After Logan: Rogue and X-23

The Mutant

It only took a day and half to get over the boarder. Rogue didn't stop anymore along the way and drove straight up through the Dakotas heading west when she reached Canada. The only place she could think of going was the bar where all this had started. The place she had first met Logan. 

She didn't know if he'd go there. She didn't know if he would remember where it was but she had had this journey mapped out on her bedroom wall since she was a child. Rogue hadn't forgotten the way.

It was colder here. Not by much but at night she needed a jacket to be comfortable. She was able to find longer gloves at a tourist shop and wore them frequently. Rogue drifted from place to place, gradually going west. She was keeping her eyes and ears open for any information so she stopped at restaurants and bars and shops where she thought Logan would go if needed. There wasn't much to go on anymore but she hadn't gone this far to give up.

Logan's mind continued to stay suppressed but it didn't fade anymore. It was a thought she was trying to ignore but the state of his mind was the same as Bobby's. It was an echo but still remaining because she choose to hold onto it.

She had given the girl more thought as well and wondered if she was important to someone else. There was no other reason she could think of as to why Logan would travel with a kid unless she needed help and it wasn't the first time Rogue wondered if they were running because of her. She considered what would make a child so important and then didn't because she knew she wouldn't like the answer. 

Four days after crossing the boarder she paid cash to a barber to cut her hair short. It was something she should have thought of sooner since it lessened the amount of hair she had to dye. Now it rested just above her shoulders.

It was safer to find a different place to sleep each night and she was careful to do so. Sometimes it was a hotel, sometimes it was the car. At one point she heard news of a group of kids seen in the wilderness but nothing of two men with one in a wheel chair. 

When she slept she continued to dream of Bobby and each time she shook frost from her fingertips. Dreaming it was losing him all over again but at the same time she got to hear and see him. She didn't know if she hated or loved the dreams.  

~

It was impossible but it was as if no time had passed. The building they had first seen each other in looked exactly the same. Even the bar was dim and crowded like before. There was no fight going on but when Rogue looked over at the cage she could still hear the shouting of patrons from years ago. There was even still a tip jar on the counter. The only thing missing was snow.

She sat for a long time at the bar with a drink instead of water this time. When she looked down the counter she half expected to see Logan there, cigar in his mouth, eyes on the old T.V.

A loud group of men entered the bar, regulars it seemed from the way the bartender greeted them. They were excited and boasted of game they had hunted together. Rogue didn't pay the large party much attention. Her thoughts were buried in the past. 

After wallowing in her thoughts for some time she began questioning the bartender. 

No he hadn't seen a man in a wheel chair and no he hadn't seen a man matching Logan's description. The only thing he had to say was that two kids had broken in his store room twice in the past week, stealing any food they could find. 

Interest piqued Rogue described the nameless girl to him but he shook his head. "Didn't see 'em. Noticed too late and they were vanishing into the woods by then." He considered her for a moment. "But didn't you say you were looking for two men?"

She asked no more questions after that. It was curious, this group of kids running amok in the wilderness. Maybe they had seen something? It was possible wasn't it?