Anywhere the Sea Breaks

Chapter 1

Logan stepped into Mutant High, unexpectedly and quietly. It was the middle of the day, bright and sunny, four years since he’d stepped into this place. It looked exactly the same, and gave him that sense of confusion, fear…and comfort. The kids still played pool and other games. Logan looked towards the television where Storm, Jean, and Cyclops used to sit and investigate Magneto’s latest activities. Was Magneto still in that plastic cage?

Logan walked through the long hallway and stepped in the elevator going up two floors. When the doors opened, to his luck, Scott was the first person he saw this visit. Scott’s eyes lit up and a teasing smile crossed his face. Logan glared a little which only made Scott smile more.

"Well well, look who finally decides to grace us with his presence. Did you bring back my motorcycle by the way?"

"No but I promise you’ll find it in a landfill somewhere in Vancouver," Logan said, stepping out of the elevator.

"Hey Storm! Jean! Look who’s back," Scott called to his friends.

Their eyes lit up in surprise and Storm ran over to see him. Her blonde hair flying with her black cape giving her yet another feature to enhance her glow.

"Logan," she smiled coming up to him, not sure whether or not she should hug him.

He smiled warmly at her. "You don’t look a day older."

"Oh neither do you, but then again you couldn’t, could you?" she said getting on her tiptoes to hug him.

Returning the embrace he caught a look at Jean. She had that smile on her face without really smiling. She was always so modest and beautiful. But her eyes were warm and at home like always, proud and calm to have him back. Releasing Storm, Jean smiled and reached up to give him a conservative, almost shy hug.

"Good to have you back," she said.

"You two still together?" he teased after releasing her.

"Married," Storm said.

Logan rolled his eyes humorously. "Aw geez, well, you don’t have to read my mind but anyhow, congratulations."

"And I hope you find someone so you’ll stop wanting her," Scott teased, extending his hand. "You’re a pain in the ass Logan but it’s good to have you back. What happened to your face? I’m not worried since it’s healing as we speak-"

"Nothing big, don’t worry about it. How’s Xavier?"

"Great, he’ll be pleased to see you," Storm said with a smile still on her face.

"I’ve never seen a prettier day than today, you responsible," he flirted.

"No, but if you don’t behave yourself I’ll make it go away," she threatened.

They all waited for him to ask.

"Rogue still here? And don’t even think about reading my mind, Jean," Logan warned her and she smiled.

"She’s outside…somewhere," Storm said, not knowing exactly where she was.

Logan left without saying a word, all three of them watching with ideas in their mind about what they would both think when seeing each other.

Logan walked around the grounds seeing half a million kids or so it seemed but couldn’t find her. After walking around the entire damn campus, he spotted her, only being able to recognize her by her hair. That thick mass of reddish brown hair that had more body than anything he’d ever seen. The white streaks were gone though.

She was teaching the kids something, and he couldn’t move or speak because she wasn’t the person he’d left four years ago. She was all grown up. As she spoke he even noticed she had very little of her southern accent left, but just enough to know she had come from there. She had those extremely thin black gloves on that went all the way to her upper arms and a blue blouse with a black mini-skirt on. She looked…good.

"Would you please stop using your powers," she laughed at the kids who refused to listen to her.

"Tell me you never used any of yours," a kid called out.

A small smile touched her lips as she placed her hand out.

"Of course I did. And this is what a boy taught me," she said creating a small fireball in her hands causing the kids to pay full attention at a teacher doing this.

Logan smiled too, charmed watching her.

"And then another kid…" she turned the fire into ice. "Did that to his fireball."

"Which kid?"

"A boy I once knew."

"Did you have a crush on him?"

She smiled again. "Yes."

Just then Rogue looked up and saw him and instantly the ice fell crashing to the ground and breaking. She looked back to the students.

"And when the teacher called on my friend, that’s exactly what happened," she said, trying to get out of complete embarrassment. "And now I’m going to break another rule, I have to go talk to someone, so you all talk. Just…don’t hurt anyone," she said smiling.

Walking over to him, slowly and confidently, he again realized she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

"Where have you been," she teasingly smiled.

"Missing out on things that have changed," he said with staring eyes.

She frowned in confusion at his intense gaze on her and forgot what he said. "What? Oh! I-I know I’ve changed-"

"No, I’m sorry," he said feeling like he was embarrassing her. "Most normal people do, just not me."

"I wouldn’t call myself normal," she smiled.

His eyes were sad because he couldn’t hug her yet she was the one he most wanted to. He could if he was careful though. Brushing his fingers through her hair she sucked in a breath, half afraid he would touch her actual skin and be hurt and half because of how painful it was to not be touched.

"Take it the white strands didn’t last too long?"

She exhaled a laugh. "Everyone has a little teenage rebellion. Even you."

She regretted saying that instantly since he didn’t remember.

"Why’d you come back?" she asked. "Did you find the answers you left in search for?"

"Oh well that’s a nice welcome."

"No, I didn’t mean that," she laughed. "I just meant it’s been four years, was there a reason to return, or you’d just get tired of beating people up for money," she smiled.

"My God, you were not like this when I left. You are brutal now," he teased.

She noticed a scar on his face and reached up with her gloved hand to touch it.

"What happened?"

"Doesn’t matter."

"Watch it now, I’ll be a nagging mother on you if you don’t stay honest with me."

He took her hand in his, bringing it down from his face.

"I was being honest, it’s a little embarrassing but I’ll tell you the entire truth if you make me."

"Yes," she said.

"Scott’s motorcycle," he said.

"Oh well it must’ve been five seconds ago because it’s healing."

"Yes, when I walked in, it was more, but Scott was only interested in his motorcycle."

She couldn’t help but grin. "I’ll bet he was. You staying or just checking in on your way to somewhere?"

"I don’t know yet."

"Forever the mystery man. I won’t push anymore questions for the moment."

"So you’re teaching kids?"

"Are you mocking me?"

"Maybe."

"I’m not going to forever, but it’s wonderful to be around people."

He heard what she did not say in that sentence which was since I can’t touch them.

"I noticed your making fire in your hands."

"Bobby taught me when I first came here."

"You do that very well."

"Yeah except for when I dropped it. How long were you watching me?"

"Long enough."

She gave him a look. "And what does that mean?"

"I’d been watching you a few minutes."

"You see Jean?" she asked with only a hint of attitude only he caught.

"Yes, everyone except Xavier."

"I can’t wait to see his reaction to you."

Just then a kid bumped into her and she turned around quickly to make sure he was okay.

"You okay," she said taking his hands in her gloved ones and kneeling a little to check him.

"Yeah, sorry," he said and ran off.

She shook a little in fear of what could’ve happened to him. It angered Logan that she must worry about that every minute. When she looked back up at him and tried to calm down he didn’t buy it.

"Give me a heart attack," she joked with her hand at her heart.

He took that hand and pulled her to him for an embrace. Quickly she turned her head to the side so that her hair would only touch him.

"It’s okay," he said holding her to him. "Luckily you’re still short," he smiled, his strong arms wrapped around her protectively.

Her face pressed up against his shirt, and she could feel his heartbeat. It soothed her and ate at her simultaneously. She hadn’t seen him in so long, and even if she couldn’t touch him, she could stay like this forever. Realizing she could hug him back and slid her arms around his waist and drew her hands up his back a little as she leaned against him. Her heart clenched in pain she refused to show through tears at the feeling of another person touching her. Even if it wasn’t his skin, she could feel the molecules flow back and forth between them, which was something she wasn’t lost to.

She was cautious when it came to lifting her head to look at him, giving him time to back up a little so not to touch her.

"Guess you caught me, I missed you," she said as if he’d forced it out of her.

"Oh well thank you for the compliment."

Pulling back, she undid the clasp to the necklace and slowly handed it to him.

"I never thought you were coming back. So I wore something I asked you about in our third sentence of conversation, so I wouldn’t forget."

Looking at her brown eyes, he saw doubt in her eyes still.

"I told you I was coming back. You didn’t believe me?"

"Well for me it’s been a life time. Sometimes I’d forget exactly what you looked like and I’d wish I’d taken a picture."

"A picture?" he said like she was crazy.

A giggle escaped her full lips. "Yeah! Why not?"

She took his hand and turned it so she could see his knuckles. Running her fingers over them she saw they weren’t red.

"Take it you haven’t had to use them?"

"Not recently."

"Good. Sometimes I thought you were dead and then I remembered you couldn’t be killed easily," she smiled. "It was comforting."

"Hey, you were on the run young, you weren’t even afraid."

"Well I kind of had a good defense. If anyone touched me-" she stopped then, thinking that although it was a defense, it was a prison. "Well, no one would handle it as well as you."

He shook his head in ugly memories. "I still remember what Magneto did to you. I remember your cries for help, the pain you were in."

"Yeah, and since he was taking my life force I guess that’s what it feels like when I touch people. I mean, that’s the best guess I have to what it feels like when I touch people."

"I’m not sorry you touched me."

She looked in his hazel eyes with an attempt of a smile but instead a sad but grateful look crossed her face.

"I’m still very sorry-"

"Why? I stabbed you…I deserved it and I’m glad you thought fast enough to do that. And when I found out you were gone…don’t do that," he smiled.

"What? Don’t disappear?"

"You scared the hell out of me, Rogue."

"It was Mystique, she became Bobby and told me to leave. I’ll never forget her words. But when you showed up you said everything right, you did take care of me. I trust you."

"I promised I would, and I will never lie to you."

They stared at each other for a moment, saying nothing.

"Uh, excuse me, class is over, may we leave?" one student said, all of them watching this private moment with smiles on their faces.

She turned to them. "Yeah, go, get outta here."

"Bye Marie," they said as they left.

She turned back and placed her hands on his chest, pushing him back.

"So, Wolverine, I’m hungry."

"Oh I’ll bet you are," he laughed as they walked together.

"Got any beef jerky?"

"Shut up," he said and she laughed.

Storm, Scott, and Jean watched Marie and Logan as they ate dinner that evening. Xavier still hadn’t shown up, he was busy with things underground.

"…and even though Magneto is still with us, Mystique is still God knows where. And we’re worried she’s in a new project and is waiting to strike. We have heard nothing of her in years, but someone like her, going away? So easily?" Storm said to Logan.

"I don’t think so. She’s gotta have some regenerative powers herself because I should’ve killed her."

"Well I hate to say it but you’re the only one who came close," Scott said.

"Hey," Rogue said, interrupting. "Couldn’t we wait five minutes before jumping into war mode? I’d rather just talk as if we were normal, if that’s possible."

"Okay Marie, I’m with you. Let’s have a normal conversation, beginning with, I always wondered exactly how you two met," Scott said with a smile, ready to give them such crap about whatever their story was.

Everyone laughed and egged Rogue on to tell.

"Ohhhh," Rogue teased, giving Logan a little push to embarrass him. "That was a good one."

"Look, could you…I don’t know, leave a few things out," he said to her.

"No no, this is the good stuff," Scott said. "So where’d you first see him?"

"Canada, at some…bar, I think it was. And there was a guy who knew he was a mutant and began threatening Logan and he pulled out a knife to stab him and I told Logan to get out of the way and Wolverine brought his claws out and shut that poor guy the hell up."

"Oh I’ll bet," Jean smiled.

"So then at least at that point I realized he was a mutant as well so I sort of hopped on the back of his trailer and slept as he drove."

"May I take over," Wolverine said.

"No!" she retorted and laughed.

"Well too bad, just give me a minute. So I stop the truck and see she’s in the back, and now it’s our first three sentences, do you remember what I said?"

Rogue couldn’t help but laugh. She recited it. "You were such a charming person. We’re in the middle of nowhere and he decides to kick me out which could’ve easily been the end of my life and I asked him where I was supposed to go, and he said he didn’t know. I asked him if he didn’t know or didn’t care and he said PICK ONE!"

"You could tell I was in the best of moods."

"Yes I…noticed that," she said and he laughed. "But that was so the best line, I still laugh thinking about it," she giggled. "But that’s pretty much how you always are."

"I’ll second that," Storm said.

"So what happened, you kicked her out like the usual Prince Charming you’ve always been?" Scott said.

Logan gave Scott the evil eye but Rogue just smiled. They were both so full of shit.

"I was majorly angry, someone just tried to stab me, not a good day, but as I’m driving away in the middle of nowhere leaving her in the road of snow, I thought to myself, do I need to be an asshole?"

Rogue fell over on his shoulder laughing. "And I drove you crazy, I was asking question after question when you wanted me to shut up. And your reaction when I told you I was a mutant."

"Like I had any reason to complain?" Logan said.

"I’ll never forget when I told you about my skin and you said fair enough, only another mutant would say that."

"You wouldn’t shut up!" he said. "Damn you kept talking and talking until I finally talked."

Rogue laughed. "I know, I was driving you up the wall, I know."

"You were every bit as full of shit as I was," he said to her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It looks cozy?" he said.

"I was only trying to keep you from kicking me out, you know I didn’t mean that. Do you still refuse to wear your seatbelt?" she taunted.

He glared at her. "I don’t need to."

"Oh that’s right," she said sarcastically. "It’s much more fun to go flying through the window bang into a tree and slide several yards in the snow. Even if you do heal rapidly you’re telling me that’s pleasant?"

"It was because YOU were talking that I turned away from the road-"

"Excuse me!" Rogue said and the entire table worked to keep a straight face at their verbal battle. "I was telling you to put your seatbelt on, it is not my fault you turned your head to me to argue when a tree fell on the goddamn car!"

"What the hell are you talking about," Scott asked, laughing.

