Thank you to those who have commented. I'm glad to know that some people are enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it!

psyche b

3. Conflict Resolution

"Why the hell did you just leave like that?" he said. The demand for an answer clear in his voice.

Claire stepped back, as if she had been struck. Then she got angry. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, and you're gonna tell me why!" He was pacing in the small space.

"Well what the hell were you expecting me to do? Sit there and wait for you to just drop back in sometime?" She pushed past him and tossed another log onto the fire. The last thing that room needed was more heat, but she had to do something. When she stood up and turned, he was less than a foot away from him. Claire wouldn't give him the satisfaction of stepping back.

"Me? I'm not the one who just disappeared!" He was shouting now. Claire couldn't suppress the little tremor that ran down her spine.

"Selective memory?" she asked sarcastically. She knew that the words would sting, even if he didn't show it. "You're the one just slipped away under the cover of darkness!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

She pushed past him and lit the lamp she used to knit by, hoping he wouldn't seem as imposing with a little more light. "Yeah, like you don't know."

"Humor me," he said. There was an angry growl in his voice. Claire's heart started to pound. She swallowed hard.

"Fine," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "The last time we talked was a Tuesday night, can we agree on that?"

"Yeah. Go on."

The memory of that last night was etched into her mind. For months after, she kept playing it over and over, trying to figure out what she had done wrong. "We watched a movie, or you did. It was something that didn't interest me so I fell asleep. At around 10:30 you woke me up and suggested I go to bed. I asked if you still wanted to run in the morning and you said yes and we said goodnight. How am I doing?" He eyes were clashing with his. His posture had softened just a bit.

"That's the way I remember it." He tried to sound neutral. "Go on."

"So, of course I come downstairs at 5:30 the next morning and sit in the kitchen and wait. And wait. I ate an orange, read the paper, and you didn't show up-"

"Ya didn't think to read the note I left you though." He was angry again, and hurt.

"What note?" Claire asked. She was completely confused and making no effort to hide it.

"Oh come on!"

"I don't know what you're talking about! There was no note anywhere!"

She could see the confusion registering on his face. "The one I put inside your pink water bottle with your name on it. You always kept it in the kitchen and you always brought it with you when we went running." He wasn't shouting anymore, and he seemed to be as confused as she was.

"I filled that bottle while I was waiting, there was no note in it." She sat down, hoping that he would do the same. He did.

"You just assumed I was gone?"

"Well, it's not exactly an unheard of thing for you to do." She attempted a weak smile and failed miserably.

The tug at the corner of his mouth was more successful. "I'll give you that."

"I didn't just assume though," Claire went on. "While I was waiting Jean came in and asked if there was any coffee, then she asked what I was doing up. I told her I was waiting for you, and she said you'd left on one of your 'sabbaticals'." The realization dawned on Claire as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "And I'm the biggest idiot in the history of the world."

As soon as Logan had started to spend time with Claire, Jean developed a strange jealousy that Claire couldn't understand. She knew Jean and Logan were flirtatious in spite of Jean's relationship with Scott. For all Claire knew it went further than that, but she had never understood why the other woman saw her as a threat to anything. Especially not after he saw the scar.

"No you're not." He plowed one hand through his hair. His anger from earlier dissipated, but the upset remained. "So you just left?"

"Well, I was planning to go three days later anyway." Claire didn't want to admit the real reason. She felt the heat of a blush stain her cheeks. "I heard they might close down highways to contain the spread of the flu, so I left early."

It wasn't a total lie. Speculation about quarantines had been rampant for weeks, but the fact that she left just before one had actually been imposed was pure luck. The other part was that she'd gotten so damn used to practically tripping over him everywhere that she wasn't sure how she was going to face those three days alone. School was out, most of the students were gone already. She knew that missing him so much was silly when she'd only known him a short time, but she wasn't exactly thinking rationally when she tossed her hastily packed bags into the car and drove off.

If he picked up on the omission, he didn't mention it.

"I'm sorry you thought I just vanished," she said quietly. "That wasn't my intention." Her eyes held his again. He moved a lock of now-unbound hair out of her face with one finger.

