I. New Born

"how much are you worth
when you've seen too much
too young?
soulless is everywhere…
you're unstoppable."

"Take them, both of them. We're finished with them. There will be more room for them in Juneau."

At the loud snarl, both men looked over toward the source: a very angry, very naked man straining with all his strength against the metal collar and chain that held him to the cement wall. The chain was beginning to creak and pop, and cracks were beginning to show in the cement.

The young guard in the nondescript slate grey uniform gave his superior a nervous glance before shifting his gaze back to the raging prisoner. "B-both of them?" he whispered.

His superior, a four-star general in the Canadian army, merely nodded, nonchalantly lighting a cigar and languidly shaking out the match. After a long, relaxed drag, he gave a small smile and handed the matchbook back to the young guard. "They'll be heavily sedated; they'll both be docile as lambs. You won't have a problem, I assure you, Cadet Logan. Cadet Fowley will be accompanying you as well; I am certain that between the two of you, there will be no difficulty keeping these two animals contained."

Cadet Logan swallowed nervously, shifting his gaze from the first mutant, who was beginning to foam at the mouth, to his cellmate. The other mutant, chained like the first, was a small male. No, the cadet corrected himself, he was short in comparison to his cellmate, but not small in any way. He, like the Lupus who shared his cell, communicated mostly in snarls, growls, and other animalistic sounds, but the Wolverine was definitely the calmer of the two. The calmer… and the more dangerous. Even now, the young guard shivered as the dark-featured mutant glared up at him with sharp, intelligent eyes filled with malice. When he looked that aware, that cognizant, Logan could almost believe he was human.

Finally, he returned his gaze to his superior and tucked the matchbook into the pocket of his uniform. "Yes, sir, General McAddy," he conceded with a half-hearted salute, trying to keep the worry he still felt from his voice and his eyes. The general turned and walked away without returning the salute, but Logan held it until he was out of sight, then dropped his trembling hand to his side and took a shaky breath.

Lupus had already worn himself out and was panting heavily, shifting his head in an attempt to ease the discomfort caused by the blood that was now seeping from under his collar. Cadet Logan watched as the flow of blood slowed and then ceased, but Lupus had had enough self-abuse for one night, choosing instead to settle against the cold cement wall with one last jerk of his chains.

The Wolverine regarded his cellmate with a disdainful expression before shifting his position on the dirty grey blanket he'd laid claim to when they'd first been thrown into the cage. His eyes came to rest on Logan, and the cadet could swear the mutant was laughing at him. Those frighteningly dark eyes were bright with superiority and more than a hint of amusement, and the corners of his mouth twitched in a sardonic smirk. Logan shivered and broke his gaze, moving quickly away from the cell.

Both mutants were to be moved out first thing tomorrow morning, and Logan needed a little quality time with some bourbon and a good cigar before the trip. He hoped like hell that the resident scientists had prepared a helluva mickey to slip those two, or else he had a feeling that he and Fowley would be nothing more than memories by lunchtime.

---

The voices were murmuring, indistinct at first. He tried to lift his head to catch the words better, but found it was too heavy to hold and he let it drop again, only to find he hadn't lifted it more than a millimeter. They'd drugged him - again - and that only meant one of two things. Either they were moving him, or they were taking him back for more tests. A snort and a movement behind him alerted him to company, and he took a tentative sniff, annoyed when he discovered that the drugs in his system were hampering his senses. Still, there was enough of a trace that he could tell it was the Other One, Lupus.

Settling back down, Wolverine refocused on the voices outside the holding space, straining to hear what they were saying.

"…Fowley?"

"She called…sick, said she…on your own, pal."

"…alone? …both of them?"

"You…handle…fine. Down…count. …luck!"

Wolverine heard the truck start and felt the vibrations down through the metal he'd finally registered lay beneath his bare shoulder. He shifted experimentally, feeling his hands sluggishly respond to his commands and rattling against cold chains and cuffs. Dipping his chin slightly, he discovered the collar around his neck and heard the slight clink that told him there was a chain attached to that too. The drug was beginning to wear off, and he took a deep sniff, identifying the tang of barely-rusted iron. A wicked smile tugged at his uncooperative facial muscles as he realized that his captors' strength had just become their greatest weakness - they were overconfident in their drugs; the chains were just a precaution. He'd be able to break them like they weren't there.

He flexed his fingers, knowing that sometimes they strapped adamantium cuffs over his knuckles when they had to deal with him, but found that his claws were free to spring forward at his bidding. Satisfied, he relaxed, sending his mind into a meditation technique he remembered from somewhere. He had plenty of time between here and Juneau, and he wanted to wait until they were a little further away from the lab before he made his move. Plenty of time, he reminded himself. All the time in the world.

---

Cadet Marshall Logan never knew what hit him. One minute he was warbling an off-key rendition of "Tequila Sunrise," finally confident that the freaks in the back of his truck were under for the duration, and the next, three metal claws had sliced through the bars that separated the cab from the holding space. They pierced the side of his head, managing to slice into his brain, his ear canal, and the arteries in his throat all at the same time.

The truck swerved and tipped up on two wheels as he convulsed over the steering wheel, the primal roar of his murderer barely crackling through his shredded eardrum before the rapidly descending darkness consumed his brain and he knew nothing more. Behind him, the Wolverine shook his claws loose from his prey and snarled loudly, slashing at the metal containment until he could reach through, the iron cuffs still dangling from his wrists. He could have cut them loose, he knew, but he also knew that it would have cut his skin in the process, and while it would have healed, he felt he'd been sliced into enough for one lifetime, thank you very much.

He yanked the emergency brake up first, not knowing how he knew to do that, but all the same grateful that the lever was reachable from his position. The keys dangled from the guard's belt, and he grasped them next, triumphantly pulling them through and smiling when the cuffs fell away easily, painlessly, bloodlessly with a simple click of the lock. The claws were retracted and he breathed a sigh of relief when his skin closed up and began to soothe the remaining ache.

He fit a large key into the lock on the door of the holding space and it swung open, allowing him to jump out into the cold, snowy road, seeing just how close the truck had come to running off the side of a mountain. Growling as a blast of snow hit him full force, he realized for the first time that he was completely naked, that his captors did not deem him human enough for any kind covering.

He slipped the ID tag from his companion, who was still out under the influence of the drugs. They'd figured Lupus for the more dangerous one, his frequent unpredictable rages having frightened them into giving him a higher dose of the tranquilizer. Wolverine grinned and cracked his knuckles, knowing that his bored disdain of them had fooled them into thinking that he was docile - or at least more so than his cellmate. They hadn't remembered how quickly he'd healed from everything they'd ever done to him - but then again, they'd never tried to knock him out, either. They'd only dazed him long enough to transport him to the operating room, never enough to keep him anesthetized. They'd wanted him fully awake for the procedures… awake and helpless.

He growled softly at the memories and stalked forward to the cab of the truck, yanking out the young cadet and stripping him of his uniform. The guard was actually a fairly big man, probably a football player in high school - Wolverine didn't stop to wonder how he knew what football and high school were - but his fear had always made him seem small to the predator that lived inside Wolverine. The pants were a little long, and a little loose around his slim hips, but the shirt, big as it was, was a bit snug across his shoulders. He figured it didn't really matter and tucked the pants into the boots, disguising the extra length. A truly huge jacket hid the way the seams of the shirt strained over his shoulders, and Lupus's ID tag went around the guard's mangled neck.

