A/N: Thank you for those who have given their thoughts and critiques on this fic. I loved writing it, and can't wait for when another inspiration concerning these two will hit again.

Lyrics and references to Red Dirt Girl belong to Emmylou Harris.

She could always tell when a prospective customer came down the boardwalk. They had a hesitant step, wondering if they should follow the worn wood path to the office, or go directly to her next to the boats as she bowed her head against the afternoon sun.

Logan was different. He walked in a straight line towards her, a steady glower that held her gaze. It was a familiar sight from the day that they had spent together. It had only gotten a little fuzzy over time.

She watched him as he came right up to her, the glower changing into a half-smile. The simple gruff voice that had spoken in her mind since the day she left, now came out with the same endearing greeting; "Marie."

"Hello," she returned, scrubbing her forearm over her neck. She looked down at the six-pack in his hands. "Are those for me?"

He inclined his head, and Marie felt self-conscious under his gaze as his eyes swept over her figure. "I thought we could have a talk."

She nodded, cleaning up the chopping block that she had been working on for the last month. Logan didn't move. He didn't flinch either when she suddenly blurted, "I'm not going back."

"I wasn't planning on askin' you to go back."

Marie nodded as she leaned over and dug through a cooler, pulling out a netbag full of oysters. The aroma of shellfish hit Logan with a new force as the contents made a sandy, grinding sound.

It was a strange sensation now that he was in her company again. It felt like a paradox between the instincts and consciousness that she had gained from him. Still, she figured that there was no better Logan than the real Logan.

She led him off a back stairwell that wound down to the rocky beach and her tent that sat under the eaves of the charterhouse. She gestured for him to take a seat at a sunwashed harbor spool that served as her table.

"I just wanted to be clear. From your stories… the school, it sounded nice." Rogue dumped the sack on the table, as Logan popped the tops off of their beers. Her voice sounded quiet to her against the enormous backdrop of the ocean. "Comfortable. I just thought if I went back that I would get stuck there. Since I've been travelling, I've figured there's too much of this world to see."

Logan nodded, handing over the drink. "Not a lot of the world wants to see a mutant though. You understand that well enough?"

Rogue shrugged her shoulder. Her time on the spit went by easy enough. She had no trouble garnering a job. In fact, she was almost certain that her employer knew she was a mutant. "We can hide ourselves well enough if we have to."

"We?"

She froze for a moment, gripping the sodden label on the beer. Wasn't that why he came back? He wasn't just paying her a visit was he? Possibly. But also, this was Logan. He didn't like unclear meanings. Neither did she.

"I'd like you to be there with me. Only if you want."

He was silent for a moment, thinking it over. Rogue mistook it for hesitation. "Ahm sorry for hittin' ya before. But in all fairness, ya did push me to."

Logan took a long pull of his beer. "Nothin' to worry about. I earned it."

She sighed as she realized his vague answers were back. "You didn't answer me."

"You need me to tell you again?"

Rogue gave him a questioning look. In response, Logan made a show of reaching into the bag of oysters and pulling out a pocketknife. With the same deft efficiency, he pried open the shell on the first try and handed it over to her. She made no move to eat it.

Logan stared back at her, "I came back 'cause of you Marie. Plain and simple. I don't need anything in my life except for those that need me back." He turned back to the table and began working on his own oyster. "Just a fancy way of saying that I keep my promises," he murmured. "Just lucky that you want me there, otherwise I'd be following ten steps behind."

Rogue bit her lip, concentrating. Then very slowly, she reached over and grasped his hand, effectively stilling his movements.

It was a priceless moment as she watched Logan stare at her hand, still tacky from handling the fish, watching it move to twist around his palm and into the nooks of his fingers. There was no pull. No swirling vortex of powers being transferred and mixed.

"You did it," he said, finally looking up at her.

Her face split into a glorious smile with the words; "Yeah."

Rogue battled with the nervousness and excitement of her achievement, watching as Logan lifted her hands, kissing the back and rubbing his thumb over her skin. "I always knew you could, darlin'."

"Did you really?" It wasn't sarcasm, just a simple question to remind him that she still hadn't regained her memories. It was true what he had said all those weeks earlier; they naturally knew each other. So Logan just canted his head in reply, and Rogue felt for once that her life was going in a vague direction of peace.

"To Marie," he announced over the gentle sound of the surf, lifting his oysters to hers.

To Logan, she thought as she raised her shell. The man that has proven he will always be there.

She grimaced as the fish and salt slid down her throat. "We need a lemon."

"Yeah we do," he growled contentedly.

With a large amount of willpower, Rogue detached herself from Logan's grasp, jumping up from the table and ducking into her tent. She stole a glance at his profile as she dug through her groceries, and emerged holding out a lemon for his pocketknife.

"After this, I wanna show you something," he said as he cut into the rind, the acidic juice spraying the wooden table.

Rogue only nodded as she pried open a few more shells, and watched Logan pop open another pair of beers. That was another thing that she mentally praised him on; no rush. A life like this, and people like them… no rush was needed.

Logan eased the pickup into one of the few side streets of the spit. They were near the mainland and Rogue looked over the calmer waters of a makeshift lagoon. Private aircraft dotted the docks. Logan circled the cab and came up next to her, cocking his arm out. She quelled a laugh as she took his arm, the two of them heading down the narrow boardwalk.

They said nothing until Logan stopped in front of a slightly rusting Cessna. It's yellow and green stripes running the length of the white cab, bobbing lazily in the water.

"I didn't know you could fly," she said, impressed as she looked up at Logan's smug smile.

His eyes seemed to glaze over as she saw him fantasize about the possibilities of the airplane. "Didn't know either, until I took 'er for a run. I bought her at auction."

"I like it," she mused, thinking the aircraft was distinctly Logan. Like a motorcycle; it was open, free, and reckless. Anything else would be boring.

Rogue walked along the dock, examining the length of the craft. She stood staring at it for a few moments, seeing the similarities between her and Logan. "Do you think it will be terrible if I don't remember my memories?"

She watched as Logan stood pensive for a moment. It must have been getting late, for the sun was now low on the waterline, hiding most of his face now in stark shadow. "I never remembered everything about my own past, but I think it's all about how you look at it.

"I think I spent so much time looking, I didn't really think about why I was looking. I didn't want anything beyond instinct, but still I was lookin' for what made me." He shrugged in his leather, absently pulling out a cigar casing and lighting one up. "It took me awhile to realize the past doesn't make you what you are. Especially with us. Only thing that matters is here and now."

His eyes settled on his new possession again, raising a hand to grip the left wing. Logan gave a dangerous smile around the fat cigar pinched in his teeth. "Also, it's a helluva ticket out of anywhere."

Rogue grinned and stepped back to his side again, "Sure. But here is good for now, isn't it?"

"Sure darlin'."

Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
Sittin' on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singin' every song the radio played
Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian.

She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin' up a '49 Indian
He told her 'Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again'
He never got farther than Vietnam,
I was standin' there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian.
Now he's lyin' somewhere about a million miles from Meridian.

She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
That's where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing
My hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard,
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across a red dirt line just a little south east from Meridian.

She tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she dug right in.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end
At least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid,
She was only 27 and she had five kids.
Coulda' been the whiskey,
Coulda' been the pills,
Coulda' been the dream she was trying to kill.
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Named Lillian

Who never got any farther across the line than Meridian.
Now the stars still fall on Alabama
The night she finally laid
That hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground

- Red Dirt Girl, Emmylou Harris