She turned to Scott with a smile that was unintentionally seductive. Rogue was always just…wonderfully personable. She didn’t mean to, but she flirted with everyone. You couldn’t help but love her, and assume she was thrilled and comfortable with life. She never failed to smile a smile that was so real and loving you could swear it was her trying to protect you, to love you.

"As I was driving Logan insane by talking non-stop, I told him he should wear a seatbelt and he turned to me to tell him he never needed any lessons on driving and in the middle of that sentence we crashed into a tree and he went flying out the window."

"Well you DISTRACTED me!"

Rogue rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, sure. You don’t need a seatbelt or any advice on driving which is why you sped into the collapsing tree."

"You’re pushing it," Logan said, threatening her with a food fight.

"Manners manners," Scott said.

"Well while you were out there healing, I swear I was watching you going, damn I thought it was the claws!"

Storm and Jean burst out laughing as Scott gave another seductive, I hate Logan smile.

"I didn’t know it was healing powers, all I’d seen was the claws. And I’m watching you, and there was all of a sudden fire behind me and I prayed you were alive because I really didn’t want to burn to death. I couldn’t believe you got up so quickly but now I know why."

Logan remembered how stunned she was when he healed right in front of her.

"You did seem surprised that I would get up."

"Uh, yeah, that’s putting it mildly. You get up and your wounds heal and I’m stuck and the flames are getting closer and Sabretooth came and fought with you and then there’s a blizzard and Scott zaps the guy and Storm holds her hand out to me."

"Oh is that how you all met?" Jean said.

"Yes, and believe me I don’t everyday see someone with a black cape and white eyes holding her hand out to me," Rogue said and her best friend laughed. "And I didn’t get a chance to say this before when we were all here, but thank you all for saving my life four years ago."

"Oh, it’s Storm who saved your life? I beg your pardon-"

"Logan," she said smiling. At his angered face she burst out laughing. "I love driving you crazy."

"You do it so well," he noted. "From the first conversation-"

Rogue made an exasperated noise. "Shut up."

"No, that would be my line to you, five thousand times," he said and she laughed harder.

Rogue’s breathing came back to normal. "Oh…" she breathed. "I love you all so much, we never lack boredom. And none of you knew me more than five minutes before you risked your lives for me."

"Logan did most of it," Jean said. "Magneto forced his hands to his chest so he couldn’t use his claws to get free unless he stabbed himself, and when we all heard you screaming in pain, he did it and we all paired together. Storm got Logan up to you, I steadied him so he could free you, and Scott helped Logan shut down the machine. But all in all, without Logan’s stubbornness, I don’t think we would’ve known what to do."

"He always had to steal the show," Scott said. "I originally wanted to get you."

"Oh and what were you gonna do once you got to her? Ask her nicely to come back to life?" Logan said.

Jean had been subtly reminding Rogue how much Logan obviously cared about her. He was a pain in the ass every time he’d go without them but they had a connection, she got him to talk and be comfortable more than anyone else did.

"You ever feel like you’re in the middle of a testosterone convention?" Rogue said to Storm and Jean.

For the first time in forever, Jean cracked up.

Rogue looked at Logan. "You scare the hell out of me, you know that? When I finally opened my eyes and you’re holding me I pushed you away as fast as I could before I would kill you," she joked. "My God, you scared me to death," she said more seriously.

"Well what’d you expect me to do?" he said.

"Let go sooner!"

Jean couldn’t take it, and she quickly got up from the table and left the room, leaving everyone stunned and confused. Marie stood up.

"Excuse me," she said intending to go find Jean.

"No, let me go," Storm said, placing a hand on Scott.

Jean felt so full of grief. She walked into her office and sat in front of her computer organizing formulas. She struggled with her mind to correct the instability in her program that left her no hope.

"Dammit!" she hissed as the code still wouldn’t work.

"Hey Jean, what happened? What’s wrong?" Storm said.

Jean covered her tired eyes with a hand and stretched. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Logan’s just come home and he and Marie are finally seeing each other and you get up and leave?"

Jean looked at her lifelong friend. "Marie is wonderful, and it’s just frustrating."

"What do you mean?" Storm said, pulling up a chair to sit down on.

Jean shook her head. "Nothing, never mind. Listen, I’m sorry, I’m just tired, can you just let me do some work? That’s what’s really driving me crazy. I’ll quit soon, I promise."

"Well what is it that you’ve been working on?" Storm said, looking over at the screen. "Looks like…you’re trying to develop…something."

Jean turned off the screen. "It’s nothing Rora. I’m sorry I’m being so strange right now. I promise I’ll talk to Marie, and apologize."

"Is it Marie, or Logan?"

Jean turned to Storm. "I love my husband, don’t ever doubt that, please. Logan knows that, and I don’t think it’s eating him up as much as he teases."

"I agree. All right, I won’t push, but if you need to talk, I’m here."

"Thanks," Jean said hugging Storm. "Sometimes I wish I could be everything Charles could ever need. I know he loves me and I know he's proud of me, but I have so much more I want to accomplish. I don't think I could ever stop learning from him, no matter how much medicine I learn, he teaches me about the part of myself we by the government have been taught to shame, to hide. He has taught me how to use my mind with my mutation in ways I could never have done without him. I only wish I could in my future take the people of the world who were lost like me and do for them what he has done for me. How I long to have my telepathy be as strong as his. With training I will be stronger, but he has more natural ability of it."

"Is that what you’re upset about?" Storm asked. "That you aren’t doing enough?"

"I don’t know," Jean said, but she did know. "I am so blessed with you and Charles and Scott. All I have to say is his name and I remember who is my soulmate. For a few seconds I might see someone else...like Logan, and feel that surge of danger flow through my veins but Logan was wrong. Scott doesn't hold me back and Scott isn't as controlling as Logan made him seem. I could never be like Logan. And there was no connection with Logan, there is the most profound connection with Scott. I am safe, I am loved, I am heard by Scott. He knows me, the good and the bad, and still loves what he sees. Sometimes I stay up all night with Scott just talking and we are never bored. Our minds are alike and where as some people might feel that's boring, it's fascinating. Because when our minds alike, we challenge each other and grow with our minds together. I can't imagine my life without him, without him being the center of it."

Storm felt bombarded with information. She hadn’t known Jean needed to talk this much.

"Jean, are you trying to convince me? Because you don’t have to. I know you and I know Scott. And Logan’s…kind of hard to miss so the fact that you may have been attracted to him on some level just shows you have a pulse."

Jean barely noticed what Storm had said.

"With Rogue, there was an immediate connection. Something about her made me willing to risk my life to find her. I'd only known her for a few days before hand, but the wisdom in her, she seemed much older than seventeen. And the way she could handle Logan, she said she had just hitchhiked with him but it seemed like they'd known each other forever. Rogue wanted to fit in, but hadn't believed. Damn Magneto for hurting her like that. And damn Mystique for attempting to kill Charles. There was no hesitation in my need to find Rogue through Cerebro. And I just wish sometimes we could do more."

"You’ve always been good to Rogue and she loves us," Storm said in attempts to make Jean feel better. "We give her our love, and you know, a lot of times that’s enough. I’m gonna give you some time," Storm said, having no idea how to help Jean at this point. As soon as Jean was alone she turned the screen back on and tried a new code for the formula, but it still failed.

"No you fucker," she whispered mindlessly to the computer. "I will figure you out, I will give her that piece."

Chapter 2

Rogue sat in her bedroom, taking off her gloves and her top, running her fingers along her poisonous skin. The only physical contact on her skin she would ever feel was her own. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t grateful when her friends held her, but there was nothing like skin. Did hers feel like everyone else’s when she touched it?

She tried to remember the last time her mother held her or her father kissed her forehead. She couldn’t. It had been so long since she’d seen her mother’s face, she couldn’t see it clearly. If she had stayed, would her parents have defended her or feared her? Would it have been worth it to stay and find out?

Rogue pulled out a pad of paper that had lyrics written to a song she heard from the 90s that fit her feelings so well.

I stand, no perfume, no makeup,
It’s me, so what if my face is bear?
Dressed up, in father’s old sweater,
When I slam the door, and run down the stairs.

I promise this room,
Anywhere the wind blows,
Anywhere the sea breaks,
Anywhere the earth quakes,
Let this world explode.
Take me to a new place,
Got nothing in my suitcase,
And I’ll go…anywhere the wind blows, I’ll go.

She ran her hand up her shoulder as tears fell down cheeks. She would go anywhere, any second. More grateful than she could express was her new gift, to fly. So she could go, anytime. Sometimes she didn’t care about the world, let it die around her and she wouldn’t notice. For all her humor and all her ease with her friends and students, deep down there was nothing but anger at the very core of her heart. She played the game so well, she fooled herself. She found a way to show her love in other ways than a touch, an embrace, and she ignored the chill she walked around with from no warmth of another person able to give her a hug without fear or caution. She worried about other people, never herself when someone bumped into her. Most of the people weren’t afraid of her, because they knew what that felt like and would never exclude her because of something she couldn’t control.

And yet they couldn’t help but exclude her. She could always make a joke about it, and believe it herself at the time. She saw other people’s pity for her, like Logan’s today. She saw it in his eyes. She knew he felt sorry for her, and that’s why he hugged her. That’s why he’d hugged her the first time a lifetime ago on the train. But in the moment when a friend would hold her, she didn’t have time to analyze their pity, all she could do was feel in that moment, the closest she would ever get to a touch.

She couldn’t breathe when someone touched her, it felt so…real. Like she could feel what they were feeling as they touched her. People take that for granted she knew. She wondered if people ever just touched someone, with their fingers and felt the chemicals flow back and forth from body to body. Didn’t they know that is why it feels so good to give someone a hug? Because of the exchange of molecules? She didn’t know, and didn’t want to know the answer. She never asked.

Unclasping her bra she grabbed a nightgown and pulled it over her head, letting the material slid over her skin, she memorized that feeling every time she clothed or unclothed herself. Now it was a revelation to touch anything, and she would always embrace the feeling of anything. A table or the dirt, it didn’t matter. Some people were blind, some were deaf, she was the untouchable. If she had to choose, would she be blind or deaf instead? In a heartbeat. She could see and hear, and those were gifts beyond comparison, but you aren’t a prisoner from other people from that. You don’t have to see someone to feel how much they love you. You don’t have to hear someone to know what they’re thinking as they brush their fingertips along your face in a warm caress.

Rogue stared at her hands, unable to discover why she was poison.

"I’m not sorry you touched me."

She shook her head, wiping that thought from her mind. He wasn’t sorry because he saved her life. And unlike anyone else he could survive a few seconds of contact with her. But of everyone, he was the least afraid to be around her. The least intimidated or uncomfortable. He didn’t care, she was just another person to him. Not someone to fear or be careful around. Maybe that’s why it hurt her more when he held her than when anyone else did. He really wanted to, and he not only knew the consequences, he had experienced them. That was the greatest gift of all he could give her, just allowing her to know that…that was everything.

She leaned over to her nightstand and pulled out her lighter. She dreamed of burning her skin, burning it off. Burning the poison off of her, releasing her of the infection that kept her empty and alone. She lit the flame and looked at it. How many times had she done this, just stared. It helped her honestly. To know she did have the power should she choose to ever use it. No one could touch her but she sure as hell could. She could at least control herself.

"What are you thinking about?" Logan said as she turned her head to see him standing at her doorway.

"Oh I’m…looking for a cigarette," she said pulling one out of her drawer and lighting it, silently cheering herself for that perfectly delivered cover.

"Did I wear that off on you?"

"No," she smiled. "I wouldn’t touch a cigar if my life depended on it. Do you ever knock?"

"I did, when you didn’t answer I needed to make sure you were all right."

Lying back down, she inhaled, then spoke. "Still the kid you’re afraid will get herself into trouble again?"

"Well you have been known to disappear on me," he smiled sitting on the end of the bed facing her.

"I know I don’t have to say this but I’m glad you’re back."

"So am I. I couldn’t live my life without Scott’s charm again."

Rogue laughed a little. "He’s a good man, and I know you two have a grudging respect for each other. He’s been there for me."

When I wasn’t, Logan heard in her voice.

"What about you? What did you find?"

He didn’t say anything, but kept his eyes with hers. She broke the silence and smiled.

"You know I may not be Jean or Xavier but I know what you’re thinking."

"Well that’s good cause I sure as hell don’t."

"You can’t get over seeing me here, grownup smoking a cigarette."

"You’ve completely changed."

"Yeah, kinda happens when you’re not around," she goaded a little, leaning over to knock the ash off her cigarette.

"Ouch, that one hurt."

"You’ll heal," she assured, grinning.

"Just a wild guess here, but are you mad at me?"

"No, I just like giving it to you."

"How you holding up?" he asked seriously.

"With what?"

"The mutation."

She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Don’t forget, Marie, I know you."

"Oh so it’s Marie?"

"For the moment."

"Really, all right."

"You ever think about before it happened to you?" he asked.

Exhaling smoke, she answered. "I have to, it’s sort of my only link to reality."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don’t know, sometimes it just feels like I’m not really existing, I’m just sort of watching everyone else. So I need to remember that once I did so I know I’m really here."

"Once what? Existed?"

She was so cool and mysterious now. He had a hard time believing she was the same person.

"I’ve got a question for you. If you could remember before they did that to you, would you want to? Knowing you could never get it back? And remembering the people you had loved who had loved you and knowing they would never view you the same again?"

"I went to find those answers, but eventually I knew the only answers I would ever find or have ever found have been here."

"It’s a hard question to answer isn’t it?" she said.

Putting out her cigarette she leaned over to drink some water. He viewed her strong arms as her body twisted to reach the table. Then, flinging the covers off her she stood up and walked to the sink.