Grunting a bit with the effort, Wolverine dragged the guard to the edge of the mountain road and tossed him over the edge, rolling his shoulders inside the too-tight shirt as he heard the man's body crunch against the unforgiving snow-covered stones. Unclasping his own ID tag, he returned the back of the truck long enough to refasten it around Lupus's neck and slam the door shut on the holding space. Then he returned to the cab and set about calling up every single instinct they'd tried to wipe from him as he remembered how to drive a car.

---

The officials at the Juneau facility hadn't really minded much that Lupus had been lost on the way from Alkali Lake; they'd been regaled with stories of his mindless rage from some of the higher-ups for so long that a couple of their doctors had actually refused to work on him if he were brought in. It stood to reason, then, when they discovered that the Wolverine was as ferocious as the rumors made Lupus out to be, that they wondered why he wasn't the one they'd been warned about.

Wolverine's guard, a short, broad-shouldered man they were told was named Cadet Logan, shrugged and informed them gruffly that the Wolverine hadn't ever acted like that - the trip out had apparently driven him mad, pushing him to attack and kill his cage mate, the feral Lupus. Shivering, they ordered that he be taken to a containment cell at the far end of the compound until they decided what could be done with him.

They all watched in awe as the snarling mutant followed grudgingly behind his keeper, not exactly docile, but not striking out at the man either. The one doctor who'd tried to get close to him had lost a hand for his effort, and if this Logan fellow could handle him, they were all more than glad to let him.

What they didn't know was that the "Wolverine," who was indeed Lupus, had learned long ago to treat his former cellmate as the alpha. The smell of a strange man's clothes didn't mask the recognition of dominance that had been beaten into him over the first three days they'd shared a cell back in Alkali Lake. It was a painful lesson, and one he didn't want to relearn, so he growled and snarled and balked a little, but he didn't defy the true Wolverine's orders as he was led by his chain into his containment cell and left there.

---

Over the next few weeks, the real Wolverine grew into his adopted name and had his uniform refitted. Lupus, who now wore his tag and his codename, was practically forgotten by the facilitators. The new Logan, who was still learning not to think of himself as "Wolverine," didn't mind this much. It meant that they were both left alone, and he was free to pursue clues about who he'd been before the sadists at Alkali Lake had turned him into the Wolverine.

Lupus, whom everyone now called the Wolverine, had been more animal than human when they'd first brought him to Alkali Lake. In fact, no one had ever known him as anything remotely manlike - he walked on all fours, communicated in animal noises, and seemed to have lost all higher brain function. For all intents and purposes, he was purely animal. The report from his previous stay in Whitehorse was that during the procedures, he'd become feral and had never recovered.

He'd undergone the same procedures that the real Wolverine, now Logan, had, but his mental facilities were apparently weaker and had snapped under the stress of the surgeries, purging all human instincts from him and leaving him as he was now. The scientists at Alkali Lake blamed his breakdown on the primitive facilities of their colleagues in Whitehorse, but it didn't matter now; according to Juneau, he was dead, and the "made in Alkali Lake" replacement had become useless to them as well. They were all content to forget about him. They fed him and kept him like a dog in a kennel, sometimes allowing Logan to take him out for a little exercise. Nobody except Logan handled him - nobody else could.

Life went on like this for several weeks, then came the day when one of the assistants, a surly man by the name of Fletcher, stopped Logan in the hall and grudgingly commanded him to "bring the Wolverine to the females' holding facility. An' make it quick."

When he got there, with the "Wolverine" on a short chain, the holding facility was in an uproar. Several females were huddled in the back of the room, as close to each other as they could get, attempting to cover their naked bodies as the guards leered at them. Logan's eyes swept over them unfeelingly, at once relieved and guilty that the facilitators didn't pay enough attention to him to know that he was one of Them, a mutant. Movement in the shadowy corner opposite the mass of females caught his attention and he focused on it.

There was a female there, alone, pressed into the wall like she thought she could melt through it. She was trembling, and the scent of raw fear hit him like a physical blow in the face. She was terrified. He didn't have time to analyze her much further, since the rabid mutant on the other end of the chain was snarling and leaping toward the females, a peculiar keening nose emanating from him.

Logan looked down at Lupus in confusion, then recognized the scent coming off of him as well as the particular inflection of his whining. At least one of the females was fertile, and he wanted to mate. Logan's gaze snapped to the doctors who had retreated to the other side of the observation glass, locking them into the room with the females. One of them depressed the intercom and commanded, "Get him to find the fertile ones, then send them out to us. They're part of our breeding program."

Suppressing a growl of his own, he merely nodded and turned his eyes back to the females, letting a little slack in Lupus's chain and starting to sniff them out for himself. Between the two of them, they identified six of the eight women who were at the height of their fertility, including the one by herself in the corner. She, especially, reeked of it. Lupus bounded towards her with a ferocious snarl, and Logan barely held him back, giving him a firm shake to remind him just who was the dominant between them.

Lupus slinked down low to the ground, growling menacingly, but did not challenge his alpha's command. Logan gave him a glare and a growl to reaffirm his position, then approached the young girl. His eyes went to the tag around her neck that marked her as "Rogue," and he reached out to touch it. She flinched back and he dropped his hand, instead touching his own throat where his Wolverine tag had lain for so long. Some human part of him ached at the knowledge that she was so young - she couldn't be older than fifteen - but his practicality was relieved that she was ready for mating. He knew that would be the one thing that saved her.

Turning, he and Lupus left the room, and he watched with a grim delight as all the doctors in the room backed away from them, putting at least six feet of space between themselves and the end of Lupus's chain. Logan laughed silently and let the chain in his hands slip, just a little, just enough to make them flinch. Bastards - they deserved it.

He pointed out to them which of the females were fertile and they sent in the handlers. Logan paused to watch the one who went to the little female in the corner, the Rogue, but he turned away before the guard could grab her. Snarling, he yanked Lupus's chain a little harder than normal and practically dragged the whining, slavering creature back to his cage. He couldn't stand to watch the way they treated the girl; there was something in her eyes that made her different from the others - and he knew what it was. It was hope, wild and ferocious and undimmed. The others didn't have hope; they had wishful thinking. The Rogue looked like she knew she'd live. He couldn't help but wonder if, after it was all over, she'd still want to.

Throwing the "Wolverine" into his cage and slamming the door, Logan ran a hand through his hair and went off in search of some very old, very strong whiskey. Life at the lab was getting to be too much - he'd thought it had been bad when he'd been the one they were running experiments on, but to know that there was a very young girl who was about to be fertilized, accelerated, harvested, and then go through the cycle all over again was too much for him.

He deliberately chose not to think too hard about the two women who had not been fertile - one of them had been too young, his best guess putting her at eleven; the other had simply not been at that point in her cycle. He knew without thinking about the details that they were going to be providing tonight's amusements for the guards, and once again he felt relief shudder through him that the young Rogue had been fertile. The harvesting cycle would be easier for her than the rape, and if she was successful, they might even take care of her so they could repeat it next month.

He threw back a shot of the whiskey and bared his teeth when the burn wasn't as painful as he needed it to be. Before he knew it, the entire bottle was gone, and he thought he might be able to succumb to its effects for about five minutes - long enough for a nap that, if he was lucky, would torture him with nightmares and make him forget about what he'd just seen and what he knew was happening even now.

