sore thumb. He checked into a motel that had obviously seen better days anyway and went into town.

It was warmer than he thought it would be. In Westchester, spring was starting to arrive. In Riverton, it had. He stopped by the town's store--a brick building that was about an eighth of the size of a mini-mart in New York. Inside, the shelves stretched from floor to ceiling and he stood making awkward idle conversation with the kid who was working behind the counter. "We get government types in here sometimes," the kid told him. "Kind of look like you, except for the shades. You gonna buy anything?"

He picked up a pack of gum and put it down on the counter, then put a twenty next to it. "Do these government types go anywhere when they're here?"

His twenty disappeared into the register and the kid looked over at him, tilting his head a little to the side, as if gauging how much Scott really wanted a reply. "There's a bar," the kid finally said. "Over off Route 21."

There was a bar off Route 21. It looked about the same size as the store and when Scott walked inside he realized that maybe it was smaller. It was packed with people and so dark that he could hardly see. There was no music, but the hum of conversation was so loud that the walls looked like they were vibrating.

He didn't bother trying to get a beer--the line at the bar was long and the bartender seemed too harried for conversation. If business was that brisk all the time, chances are he wouldn't have noticed anything much.

He opened the pack of gum he'd paid twenty bucks for and stuck a stick of it in his mouth. It tasted like cloves and he took a quick look at the wrapper. He couldn't read all the words, but he saw a few and they were enough. Clove gum. "Figures," he muttered, and started walking to the back of the bar.

He told himself he was wasting his time and that he wasn't going to find anything. He told himself that, and didn't leave. Instead, he kept walking and wondered if someone was watching him. He knew someone was.

His heart knotted up under his ribs and he told himself he was waiting for something bad to happen.

Liar. Waiting, heart beating in anticipation, opening for obsession. He knew. He knew. Maybe he'd always known.

There was someone leaning against the back wall, another local--a beer in one hand, head bent forward a little bit so all Scott could see was dark hair, parted, and a thin line of scalp gleaming in the faint light. His heart beat; it unknotted, let go. He could hear its rhythm in his ears, felt the vibration of its beat sing through his body.

"Clove gum, huh? Stuff stinks worse than this place. You must have met the kid at the store."

Logan's voice.

He nodded and looked into Logan's eyes.

Those were the eyes he remembered, that he'd seen back behind Rogue's

"What are you doing here?" he asked and Logan smiled, mocking him without saying a word. He took a sip from his beer and Scott watched his throat work and then stared blindly at the wall.

"I heard about Senator Kelly," Logan finally said. "And I was in the area and saw the paper. So I thought maybe..."

"How are Rogue's parents?"

"Alive," Logan grunted. "I didn't talk to them. But they're in Meridian still. Got a picture of Rogue on their mantle, a real big one. Reckon they miss her."

He didn't say anything to that, just felt his car keys in his hands and stared at Logan's beer bottle, at the beads of moisture running down its sides.

Felt hesitation fall away and wish build inside him. His heart was beating, and Logan looked at him and didn't look away, no mockery in his eyes.

"I should call Xavier," he said. "Let him know that Rogue is safe for now."

"Don't need to. I called him this morning, after I left Meridian."

And came to Riverton. Not to Huntsville, though he had no doubt that Xavier had told Logan what they were all doing.

Not to Huntsville. Not to Jean.

To me.

He took a deep breath, knew he was going to stop being safe. "What do you want?"

It was March when Scott realized something. He realized that it hurt to love someone completely, to love them with every inch of one's soul. He left the hospital at the end of the month, his eyes still wet from tears that burned when he shed them, and promised himself that he would do whatever it took to keep his heart beating for himself in the future. He would keep himself safe.

At the beginning of the month the snow had finally started to thaw. Two days before Daniel died, Scott opened all the windows in the infirmary so Daniel could feel the wind sweeping through and rattling the doors of spring.

No one in the home noticed that Scott opened the windows for Daniel. No one cared enough to--they were just two more mutants in an overcrowded home filled with them. Daniel's death wouldn't--and didn't--matter to the state or even to just about anyone else in the home.

After he opened the windows, Scott went and sat down next to Daniel, listened to the loud rasp of his breathing. He'd had more and more trouble recently and sometimes at night he'd have to be hooked up to a ventilator to force his sluggish lungs to open and close. "Reminding the muscles--they're stupid that way," Daniel always said. But whenever Scott kissed him he felt the unyielding curve of Daniel's mouth under his own, felt the smooth cold--no longer just cool--surface of his lips and knew the end was coming.

The winds blew and howled through the room, drowning out every other sound, and Scott waited till they cleared, till the room was quiet again. "I love you," he said.

Daniel turned--Scott heard the groan of his skin as it protested movement--and picked up his hand. He moved Scott's fingers so that they rested against the pulse of his throat. He could feel the faint flutter of it, of Daniel's heart beating. It was slow and hesitant-- but it was still there. "It beats for you," Daniel said. "Just for you."

The wind began to blow again and Scott turned his face up towards the sun, feeling Daniel's heart beat under his hand.

Logan reached out one hand and Scott saw a hint of metal flash, then vanish, in the dim light of the bar, felt Logan's hand curve into the back of his neck like a question. "What do you want?" he said and a threat was implicit in the way his eyebrows had drawn together, in the dark tone of his voice.

Scott felt the arc of that hand, the weight of it, the warmth of it. It soaked into every inch of his skin. It was as hot as a flame and he wanted to burn.

The sounds of the bar dropped away and in the tilt of Logan's head he knew the answer to the question. He saw the answer to a question that Xavier had once asked Logan.

'How long has it been?' That's what Xavier once asked. That's what he said to Logan that night; he swallowed caution and safety and stepped off the ledge, held his head high and said "How long has it been?"

A long time, maybe. But not a forgotten one.

Logan listened to him speak and didn't say a word. But his hand moved, his index finger sliding down the nape of Scott's neck, a slow push of flesh against flesh. A question answered. When they walked outside, the March winds blew strong and clear and Scott's hands shook just a little bit.

He woke up the next morning, cocooned in an empty motel room that smelled of mold and lost souls. He inhaled and smelled snow--

Snow, and the smell of woodsmoke and musk, the scent of cold that shouldn't exist on another person. But it did. All of it drawn together into one person who spoke in fragments and had eyes that burned through his visor and into his soul. He'd been pulled apart and put back together. He remembered a girl's voice, telling stories of desire burning for the skin on the back of someone's neck and he knew he wasn't safe at all. Not anymore.

and when he left the room, he closed the door behind him. He let it slam and listened to the echo it made.

Sometimes, at night, with Jean wrapped in his arms, he thinks about that noise. He thinks about how he felt impossibly weary and exhilarated; his skin stretched tight and alive, his whole body vibrating with memory. With aftershocks of pleasure that took days to fade. And when he heard the stories that Rogue told, stories of obsession and addiction to another, the start of realization he felt was one that didn't fade. It just sat inside him, warm and waiting.

Sometimes, he remembers all of this. He might even wonder a little.

But only sometimes.

The End