"I brush my teeth after smoking usually. Hang on," she said, not the least bit embarrassed of brushing her teeth with him in the room.

Finishing, she sat down on the bed, facing him.

"So…why did you come to check on me? Or did you just want to see me but had to come up with an excuse?"

"Oh I see I’m gonna get the brutal truth from you whether I want it or not," he smiled.

"I’ve missed that smile. You didn’t smile often but when you did you made me smile. Can I get you something to drink," she asked.

"Sure," he said. "Water’s fine."

At that point she was tired of the small talk. "All right, Wolverine, tell me what’s going on," she flirted pouring him a glass of water and handing it to him.

"Is it so impossible to believe I just wanted to stay up all night talking with you? I want to get to know this person who I used to think I knew inside and out."

"Well you did, and maybe you still do, you just have a hard time believing it."

"Or, maybe it’s just a cool exterior you put on for the world."

That stopped her cold. How right he was. She was still that girl he knew, that wanderer. That drifter. So she’d found this place that felt like a home, but it would always be artificial. She couldn’t describe to anyone how outside the world you are when you can’t make contact with anyone. She’d learned how to fool herself into believing she was fine, but just like she could always see through Logan, he could always see through her.

"Of course I have an exterior," she said softly.

"Keep talking," Logan said, his eyes on hers.

"What do you want me to say?" she said hazily. "That it still hurts everyday to wake up? And to know that when I touch someone I hurt them when what I want to do is care for them?"

"Yeah, that’s what I want you to say. I want you to tell me the truth. Even the bad parts."

"Wouldn’t it be convenient if not talking or thinking much about the pain would cause it to go away instead of grow?" she asked.

"It would be more than convenient."

Why was it that she had to ask him questions to get him to talk but all he told her was to start talking and she did?

"Did you find any answers?" she whispered.

"Nothing real. There would be leads that all ended in dead ends."

"I don’t know if there’s such a thing as fate, Logan, but maybe there’s a reason for that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, maybe what you had before wasn’t wonderful and maybe you won’t find some closure or comfort if you do find out who you were."

"If you were me, could you not try to find out who you were and what happened? Would the questions not eat you alive?"

Fresh tears formed in her brown eyes as she shrugged in defeat. "You’re right, of course they would. Of course I would give anything to try and know who I was, if I was needed. If I was missed."

"But you are missed," he said softly. "You ran away before your parents had a chance to know what had happened."

"And I don’t regret it," she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. "And maybe that’s selfish but I would rather have them remember me as I was than look at me wondering how I could do that. It’s better they think I’m dead than know I could kill them if I brushed my hand against them by accident."

"Do they think you’re dead?" he asked.

"It’s been five years."

"And you’d really wish that? What if they still have hope? What if they are the ones who don’t have closure?"

Rogue’s face winced in tears as she turned her head to try to stop before sobbing.

"Hey," he said, realizing what he’d said. "That was stupid of me to say, I’m sorry." He held out his arms to her. "Come here."

"No," she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. "I’m not protected enough-"

"I don’t care," he said softly. "All right, look," he said crawling over beside her. "I’ll get under the covers and you put your gloves on."

"Logan-"

"Don’t argue with me."

She exhaled angrily. "You always were insufferable," she said putting her gloves on.

Also putting a sheer long sleeved blouse, he pulled her into his arms. Though she lie on the covers, she could still hear his heartbeat, and could still feel his hands on her back, comforting her.

"What would I even say to my parents now if I saw them?" she wondered allowed.

"Were you close to them?"

"Not especially. I loved them and they loved me but we didn’t talk an awful lot. I guess we talked about the normal stuff though."

He took her hand and held it firmly in his.

"I never talked to anyone like I talk to you," he told her.

She exhaled a laugh. "Well I didn’t give you much of a choice, but thank you for humoring with a kid from nowhere Mississippi."

"Oh I think you were the one who had to put up with me," he smiled.

"I don’t know, I kinda figured you weren’t as bad as you pretended to be. Especially when some guy comes up behind you and tells you they know what you are. They don’t have a clue."

"You got that right. Now wait a minute, you mean to tell me you hopped on my trailer because I was a mutant, not because of how absolutely charming I was?"

She smiled. "Well that too."

With her head still on his chest she took his hand, feeling his knuckles lightly, tracing over his hand and his wrist.

"I don’t know who would do this. Place something foreign into someone else’s body it’s…it’s sick. I still don’t see the point of it," she said holding his beautiful hand in hers, her fingers caressing his. "And not only did you survive the procedure but your body doesn’t reject it," she said with amazement in her voice. "I know when you stabbed me you were dreaming about what they did to you, I’m sorry."

"It was nothing," he said briskly.

"Oh really," she said with a sad smile. "Is that why you stabbed me, you thought I was them. Do you…think about it often?"

"It’s the first thing I do remember."

She took that to mean yes. "Sometimes it helps to talk about it, even when it’s so painful to talk about you think you’ll never get over it. Every time I think about what I am, I feel like another piece of me dies. If I can just not think about it I hope I can live without it and not feel so outside looking in. And just from someone else who’s been there, for me, it hurts me to think about my life before. I often wish it never happened so I wouldn’t have to feel guilt or ache from missing them."

He didn’t know what to say. Even though she lie on his chest she could see his cool exterior expression, and knowing he was full of questions and his own pain.

"I wasn’t trying to tell you not to search if you need to, I’m just telling you if you can’t ever find the answers, it’s possible it would be easier not to know."

When he still said nothing she began to feel like she was putting salt on the wound rather than give him some comfort in his unanswered questions. Lifting her hand and beginning to get off him, he grabbed her wrist.

"I…really don’t know what I’m talking about, never mind-"

She looked at his hand clasped around her wrist and then at him.

"You were saying everything right," he told her. "For the first time in a long time something someone said made sense."

She didn’t quite know what to say to that. He stared at her, thinking how much he would kiss her at this moment if…

Once she caught that in his eye and snatched her hand free.

"Sorry," she said. "To make this simple, would you like some ice cream?"

"What?"

"I need some, want me to get you some?"

"All right…" he said.

Within minutes they were eating out of a huge tub of chocolate fudge laughing their way to sleep.

Chapter 3

12:14 PM

"Where’s Marie?" Storm asked at brunch.

"Don’t know, haven’t seen her yet," Scott said.

"Did she say anything about where she was gonna be today?" Jean asked.

"She said she was going out," Storm said. "I don’t know where."

"Well maybe she just left," Scott replied.

Storm was a little cautious with Marie. "I’ll just go to her room and if she’s not there I’ll know she’s out."

Storm walked through several long hallways to reach Marie’s room. She opened the door instantly.

"Marie?"

Rogue sat straight up. "What?" she said, startled from being awakened.

Storm turned on the light only to see Logan at the other end of the bed, also waking up.

"Oh," Storm said, now feeling utterly embarrassed. "I’m sorry, I just was worried about you sleeping so late-"

"What time is it?"

"Past noon."

Rogue’s eyes, still adjusting to the light, forced herself to get up.

"Oh, I feel…like hell," Logan said, clutching a hand to his head.

"Too much ice cream," Rogue said, trying not to laugh.

"I didn’t even know I fell asleep."

"It’s the sugar high and the crash," Rogue said, pushing his head off her feet.

"OW! Easy there, I didn’t know you have sugar high hangovers."

"Well, we learn knew things everyday," Rogue said, standing up to go to the sink where she washed her face and teeth. "I’m sorry, Storm, I overslept obviously. I’m gonna quickly shower and change and then I’m outta here."

"All right, I was just worried, didn’t mean to interrupt-"

"What, on my sleep? Please," Rogue said. "Thank you for waking us."

Logan finally stood up and Storm still had her eyes half out of her head.

"Got an aspirin?" he said.

Storm couldn’t help but smile. "All that from ice cream?"

"Well I don’t know, could’ve been talking with her half the night."

"Come on," Storm said smiling.

Rogue put on a business suit, hose, and low-heels as she quickly made her way out the door of her room. She went to the eating room and luckily they were all eating lunch. She picked up an apple as she hurried out towards the door, nearly sliding as she ran.

"Bye," she called back.

"Rogue, don’t go see Magneto," Xavier said which stopped Marie cold.

She turned around slowly, looking at all the people in her life.

"Charles, if you’re going to enter my mind and read it, will you at least not tell me what to do?"

"He’s right? He didn’t just read the wrong brainwave?" Scott said.

She threw her hands up in defeat. "Yes, I’m going to see Magneto."

"Have you lost your mind?" Logan said.

"Marie, why?" Jean asked.

"I tend to like to see how people who tried to kill me are four years later," she said sarcastically. "Honestly, I am going there to talk to him."

"About what?" Scott said.

"I’m not sure yet."

"If you antagonize him you may be in a dangerous situation. After all, his associates are still free. Mystique."

Rogue’s innocent face was no innocent right now. "I’m willing to take that chance. I won’t live my life in fear of him. He can kill me or he can leave me alone, but he can’t stop me from speaking. I was too frightened and unaware of what I was then to say what I wanted to, now I have that choice."

She smiled at them hopefully and turned to leave. Storm stood up.

"I’m going with her."

"So will I," Scott said.

Logan just stood up but Jean pushed him back down in the chair.

"You guys, just, calm down a bit. Magneto’s in prison, and Xavier goes to see him. I don’t think she needs the cavalry to escort her. She’s not seventeen anymore," Jean said.

"Yeah but she sure as hell isn’t Magneto’s favorite visitor," Scott pointed out.

"Let her go," Charles Xavier said. "Jean’s right."

"Fine, I’m gonna go take a walk," Logan said, leaving.

"He’s gonna go after her," Storm said.

"Oh of course he will, why’d we even bother trying to talk him out of it?" Jean said.

"Long as he brings my motorcycle back," Scott said.

Magneto’s Plastic Prison

"Let me see him," Rogue said firmly.

"On what grounds?"

"Charles Xavier is my father," she lied. "And I care what happens to Eric. I haven’t seen him in ages and that is my own fault. I want to make it up to him."

"Charles Xavier is a regular visitor here," the man said, checking his files. "I was unaware he had a daughter."

Rogue smiled. "I didn’t know it was procedure to name family members in order to see someone. But my father and Eric have known each other since they were seventeen."

"Have any ID?"

"Yes," she said, showing him a card.

"You don’t share his last name."

"No, I’m married," she said.

"You certainly have an answer to everything, don’t you?"

"So far, they’ve been very simple questions," she said with a barely pleasant smile.

The man instructed the guard to go with her, and the plastic hallway slowly extended to the cell. Rogue felt like that little girl for a minute, then sucked in a breath, did her best to hold her head up, walking through the hallway as it opened to her. When she reached the door, the guard told Magneto he had a visitor. He didn’t turn to see who it was, so she walked to the other side of the table and sat across from him.

"Hello, Magneto," she said.

Then he looked up at her.

"Do you remember me," she asked.

"Why have you come?" his rich British accent asked, as if she was wasting HIS fucking time.

"I had to," she said, sitting herself down and looking him straight in the eye.

"Why?"

"Because I always wanted to ask you why you selected me to murder out of all the other mutants in the world? But I decided to wait a few years until any animosity between us might’ve died."

"Because you could take my power and then I could use yours."

"So because I could hurt you by sucking your powers…I’m suddenly the answer to our survival? Why, I am not the most powerful mutant-"

"Oh but I’ve heard your powers have increased since your last physical contact. Apparently you are now…indestructible."

She said nothing, she had no response. He smiled.

"Do you ever wonder why you remain hidden from all who knew you before you discovered your ability? Do you ever wonder why you’re scared to go back there and see what they will think?"

"Yes," she replied softly.

"And what do you think of when you go to those unpleasant thoughts?"

"I remember that just because they are different from me doesn’t mean I have the right to eliminate them out of fear," she replied.

He chuckled at that comment. "Oh my dear, using my own language against me."

"How am I using it against you? Why is this only about you? It was my life you were sacrificing to destroy people. And how is what you feel for them any different from what they feel about you?"

He leaned in close to her. "Because we are the future. There are more mutants born everyday, we are the future, not them. And they refuse to let us live."

"Really? As I recall it was you trying to kill me."

"I wasn’t hoping to kill you, you are one of us, you are family. But your power was stronger than mine, stronger than anyone else’s, so I used to as a sacrifice."

"Yeah and who died and made you God?"

He seemed to ignore her. "And had I succeeded, your sacrifice would never have been forgotten."

"I’m flattered," she said, unable to not shiver a little at the memories. "And you’re right, I do have new powers, but I would trade the good ones in an instant to not have any. To not be a mutant. I don’t want to use powers, what I want is to be out of my own prison. You think you’re in prison? You don’t know prison until you know what it is like to be trapped inside this body. You’re not the only one who lives in pain," she said, rolling his sleeve up to look at the numbers branded into his skin. "I know you were in the Holocaust, I know you were alive and that you suffered through the most tragic and disgusting time in all history, and by all means I would be paranoid and insane myself, but you’re not the only one who lives in fear, or in pain. Charles does, only he uses his fear to do good instead of evil-"

"Good? Meaning help the people who wish to eliminate him survive?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You are so twisted and bitter. I won’t even begin to imagine what it was like for you to be in the Holocaust and then come to America in hopes that there would be tolerance and have it every bit as horrible as what you’d seen all your life. The poverty, the broken promises, the prejudice. But just because you have powers, doesn’t mean you get to play God with them."

He smiled at her, degrading her. "If you could play God, how hard do you think it would be not to give into the temptation?"