---

He sat up, sweating and gasping, and ran a hand over his soaked brow as he gradually became aware of the specifics of his surroundings. He was still reeling from his dream, and the trembling that ravaged his frame started from somewhere deep inside. He'd dreamed of her, the Rogue, with her desperate eyes full of hope fixed on him, asking without words for him to save her. He'd responded, killing all the doctors and the guards and dragging her from the containment cell back to his little room. He'd meant only to stop there long enough to grab a jacket and some clothes for her - it was cold outside - before escaping with her, but she'd closed the door and given him a lingering look that turned the blood in his veins to liquid heat.

He'd paused at a loss in the center of the room, holding the thick jacket and a spare uniform with the name 'Logan' stitched over the heart, as she'd swayed toward him. She took the clothing from his hand and laid them softly on the bed before raising her arms to put around his neck.

"You saved mah life," she purred, and some part of his mind had interrupted the dream long enough to wonder why he thought she might have a Southern accent. He'd immediately refocused on the girl in his arms, though, when she moved against him in just that way and pressed a soft, sensual kiss to his throat. "Ah owe ya."

He'd started to choke out that she didn't owe him anything when she pressed a finger to his lips and trailed her tongue up his throat, flicking his chin. "Now, don't argue with a lady, sugah. Jus' relax." All the argument had gone out of him and he'd done just that. Suddenly, with no intervening time, they had been on his bed, with her rocking above him and him thrusting up into her, gasping for air and clutching her tightly to him. There was a frantic desperation in his movements that had less to do with reaching orgasm and more to do with making sure he was as far inside her as he could possibly be.

She'd screeched and clenched around him, her body wracked with shuddering, and he'd stilled for a moment, watching her beautiful, flushed face as she came down from her high. His own body had trembled with the effort of not moving, and then she'd focused on him, leaning down and wrapping her arms around his neck. She'd kissed him sensually, then trailed her lips down his cheek to his ear, where she breathed softly, "It's okay, sugah; come for me. Come for me, Logan."

He'd been just about to obey her when he'd been awakened by - what? The clang of metal sounded from down the hall and he leaped from the bed, suddenly fully awake, realizing that had been the sound that woke him in the first place. He didn't have far to go, but he ran anyway, not knowing exactly what to expect, but knowing enough that he wasn't surprised to see the door to the Wolverine's cage swinging open, the chain and padlock clanging against the metal bars. That had been the sound that he'd heard.

He stopped at the door, taking in the sights and smells that greeted him. Lupus, lying motionless on the floor, reeked of death overlaid with the scent of… he sniffed once, twice, confirming it in his own mind. There was no mistaking it. The room was saturated with the rich, earthy scent of a female in heat… and that female was the Rogue, he was certain.

The next thing he heard was the wailing of sirens and a tinny voice announcing that security had been breached and they had only five minutes until the facility self-destructed. Pausing only long enough to retrieve his Wolverine tags from Lupus's lifeless body, Logan hauled ass and got the hell out of Dodge.

---

II. Freak

"Separated, I cut myself clean
From a past that comes back in my darkest of dreams
What will people do if they find out it's true?
People say I'm strange--
Does it make me a stranger?"

Fifteen long years, and he'd been on the road for all of them. The rescued dog tag still hung around his neck, and he'd stopped worrying, for the most part, about being recognized. The memories of Alkali Lake and Juneau had faded until they were nothing more than shadows, and he knew the chances of someone looking for him were slim to none. He knew he took a risk every time he fought as the Wolverine, but that just made it all the more thrilling.

In the beginning, some part of him had seriously gotten off on scanning the crowd, looking for eyes that recognized him, realizing that the real danger came not from his opponents in the cage but from the possibility that someone might have been at Juneau or Alkali and would remember that he was one of their experiments. He almost wished they would - he knew he could take them in a fight. Come on, he begged night after night. Come find me so I can kill you. Every last one of you bastards.

But no one ever recognized him as anything more than a ferocious cage fighter with a not-unusual-for-the-trade stage name, and over the years he had grown more and more complacent. He no longer put any real effort into anything he did - he tended to just drift. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, if he was even looking for anything anymore. Then it happened… he found what he didn't know he needed.

He'd smelled her when she walked in. A lot of people came in with the smell of leather, but not a lot of them smelled like vanilla and tangerines on top of it. It was light and exotic and completely too subtle and high-class to belong in the bar he was smelling it in. He'd wanted to see who it belonged to and he'd ended the fight quickly. He barely heard the announcer naming him the champion or the roar of the crowd, but he sure as hell saw the way her head snapped up at the sound.

She was the one who smelled so goddamn good, the woman standing at the bar proper in the front of the room, and she recognized him. He could see it in her eyes, all over her body, and something about her tugged at his memory. Every muscle in him tensed as he watched her mouth form the word, "No." A man next to her, a man he hadn't noticed before, reached out to her but she shook him off. "No." She said it aloud this time, and he heard her above the noise of the crowd, all his focus being on her as it was.

"No," she repeated, and he started smelling the panic coming off of her in waves. It slammed into him along with the realization of who she was, and he staggered backwards just as he heard her cry, "The Wolverine's dead. I killed him."

They stood, their eyes locked across the crowded room that was, by sections, becoming simultaneously louder and quieter. Those around the woman he was sure was the Rogue fell silent at her words, but those around the cage, impatient and restless for the fights to begin anew, raised their voices and began rattling the wire. The emcee, noticing that the champion's attention was focused elsewhere - and then noticing the 'elsewhere' with a low whistle - decided to wait it out before asking for another challenger. He had a feeling the Wolverine might not be staying to defend his title.

Sure enough, the stunning brunette with white streaks in her hair turned and fled the bar, and the Wolverine was out of the cage and after her in a split second, roughly shoving aside the groupies and fight fans that protested his departure. The emcee, not especially wanting to deal with a full-fledged mob fight (especially since he had part ownership of the bar), quieted them by calling for two new fighters to take the cage. He was soon obliged, and most everyone forgot about their absentee champion.

Logan, for his part, was out the door and after the girl before he even thought about what he was doing. He strode out into the parking lot just in time to see her move out of the other man's attempted embrace, holding him away from her at arm's length and then moving out of his range.

"Bobby, no - just - don't, okay? I'm - I'm all right - it's just…"

"Rogue, please…"

Logan started. It was just too easy. There was no way she still went by the same name they'd given her in the lab. Then she whirled around to face the other man - Bobby - and he heard the distinct clink and rattle of a dogtag on a metal chain. He could probably identify that sound in his sleep, and there was no mistaking her scent, especially drenched in anxiety as it had been when he'd seen her before. She was older now, probably about thirty although she only looked twenty-two at the most, and with a white streak in her hair that hadn't been there in the lab.

When she turned to Bobby, though, she caught sight of Logan and stopped, her eyes fixing on him and her mouth falling open. She reached out a hand, pointing at him as if she couldn't really believe what she was seeing. "You - you're not the Wolverine!" she accused. "You were - you were his keeper! I remember you! You almost touched me."

Logan didn't answer that for a second, being too concerned with trying to figure out why that had been the one thing she'd remembered about him, that he'd almost touched her. He would probably lay money on her being the recipient of more than a few touches or attempted ones in her lifetime. She was just fuck-all too gorgeous for that not to be the case.

