Fender Benders And Consequences

Logan lay sprawled on the ground, too stunned to move. He wasn't sure what caught him more off-guard the sucker punch Scott threw or the news that Marie was pregnant. Logan thought back to that first time. They'd become a cliché. And Logan couldn't be more thrilled. He was gonna be a dad!!

Jean had recovered enough from the shock of realizing who'd fathered Marie's baby to be bending down by Logan's side.

"Are you all right, Logan?" He nodded silently.

She turned to glare at Scott. "Was that really necessary, Scott?"

"If he gets back up, I'll knock him right back down again."

"Scott..."

"It's always about him isn't it, Jeannie? Logan always comes first."

"If you were the one on the floor, I'd be doing the same for you... and you know it."

Logan just sat on the floor rubbing his throbbing jaw. Who knew Scooter had a decent right-hook? Jean turned back to Logan, glaring daggers at him as he finally stood up.

"Obviously, you didn't mourn the end of our relationship for long!"

"I was in mourning for the entire seven months we were together."

"Scott's right about one thing, Logan - you ARE a bastard!"

He was through being civil - with both of them. They could both go to hell as far as he was concerned.

"I have no intentions on standing here talking to you two walking anuses. I wanna see Marie - NOW!"

"Nice mouth, you kiss my sister's lips with that mouth?"

"Her lips - and other places."

Scott lunged at Logan again. Except this time Logan was anticipating it and calmly stepped aside.

"You try any shit on me and you're gonna be real grateful we're already at the hospital!"

"Fuck you!"

Turning to Jean and regaining his composure, Scott asked, "You'll let me know as soon as I can see her?"

"I'll come and get you as soon as we have her settled in."

With that, Jean gave Logan a final death glare and went back through the doors leading to the exam rooms.

Both men stood silently glaring at each other.

Scott broke the silence first. "How could you, Logan? I begged you to stay away from her."

"What do you want me to say, Scott? I saw her. I wanted her. And I thought, to hell with you. Would that make you feel better?"

"No," Scott said quietly. "God, Logan - she's pregnant!"

"If you want me to say I'm sorry she is .....it's not gonna happen. I love her. I want a future with her."

"You think you can change for her? That she's gonna be enough for you?"

"You don't think she's special enough to make that happen?"

"Of course I think she's special. You're talking about turning your life around 180 degrees. You think you can do that - even for her?"

"I already have, Scott. You've been too goddamn dense to notice."

That did explain why Logan had suddenly become a celibate monk at the office. So Scott hadn't just imagined the change in Logan's behavior lately. He just never guessed his sister was the reason. Just then Jean returned.

"She's in Room 250. You can go up anytime."

"Has she been told she's pregnant?" Scott asked

"Yes, she knows. And you two better decide who's going in to see her first, before you go up. I don't want a fist fight near the patient rooms."

"Thanks for all your help, Jeannie."

"Just doing my job." Jean turned to walk away

"Jeannie?" Logan said

Jean turned to him. Her eyes were watery. "I can't talk to you right now, Logan. I just can't."

She practically ran out of the waiting room.

"I'm going first," both men said at once.

"I'm her brother. I'm family. It should be me."

"Well, she's carrying my family. So it should be me."

"This is ridiculous. We're never gonna settle this. Look, we'll go in together and let her choose who she wants to talk to first. Ok?"

"Sounds fair. Let's go."

They rode up in the elevator in silence. They stood outside Room 250 - both afraid to go inside.

~*~*~*

Logan and Scott continued to stand outside of Marie's room, both frozen to the spot. Logan had faced powerful heads of corporations and yet he was afraid of one tiny little slip of a girl. What would he say to her? Sorry I got you knocked up. Sorry I'm an irresponsible jerk. Just plain sorry.

{My God, what if she doesn't want this baby? What if she wants to get an abortion?}

Logan had always feared that one of his many one-night stands would one day show up with some kid she'd claim was his. The fact that he'd never been named in a paternity suit had amazed him. It's not that he was being arrogant, it was simply a matter of playing the odds. What if Scott tried to talk her into getting an abortion? Telling her she was too young, she was ruining her life...

Logan didn't know where Scott stood on the whole right-to-life issue. He had to talk to her before Scott. Noticing Scott's apprehension about going into the room, Logan decided to take the advantage and pushed the door open. He stepped into the room and Scott, who'd quickly recovered, was right on his heels.

Marie lay in the hospital bed looking very small, very pale, very fragile - very young. Logan walked over to the bed, sat down on the edge and tried to give his bravest smile to the pale girl before him.

"Hey, you."

Marie sat up, threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. He heard her choke out a muffled "Logan", as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him tightly.

"It's ok, baby, I'm here. It's gonna be alright, I promise."

Scott was standing at the foot of the bed watching the scene in front of him. Logan was stroking Marie's hair and Marie was clinging to Logan for dear life. He suddenly felt like an intruder.

"I'll give you guys some privacy. I'm gonna go grab a coffee and I'll be back. Logan, you want a coffee?"

{Did that just come out of me?}

"No, thanks, Scott. I'm fine."

Scott started walking towards the door. Logan released Marie and with a kiss on the top of her head, he stood up.

"Be right back."

Logan put his hand on Scott's shoulder. "Thanks, Scott." Scott just nodded wordlessly and walked out.

Logan went back to the bed, gathered Marie back into his arms and rocked her gently.

"So, you think it's too early to start picking out names?"

Marie looked up at him with questioning eyes. Tears started spilling down her cheeks.

"Oh, Logan." Was all she was able to choke out. Logan took his thumb and started wiping the tears away.