She knew he had an incredibly valid point.

"I wouldn’t know-"

"You will, someday."

"No, no you’re wrong. Charles has the power to play God, he can control people’s minds but he doesn’t!"

"Oh yes he does, whenever he has to."

"Oh, okay, so in order to try to keep you from killing me and fifty cops while you had Toad carry me like a sack of potatoes, he temporarily stopped you so he could talk to you, then he plays God. You are such a hypocrite because he uses his powers to love and embrace. You are so full of…anger, and by all means you have the right to and you hate Homo Sapiens all you want but not you nor anyone else has the right to destroy ONE human thought! Even if the thought is to hate you. For all your powers and all your knowledge you know only half of what Charles knows. And that is the anger, the frustration, the violence. So you have power, big deal honey. All the powers in the world could not give me what has been taken away. But I don’t suck up everyone else’s powers just to feel superior, or right, or whole again. Nothing anyone could give me could replace and block out the emptiness my mutations give me."

"Nor can mine," he retorted. "And just to give you a small piece of what you’ve been without," he said, pulling her glove from her and grasping her bare hand in his.

She gasped in fear but nothing happened. He smiled cruelly at her.

"If you could gain this ability back, how far would you not go to gain it?" he said. "The one thing you desire most is that, I desire all mutants being safe, as far as I’m concerned, I would find a way to help you if you would join us."

Shivers coursed through her at the way he said that, and she pulled her hand free. She stood up to leave.

"You will be the one lost if you do not see what I am saying is true, that what I’m trying to do is protect our brothers and sisters-"

"Oh ENOUGH…with your saving the world crap," she said, wiping a tear from her face. "You preach about all the good you can create but what you really want is control. You want to eliminate them just like they want to eliminate you-"

"We are the future! They won’t exist much longer but they can stop us from existing!"

She shook her head. "No. You won’t exist, we will."

He slowly stood up, looking down on her like she was that little girl he’d nearly killed. Her strength cracked as her eyes widened in fear. He reached forward and cupped her face. The guard was watching intensely now. Rubbing his thumbs paternally over her cheeks, tears fell over his hands.

"You know you were so much sweeter as a little girl," he said and kissed her forehead.

Feeling a touch, even of a man she hated, brought her heart leaping up into her chest and she felt a chill of reality. She wasn’t non-existent, someone in the world could touch her. His eyes stared proudly down at her, knowing exactly what he was doing to her. She pushed him away from her angrily. "Stop it!" she hissed.

"Okay, that’s enough," the guard said. "Ma’am, let me escort you."

"Thank you," she managed to say.

Guiding her out she heard the sound of the plastic walkway disconnecting and following her as she left.

Outside, Rogue embraced the fresh air and shivered with disgust, putting her glove back on.

"What did he say to you?" Logan said from behind her.

"Oh my God!" she said, turning around, startled. "Don’t do that," she said. "You scared me to death."

"Did he threaten you?"

"You followed me?"

"Answer the question."

"He didn’t threaten me, he just taunted me a little."

"You’re shaking," Logan said, walking towards her.

"He sort of has that effect on people," she said, and that’s when he really heard her accent again.

"What’s wrong?" he said more seriously.

"Nothing. I’m fine, and you know something, you don’t have to follow me around anymore. I’m not seventeen anymore and you don’t have to be responsible for me-" she said then stopped and turned from tears.

He grabbed her arm harshly. "I made a promise to you five years ago that I would take care of you and I will. And you can pull all the crap in the world with other people but I know you-"

"I don’t need to be taken care of like some unfulfilled responsibility!" she said trying to get his hand off her arm.

"Oh well that must be another one of your gifts! Because if that’s true then you’re the only person on the face of the earth who never needs anyone!"

She stopped fighting then, and just gave up, smacking her lips together not to cry. He still had his gloves on from the motorcycle ride as he cupped her face. He couldn’t believe he’d said that to her after what she said last night. Her eyes were closed and her face full of hurt.

"Hey, I’m sorry," he said.

"No, you’re right," she said, breathing in. "He touched me. Magneto touched me."

Still holding her tilted face in his hands, he tried to read what she wasn’t saying.

"And?"

"And nothing. It was normal, something I haven’t experienced in six years. But when he touched my hand I remembered," she said, disgusted and in tears.

Logan didn’t know what to say, he was still processing this.

"W-why did he touch you? How?"

"He ripped my glove off and gripped my hand. Then he kissed me."

"He what?"

"Like a father, even he’s not that disgusting."

He gripped her shoulders. "Are you hurt? Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I feel fine. It was normal. And I don’t know how he did it."

"Did he ever touch you before? I mean when he abducted you?"

"Yes, but he hurt me then. He gave me his life force and then had me use it for New York’s mutations, and it hurt so bad it was like layers of pain shocking me in waves."

"Okay, all right, you know something, he doesn’t get to hurt you and he doesn’t even get to ruin this day, look at me," he said tipping her chin up. "If you’re going to let this get to you, can you put it on reserve for later?"

"And do what now?"

"Get something to eat. I know you didn’t eat anything other than an apple-"

"Okay, you win."

"So get on the motorcycle," he said.

She looked over at Scott’s motorcycle.

"You took it AGAIN?" she said unable to not grin.

"And this surprises you?" he said with his very sexy almost smile.

"Logan I’m in heels," she pointed out.

"And?"

"And you are not exactly the model driver."

"You scared?"

"Of course I am. Any sane person would be!"

God he looked good standing there waiting for her to get on the bike.

"You’ll throw me," she teased getting on it. "Would you just…be gentle?"

"What, Scott never managed to take you out on his bike before?"

She smiled, glad he was covered so she could clutch to him for dear life. Wrapping her arms around him and putting her heeled shoes on the pedals, she laughed.

"Well if you’ll recall, you had the bike the last four years."

"But I know he got another one."

"I never asked, and you know what, this-this isn’t working. My heels are gonna kill me if you don’t."

"What are you doing?" he said as she reached down taking them off.

"What does it look like I’m doing? I’ll die with this lack of balance."

"You sure you wanna do this?" he asked.

She winced. "Do I have a choice?"

"No."

"If I’d known I would’ve worn something different," she said hiking up her skirt to her upper thighs so it would be easier to straddle the seat. With that movement Logan once again realized she wasn’t a little girl in the fact she didn’t give a shit who was watching, she wasn’t intimidated. She was freer. And apparently comfortable with her own sexuality. "And I wish I’d brought something to put my hair up in."

"You afraid you’ll blind me?"

"That and the joy of brushing it out when I get home."

"You ready?"

"As…ready as I’ll ever be I guess."

Mutant High
Four Hours Later

Opening the door, Rogue walked in. Logan was behind her.

"Where is everyone?" she whispered.

<In here Rogue> she heard Charles Xavier say inside her mind.

She smiled. "All right," she said. "Sounds like the troops are waiting."

"Wonderful," he said sarcastically.

Walking through several hallways they went underground where they met up with the gang in the conference room.

"Marie, you look like…" Storm said but couldn’t finish.

"Hell?" she offered. "Yeah, I know."

"What happened to your shoes?" Jean asked.

Rogue looked down at her feet, not even realizing they were bare.

"Oh I lost them."

"You lost your shoes?" Scott said. "Oh lemme guess, on my motorcycle."

"Yeah, but I wasn’t the one who casually "borrowed" it," she said looking at Logan.

"What about Magneto?" Storm asked.

Rogue blinked slowly. "Can I, talk about it later?"

"He touched you," Charles Xavier said.

"Would you ever stay out of my mind?" she demanded. "It’s not your right to go through my mind," she said, half pleading for him not to.

Scott stood up. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said irritated.

"Is he?"

"Yes, it was as if I didn’t have this mutation in me, all right?" she said to Charles, though no one else knew that they were talking about.

Rogue closed her eyes and felt herself blocking something. "Don’t!" she said.

"What, what’s wrong," Logan said beside her, clasping her shoulders.

"I…nothing, never mind."

"You just blocked me from being able to read your mind," Xavier said.

"What?" she said, tired and irritated.

Jean came over to Rogue.

"Let me take a look at you."

"Why? I feel normal, he was fine, I didn’t hurt him, he grabbed me-"

"I don’t give a damn about him," Jean said gently. "I just wanna make sure you’re okay."

Rogue closed her eyes, defeated. "All right, okay."

She turned and walked out the doors towards the lab. To her disappointment, all followed.

"What?" she said to them all as she began to unbutton her blouse.

"I’ll call," Jean said to them, and they slowly exited.

Rogue angrily took off her blouse and hose. Grabbing a thin paper gown, she put it on.

"Where do you want me?"

"Please understand that I just want to make sure you’re okay. We all cared about you so instantly, we risked our lives for you then and we will now. And all I want to do is make sure there is not one place on you Magneto hurt."

Rogue then knew she was being a total jerk.

"I’m sorry. I know you care about me and I shouldn’t have acted like that. I love you all so much and sometimes I just feel so…different."

"Do you wanna talk about what happened today?"

"No!" she said desperately. "I’m sorry," Rogue said. "No."

Dr. Jean Grey took Rogue’s pulse, blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and when there was nothing wrong she decided to dig further.

"Am I okay?" Rogue asked, hoping the tests would be over.

"So far," she said getting a needle out to take some blood.

"What are you doing?"

"Drawing some blood."

"Is that necessary?"

"I’m not sure," Jean said.

"You’ve never taken my blood before."

"I know."

"Well, don’t you think that might be dangerous? How is my blood less poisonous than my skin?"

Jean looked into Rogue’s sad eyes.

"Marie," she said, purposely not calling her her mutant name. "You are not poisonous. And I’m wearing gloves, so even if your blood does touch me, it won’t harm me."

"Thank you for being so good to me."

"Please don’t, it’s the least I can do."

"Jean that’s a lot of blood!" Rogue said, amazed at how many vials Jean was filling.

"I’m going to run quite a few tests."

Rogue was a little confused. "I haven’t had any symptoms. Why are you so nervous?"

"Because I’ve seen too much not to be."

Rogue began to feel light-headed. "Jean?"

"Yeah?"

"Something’s…wrong," she said blinking.

"Okay, okay, just breathe, what’s wrong? STORM, get in here!"

Storm came running in. "What?"

"EKG," Jean told her and Storm ran to gather the material, dragging it towards Rogue and beginning to hook it up to her.

"Talk to me, Marie, what’s wrong? What do you feel?"

Marie struggled to keep her eyes opened and be able to focus but she couldn’t.

"What happened," Rogue asked. "My eyes won’t focus."

"Well, we’re gonna find out right now, don’t worry, Marie, keep your eyes open! Stay with me-" Jean’s voice was interrupted by the noise from the EKG showing Marie was out.

Jean read the monitors.

"Shit!" she hissed.

"Did her heart stop?" Storm asked frantically.

"No, she slipped into a coma."

"What?"

"I don’t know why, can you also get me the EEG?"

"Yes," Storm said.

Scott and Logan came in, Xavier following.

"What happened to her?" Logan demanded.

"She’s in a coma," Jean said, listening to Rogue’s heart.

"How the hell did that happen?" Scott said.

"I don’t know, I was taking blood and she passed out and went into a coma," Jean said, turning to look at the monitor.

Logan walked over and snatched up a pair of latex gloves, then cupped Rogue’s face.

"Rogue, can you hear me," he said, holding her limp head. He looked up at Jean. "When did this happen?"

"About a minute ago. Jesus," she said looking at the monitor.

"What?" Logan said.

"The waves, they’re so frequent, her brain is working overtime but she’s in a coma."

"Read her mind," Scott said.

Jean put her stethoscope down and stood behind Rogue, placing her hands on each side of her head. Closing her eyes Jean began to focus but then she felt the rejection and she pulled her hands back instantly.

"What?" Logan said.

"She…won’t let me. She doesn’t want me reading her mind."

"Since when does she have a choice?" Scott asked.

"Since now, I suppose," Jean said.

"I’ll try once more," Xavier said, wheeling himself over.

His didn’t work either.

"All I can tell is it’s her who doesn’t want us to read her, not some physical abnormality."

"Great, so what do we do now," Storm said.

Xavier looked at Logan.

"She didn’t tell you what Eric said to her."

"No, she didn’t want to discuss it."

"Eric kissed her," Xavier said.

"You could just ask me, you don’t have to sneak into my head," Logan said.

"Where? Where did he kiss her?" Jean asked.

"I didn’t ask! She said it was paternal, and that’s it. She said he ripped off her glove and grabbed her hand. And when I saw her coming out of the building she was disgusted and frantically putting her glove back on."

"But he didn’t hurt her?" Jean asked.

"No, I think that’s one reason she was so shaken up over it."

"Listen, is she okay, right now?" Scott asked Jean.

"She’s stable but…being in a coma is never a good thing and neither is the amount of brain activity going on."

"That doesn’t make any sense," Storm said. "Why wouldn’t she want us to help her by figuring out why she’s in a coma?"

"She’s sick of it," Logan said. "She hates what she is and she feels like she’s not really existing."

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait, you’re telling me she’s killing herself or not letting herself be saved?" Scott asked.

"I don’t know, but I know that’s what she told me last night."

"She’s overheated," Jean said, seeing the perspiration on Rogue’s face.

"Want me to get a fan?" Storm said, having no idea what to do.

"No, she’s also very cold, but…she had no fever," Jean said. "Get her a blanket," she told Scott who instantly was on the job.

Scott placed the blanket over Rogue warming her with his hands as best he could.

"Is she in pain?" Scott asked.

"No," Jean replied, taking her temperature again. "Dammit, her temperature’s low."

"What does that mean?"