The man with her, Bobby, his mind supplied, stepped in front of her, partially shielding her with his own body. Logan found himself surprised by the strong reactions that movement produced in him - part of him fiercely approved of the kid's obvious determination to protect her, and the other part wanted to gut him for butting into a situation that Logan felt was just between himself and Rogue.

"Look, I don't know who you are, but just back off," Bobby said in a hard, cold voice and Logan snorted derisively. Bobby didn't flinch or back down at all, and Logan felt himself getting pissed off at the boy's lack of reaction.

"I'm the Wolverine," Logan answered with a malicious grin. "Or didn't you hear that in there?" He noticed the way Rogue shrank back at the name and felt a small pang of remorse, which ended up pissing him off even more. He didn't know what had gone down in Juneau between Lupus and the girl, but whatever it was obviously hadn't been pleasant for her. No shit, Sherlock, he growled at himself. She somehow managed to put down a psycho mutant with super healing. You think somethin' bad didn't happen?

His features softened infinitesimally and he said in a slightly less aggressive tone, "Look, I'm not gonna hurt ya." He glanced at Bobby. "Either of ya." He refocused on Rogue and nodded toward her. "I just wanna have a word with this pretty lady here, if ya don't mind." Another glare towards Bobby. "Alone."

"No," Bobby snapped, but Rogue put her hand on his arm and he quieted, looking at her.

"It's okay, sugah," she said quietly, and something inside Logan stirred, as if with memory. "Ah'll tahlk to him. It'll be awl raght."

Logan was sure her Southern accent hadn't been that pronounced only a moment earlier, but whether it was intentional or simply a result of heightened stress, the exaggerated drawl had a soothing effect on the young man, and Bobby nodded slowly.

"Okay, Rogue. But I'll be just over here if you need me." He threw a hard glance at Logan with those words, and the older man was faintly amused at having been so warned.

He waited until Bobby was a fair distance away before saying softly, "I remember you." She was silent, and after a moment he added, "I'm sorry." He couldn't remember ever having said those words before and he was surprised to hear them coming from his own mouth, but apparently it had been the right thing to say because the anxiety in her scent ebbed even as there was a surge of saltiness.

"Why are you fightin' as 'Wolverine'?" she wanted to know.

"That's my name," he answered. "The guy you killed… his name was Lupus." She winced at that, and he realized he probably shouldn't have been so blunt. "He was insane," Logan assured her. "More animal than man. Don't feel bad that you killed him."

"But you - his tags said 'Wolverine'," she insisted.

He held up his hands and shook his head. "It's a long story," he told her. "I'm willin' to tell it if you wanna listen, but only you. I ain't talkin' to your boyfriend over there."

She glanced over at Bobby with those words, and then turned back to Logan to say quietly, "He's actually my fiancé. He might not like you wantin' to talk to me without him there. He ain't too happy already."

"Well, it's no skin off my nose if you don't wanna know," he shrugged, although his insides were twisting in protest. There was a feeling of desperation to hold onto her, to keep her with him - the only other person he'd ever met that had survived the labs. He found himself wanting to talk to her, and growled at himself. It was a very un-Wolverine-like feeling, and he didn't much like it.

"That's not it," she informed him in tones of steel, and he nearly flinched at the unexpected hardness in her eyes. "Ah'm just tryin' to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, if ya don't mind. Of course, if you're just itchin' for a fight, Ah could bust your ass a tahm or two." His lip curled in a snarl, but she held up a gloved hand, continuing before he had a chance. "All Ah'm suggestin' is that you come with us back to the mansion. I'm sure we could find plenty of time to talk without Bobby gettin' suspicious."

Logan noted with interest that, as she seemed to get her emotions more settled, her accent faded until it was almost unnoticeable. He tilted his head and thought about it, then asked gruffly, "What mansion?"

"Xavier's mansion. It's where we live."

"Xavier… that mutant do-gooder that's always on the news? Some superhero crap or somethin'?"

"Or somethin'," Rogue smiled ironically.

"Okay," Logan answered simply.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I'll come. On one condition: I ain't joinin' up with his X-freaks. I've been used enough; nobody runs my life but me."

Rogue remained expressionless, but searched his face with an unnerving intensity. "All right," she said. "Come with me."

---

The room at the mansion was anything but small. Logan actually felt a little overwhelmed by it, considering he had been living in containment cells, then crappy motel rooms and his camper-trailer for literally as long as he could remember. The ceiling arched above his head in grand, elegant mahogany rafters; the room itself was decked out in the same rich, brown wood, and the accents in the adjoining bathroom were all done in fine polished pewter. The king-sized bed was neatly made with fine sheets that felt softer than snow when he touched them.

Nervously, he dropped his duffel bag by the bed and looked around the room one more time. He gingerly sat on the edge of the mattress, bouncing a little to test it out. Finding it firm but giving and springy, he lay back and closed his eyes, trying to muffle a blissful sigh at the way he could feel all the tension in his joints and muscles slowly bleeding out into the softness.

Before he quite knew what had happened, he was waking in up in darkness, blankets tucked around him. He panicked, and the claws sliced through his skin, barely missing the expensive bedding that fell around his hips. He'd never fallen asleep without meaning to before, especially not in strange surroundings, but then again, he'd never slept in a bed like this one or been quite so exhausted.

He sniffed the air, not finding anyone else's scent in the room, and had to wonder how he'd gotten into the bed and under the covers. He frowned and rubbed his head, feeling his already unruly hair stick up even more with the contact. Vague impressions returned to him of having sluggishly crawled under the blankets, telling himself he'd only sleep for a moment; he was just so tired, so very tired…

Something clicked, and he growled. Rogue had mentioned the presence of telepaths in the house. Had one of them been fucking with his head? The growl still rumbling in his chest, he threw back the covers and stood, finding himself clad in only a pair of boxer shorts that did not belong to him. Dammit, some 'path had been messing with his head, and that was not acceptable.

He threw on his jeans and stalked from the room, shirtless and barefoot, ready for a fight. All he was missing was a cage, but, he reflected, some cages made out of mahogany and pewter were just as effective as chain link metal. On his way down the hall, he caught a scent approaching. He tensed, but immediately relaxed as he recognized it. Rogue was coming.

He stopped in the hall, watching as she came around the corner. At first he didn't think she'd noticed him, as she was reading something in her hand, but he realized he'd underestimated her observational skills as she acknowledged him, "Hello, Logan," without ever looking up from the paper. She came to a stop less than three feet from him and finally tucked the paper away, smiling up at him vaguely.

"I was beginnin' to think you'd taken the silverware an' run off," she teased. "You were in there so long. Ya missed dinner."

"I fell asleep," he growled. "Only I didn't do it." Rogue frowned, not understanding, so he elaborated. "Somebody put me to sleep."

Her frown deepened then, and no longer was it indicative of incomprehension. Acute irritation showed in her _expression, and she crossed her arms. "Ah told Scott somethin' ain't right," she muttered. "An' he already knows it himself, too. Maybe he'll get over his denial sometime soon."