"I didn't mean for you to think I disappeared either."

She smiled a little. The distance between them on the sofa seemed to much and too little at the same time. Claire found that she couldn't hold those intense eyes for very long though.

"What was in the note," she asked finally.

"Where I was actually goin'," he said. "You knew one of the students ran off?"

"Yeah, but that was nearly three weeks before."

"Chuck figured out where he was. He knew I wasn't about to take any shit from a sixteen year old, so he sent me after him. I told ya I'd be back that night, or the next day at the latest."

Claire smiled a little and glanced up at him again. "All this time I was so mad at you and the whole thing was my fault."

"I wouldn't say entirely your fault." He smiled a little then. Some of the tension that had collected in her lower back eased.

"Thanks." She looked down at her hands.

"What did you do when you got home? Or did you come straight here?" Claire knew he hadn't been thrilled with the idea of Claire coming back to spend time with the grandmother who never lifted a finger to protect her. Claire knew that her grandmother was just as scarred in her own ways and since her grandfather had died just before she went to work at Xavier's, Claire had seen no reason to stay away anymore.

"Oh I went home, and I did was just about everyone was doing then. I watched the family die off one by one. First my grandmother, but that was only five hours after I got back so she was unconscious the whole time. After that there were three great aunts and a great uncle within two weeks. Everyone else that I had any contact with was gone by then, except Uncle Jackson and I didn't really know that he was still around either." Claire paused. "Then I got it."

His eyes widened. "You had it?"

"Yes, but I was in a hospital so it wasn't so bad," she said quickly.

"Still-"

"It's late for me," she said, not looking at him. "You don't have to go to sleep if you don't want to, but I think I need to." She managed a little smile.

He stroked her cheek. "Nah. After sleeping on the ground for so long this couch is going to feel damn good."

"No," she said. "I'm sleeping over here."

"Claire-"

"I'm shorter than you and I usually end up sleeping over her anyway. Besides, I already changed the sheets."

"Ya sure?" he asked.

"Yeah," she smiled and got up, intending to wind the clock. She paused with her back to him, then looked over her shoulder. "Logan, what I said about your memory-"

He smirked a little. "Hell, I thought you were gonna slug me for a minute there. I figure I got off easy."

Claire smiled and almost told him how much she'd missed him.

Logan lay in bed, stretched out and utterly comfortable. He could tell from the sound of her breathing that Claire was nearly asleep. He closed his eyes and listened to the soft, rhythmic pattern. She'd left out one thing about that Tuesday night. When she'd fallen asleep she'd been resting against his shoulder.

When he closed his eyes, he could still see her there. Her lips were curled into a relaxed smile and every so often she would let out the softest little sigh. Her scent changed too. No matter how calm she seemed to be, there was always the sharpness of anxiety commingling with the cooler scents that surrounded her. That night, the anxiety disappeared entirely and the clean, spiced fruit aroma had added to his distraction.

She'd been wrong about why he woke her too, though she had no way of knowing it. He would have stayed there all night, but it looked like her neck was at a strange angle so he'd started to try and wrap his arm around her, wanting her settle against his side. For a minute he'd thought he might succeed too, but she'd woken up and assumed that he had been trying to wake her. He didn't know how she would take it if he told her the truth, so he'd said goodnight, and that he would meet her in the morning like always and that had been it.

Chuck found him fifteen minutes later. For a minute, he'd considered waking her, but he'd decided against it. Now he wished he had.

She wasn't the only one who had listened to Jean either. He'd gotten back late the next evening wanting nothing more than a shower and some sleep. He'd found her waiting in his room when he got out of the shower. He'd told her to get out, but she'd pouted and 'accidentally' unwrapped the towel from his waist. He'd been tired, but not that tired. When she was leaving she happened to mention that Claire had 'just left' the day before.

"Why?" he'd asked.

"I don't know, she said something about needing to make a fresh start, whatever that means," she'd replied. She'd shut the door behind herself then, leaving him with an empty ache that stayed with him, even after the world fell apart.