"I’m not sure exactly, I’ve gotta look at this blood."

"Wait a minute," Logan asked. "Didn’t you say she began passing out while you were taking blood?"

"Yes. You think that might have something to do with it? That would mean she was extremely anemic, not going into a coma. Going into pre-syncope or syncope would be normal, not a coma."

"She’s stable now," Xavier said.

Jean took her heart rate, pulse, and blood pressure again, all of which were steady and normal.

"Okay, she’s stable. In ten minutes, take her temperature again," Jean told Storm, "And if it’s any different, tell me. I’m going to do some tests."

Three hours passed and Rogue remained exactly the same. Her brain activity still incredibly high, everything else seemed perfectly normal. Jean came back in with test results.

"Everything’s normal," she said.

"Everything?" Scott said.

"Well, she has an elevated amount of iron and magnesium but other than that she’s fine. Even her blood, it’s…not like her skin. A little spilled onto my hand and it was purely normal blood. In the way it looked, the tests, everything."

"You think Magneto somehow dissolved the danger in her skin being touched," Storm asked.

"I don’t know, the only test for that would be to touch her."

"Well since we know I can heal from touching her, I should be the one to," Logan said.

Jean looked to Xavier, who nodded in approval.

"All right, but only for a second, as soon as you feel any pain, let go."

"Is she weak in anyway? Dying?" Logan asked.

"No, she is perfectly healthy except for the coma which I can’t explain yet. Why?"

"When Magneto put her in that thing, after I stopped it, she was dead. So when I touched her to heal her, it took awhile for it to make a difference because she wasn’t alive for a few minutes. If she’s not sick, would she still take my life force?"

"She absorbs other mutant’s powers for a short while, Logan, we don’t know how much or how dangerous it is. You are the only one who ever has," Professor Xavier said.

Logan looked down at Rogue, pulled the covers back a little. Placing a hand on her face, he held it there for five seconds and then he felt the pain. Storm pulled him back.

"Yeah, skin’s still the same," Logan said, catching his breath.

"Someone’s gotta go see Magneto," Storm replied.

"I’m not entirely sure it’s Magneto who’s doing this to her," Xavier said, deep in thought.

"What do you mean?" Storm asked.

"If only I could know what it was he said to her, that might lead us to what she knew and why she doesn’t want us to read her mind. He must’ve…said something to her she doesn’t want us to know. Rogue is still a mutant, all of her gifts may not have been developed yet, I don’t know."

"Gift?" Logan said. "You call anything she has a gift? She is a prisoner in her own body, now more than she was before. She can’t even move!"

"Hey, we saved her last time, we’ll save her this time," Scott said, trying to reassure Logan.

"I’m gonna go see what the hell Magneto said or did to her," Logan said, walking towards the door.

"Logan," Xavier said. "I wouldn’t if I were you. Not only do you have metal throughout your entire body, but you’re not Magneto’s favorite person. You also tend to get a little out of control-"

"Then what the hell do you suggest?"

"I’ll go. I grew up with him, I’ve known him for more than thirty years. We have an understanding of each other, all right?"

"Fine, go," Logan said.

"Keep watch over Rogue, Jean," Xavier instructed.

"Oh we’re not going anywhere," Scott assured the professor.

Scott walked over to Rogue and sat down beside her still body. He touched her thick hair with his fingers.

"Hey kiddo," he said softly. "We’re all here and we all love you. You’re stuck with us because we’re not gonna give up."

Tears rose in Scott’s throat as Storm and Logan watched.

"Please don’t shut us out, kid. We’ve all been through way too much and we need you. You’ve always been an X-Men and you’ve always been a part of us. So please, let us help you. And besides, I wanna know how you liked my motorcycle. We’re going to take care of you, and we’re gonna be here. Tell us what to do Rogue. Tell us what’s wrong."

Scott stared at her for a few moments, then stood up, unable to take it anymore.

"I’m going for a walk."

"All right," Storm said. "Logan, I’m gonna check and see what Jean’s trying to figure out."

After Storm left the room, Logan sat down beside Rogue and watched her silently.

Chapter 4

Jean continued working her butt of in front of the computer. No matter what she tried, with all her scientific abilities she couldn’t make it work. Nearly punching the keyboard she sat back in the chair, deep in thought.

"Jean, what is it you’ve been working on so hard for all these months?" Storm said, walking up behind her.

"Something to help. Something that might give me an answer."

Storm sat down and tried to comfort her friend. "Jean, I know how many unanswered questions there are, I know how hard it is to live in a world where the world fears us-"

"Wait a minute!" Jean said, as if she’d finally gotten the answer.

"What?" Storm said, seeing Jean’s eyes deep in concentration.

Jean turned to Storm. "The Professor says that when Rogue touches a human, she takes their life force, and that she can kill them. But with mutants, she absorbs their gifts for a little while. And in Logan’s case, that is his life force."

"What are you getting at?" Storm asked.

"What would happen if she touched another mutant who’s power wasn’t to heal rapidly when she was dying?"

"You…you’re thinking that it wouldn’t harm us to touch her? She might just absorb our powers?"

"Right but not permanently. Don’t you see that’s possible?"

"Well, it’s possible but none of us have ever tried it-"

"Why not? In five years none of us has even thought about the fact that absorbing Logan’s powers would of course harm him, but what would happen to me, I wouldn’t be telekinetic for a while?"

"Jean, we don’t know that’s all that will happen. She could still weaken you."

"Yes, weaken me, not kill me. Let’s look at the evidence from Logan. She takes his life force, his ability to heal, yet even after he collapses, it he who gains his powers to heal back. I did nothing other than monitor him. He regains his abilities."

"Even if that’s true, you think one of us should touch her to see what the results will be?"

"The more we know about her the more I can help her. I’m also going to take a skin sample."

Jean began to walk to the door.

"But Jean," Storm said. "She’s unconscious, how do we know if she absorbs our powers or not? She’s not able to move let alone act on things."

Storm was right.

"All right, but I’m still going to take a skin sample."

Storm and Jean walked back into Rogue’s room. Logan sat there, his arms crossed on her bedside, watching. Storm went behind him and rubbed his shoulders.

"Logan, come on, come with me for a few minutes."

"No," he said stubbornly. "What is she doing?"

"She’s taking a skin sample," Storm told him.

"What the hell for?"

"Her skin has always been a part of why she felt like a prisoner," Jean said. "I want to study it, so I can help."

"Won’t that hurt her? You just taking a piece of skin?"

"No, not if she’s in a coma."

"Is she all right?"

Jean looked at the monitor’s again.

"She seems stable."

"She will wake up," Logan said.

"Of course she will," Storm told him. "Come on, just for a little while."

Logan stood up. Storm had her arm around his waist as she took him out. Jean sighed, looking down at Marie. She closed her eyes and tried to read her mind again, and failed. Jean bent over towards her, whispering to her.

"Come on, Marie, tell me what you need. What are you afraid of? What you don’t want to tell. I want to touch you, I wish you would wake up to know I’m not afraid to. Please tell me if you feel me."

Jean took off the glove, prayed that Marie would wake up, and placed a hand on her forehead. She waited for pain, but there was none. Jean smiled with genuine happiness, tears coming to her eyes. But then she felt a little tired, a little dizzy, and weakened. So…Rogue could still harm her, but not nearly as fast. Caressing Marie’s face, she pulled up a chair to support her fatigued body.

"Marie, do you feel me? You’re taking my powers, you are taking a piece of me into you, can you feel it?"

Marie didn’t move. Though Jean felt herself weaken, she wouldn’t let go, screw her pain at that moment, it was just…it felt like she was being drained of energy.

"Dammit, Marie, open your eyes, open them and look at me!" she pleaded.

Caressing Rogue’s face with her long, soft fingers, Jean let go.

"All right, let’s take a sample of your skin, let me see what it is that makes your skin the way it is."

Magneto’s Plastic Prison

"Hello Charles," Eric said as he heard the wheelchair being moved in.

"Dear God," Charles Xavier breathed.

"What?" he grinned devilishly. "Oh yes, I can guess why you’re here."

Charles read his thoughts thoroughly. "Yes you could guess but your guess is wrong. You had nothing to do with it."

"With what? Does this have something to do with the girl who visited me earlier today?"

"Her name is Rogue, and she’s not a little girl anymore. But knowing you don’t know, answers my question," Charles said, beginning to leave.

"No, Charles, come on, tell me what’s wrong."

"Now why would I do that, brother?"

"Rogue is still one of us, if something has happened, maybe I could help."

"In exchange for what?" Xavier asked, wheeling back to sit across from him. "Let’s be honest, why would you suddenly want to help the girl you tried to murder not too long ago?"

"We are mutants, you know what that means to me. It’s important to me that our government doesn’t get to her, ever. She is strong spirited and full of life. Regardless of the past, I said I would fight the war, and if that means helping you, I will, old friend."

Xavier watched the eyes of the man who was once his best friend, once the one he would go to when there was no one else in the world. And no matter what Eric did, Xavier understood why. His parents being taken from him, him barely surviving the Holocaust and being in it because he was different. He grew up without tolerance, and he will die without tolerance. His dream was America, the land of tolerance, but that was only a dream.

"I believe you, Eric."

"Only because you can read my mind. You slither through people’s thoughts and then decide if they are worthy."

"Come Eric, you know me better than that. I was the one you could count on, and only when you resorted to hatred did we change to opposite sides. Tell me, and I promise not to read your thoughts. What did you and Rogue discuss today?"

"She came to me to ask such interesting questions. Why I chose her, for instance. And I told her the truth."

Charles leaned in. "And what truth is that?"

"Her powers are just being developed, she doesn’t know she has a say."

"And what makes you believe that?"

"Did she tell you that I touched her?"

"Was that a threat to her?"

"No, it was to make her understand."

"Oh I see," Charles said. "Knowing that what she would want most would be able to touch someone, you touched her-"

"To prove to her there would be no limit to what she would do to get that. When you can play God, how hard is it not to?"

"She’s in a coma," Charles said.

"Is she? Since when?"

"Since she arrived home from your visit."

"And you believe I had something to do with that."

"No, I don’t. I can tell you didn’t. But you do have ideas of what is going on, you are brilliant, Eric."

"Did anyone else touch her other than myself?"

"I don’t know."

Eric laughed. "What do you mean you don’t know? Haven’t you read her mind?"

"She has found a way to block me."

"While in a coma, that’s very impressive. She must already be changing."

"Yes she is."

"Experimentation on mutants might be the plan of someone. Did she come straight home after my visit?"

"No."

"Did you ever think there was a reason why she blocked your telepathy?"

"Yes of course."

"Maybe you have failed in giving her hope," Eric said, snidely but with honesty in his voice. "Sometimes a mutant’s gifts are not one’s wish."

"You believe she’s going to be abducted."

"Is that impossible?" Eric asked.

"Well, I suppose it takes one to know one."

"Don’t let her out of your sight."

"Why are you doing this, Eric?" Charles asked.

"For old times sake, when our cause was the same."

Logan stormed out of the laboratory and Storm followed. She could tell he was losing it over Rogue.

"Logan, please take a breath, she will wake up," Storm said, desperately trying to keep up with him.

"Yeah and in the mean time what am I supposed to do?" he asked, finally stopping.

Storm reached up to touch his face, then as a tear fell down her face she pulled him into her arms.

"When you stabbed her and she healed herself through touching you, the first thing she said was that what you did was an accident," Storm said in his arms. "The pain in her eyes knowing what she had done, I went after her that night and did the best I could to tell her she wasn’t to blame, but how do you tell someone that and make them believe it?"

Storm trembled in tears in his arms, causing his courage to break.

"Storm, we should be so grateful we can be in this position she has never ever been in since her mutation. We take it for granted but to never be like this, a comforting embrace-"

"I know," she said. "She has changed so much since you left. She’s so much stronger, and so much more angry deep inside. And I can’t tell you how much I adore her," Storm said. "We have all grown so much closer. You should see her and Jean. And Scott adores her-"

"Okay, stop right there."

Storm smiled. Raindrops began to fall as they walked.

"Did you do that?" Logan asked.

"No," she laughed. "Do you want to go back now?" she asked.

"Yeah."

Logan and Storm walked into Rogue’s room where Jean remained looking over her.

"Any change?" Logan asked.

"Yes. Her…brainwaves are changing."

"Is that bad?" Storm asked.

"I don’t know," she said watching the monitor. "They began being infrequent and irregular in intensity, and now they’re evening out, but they’re different than they were before."

"Does that have something to do with her coma?" Storm asked.

"It might. She might also just be reacting to…" Jean trailed off in concentration.

"What? What happened?" Logan asked.

"I touched her," Jean said.

"You what?" Logan asked.

"You did it, you went through with it?" Storm asked.

"You knew?" Logan demanded.

"She may just be reorganizing herself with the powers from me she absorbed," Jean said.

"Are you okay?" Storm asked.

"Yes, all I felt was a little tired as I passed my gifts to her but I’m fine. And so is she, as far as I can tell."

"Fine? She is not fine! She’s in a coma!" Logan said. "And why the hell did you decide to touch her?"

"To see if she would hurt me permanently, or even as much as she hurt you," Jean said, remaining calm.

"And if she had?"

"Then I would’ve known!" Jean shot back, who the hell was Logan to tell her what she should do for Rogue, he’d touched her, what did he have to complain about?

"Jean-"

"Logan, don’t lecture me, I will do whatever it is I have to to help her. You haven’t been here, I have, and I care about her!"

Those words hit him hard, and Jean knew it. She felt like a complete bitch but it angered her that he had just deserted all of them for four years and acted now like he still ran the show of Rogue’s life. But it was only because he cared.