"I'd thought you'd be so......." Marie started to say, but he cut her off by gently kissing her.

"I love you and that's all that matters right now."

"I love you, too, Logan."

"Ok, I love you, you love me, I don't see a problem here."

He was trying to lighten the mood, which worked because Marie gave him a small smile.

"You're not upset?"

"I can't think of anyone else I would rather create a baby with, than you."

That started the waterworks again. Logan pressed her back into his chest and just held her.

{He loves me. He's not sorry about this baby - oh, thank God.}

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a truck."

{She's making jokes - that's a good sign.}

"I can't tell you how scared I was when I went up that ramp and saw what'd happened."

Just then a nurse walked into the room.

"Sorry to interrupt, folks. I just need to check a few vitals."

"I should probably go find Scott, anyway. He's pretty worried."

"Logan, I just don't know if I can deal with Scott right now."

"I won't let him upset you. If he starts any shit, he's gonna be real glad he's got good health insurance."

Marie let out a laugh. Logan gave her one more kiss. "Be right back, don't go anywhere."

"What and miss hospital food, it's so much better than that 'Tavern on the Green' swill any day."

She gave the nurse a wink. Logan shrugged his shoulders at the nurse and walked out of the room.

He found Scott sitting on a bench by the elevators, sipping from a styrofoam cup.

"She ok?" Scott asked as Logan sat down next to him.

"Yeah, she's gonna be fine. She's one tough cookie."

"She's had to be in the last year. I wish my mother was here for her now," Scott said, on the verge of tears.

"She has us. It'll be ok."

"Are you gonna stand by her through this?"

"You have to ask?"

"If you hurt her, Logan, I swear to God, I'll hunt you down and castrate you personally."

"Does that mean you're not going to try and talk her into having an abortion?"

"I never told anyone this, Logan, but Jean aborted my baby."

Logan looked at Scott with a stunned expression. "What! When?"

"Right before I left for Sydney last year. That's what the big blow-up was about. I wanted her to have the baby. I told we could move the wedding date up. Anything she wanted. She just went into work one morning and had one of the doctors here at the hospital perform the procedure. She didn't even tell me. She didn't care what I wanted. She killed my baby and we were over."

"She knew coming after me would really stick it to you, didn't she? God, she played us both. I'm so sorry about that, Scott. In the end she wasn't worth it."

"I could have told you that and saved you a lot of time, but I've kind of enjoyed watching you suffer."

"Thanks a lot. You're off my Christmas list."

"It was over between us before she went crawling to you. It was never really your fault. I just let you think it was."

Logan didn't know how to respond to that so he said, "You should go in and see Marie."

He felt relieved knowing that Scott wouldn't try to get Marie to terminate the pregnancy. Jean had been pregnant with Scott's baby. She'd never told him about that in the entire seven months. So much for intimacy and honesty. His whole relationship with Jean had been one big lie. She'd used him to stick it to Scott when he was already down. How could anyone be so cruel? She had been pushing the subject of marriage with him right before the end, even talking about kids - what a joke. Logan was glad he'd narrowly dodged that bullet.

"Come on, let's go back in there."

Both men got up and walked down the hall and went back into the room. Marie noticed that both the men in her life looked a lot calmer than a few hours ago.

"Wow, you two are in the same room and nobody's bleeding, Hell must have frozen over."

Logan turned to Scott "She must be feeling alright, 'cause she's back to her usual sassy self."

{Marie, sassy? Since when?} "How are you feeling, Tinkerbell?"

"Much better, Cyclops."

"Cyclops?" Logan asked.

Obviously Scott was going to have to explain that rather embarrassing story.

"My brat sister's nickname for me - because as a teenager I had, oh boy, this is humiliating, thanks a lot, a lazy eye and had to wear an eye patch for six months. One eye - Cyclops, get it?"

Logan suppressed a laugh "And you get pissed 'cause I call you Scooter?"

"Scott calls Jean the Ice Queen," Marie announced.

"I'm surprised I didn't freeze my dick off every time we had sex, she was so damn frosty," Scott declared.

"I know what you mean. I was always tempted to check for a pulse, she was such a stiff," Logan added.

"So what did you call her, Logan?"

"Bitch, mostly."

All three of them burst out laughing.

"It's mean that we're bonding over Jean bashing. She has her good side," Scott said.

"Yeah, too bad she never shows it," Logan laughed.

Just then the nurse from before returned.

"Ok, you two - OUT! Our patient here needs her rest."

"I'm not going anywhere," Logan informed her.

"Ok, you can stay, on the condition you let her get some rest. We have to wake her up every couple of hours because of the concussion and she needs to rest when she can."

With that the nurse left the room.

"Well, I'm gonna take off. You look like you're in capable hands. I'll see you tomorrow, Tinkerbell."

Scott kissed his sister on the forehead and added "I'm so sorry, about the accident........"

"Scott - it's ok, I'm not mad at you. Go home, I'm fine."

"Love you, Tinkerbell."

"Love you, too."

"I'll talk to tomorrow, Logan?"

"Yeah, sure. Goodnight, Scott."

The two even shook hands. Marie stared wide-eyed at the display.

After Scott left, Logan went over and laid down next to Marie and very carefully, so as not to disturb the IV in her arm, spooned her into an embrace. When the nurse returned five minutes later she found Marie was sleeping peacefully in Logan's arms and he was giving her the 'shush' gesture. She nodded in acknowledgment and left the room. Logan watched the slow rhythm of Marie's breathing until he too, finally drifted off to sleep.