The sound of Claire's deep, regular breathing brought him back to the present. Just a hint of her aroma drifted over to him. He allowed it to lull him to sleep.

Claire woke half an hour before sunrise. At first, she thought that she'd only dreamed about Logan coming back, then she felt the vibration of his adamantium and heard a soft snore coming from the other part of the room. She smiled to herself, relieved that his arrival and the closure it brought hadn't been a figment of her imagination.

She listened to his soft snoring for a minute and then got up quietly. She, tugged on a pair of thick socks, plucked the quilt off of the sofa and slipped out the door. The porch wrapped around the house, and she headed for the back. Sitting on the back steps, she would have a good view of the sunrise. She leaned her head against the railing and sighed softly.

There was only the faintest hint of light in the sky, enough to turn darkness to a thick gray. The stronger stars still shone through, but they were starting to disappear quickly. The soft glow took on a faint yellow hue as she watched.

"Claire?"

She jumped and looked over her shoulder. She heard the metal-on-metal hiss as his claws retracted.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" She looked more closely at him and realized he'd come out in only his jeans. She got up and unwrapped the quilt. She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped it around his shoulders. "You're going to catch a-"

His arched eyebrow stopped her.

"No you're not." She laughed softly. "Sorry." Claire turned away, letting the curtain of her hair cover her blush.

"S'okay. Warm always feels better than cold. You get up this early every morning?"

"Yes, but I didn't mean to wake you. Uncle Jackson was always such a heavy sleeper, I could've done a tap dance out here, he wouldn't have noticed." She smiled a little and sat down again. He sat behind her, straddling her body. He left the quilt wrapped around himself, but used the excess to wrap around her. Even though he wasn't touching her, Claire bit her lip to stifle the little moan that the instant comfortable warmth and intimacy engendered by the movement.

"No big deal. You always been a morning person?"

"Pretty much, not always for the same reasons though," she said softly. Silence grew between them.

"Why now?" he asked finally.

"This is the only time of day when there's no work to do." She chuckled. "It's too dark to clean or work outside. The animals don't need anything right now. It's too early to eat."

"Makes sense."

"What about you?"

"Not really, it just sorta happened that way."

Claire wasn't sure if she should press for more details, so she let it go for the moment. She'd learned that when he had something he really wanted to say but didn't know how to approach, he was good at bringing the conversation around that way again, giving her a second chance to ask the right question. It amazed her how the time away from him seemed to evaporate now that he was close-by again. She had no idea how long that was going to last though.

Brighter yellow and deeper orange streaked the sky. Claire could see patches of frost on the ground in front of her. Not the thick, heavy frost that would come in a few weeks. This was a sugary frost that glistened for a few fleeting moments in the early sunlight and then disappeared. For a few silent moments, she watched the garden sparkle in the growing light, as if she could go out later and harvest a crop of diamonds. The thought of harvesting anything made her sigh.

"I need to ask you something and I'm not asking to try and get you mad." Her voice was more tentative than she intended, and she cursed herself for it.

"Sounds serious. Shoot."

"Are you planning on staying through the winter?" It sounded harsh, even to her own ears. "I mean, you're welcome to if you want to. I didn't ask if you were on your way somewhere else. I should just shut up now, I sound like an idiot." She sighed and put her head in her hands for a minute and cursed the effect his closeness was having on her.

He gave a short laugh. "Darlin', I didn't have many plans before, and now I have even less than that. If that's an invitation, I'm staying."

"It is an invitation," she said. A little smile touched her lips. "I'm also trying to figure out if I have enough stored to get us through the winter. There's enough planted, but I'm not sure if I'm going to have time to-"

"You think I'm gonna sit around with my feet up and watch?"

"Well, no but-"

"Good," he said.

The word had a finality about it that Claire found difficult to question. She wasn't sure if she liked that or not, but there was something appealing about not having to make every last decision herself. Anything else she was going to say was interrupted by the rooster crowing. Claire sighed.

"Never lasts long enough," she smiled over her shoulder and got up. "I need to tend the animals. Can you milk a goat?"

"I guess we'll find out, won't we?" He smirked a little and followed her into the house.