"I’m sorry," she sighed. "Look, we are all on edge because we are all scared. And we are trying to do whatever it is we can think of to help her. Where is Scott?"

"I don’t know," Storm said.

"If he doesn’t get back here soon I will freak out," Jean said.

"I’ll find him," Storm said.

"Wait," Xavier said, coming in.

"What happened with Magneto?" Logan said.

"What he said was true, and you know I can tell. He believes someone is attempting to abduct her."

"What?" Jean said.

"Give me a break-"

"Logan, Rogue left your sight for a few minutes while you were at lunch, didn’t she?"

Logan didn’t have to answer.

"I have to make a phone call," Rogue said standing up.

"To whom may I ask?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Does it matter?" she teased. "Just because you saved my life a couple times doesn’t mean you have to worry about a phone call."

"You know it’s rude to leave your date at lunch by himself."

"You’ve not a date Wolverine," she joked. "You came here to keep me from getting into trouble, and you won," she said walking off.

A few minutes later she returned, a little shaken.

"What happened? Your boyfriend get hit by a truck?" he teased.

"No, nothing. Just still thinking about Magneto, he has an effect on people that make them feel like they’re on a roller coaster and it takes awhile for it to slow down."

"But you didn’t believe her, did you Logan?" Xavier said, interrupting his thoughts.

"I didn’t push it, you think she was followed? And Magneto’s behind it?"

"No, Magneto was the one who informed me."

"Why?" Jean asked. "Did he casually forget he tried to kill her?"

"No, of course not, but I know Eric better than anyone, and I know he was telling the truth from the best of his ability."

"Oh great, so while we’ve got this lovely piece of information, what the hell do we do?"

"It’s not entirely unlikely someone might want Rogue. Eric did and told me it was because she was gaining and developing other gifts. And I should’ve figured that."

"Well, just for the sake of believing you, how do we protect her?" Logan said.

"Well for starters, one of us has to stay with her at all times-"

"I’ll stay with her tonight," Jean said. "I’m not leaving her, not as her doctor or her friend."

"Professor, her brainwaves have changed," Storm said.

"Apparently they have reorganized themselves into different wavelengths and types."

"She touched her," Logan said.

"Do you think that’s what triggered it?" Xavier said to Jean.

"Could be, also could be these new developments, because she could block or telepathy long before I gave her my powers."

"Scott," Storm said, seeing him return.

"She better?"

"No, but she’s different."

"How so?"

"Her brainwaves are different, her blood is completely normal, even human like blood, and when I touched her skin all that happened was I was a little worn out from transmitting my powers to her," Jean told him.

"You touched her?"

"Yes, and I’m fine now, it was worth it to me, to touch her. I thought it might…wake her up," Jean said.

The IV inserted in Rogue’s arm disconnected itself and lifted off of her.

"Are you doing that?" Scott asked Jean.

"No," Jean replied watching. "She is. She is showing me she did receive my powers. She could hear me wondering."

Everyone was silent and watching Jean’s mind communicating.

"Is she saying anything to you?" Storm asked.

Jean closed her eyes and exhaled. "Magneto’s right," Jean whispered.

Rogue, with the rest of her body still as ice, reached for Jean with her hand. Jean nearly kicked the monitors out of the way as she reached desperately for Rogue’s hand.

"Marie! I’m here honey," Jean said, rushing to grab her hand. "Yeah, I’m here. Can you hear me? Are you in any pain?"

"Where am I? What happened?"

Jean looked at everyone. "I can talk to her now, inside my head."

"Is Storm here?"

"Everyone’s here, honey. Are you in pain?"

"No…I just feel weird."

"You did just remove the wires from your body, you did do that?"

"Yes, I heard you ask if I could feel your powers. I’m glad you gave them to me so I can talk to you inside…my head. I feel you inside of me, I don’t mean to take from people when I touch them-"

"Shhh, don’t. I touched you to prove to you that you wouldn’t hurt me. Now listen to me, do you know what happened to you?"

"I don’t…someone did touch me."

"Magneto."

"No, it wasn’t magneto. Someone bumped into me."

"Who?"

"She touched me…grasped my hand to apologize. I was so scared I’d hurt her but she just smiled, beautiful smile. Did Magneto do something to me?"

"I don’t think so, Marie. Are you sure this woman didn’t?"

"She had two kids and a family van, if she’d…been a mutant out in public like that-"

"Have you ever seen her before?"

"No. But she’s gotta be a mutant herself, she just couldn’t have known it. Why can’t I move? Can’t…I’m losing my ability to talk to you in my head."

Jean took Marie’s glove off and held her hand.

"Marie, can you feel me now?" Jean said. "Storm, get me a B12 injection."

"For her?" Storm asked.

"No, for me."

"What’s wrong?" Logan asked.

"She’s losing ability to talk to me through my powers so I’m giving my gifts to her and injecting myself for my own health."

Jean tightened her grip around Marie’s hand.

"Marie, can you feel me? Can you feel that I’m right here?" Jean said allowed.

"Are you in pain?" Storm asked.

"No, not yet, just shoot me up," Jean replied. "Logan, can you get me a glass of water?"

"Okay, okay, stop, I can feel you, let go of me, please," Marie said.

"You’re not hurting me, Marie. You know that because as I give you my powers you can read my mind."

"I’m scared. What’s wrong with me."

"You’re in a coma but I can’t find a legitimate reason you should be. Do you have any idea what is happening to you? Do you know who might’ve caused it?"

"No, I’m sorry. Is everyone around me?"

"Can’t you tell?"

"N-not quite. Wait…yeah, all right, I can hear their thoughts. Logan wants to touch me to heal me. Don’t let him, please don’t let him."

"I know he wants to, but he couldn’t even if I let him. You don’t need to heal physically."

"Then tell me, Jean, tell me why I’m in a coma."

"I don’t know, but we’re working on it."

"Tell them I love them, either your powers are leaving me or I’m exhausted, I’m sorry."

"Marie," Jean said, first in her mind. "Marie!" she said out loud.

"What? What is it?" Scott said.

"Nothing, she just runs out of my powers, but she told us all she loves us." Jean said that, but wasn’t sure of that, but didn’t want to worry the others. "Yes, someone did touch her, but she can’t understand how they could be anything but normal because of how the woman was."

"Well she obviously isn’t normal if she’s perfectly fine!" Logan said.

"Logan, calm down," the Professor said. "Jean, can you continue to study her tomorrow to attempt to determine what is causing the coma?"

"Yes. And someone needs to stay with her at all times. I will tonight, I won’t go anywhere."

"She’s not a goddamn piece of evidence," Logan said. "She’s a human being who needs help."

Storm’s eyes gathered with tears as she placed a supporting hand on Logan’s arm. "She can think and talk to you in her mind, why can’t she wake up?"

"I’m working on her brain chemistry, to find some reason," Jean assured.

"Why don’t you take a nap, just a short one," Storm said. "I’ll stay with her."

"Oh no, I’m fine-"

"I know, but…I’d like some time with her."

"Logan, want a beer?" Scott said, trying to cheer up.

"Not really but I won’t refuse."

Once they had all cleared out, Storm quietly sat down next to Rogue. She didn’t say anything for several minutes, just staring at her friend in fear.

"Rogue, can you please search for something that might have something to do with how we can help you? We…care about you, we need you. You’re are great combat fighter. You can kick the shit out of anyone and you are so valuable to us as more than an X-Man. Even though you’re all grownup I’m always going to think of you as a little sister. And I’m sorry I walked in on you and Logan. I know how much you two care about each other. That man can never stay put. He has a real ego problem."

Storm wiped her teary eyes.

"I’m not scared, I’m just…I miss you. I know how much you feel alone, but we are working incredibly hard to not only bring you back but to find out what it is about your skin that makes it…untouchable. I love you, and I’m gonna stay here with you."

Chapter 5

Next Morning
6:24 AM

Logan came downstairs the second he woke up to see Rogue. Jean finally forced him to take two sleeping pills to get him some form of rest, and he received all of thirty-four minutes of quality beauty sleep before kicking off the stupid covers and marching impatiently downstairs.

First thing he saw was Storm curled up in a chair, her knees to her chest with a small blanket covering her. Walking over, he didn’t have the heart to wake her up, she’d obviously stayed up forever with Rogue. He secured the blanket a little and brushed a strand of her white blonde hair.

Looking over to Rogue’s bed, it was empty. He looked around to see if she was in another bed or part of the room, but she wasn’t.

"Storm, wake up," he demanded.

She was instantly awake. "What?" she shrieked.

"Where’s Rogue?"

Storm threw the blanket off herself. "Oh my God," she said standing up. "Where’s Jean?" she said, her breath shaking as she pushed the heavy machines out of the way to find Rogue.

"You just…LET her go?"

"Well shoot me for sleeping!" she said in tears.

"Why the hell didn’t you get one of us if you needed to sleep!"

Scott and Jean burst through the doors in their pajamas.

"What’s wrong?" Scott said.

"Marie," Storm said. "I…fell asleep and she’s gone."

"You just…when?" Jean said. "What happened?"

"I don’t know! I’m sorry I-" Storm said, turning away with a hand over her mouth.

Scott instantly walked over to her and pulled her into his arms.

"It’s okay," he said, kissing her forehead. "Just…tell us approximately what time you fell asleep so we can know how much time has gone by?"

"I guess…one o’clock," she said pulling back trying to get it together.

Xavier walked in. "Oh Lord," he said, already reading their minds.

"Go to Cerebro," Scott informed.

"On my way," he said, exiting, Logan going with him.

Jean stared at the door Xavier and Logan walked out of. She was still, not having completely comprehended what could be happening to Marie…if anything was happening to her. Scott tapped her on the shoulder and she frantically turned around.

"It’s just me," he said softly.

Jean drew in a deep, teary breath. "Where is she?"

Scott pulled her into his arms. "I don’t know. I don’t know."

Xavier placed the device over his head and turned the machine on. Logan paced angrily around the hallway waiting for the Professor to be finished.

"What the hell is taking him so long?" Logan muttered.

"Hey, Logan," Scott said, running up and patting him on the shoulder. Logan was the world’s biggest asshole but he cared about Rogue and that at least earned Scott’s respect. "Give him a little bit longer-"

"Every minute he’s in there is more time they are able to do God knows what to her."

"I know," Scott said. "But however long it takes Xavier, it’ll take five times longer to do it without him."

Jean placed a supportive hand on Logan’s shoulder. Scott noticed but wasn’t worried. They were all completely in this together now. Jean then reached for his hand and he gave it to her. Logan then noticed the missing person.

"Where’s Storm?" Logan asked.

Jean turned to look down the long hallway. "She…she was in the exam room-"

"Shit," Logan said, passing them to look for her.

"Logan-"

"Scott, let him go. You know how Storm feels about Marie, maybe they’ll help each other. But I’ll tell you one thing, if Xavier can’t find her with that thing, I sure as hell will try."

Her feet touched the ground, the soil was slightly moist, a little mist clouded around her. She walked two steps, slowly, her body aching with each step. The pain forced the feel of bile rising in her throat. Her lashes lowered as the tears slipped. The night was beautiful, mysterious and haunting. She could barely see, until she stared up, seeing the echo of eternity beside her, growing…growing angry along side her.

She exhaled as the atmosphere met with her anger, her pain, her revulsion of what had happened. Her hair blew with the wind, her arms flowing up to her sides as she turned to the Heavens, demanding a response for her disgust and angry heart.

"I’ll show you God!" she shouted as the wind grew more intense and the sky began to flame up with motion as her body did.

She closed her eyes and felt the Earth move beneath her feet, her heart racing with release as she used her gift to lessen the pain in her heart. She felt the funnels almost lift her off the ground, forcing her to fly. The crackling lightning and the thunder that shook the ground below her. The noise grew louder as she heard something, it was desperate but she couldn’t care less. Let it save her, let it remove her.

"Ororo!" someone said, slamming into her, knocking her face first into the ground as she heard an explosion behind her.

The force of the fall caused her to take a few minutes to come to.

"Storm," someone said, pulling her up from behind, the hands gently taking her shoulders. "Storm, can you hear me," he said, his hands cupping her face. "Say something, please."

The first thing that came out of her mouth was a heart-wrenching sob. She forced her tired eyes open. Sucking in a breath, she managed to speak.

"Logan," she moaned painfully.

He pulled her into his arms, rocking her.

"What the…what the hell were you doing?" he whispered, terrified.

"My head," she wailed. "What happened?"

"It looked to me like you were trying to electrocute yourself considering I just barely managed to push you out of the way of the lightning you created."

"We tried…the computer," she said.

"What computer?"

"Last…last night I turned on Jean’s computer…she’s-been researching a way to stop Marie’s skin from hurting another people. So she can touch again. Jean’s been working so hard to find a way, while I’ve been doing my best to let Marie be anyone she wants in front of me. That I will take care of her and love her no matter what and I let her go."

"Storm-"

"Oh my God, what if they’re experimenting on her-what am I saying, of course they are! Why else do that to her? Someone had to do something to her because there was no medical reason for her to be in that coma! I should’ve…gotten someone else when I was tired-"

"Okay, stop," Logan said. "Stop blaming yourself, I didn’t sleep at all and I should’ve come down to check on her, so we all should’ve done more, not just you. But it’s not over. Come on," he said, slipping an arm under her legs and lifting her weak and lifeless body back to the compound.

Chapter 6

Okay…I can…I can think. All right, so where am I? Can’t…can I see? If I can I can’t see anything but moving…particles. I can’t move! Don’t…don’t panic. I’m just still in a coma. But I know they’re not here. Where are they? What happened?