She'd said all that more to herself than to him, and he was still confused. Apparently, it showed on his face, because she opened her mouth to say something, then shrugged. "One of our team members, Jean, she's been actin' weird lately. I wasn't really there when it all started, so I don't know exactly how it happened, but apparently she got this new boost to her power, or somethin', started callin' herself Phoenix. She's never had a codename before, so that was kinda odd in itself."

"Codename?" What, like the labs had and shit?

"For the team members. Keeps our real identity secret, supposedly. We've all got one, but Jean never did until a few weeks ago."

"So what's that got to do with me?"

"Jean's a telepath. I don't know if this 'Phoenix' thing is messin' with her or somethin', but she hasn't been completely normal for a while. I'm not comfortable sayin' for sure, but she coulda had somethin' to do with it. I can't think of anyone else who could."

Logan growled a little, and Rogue tilted her head, looking at him steadily. "I ain't stayin' in a house with a 'path who thinks she can just knock me out whenever she wants," he declared, and she nodded.

"I understand," she said, and he knew somehow that she did. "You can leave if you wanna. If you still wanna tell me your story, we can go somewhere. There's a bar about an hour from here, kinda out by itself. They got pool tables and they serve pretty good beer, and mean chicken wings."

She had delivered that as emotionlessly as if she'd been reading off an inventory list. Her face still remained somewhat blank, and that bothered Logan. She'd had fire and spirit in the lab, and even in Laughlin City at the fight bar, she'd shown emotion. She'd even threatened to kick his ass. The thought occurred to him, and he didn't entirely dismiss it, that maybe his head wasn't the only one the 'path was screwing with.

"Sounds good," he decided. "Just lemme get my boots."

"And a shirt," she smirked. He glanced down at his bare chest and shrugged.

"Might get me some free beer," he joked, and one corner of her mouth quirked up in amusement.

"Doubt it," she answered as she turned around and headed back down the hall. "Meet me downstairs in five minutes or I'm leavin' your ass."

---

The bar was dark, accented with an orangey glow, and Rogue hadn't lied about the good beer and wings. They talked for awhile, their voices blending with the country music playing in the background. It was a good place for talking. He told her what he could remember of his story, she told him bits and pieces of hers.

"Is Logan your real name?" she asked as she licked barbecue sauce from her fingers.

"Might be," he shrugged. "Dunno what my real name is. Started goin' by Logan 'cause my uniform had it on the name patch. It stuck." He took a swallow of beer before asking, "What's your real name?"

"Dunno," she answered, in much the same tone he had. "Some nutcase scientist in Yellowknife gave us all 'human' nicknames for his experiments, which mostly consisted of talkin' to us, tryin' to figure out how much of us was human. Guess that's why he wanted the names. Mine was Marie. So I guess if I had to use a 'normal' name, that's what I'd pick. It's kinda pretty. 'Sides, he was the nicest doctor I ever met in the labs. I think he actually believed I was a person by the end…"

Logan nodded, and she smiled humorlessly, dropping a picked-clean bone to her plate. "Kinda sad, ain't it? That we hafta steal our names."

He paused, struck by the fact that she was right - it was kind of sad, and he'd never even thought of it that way before. He shook his head slightly and shrugged again. "Yeah, I guess it is," he agreed. After a moment of silence, he took a chance and redirected the conversation. "So how'd you end up at Juneau? And how'd you get out?"

"Which story do you want first?"

"Go in order," he grinned.

"Arrival it is," she nodded. "Well, I can't remember how I was captured, or anything. I think I have vague memories of being a child, being in school, playing with friends in the summertime. I think I was from the South - got the accent and all... although I guess that could be someone else's. They messed with my head so bad I can't remember a whole lot. Like I said, don't even know my name."

He nodded his understanding. He had weird random memories that popped up, too. Some of them were images, smells, sounds… some were muscle memories and instincts that made him wonder what he'd done before the lab.

"But my solid memories start about three years before I got sent to Juneau. They transferred us around to lots of places - Los Alamos, Biloxi, Miles City, Whitehorse. Yellowknife was my longest stay, maybe my worst. They did all kinds of experiments there, tryin' to figure out how my skin worked. I ended up with too damn many people in my head besides me, and I almost went crazy." She cleared her throat and continued, "Then I got sprung, in a way. One day a doctor, the one who called me Marie, came in and gave me a shot. The next day, he did it again, and two days after that, they gave me one more. I was sick for weeks after that. They were trying to counteract the Depo with the fertility drugs and I'm surprised it didn't just shut my reproductive system down altogether."

"Depo?"

"Yeah. When we were processed through Yellowknife, they kept us on Depo shots the entire time - birth control. The shots were good for three months at a time, and when the order came through to transfer me to Juneau, they were supposed to stop. Everybody knew Juneau was basically a breeding house, and being infertile would just be stupid, you know? But they made a mistake and I got a shot two months before the transfer. They kept trying to counteract it with the fertility drugs though - who knows if it worked or not. Well, I guess it did, 'cause they - you - picked me as being fertile."

Logan was very, very quiet for a little while, processing that information. The conversation had taken a turn for the surreal, and he could tell she was a little exhausted by pulling out the memories. He wanted to know what happened after that - how she'd killed Lupus and escaped - but he didn't want to wear her out all at once, so he decided to give her a break. "Anythin' else you wanna know about me, darlin'?"

She quirked her eyebrow a little - he didn't know if it was because of the endearment or the question itself - but she got a thoughtful look on her face for a while. "Do you dance?" she finally asked, the faintest note of mischief in her tone.

"'Scuse me?" He could not have heard that right. Dance? As in some pansy-ass-

"You know - do you dance. Or, maybe I should say, would you like to dance? With me. Right now."

He got it then. The jukebox was playing a mournful country ballad, they both had a few drinks in them, and dancing would do away with the necessity for talking. She'd had enough talking. And, he figured, so had he. Slow-dancing with a beautiful woman in a rural bar - that he could do.

"Sure, darlin'," he said easily, rising to his feet. She stood as well, leading him over to the small dance floor where a few couples were already swaying. She turned to face him and he easily drew her to himself, one hand sliding to the small of her back, the other resting on her hip. She put one of her hands on his shoulder and the other on his waist and began swaying slowly.

At first they were silent, but after awhile, after Rogue had laid her head on his chest and they had given up any pretense at dancing, content to just hold each other on the dance floor, she started speaking softly.

"The guard that tried to take me from the holding place… he died. My skin." He nodded. Her mutation was one of the first things she'd told him about. "They got mad at me, threw me in with Wolv-Lupus. Said he'd be the only one who could mate with me, if even he could, and they had too many females anyway. I was expendable."

That, inexplicably, made him mad. There was a kinship between them - they were easy together, no awkwardness or irritation. She was the only other person he'd met who had survived the labs - and not just that, one of the same labs. She was a link to his shadowy, nightmarish past. She was important to him, and, if he had to quantify his emotion, he'd say he was feeling a little possessive. Or a lot. And to think of someone declaring something of his "expendable"…

He tucked her in a little closer to his body and she came willingly, their stomachs brushing sensually together. She sighed and nuzzled into his shirt, hiding her face. He wondered if she was trying to hide from the memories. "I was… well, 'in heat,' I guess, and Wol-Lupus could smell it. He… he tried to, to… mate… and committed suicide, basically. My skin… I sucked him dry. He was heavy, and he fell on me, and I couldn't get him off until it was too late…" Her voice had faded into a whisper, and he tried to consciously relax the tension in his large muscle groups.