Okay I feel something, a needle. Do they want blood? No, no they’re injecting. What is it? I feel it. It’s going through me, I feel…weird. Ohh…momentarily muscle spasms all over, my brain feels like…shit. Hands, I feel hands on me. What are they doing? Why are they touching me? What are they trying to do to me? Listen…all right, I can hear voices. Procedure, are they doing a procedure on me?

I try to swallow and I can’t, I try to open my mouth but I have no control. Do they know I’m conscious within my mind? I hope not, maybe whatever the hell they gave me will wear off and I can ask them if they mind telling me what the hell they’re doing to me. What do they mean it didn’t work? What the hell were you trying to do to me that would make "it work"?

Oh my God, whatever they just did gave me a serious hot flash, my body burning and the perspiration, I can feel it. My hair, everywhere, had I known I would’ve cut it all off. Wait! My eyes, I can…open them. Look, look, see something. Focus…can’t see their faces, they have them covered. Where am I? Dark, full of…equipment, people, everywhere. Wait, little girl, in the far corner. Sad…empty, scared of what she’s seeing. What the hell are they doing allowing a child to watch this? How old is she? She’s standing up…okay, she’s not a child. She’s about…seventeen. She’s walking over to one of the people working on me, they’re so busy they haven’t noticed my eyes.

She hears the girl tell the woman to stop—pain, I’m in pain…unbearable pain…my eyes are closing as my heart clenching in pain.

"Don’t, don’t you die, dammit, help me!" the woman said. "She’s going into cardiac arrest! Get over here!"

She felt the stiff jerk of the shock against her heart, forcing it to beat.

"Don’t you die! Stay with me, here, stay with me!"

Why…do they want me to stay alive? What are they doing? Breathe, just try and breathe…screw em, I’m gonna live. Breathing is evening out, I can breathe. Heart…doesn’t hurt, okay, relax. She heard the woman screaming at another person, another…doctor maybe.

"What the hell was in that drug? It was NOT supposed to hurt her, what the fuck was in it?"

"It’s going to take a few times to get it right-"

"Right? Is that what you think you even came close to accomplishing? You nearly killed her, you have a goddamn long way of going!"

"You’re the one that picked her and you knew there could be consequences-"

"Don’t you double talk me you son of a bitch. I picked her because there wasn’t a whole lot of options. Now I will save my daughter and your life depends on your finding the right drug for her. Now I’m going to examine her and your drug and you had better pray that your next attempt on her is a helluva lot more successful!"

Well, whoever it was certainly wasn’t taking any crap from this guy. Save…save her daughter? All right, that’s at least, sounding moral. How do I help? What do they want to take from me? Or do to me? <Wasn’t a lot of options> All right, so once again I’m unique, how? <It was NOT supposed to hurt me> Was that…it wasn’t supposed to hurt me??? That doesn’t make any sense. What is the drug for?

"You know though that you may kill her in the process. That’s of course why you abducted her."

"Well as long as we figure it out, finding the answer, that’s all I care about."

She’s holding my wrist, injecting something else in me.

"What are you doing now?"

"She’s semi-conscious."

Dammit, now I’m screwed.

Two nights later, she couldn’t take it anymore. She got of bed. It was wrong. Clothes, she had to get her some clothes, warm clothes. God knows if she could survive but at least she’d be gone. She snuck past all the rooms on the floor and scrambled her way down the next three staircases.

"Can’t be like this, even if there was a cure for me," she breathed running towards the gate. "Zero one five seven, Kara," she said as the machine scanned her eyes and welcomed her inside.

She ran towards the woman, and realized she was completely unconscious.

"Oh dammit, I don’t know how to wake her up."

She looked at the IV, which was flowing inside the woman. Her fingers went to the bag of fluid, it wasn’t just saline. What else was it? There was a noise from upstairs.

"Jesus," she said, realizing there wasn’t time to fuss. "Whoever you are, I hope this doesn’t hurt you, I hope it gets you to wake up."

She took out the needle in the woman’s arm, grabbing a bandage and placing it over the tiny incision. She lightly tapped the woman’s face with her gloved hands.

"Hello, can you hear me?" she said, cupping her face. "Look, I’m touching you, I have gloves on but I’m touching you. Come on, I need your help, I can’t carry you out here and get you back there by myself!" she pleaded. "Shit," she said as a tear strolled down her face. "I can’t believe I’m doing this after they’ve worked so hard for my benefit but wake up!"

She moved to the vile of drugs, reading the descriptions as fast as she could. Finally she found one that mentioned consciousness and it was all the time she had. She took the vile and a needle, sucking up the medicine into the needle and walking over towards the woman. She looked at this woman, lifeless, and undeserving of it. It had been a good cause, but an immoral and disgusting reality.

"Dear God, please let this do what I want it to, don’t let me kill her," she prayed, injecting the needle into the woman’s arm.

Instantly the woman drew a sharp breath.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" she asked frantically.

There was no immediate response to the woman other than more regulated breathing. She actually believed the woman wasn’t dead now.

"Christ," she said, running quickly to get the clothes, forcing them onto the woman.

She had a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved skin-tight shirt and heeled boots. All right, so she hadn’t done a lot of preparing, whatever it was, it was clothes. She never realized until now how difficult it was to dress an unconscious person. Attempting the shirt, she stopped and prayed.

"Please God, if you can just get her to wake up I’ll right this wrong. Do you want her to die? Come on God, help me save her for crying out loud and wake her up!"

She cupped her face again.

"Come on," she said shaking it. "Come on, open your eyes!"

She took a finger and gently opened the woman’s lid herself. It was dead and then suddenly it was striving to blink. She released her.

"Hello? Oh my God, can you hear me?"

Her brown eyes focused on her.

"Say something, please."

She licked her dry lips and swallowed. "Wh-where am I?"

"Oh thank God, no time to talk right now, I’ve got to get you outta here. Help me dress you, can you sit up," she said already pulling the woman by the hands up to a sitting position. "Lemme get this shirt on you, it’ll keep you warm."

She was too drugged to argue with the girl. She did her best to help out with the dressing process, but when the girl pulled her off the bed, she nearly slid to the ground.

"Whoa!" exclaimed the girl, catching her. "Come on, I need you to walk, I need you to walk right now."

"W-what did you do to me?"

"I gave you something to get you conscious so I could get you the hell outta here. Walk with me!"

She walked a few steps with the girl, then looked down at her shoes, then ironically back up at the girl.

"Hey, I was in a hurry, forgive my fashion and walk!"

She swallowed and obeyed. They reached a gate. The girl punched in a code and doors opened, a light disturbing her tired eyes. She blinked several times as the girl dragged her along.

"What…" she was having trouble speaking. "…did they do to me?"

"Experimental drugs to reverse your skin. I have it too, and they wanted to use you to find a way to reverse it. They were getting closer, but at the same time, making you weaker. I couldn’t watch it, even if it meant my freedom, get in," she said, stuffing her into a van.

Her eyes automatically closed, but she tried to keep them open. She lied down and tried to focus them.

"Please…p-please talk to me, say anything," she pleaded.

"It’s okay, I’m just driving. Please stay conscious, please don’t fall back asleep."

"Where are you taking me?" she whispered, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

"I’m taking you back. It’s ironic isn’t it? We use each other to try to heal when all the while we’re all we’ve got. I hope you’ll someday forgive us. We didn’t want to kill you, we just knew we might. But it was wrong."

"You-you were trying to make it so I could be touched?"

"Yes. I’m like you, I’m of the same mutation. We’re rare, but I know how you feel everyday, but if I wanted it that badly I should’ve forced them to make me the test subject."

She was having trouble processing what the girl was saying.

"There were several experiments," she said. "What…what day is it? Where am I?"

"It’s been days, but it’s over now. I’m gonna make sure you’re safe."

It was silent. The girl got nervous. She reached one hand to the backseat to tap the woman.

"Hey, hey, don’t fall asleep, I’m trying to get you out of here, don’t leave me now. Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"So where are you from? You sound…sorta southern."

"D-doesn’t matter."

"Boy do I know that line by heart. But you obviously found a home, where people care."

"They…are they okay?"

"Well to tell you the truth, I don’t know. We’ve been hiding from them, you understand. Because we had you."

"My head…"

"Don’t, don’t fall asleep, come on, talk to me. Just for a little while. Tell me about them. It’s a school, right?"

"It’s uh…more than a school."

"You a teacher?"

"Sometimes, I’m more often an X-Man," she said, her eyes so dizzy she had to put her head down.

"What do you teach?"

She frowned in pain, her head was spinning. "Powers," she whispered.

"Here, eat this, it’s not much but maybe it’ll help."

She opened her eyes to see the girl’s hand holding a candy bar. She strained her hand to grasp it.

"Thanks."

"You’re obviously sweet as hell, to thank someone like me."

She inhaled the candy, hoping it would give her some source of energy, someway to keep her eyes open.

"Feel any better?"

"I don’t know."

"Well, we’re getting there. I’m speeding about forty miles over the speed limit, thank God no ones on the roads and it’s three AM."

"Maybe that’s why my head is spinning."

"Sense of humor, that’s the first sign of survival."

"Who…are you?"

"Can you understand if I don’t particularly think it’s a good idea to tell you?"

An exhaled laugh came from the woman.

"Yeah, I bet. This…happened to my friend."

"What?"

"Experimentation."

"He alive?"

"That…that’s his power, he survives everything."

An exhausted sigh came from the woman in the backseat.

"No, don’t do that, come on, tell me what happened to him, stay awake."

"M-metal, they put it all over his insides, grafted it to his entire skeleton."

"Good Lord, that’s…does he know why?"

"No."

"Can you tell? How did you find out if it was on the inside?"

"Claws," she said wearily. "They come out."

"Claws? You mean the metal?"

"Y-yes. It comes out of his body as claws."

"What do you mean it comes out? When?"

"Whenever he wants. When he’s in danger, it’s a defense."

"Sounds like it would hurt like hell if used as a weapon."

"It does."

"What do you mean by that? He stabbed you?"

"No, no not intentionally. He…was remembering being experimented on in a dream and I woke him up and he stabbed me as he woke up."

"Where?"

"Right through my heart, all three of them, right through my body."

"Are you serious? My God, what happened?"

"You say you’re like me?"

"Yes. I am."

"His power is to heal rapidly…so I touched him, borrowed his ability."

"How did he take that?"

"He was fine, after a lot of rest, he healed."

"Was he then afraid of you?"

"N-no," she said, still struggling with her dizziness. But it helped to talk. "He held me, through clothing of course. But when I was killed a few years ago, he touched me again, brought me back to life. I woke up in his arms and I pushed him away from me because…well you know why."

"Oh yes, I do know. You can rest assured you’re not alone in this prison of hell. Watching but never being."

Somehow it soothed her to hear someone else say those words. And mean it.

"You ever killed anybody?" the girl asked.

"Yes, but that’s something I definitely don’t want to discuss. I hurt someone else though, that’s how I knew."

"Who?"

She felt so drugged she barely cared what she said. "The first boy I ever kissed."

"That had to suck, my God, how humiliating. I’m so sorry. Well, just to make sure you know you’re not alone, I killed my father."

"How?"

"I touched him. And when he started to…I cupped his face begging him to tell me what’s wrong. I didn’t know it was me, so I held his hand tightly as my mother called an ambulance."

"I’m sorry."

"It took me until I touched my best friend to begin to realize. She’s still…still alive but only by the respirator."

"I knew right away, I don’t know how. I just knew I couldn’t be touched. As he struggled to breathe I was crying and my mother tried to hold me, I shocked her when I shouted at her not to touch me. And I never…I never told her why, or that I was sorry."

"Forgive yourself for being the way you are."

"You say that, but do you believe it? Do you forgive yourself?"

She was silent a few seconds. "Sometimes," she replied.

"Not to change the subject but…how come you didn’t bring me a bra?"

The girl burst out laughing. "I was in a hurry," she laughed. "As soon as I get you back you can put as many on as you like?"

She smiled. "I wasn’t complaining, I was just…noticing."

"You close with the guy you touched?"

She thought of him. "Yeah, ironically. I saw him in a bar when I was seventeen, and a guy tried to kill him. His claws came out…then I knew he was, like me. Not exactly like me but a mutant. I hitchhiked with him and the rest is history."

"Yeah well, if he stabbed you and you touched him I’d say you’re at least even. Odd relationship though, I’ve never heard killing each other was a bond. But with mutants, God only knows. So who else is in your mutant family?"

There was silence.

"Hey, did you hear me? Hello?"

She turned to the backseat where the woman was passed out.

"Shit," she said, speeding up more.

Chapter 7

5:14 AM

"Scott, wait!"

"No, I’m leaving."

"God, you’re as bad as Logan, will you wait a second," Storm said, running to the front door to catch him. "Listen, you’ll need backup-"

"No, what I’ll need is you looking in your own direction, all right? Go."

Storm handed him a small device.

"If you need me, just tell me, and I’ll be there."

"Thanks."

When she had left, he opened the front door and a body collapsed on him.

"Oh my God, Rogue," he cried, holding her lifeless body in his arms. "Storm! Storm she’s here!"

Storm came back around the corner. "God, I’ll get her a blanket!"

Scott held Rogue’s defiled and lifeless body in his arms. "Rogue, can you hear me, it’s me. It’s Scott, can you hear me?"

"Here," Storm said, wrapping Rogue up. "Can you carry her?"

Scott gave her a look of irony. "What do I look, weak? Move."

Lifting Rogue up from the ground he carried her to the exam room. Storm ran ahead to get help. When he finally arrived with Rogue in his arms, Jean was there.

"Put her here," Jean said, setting up equipment.

"What can I do?" Storm said.

"Tell Logan."

"Yeah, then maybe he’ll shut up," Scott said.

"Scott, don’t be a prick," Storm said. "I’ll get Xavier too."

Storm ran out of the room. Scott hovered over Rogue.

"Do you know what’s wrong with her?"

"No, not yet," Jean said.

"Will she live?"

"I don’t know, she doesn’t look good," Jean said, inserting an IV into Rogue’s arm. "Apparently someone else has used this arm, I’m gonna use the other. Would you set up the EEG, just put the tubes on her."

Scott came quickly over to the other side of Rogue. "Yeah, sure, thank God I’ve watched you do this five hundred times."

The doors burst open, scaring Jean half to death. Logan, Storm, and Xavier came over. Logan looked down on her with fear so intense he trembled a little.

"What’s wrong with her?"

"I don’t know yet," Jean said, checking her heartbeat. "Her heart rate is slow."

"What does that mean?" Logan demanded.

"It could mean a lot of things."

"Logan, calm down for a minute, we’re all trying," Storm assured him.

He put on some latex gloves and held Rogue’s hand.

"Rogue, can you hear me," he said.

She looked lifeless. Storm pulled up a chair, knowing Logan was going to be here for a while.

"Sit down," she said softly, pushing his shoulders so he would obey.

Jean set up the EKG and drew some blood. Xavier came around behind Rogue.

"You gonna read her mind?" Scott asked.

"Yes. It may help us save her."

They all watched and waited as the Professor seemed to be succeeding in reading her mind. When he finished and looked up at everyone, his eyes were sad.

"She isn’t able to communicate with me at the moment, what I know is that experimental drugs were used on her for the past four days. A young woman who shared her mutation freed her. The young woman’s family was attempting to find a way to reverse this mutation, and use Rogue as a test subject. The young woman set her free, drove her back here, was very good to her. But there were several things done to Rogue, that may effect her life."

"What does that mean?" Storm asked. "She’s gonna be okay, isn’t she?"

"I don’t know," the Professor said.

"All her vital signs are poor," Jean said. "A coma would be the least of her worries. Her system seems to be weakening immensely."

"What can you do?" Scott asked.

"I can try to revive her system a little with nutrients while I figure out what the problem is. Storm, can you hand me a TPN?"

"Oh, yeah," Storm said.

"What’s a TPN?" Logan asked.

"Total Parenteral Nutrition. It’s a way of giving her food intravenously."

"Is that all you can do for her?" Logan asked.

"Until I know what’s wrong with her, it’d be dangerous to give her anything else."

Scott caressed Rogue’s thick hair. "Come on, baby, don’t leave us."

"I need some room to work on her, can you all just go for a bit? I’ll tell you as soon as I know anything."

They all for a few seconds looked at Jean like she was insane, but Storm got them out.

"What the hell’s taking her so long?" Logan said.

"Try to be patient," Storm said.

"The longer it takes the worse news it’s most likely to be," Scott replied.

The doors opened and Jean came through. They all stood up, eagerly waiting. Jean just shook her head.

"She’ll only last a few days at most," she said softly.

"What?" Storm said. "Are you sure?"

Jean hesitated, then nodded her head. "Yes."

"W-why?" Scott asked. "What’s wrong with her?"

"Her entire body is failing. All of her internal organs. Her brain chemistry is eating at itself. Whatever experimental drugs they gave her is killing her. In a few days, her body will have destroyed itself and there is…about zero chance of survival."

"There’s nothing to be done at all?" Xavier asked.

"I-I don’t know what they gave her, I don’t know what they did to her and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to reverse it in a few days. You all wanna see her?"

"Is she in any pain?" Storm asked.

"No, that I can promise. Why don’t you all go in one at a time?"

Logan hadn’t said anything, but now he finally managed to speak.

"What about if I touched her? Wouldn’t that…heal her? At all?"

"Yeah!" Storm said, a gleam of hope in her voice. "This time she’s not in a coma, her organs are failing."

Jean nodded slowly. "Are you sure, Logan?"

He gave the most ridiculous, ironic frown. "Is that a real question? Why are we standing her talking?"

"All right, after you," she said.

"Now I want to watch what happens to her system when you touch her, so hang on, lemme set up the EKG and EEG again."

"Aren’t we wasting time here," Logan bitched, getting a little impatient.

"No, we’re not," Jean said, a little irritated herself.

Storm silently said a prayer.

"Ready?" Jean said.

"Yeah," Logan said.

Placing his head on Rogue’s face, he waited for the pain then he would know she would be all right.

"Feel anything?" Scott asked.

"Not yet," Logan said, and then he took her hands and pulled her up into his arms, catching her back and holding her against him. Like he had the last time, holding her face against his chest.

When nothing happened he looked up at Jean.

"She is breathing on her own, right? I mean, she is alive?"

"Yes, her heart is beating, why?"

"Last time, with Magneto, she was dead, so it took her a few seconds to respond."

Logan cupped her face with both hands and looked at her face, holding her up.

"Can somebody please tell me why she won’t-"

"It worked," Xavier said. "Whatever they did to her was for the purpose of making her skin safe for anyone to touch."

"Well that’s great except for the fact she’s now going to die because of it," Logan said.

"Oh my God," Jean said, realizing the sick irony of this. "Logan I-" she couldn’t think of anything near intelligent to say.

Jean covered her eyes with her hand as she cried softly. Storm and Scott took off their gloves, anxious to touch her for the first time, forgetting for a minute that there were tears streaming down their faces.

"Marie," Storm said, shaking. "Marie, we’re here, your skin is okay now, you can…do anything now," she said, tears falling unbidden down her face.

Storm kissed Marie’s cheek and caressed her hair. Scott and Jean also reached to touch her. It was like they had never touched skin before as all their hands reached for a touch of Rogue’s skin. It was like a stampede of hands across Rogue’s face and arms.

"Good thing she’s asleep, she’d be scared to death with everyone hovering over her," the Professor said.

Jean’s professional strength was waning now. Tears fell down her cheeks and onto Rogue’s skin.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry," she told her, apologizing for not being able to save her.

Scott pulled Jean from Rogue, holding her.

"You did the best you could," he told her.

"Why don’t we all say goodbye to her one at a time. All of you, go take a minute for yourselves, I’d like to talk to her," Xavier said, giving them a chance to pull themselves together.

"Okay," Jean said. "But first I’d like to stop the intravenous feeding."

"Why?" Storm said frantically.

"Because I don’t…want to force her to live like this any longer than she has to. She’s going to die, I don’t want to force her to live a little longer without any hope of getting better. Let her go, I have to set her free. She always felt a prisoner in her body, I’m not going to keep her here when she’s not really here anymore."

Jean just barely managed to say that without crying too much. Removing the needles and the wires from Rogue’s failing body, she held her breath and kept a straight face. Once done, she exhaled.

"All right, let’s give the Professor a minute with her."

Once alone with Rogue, Xavier moved up beside her, watching her. Paternally caressing her thick mass of dark hair, then taking her hand, it was hard for him as well to hold it together.

"If you can hear me, and there’s any way you can tell me what you need, what you want, I’ll have it done instantly. You were always…so strong and so loving. I apologize to the bottom of my soul for not protecting you and there is no justification or forgiveness necessary, but I loved you very much, as if you were my own."

He took her hand and kissed it, then sat there, listening to the quiet.

Storm stood very quietly, leaning back against the wall, holding her breath and blinking away the tears that uncontrollably formed. Her heart clenched in fear of losing her best friend, losing Rogue. She held her breath so not to hyperventilate in panic, that’s how strong this fear was. Jean had silent tears streaming down her glossy face, and Scott stood, waiting desperately, as if he didn’t quite believe she was really gone. She looked at Logan, he was…still. His face angry but still. She wondered if she should go to him or let him be. She’d leave him alone, he didn’t want sympathy.

The Professor came out.

"Scott, would you like to see her next?"

Scott nodded mutely and went inside. The room was dim, the only lights that were on were the ones on her. He found the irony in that. And the fear of the moments to come in which she would take her final, shallow breath. Cupping her face and kissing her cheek he sat down.

"Hey kiddo," was all he could think of to say. "I think…I don’t know what I think. I think I’m gonna beg you about now to…if there’s any way you can, I want you to fight."

He took her hand into his trembling one.

"Can you feel me? You’re not Rogue anymore. You’re completely Marie. I want you to fight this so you can experience it. So you can remember it. I know that where you are and where you’re going seem so beautiful and it is, I’d go with you in a heartbeat but we all love you so much kid, and if there is any strength left in you, fight. Stay with us."

Storm went in next, and she gasped to keep from sobbing when she stepped in the room. She had a hard time walking over to her best friend’s lifeless body. Reaching Rogue’s bed, Storm smacked her hands down on it for support. Anger grew inside her.

"Why?" she said. "I don’t know what to say to you to make you stay, and I don’t know how to tell you goodbye because I don’t want to."

Storm ran her fingers through Rogue’s hair and did her best not to cry loudly.

"So you know what, I’m not going to leave you, and I’m not going to let you go so easily. You’re not gonna be alone, we are all here and we all love you. And I think you need to see Logan, so I’m gonna go get him. I’ll be right back."

Storm went outside where Scott and Jean were.

"Where’s Logan?"

Jean turned to see him gone. "He was just here-"

"Dammit, does that man ever stay put!" Storm exclaimed, walking down the long hallway.

"Where you going?" Scott said.

"I’m gonna find him!" Storm shot back.

Jean rolled her eyes a little and pushed through the doors to go back to see Rogue. Scott followed as Jean pulled up a chair and rolled it over to the computer system.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

"I haven’t told anyone but I’ve been working for the last year to myself try to find a way to stop Marie’s skin from harming others so she can touch people. And now that there is no time to waste, I’m going to try to take some of her blood and study it to know what they did to her so that maybe I can find a way to fix it."

Scott sat next to her. "Are you sure? Can you forgive yourself if you can’t find something in time?"

"I don’t know but if I sit around and don’t try, I can promise you I’ll never forgive myself."

"What can I do?"

"Help Xavier," she said looking into his eyes. "You keep me strong, Scott, I love you." She reached for his hand.

"Logan!" Storm shouted as she walked past the mansion to the forest.

She sighed as thunder cracked through the air.

"Logan, I’m getting mad, please just answer me?"

"All right! Quit yelling at me," he finally said and she whirled around to see him.

She smiled. "Did anybody tell you how sexy you are when you’re angry?" she teased.

He gave a little laugh.

"Thank you, a smile, you make me work so hard, Logan," she said.

"She all right?"

"No different if that’s what you mean. I take it you don’t want to see her right now."

He looked away.

"Hey, Logan, I know you and I understand that. It’s hard to watch someone you love be hurt. You’re not alone here."

He felt alone. He couldn’t deal with seeing her die, for the first time not having the power to change it. He had always been able to help her before and all of a sudden he had to let her go? Storm could see he was feeling helpless in his eyes. So did she. There were no words she could say to ease his pain. Especially when she was every bit as angry with this as he was, so any soothing words would be lies.

"Why don’t you go for a little while, Logan?"

His eyes met hers then. "What are you talking about?"

"Burn off a little bit of the anger. Get on Scott’s motorcycle again and just drive. And you’re lucky you heal because in the distress we’re in I wouldn’t want you getting on that thing. But go, for an hour or so. I will find you if something happens. But right now you need to get some of the anger out, and breathe in that fresh air and curse God out. Please," she said.

"I don’t-"

She had the thunder crash again, which shook him a little in fear. He looked at her furious yet firm eyes and knew he should just go.

"All right."

"Thank you, you’re so agreeable, I’ve always loved that about you."

Chapter 8

The next two days were quiet mostly, waiting, fearing, with no change in Rogue’s condition. Storm hadn’t left Rogue’s beside in those two days. She ate bits and pieces mechanically but continued to talk to Rogue, and exercise her muscles for when she woke up. Storm concentrated on keeping her as healthy as possible, it was all she could think about without crumbling.

Jean had been working more on a cure, gathering quite a bit of data but she knew it wouldn’t be soon enough for Rogue for her to find enough to develop a cure. She watched Storm continuously read as she left the room. She ran into Scott and Xavier.

"Still talking to Rogue?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, she won’t stop, she won’t sleep and when she finally passes out she wakes up instantly and starts talking to her again. She’s not in a coma, she’s…" Jean didn’t finish.

"Let me try," Scott said, kissing Jean softly on the lips.

Walking in, Scott was depressed by what he saw, it hurt him to see Storm in this much pain over her best friend. It was hard enough to see Rogue like this when he loved her, but Storm, if she was this bad now, when Rogue…how was Storm gonna be?

"…and the last question is, what do you expect best from a relationship? A, trust, B, romance, C, connection. Well it depends on the relationship but let’s say connection just because we’ll get a higher score. All right, if you were stranded on a deserted island, who would you like to have with you? A, James Bond, B, Fox Mulder, or C, Fabio? Fabio ain’t all he’s cracked up to be first of all, secondly, which James Bond? We talking Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan? So let’s put Fox Mulder, at least he dealt with mutants, he wouldn’t be that surprised. Okay-" she was interrupted by Scott behind her, rubbing her shoulders.

Tears formed in her eyes as she lie her tired head against his chest.

"Come on Storm, stop for a little while. Eat a real meal, get some rest."

She cringed as tears fell. She shoved him away in tears.

"What if she can hear me? What if for two seconds she can hear me and she knows from that that we’re all here and she fights?"

Scot