He had heard her terminology - "in heat," "mate," - like she was discussing an experiment with livestock. Which, to their captors, it had been. He felt her shudder deeply, and wrapped both of his arms around her, tucking her head in under his chin and rocking her gently side-to-side. He was well-aware of what she'd told him about her mutation, about how she absorbed the personality, the memories, the very essence of whomever she touched… and he was also very well-aware of Lupus' particular essence.

"I think I know how you got out," he whispered, not wanting her to have to relive any more of that night. She nodded against his chest, and he felt dampness seeping through the cloth as he smelled her tears. They didn't last long, though, and when she looked up at him, only very intense observation could discern that she'd cried at all.

"So that's my story," she whispered. "The X-Men found me when I was still… feral. They took me in, and Charles - Professor Xavier - helped me sort out all the people in my head. He helped me find myself again."

"That why you're there?" he asked, just as quietly, dipping his head to nuzzle her hair just above her ear. She smelled so good and felt so right in his arms that he simply couldn't help himself. He had to touch her as much as he could. "You owe him or somethin'?"

"No," she answered, and he couldn't help but notice she was slightly breathless. "I paid my debt." She nestled into his arms and murmured, "I'm there cause I don't have anywhere better to go."

I could solve that, he thought, rubbing her back. "What about your fiancé?" he whispered into her ear.

"My - ? Oh! Bobby-!" She pulled back from him, her cheeks flaming instantly, and he regretted ever having brought it up.

She began trying to extract herself from his embrace, and he heard himself plead softly, "Don't go." She didn't seem to hear him, and he hesitated for a moment, arguing with himself before he took a chance and stepped out on instinct. "Stay with me… Marie."

She gasped suddenly and her body went rigid in his grasp. Her mouth hung open slightly, and there was a dazed look in her eyes. She began to shiver, and he started cursing himself. Forget what she had said about choosing that name if she ever wanted a normal one, he should have realized that when she heard it, she would associate it with the lab, the experiments. Even if that doctor had been nice, the lab hadn't been.

"Rogue," he murmured, trying to fix what he'd done. "Rogue, are you all right? Look, I'm sorry-"

"No," she shook her head. "It's all right." Her eyes were still unfocused and glassy. "But we have to get back to the mansion."

"Why, what's-"

"There's a situation. We've got to go." Her eyes were back on his, focused, all business. The warm, lazy arousal that had been between them was gone, and she strode off the dance floor, pausing at the booth to grab her purse.

---

III. Strong Man

Strong man is survivor
Favor no plea
Blinded by the mission of a thousand wars
He fit and dominant
He stand a chance
He not bound to circumstance…

"I ain't goin'." Logan's stance was wide, his arms crossed over his chest. He'd been swept along with Rogue when she'd been hurried into the briefing room. From there, everyone had simply assumed he'd be going along, though he'd be hard pressed to tell why. Either that, or no one had even noticed he was there. It was certainly possible, given their current state; at any rate, no one responded to his statement. Even if he'd been inclined to go, despite what he'd told Rogue about not being the joining type, he wouldn't go with this team. They were falling apart.

Four separate people cannot lead a team of five. Or six, he amended, noticing Rogue's fiancé stepping to her side. Rogue barely acknowledged the young man.

"This could be serious, Storm. We cannot afford to make any errors."

"Are you implying that it would be an error to listen to my suggestion, Phoenix?"

Logan had picked up on the outrageous tension between those two the minute he'd walked in the room and wondered if it had anything to do with the man in the strange glasses who seemed caught between them. It's a freakin' soap opera around here, he thought to himself.

"Storm, Jean-"

"My name is Phoenix."

"Phoenix. Whatever. Sorry. My point is, we don't have time to stand here and argue over this. Let's just stick to the original plan and get the job done."

"Cyclops is right." That would be Xavier, the man himself. He'd been mostly quiet the entire time, although Logan had sensed from his bearing that he - like Cyclops, Phoenix, and Storm - considered himself to be the only one in the room with a complete mental grasp on the situation. The difference with Xavier was that he stood the most chance of being right.

"Cyclops?" That was Rogue, and Logan immediately became more invested in the conversation. "Do we actually know exactly what the situation is?"

"Sorry, Rogue," Cyclops apologized quickly. "I forgot you weren't here when we all found out." She inclined her head marginally, and he continued. "Sabretooth and Toad have been spotted at the delegates' convention on Ellis Island. Knowing what we do about the agenda of the convention, we absolutely do not think their presence is benign. However, we haven't seen Magneto anywhere, and we figure he has to have something to do with it."

"That is why I wanted--," Storm began.

Cyclops held up a hand, staving off any more bickering from the other two women. "Our current plan is to take the Blackbird in, land it on Liberty Island, and keep one person as a lookout on the Statue of Liberty. Three of us will go over to Ellis Island and attempt to act as a deterrent to Magneto's two associates. We hope to be able to avoid a physical confrontation."

Rogue nodded, and Logan could tell she thought it was a piss-poor plan, but she wasn't arguing. "I just have one question," she finally said. "Does anyone know where Mystique is?"

There was an uncomfortable hesitation, and the rest of her teammates exchanged wary looks. "No," Cyclops answered slowly. "We have not seen her."

Rogue bit the inside of her cheek, and Logan thought she must be trying not to say something snide about that. "I'm guessing," Rogue began, "That Jean - sorry: Phoenix - will be the lookout. I'm also guessing that Cyclops, Iceman and Storm will be the ones to attempt … whatever it is you're trying to attempt … with Toad and Sabretooth." Cyclops and Xavier nodded to confirm, and Rogue arched an eyebrow. "Who will be on alert at the mansion?"

"Rogue, we have -"

"You have trainees, Cyclops. You have mutants with great powers, but who haven't been trained to work as an attack team yet. You have the junior team, and the new recruits. No one that's been fighting together as long as we have. Which senior team member will act as the leader for those left behind? If we're all gone, it's vulnerable."

"The Professor-"

"Forgive me for interrupting again, but the Professor will most likely be in Cerebro the entire time, keeping tabs. Am I correct?"

Xavier nodded, and Cyclops looked somewhat chagrined. "What are you suggesting, Rogue?" Xavier finally asked.

"I'm just suggesting that, in light of the situation, I should stay at the mansion." Iceman and Cyclops began to protest, as did Storm, but Phoenix remained eerily quiet. She looked at Iceman almost apologetically. "I know you're the junior team leader, sugar," she appeased, "But I ain't gonna be much good against those hooligans." She shuddered. "I wouldn't touch 'em 'cept as a last resort. You can freeze 'em to death." Iceman conceded the point reluctantly, but Cyclops was still grumbling. "Now, don't fuss," she said, somewhat patronizingly. "I ain't tryin' to get out of a mission. I'm just tryin' to cover y'all's asses."

Logan suspected no one else could have made that comment and gotten away with it, but the man reluctantly let it go, and Xavier nodded his approval. "It's settled, then," the Professor stated. "Rogue will stay at the mansion. The rest of us will continue as planned."

Rogue nodded and turned to leave the room as the others prepared for their mission, pausing at the door to look back at Logan. She motioned with her head for him to follow, quirking an eyebrow in a 'hurry-up' gesture. He did as she asked, glancing back once to see Iceman frowning deeply and Phoenix watching him with an intensity that made him uneasy. As he followed Rogue out of the room, he felt something brush his mind and shuddered. He quickly threw up every mental wall he could think of, not seeing the slightly evil smile that turned up one corner of the redhead's mouth just before the door closed firmly behind him.

---

The mansion was quiet. It had been so ever since Xavier had disappeared into Cerebro, whatever that was. The Blackbird had lifted off shortly thereafter, and all the students and new recruits were keeping to themselves, leaving Rogue and Wolverine to their own devices. They'd opted for continuing their interrupted conversation, since there wasn't much else to do aside from wait. They kept their voices soft and left long pauses between their sentences, listening for approaches. They had done their best to pick a strategic positioning, one where they could get to anywhere in the main floors of the mansion with a minimum of wasted time, and had ended up in the rec room on the couch.

Rogue had all the residents on alert. Anything suspicious, any noises, you let me know, she'd told them. They all knew how to send messages to the comm. link that she wore around her throat. Logan had squinted at the strange apparatus, and she'd explained that the design was borrowed from the military special forces. It rested against her larynx and, when she squeezed to activate it, it picked up the vibrations of her voice directly through the skin. One of the wires wound up and around her ear, containing a small speaker. It was actually pretty high tech, Logan thought.

"So what's goin' on with this whole mission thing?" Logan ventured after a long silence.

Rogue sighed. "Magneto… he's got some ideas about how to handle human-mutant relations that just aren't quite the same as the Professor's. I understand both of them, I really do, but I think Magneto's just a little more realistic in his outlook."

"Then why ain't you with him?"

"Honestly?" Rogue smiled faintly. "I can't agree with his tactics. And, well, frankly, I simply can't stand his associates. We're not exactly on speakin' terms, me and them. Got a bad history."

"Okay, so, I guess he's gonna try to do somethin' at the convention, that's what you're thinkin'?"

Rogue nodded. "We've been able to pick up some intelligence that he's working on a machine of some kind. We're not exactly sure, but we think it has something to do with forcing mutations in human beings." Logan merely arched an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "I guess the Professor and Scott think he's probably going to kidnap a few people, experiment with them, what have you."

"Why would he pick a public convention for that?" Logan asked.

"That's exactly what I was wondering."

"Why didn't you say nothin' in the briefing room, then?"

She shrugged. "They rarely ever listen to me. There's enough people tryin' to play leader on that team without me jumpin' in."

"That team don't have a leader," Logan pointed out. "They got plenty o' directors, but no leader." She thought about that for a second, and then nodded. He shifted on the couch and settled in further to the cushions. "So you think they'll be able to stop him?"

"Yeah," Rogue answered. "They're not really together, don't really have a good battle plan, as you saw, but I'm not too worried. Just our bein' there is usually enough to make the Brotherhood back down, especially in public places with heavy security. Magneto's not that dumb."

Silence reigned again before Logan asked bluntly, "So whatcha said earlier 'bout not havin' anywhere better to go - wouldja leave if ya did have somewhere?"

She tilted her head, evaluating him briefly. "Probably," she finally admitted.

Before he could pursue that train of conversation, which he had fully intended to do, Rogue held up a hand and pointed to her earpiece, signaling that she was listening to something. "Come on, let's go," she said quietly. "They're upstairs."

He followed her quietly up the staircase, the claws sliding out with a smooth metallic sound as they crept around the corner. It was entirely too quiet for the mansion to be under attack, Logan thought, glancing toward Rogue.

She saw his look and whispered, "It's Mystique."

His eyebrows drew together in confusion, silently asking how she knew that. She shrugged and tapped her nose. He nodded. He'd forgotten that she had absorbed that from Lupus. The door immediately to Rogue's right burst open and she jumped backwards, dropping into a fighting stance as soon as her feet touched the floor.

"Rogue," a voice purred from the darkness of the room.

"Mystique," Rogue answered, and Logan almost laughed at the exaggerated disgust in her voice. What he wasn't prepared for, though, was the suddenness with which Mystique lunged out and swiped through Rogue's belly, nor the familiar snikt and flash of silver metal from her hands. He felt…mocked.

"Rogue!" he shouted, diving for Mystique. She deftly slipped from his grasp, evading him with some very fancy footwork. Finally she leapt from the window, morphing into a winged creature with an eerie bird-like screech. He let her go, turning to see Rogue. She should be healing. Why isn't she healing? She'd kept all of Lupus' other traits, the enhanced senses, the ability track prey - she should have kept the healing as well.

"Rogue," he whispered, kneeling beside her. He pressed his hands to her belly to stop the bleeding. "Rogue, why aren't you healing?"

"Gone," she gasped. "Lost it - while ago - Logan - tell Professor - get Jean."

"I ain't goin' nowhere while you're bleeding out on the floor," he growled at her.

"Have to," she gasped. "Got - Mystique's thoughts - Jean - betrayed us."

Logan ignored her for the moment, applying more pressure, but it was of no avail. "Rogue, listen to me," he insisted. "Turn on your skin. Just for a minute. Just long enough to fix this."

"No," she breathed. "Hurt you."

"I don't give a damn if it hurts me!" he yelled. By this time some of the students on that floor had peeked out of their bedrooms and were watching with morbid curiosity. His shout brought more, and made a few flinch. "Dammit, Rogue, just do it!"

She shook her head again and he snarled. "Don't - wanna - hurt you."

"Rogue," he tried again, keeping his voice more level. "I don't have a damn clue what to tell Xavier 'bout Jean, or Phoenix, or whoever. You're the only one who knows. You gotta turn your skin on and let me heal you. Come on." He locked gazes with her, and she grimaced in pain. The light in her eyes was beginning to flicker out, and he knew she didn't have much time. "Please," he whispered, pressing his face against hers and placing his mouth at her ear so only she could hear him. "Please, Marie."

She gasped then, and he felt a strange sensation, as if his entire being were being suctioned out through his face. His eyes went wide at the burning pain, and he began gasping for air. He felt everything pouring into her, everything that he felt and thought, everything that he was.

Just when he was sure he was about to die, that she would drain him to death as surely as she had Lupus, she groaned and moved her face away from his, breaking the connection. In the next moment, she shoved him from her, gasping his name as he began to convulse violently. "Oh God, Logan," she called gently, cradling his head softly with her hands in lieu of a pillow.

As he gradually stilled and came back to himself, struggling not to slip into unconsciousness, she touched their foreheads together, her skin safely turned off, and whispered his name over and over as her lips brushed his skin. He finally lost the battle with exhaustion and drifted off to the feel of soft kisses on his eyelids.

---

Nobody had suspected that Magneto had an ace in the hole-one he could count on to do the real dirty work while he was busy providing a formidable distraction. More than that, nobody had suspected the Judas in their midst, the treacherous Phoenix force that hungered for power, its ravenous desire too much for Jean Grey to withstand.

With Xavier focused on the fight going on between the Brotherhood and three of his X-Men, Jean was left completely unattended and unprotected, which was just the opportunity the White Queen was waiting for. Emma Frost's telepathic ability quite frankly superceded Jean's dramatically, and, combined with the Phoenix's addiction that raged within the young doctor, it insured that there was barely even the hint of a struggle before Jean's mind succumbed to Emma and red followed white out of the Statue of Liberty like a devoted puppy following its mother. By the time anyone realized she was missing, Jean Grey was well on her way to becoming the Dark Phoenix who, partnered with the White Queen, was to become Magneto's brand new ace in the hole.

In the end, Magneto was a whole lot smarter than anybody gave him credit for, and Xavier could only watch slack-jawed within his big, round room as his pet protégé levitated herself to the torch of that grand beacon of hope and liberty and stood within the metal rings which her telekinesis set to spinning rapidly.

Rogue managed to contact Xavier, but only after her news was old news. It had played out exactly as Magneto had hoped - Mystique had dealt Rogue a death blow only as a precaution, since Rogue's gift was the only one they thought had any hope of taking out Phoenix. They had not, however, counted on Wolverine being able to heal her. As it turned out, it was too late for Rogue to be the counter-attack measure, but Phoenix was still more vulnerable than they'd thought.

No one was sure, in the end, who it was that prevented Phoenix and Magneto from mutating an entire convention full of ordinary human delegates - Storm's lightning bolt and Cyclops' optic blast both hit figure in the center of the rotating rings nearly simultaneously, and both of them watched in horror as a fiery bird burst around Jean Grey's body, its hideous screech shaking the sky. As it melted away, Jean tumbled out of the machine and fell several hundred feet until an updraft from Storm caught her and was able to lower her more slowly into Cyclops' stunned arms.

Iceman experienced his own share of drama that night, even beyond the icicles he drove like spikes through Toad's heart as the amphibious mutant moved to attack Storm or the ice-slide he pushed Sabretooth down into the New York harbor. Sabretooth hated water with a passion reminiscent of the species he had been named after, and as a result, had never learned to swim. It was an ignominious end for the feral mutant, but Iceman's heroic accomplishments went mostly overlooked in favor of the death of the school doctor, whose body had housed a force too great and too devious for it to survive.

To add insult to injury, he returned to the mansion to have his back-from-the-dead fiancée pull him into a private corner and hand him back his ring. "I'm sorry, Bobby," she'd said, and the tears standing in her eyes made him believe she really meant it. "I just can't stay here."

"I have to," he'd answered, and they'd both nodded. It was something they'd known. Iceman was Cyclops' second in command and, by default, leader of the junior team. He couldn't leave… and Rogue had to. "I kind of thought this might happen," he'd said, trying to comfort her.

She had smiled sadly and given him a lingering farewell kiss. The last anyone at the mansion ever saw of the mysterious Rogue was her white-and-chestnut hair blowing in the breeze as she climbed into the passenger side of Wolverine's truck and drove off down the road.

---

They had spent a lot of time on the road in silence, speaking only to make decisions or small talk. And neither of them was very much for small talk, so unless it was time to stop for a meal, few words were said. But as they pulled into a hotel to stay for the night, Logan killed the engine and looked over at her. "I got a lotta questions, you might as well know," he told her.

"I thought you might," she smiled. "We'll talk about it over dinner, okay?"

That worked for him, and with no discussion, they got a room. After they'd locked the truck, they walked across the street to a small, rustic bar that looked a lot like the one she'd taken him to in New York. They got a booth in the back and talked over beer and food.

"I'll see if I can tell you what I think you wanna know, then you can ask me anything I left out. Fair?" she'd asked over a shot of Jack Daniel's.

He nodded, and she told him almost everything he wanted to know. Rogue had been kidnapped a couple of years ago and used as a test subject for a beta version of the machine Magneto had attempted to use on Liberty Island. It was when her hair had turned white, Lupus's healing had been drawn out of her, her mutation had become controllable, and was also when Jean - who had been one of the team that came to her rescue - had become inhabited by the Phoenix force.

During the attack, Mystique had brushed up against Rogue's bare skin - because while her flesh could imitate the appearance and consistency of metal, it was still flesh - and Rogue had turned her skin on for the barest of moments, just enough to draw off her surface thoughts, thereby learning of Magneto's real plan and Phoenix's months-long flirtation with the dark side. Phoenix had been part of the plan from the beginning. It was her telepathic suggestion that had coerced everyone to agree to Rogue staying home at the mansion, although the idea had been born of Rogue's genuine reluctance to go up against that machine again.

When she'd finished, Logan only had one question left: "Why'd you come with me?"

She had been silent at first, studying her beer and her empty shot glass with intensity. Finally, she answered quietly, "When you healed me… I got some of your thoughts and feelings about me. A lot of them, actually." She cleared her throat. "You were the first person that didn't think of me as expendable."

He frowned and shook his head. "That ain't possible. The X-freaks didn't think you were expendable."

"Yeah they did," she smiled sadly. "Oh, not as a team member. I'm invaluable as a super-hero, you know," she teased. "But as a person…" She sighed. "Even Bobby, he loved me in his own way, but he didn't really know me, I don't think. I didn't let him know me. I wasn't sure he could handle it. He doesn't know half the stuff about the labs that I told you. Mainly because… well, he wouldn't understand." She looked at him pleadingly. "You understand. Everything."

He nodded. He did. And that was why she was indispensable to him - because she understood everything about him, too.

"I don't feel I have to protect you from me," she said softly. "And that… that's a big thing. I'm … I'm okay with you." She tapped her head. "I'm even okay with you up here."

He didn't know what to say to that, but after they'd sat in silence for a few minutes, he finally made a decision. Standing, he held out his hand to her. She seemed confused at first, but trustingly took it, comprehension dawning on her face as he led her to the dance floor. They rocked comfortably, fitting together as if they had been sculpted in each other's arms.

They didn't speak for several long moments, until Rogue finally broke the silence. "I can definitely understand why all the women want you," she murmured, looking up with half-hooded eyes, pressed languidly against him as they continued to sway lightly to the music, half-hidden in the shadows.

"Got that, did you?" he asked, only slightly remorseful. It was his past, after all, and he didn't want to hide from her. But her having his first-hand memories of all his various flings over the years wasn't the way he would have chosen for her to know.

She nodded, but wasn't done yet. She leaned up to place her lips against his chin in a gentle kiss and sighed, "What I don't understand is how they can leave you after only one night." He started, and she smiled. "You're not expendable either, Logan."

He felt shivers begin to run through his body, and she kissed along his face until she came to his ear. "When you called me Marie, both times, but especially in the hallway, when I was dying…" She paused, and they both relived the moment in an instant. "When you said that, I knew - I know - what you were saying to me. You were saying I could be a real person. I could be more than Rogue, more than an experiment, more than what they'd made me. I could have a chance at being normal… with you. Did you mean that?"

He nodded, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"I'd like that," she confessed. "I'd like that a lot."

He pulled back enough to look in her eyes. "I got some money," he told her quietly, one hand coming up to tenderly brush her hair away from her face. "We could buy a place, way up in the mountains where nobody could bother us. We could be normal there - just you and me."

"I've got some money too," she told him. "I'll pitch in." She smiled, and it was like a slow sunrise. "I'd really like that. Being normal with you."

He leaned in slowly, tilting his head to accommodate his intentions. "It's settled then," he grinned, just before they sealed the deal with a slow, sensuous kiss.

Outside, a Canadian winter was beginning to rage, with snow lashing the building and people hurrying as quickly as possible from their vehicles to the relative haven of the bar. In the back of the bar, on the edge of the dance floor, two people comforted each other with their strength and the knowledge that they had survived for each other.

THE END