In the End

I'm the one they always call, in the end.

I'm the one they call to pick up the pieces, to talk her back from the edge, to put another patch on over the shreds. To keep her alive.

I can't keep her whole.

Every time, it gets worse.

Every time, it's harder to see those eyes, the ones that used to look at me with such trust, like I could fix it all with just a word. We both know that's not true any more. I'm not sure who that hurts worse.

Because they're not even her eyes any more, and that makes it even harder. Because she knows why I avoid her gaze sometimes, when I just can't stand to see it, and I can't fix that.

There won't be any more of the kind of calls I used to get. She can't do anything with razor blades or lye any more, and I don't think pills will do it either. Anyway, she promised me that. She promised not to do it that way.

But there are other ways. Sooner or later, she'll find one. It won't look like suicide, at least not the usual kind. It'll look like she died a hero, trying to save the world, and I guess that's better. For the rest of them, anyway.

But it won't be better for her, or for me. She'll still never have gotten to live the life she deserved, the life I thought I was buying for her with all the racing in and last-minute drama. And I'll still know how badly I failed.

I would die for her, no questions asked, if it would help. She knows that. And it doesn't matter. I would stay there, no matter what it cost me, if it would make it the least bit better for her, but it doesn't. The last time I touched her, it almost did kill me. It gets worse every time; her skin just seems to get hungrier and more rapacious with every bit of contact. I wouldn't even care. I've lived long enough that death isn't much of a terror for me any more. It would be, in some ways, a relief.

But I can't go that way. She told me, the last time, standing a little turned away so I wouldn't have to meet her eyes. She told me how the ones who die never really leave her. She's already got my voice in her head sometimes, just from the sheer number of times I've let her suck me almost dry to close up the long vertical cuts, to heal a throat almost burned shut, to bring her back from wherever that fucking machine had taken her.

She told me she couldn't stand to have me there, forever, that way, when all she's ever wanted is for me to be with her like any normal man is with a woman he loves.

She knows I love her.

But I can't give her that, so being there is just acid dripping on an open wound. It would happen. No matter how careful we tried to be--and that would be a whole other level of pain, trying to make sure that never happened--all it would take would be one touch.

A touch. It's like those kids who are sort of the inverse mutation to me, whose bodies can't mount even the slightest defense against the common cold, the kids to whom the whole world is toxic. Except with her, it isn't the world that's poison. It's her.

And she moves through the world untouched. Maybe those kids get used to it, somehow, if they've never known anything else. She did. God, when I met her she wore more than her heart on her sleeve. You could see everything she ever thought, ever felt, right there on the surface. She'd grown up golden--never knew there were things this unfair in the world.

She isn't like that now. Her thoughts are as concealed as her body, as every inch of the poison skin she keeps away from the world, to keep it safe. I hate what it's done to her, hate who she's had to become to survive.

I hate myself for making her survive for this.

So this last time, turned away from me, looking out the window, she made me promise something else. She wouldn't try again, she said. She didn't know if there was anything left to try, but anyway, she would live as long as her body and a dangerous career choice would let her, and she'd stop drinking and taking whatever else she'd been using to try and forget, once in a while, the way things were.

As long as I promised not to come back.

So I promised, and I left. Not much else to say. There wasn't anything else I could leave her with. I couldn't even take her in my arms just once to say goodbye-all it would take, now, would be an accidental brush against her cheek, one instant of my skin meeting hers, and she'd be left alone with the only worse thing I could ever do to her. My voice in her head when nothing was left for her here on earth.

Someday I'll get another call. I know that. Even if it takes seventy years, that call will come, and I don't think it'll be as long as that. But it doesn't matter. Time I've got plenty of. The call will come, inevitable as the dawn, as birth, as death. I'll get that call, and then I'll go back, one last time.

I'm the one they'll call, in the end.

Just a Touch

They all think I feel nothing.

It makes sense, in a way. A girl who can’t touch shouldn’t feel. That would make it all much easier.

I could have chosen that path. I could have burned it all out of me, locked it away and never looked at it again. I chose differently.

I used to hope. That’s the only thing that changed.

One little thing done differently, and I’d have died years ago. If I’d gotten in a different semi, hitched a different ride, if I hadn’t followed him out of that bar, if I’d chosen South instead of North—I’d never have met him, and when they blew that machine apart I’d have finished dying then, and it would have been better for everyone that way. I’d have died young, but I’d have died whole, and no one else would have gotten hurt.

This way—it’s just taking so long. Too long.

I know he’s out there. I think about him, every single night, and wonder where he is, what he does every day, who he sees and what he eats, when he goes to sleep and who he fucks, what he does to fill up the time.

He has all the time there is, I think. Maybe I do too.

I hope not.

Maybe someday, I’ll find an answer. Not for my skin—I’ve given up on that. It’s been ten years, and not the least sign of any kind of control for that has ever even whispered to me. My skin is like another being, my personal prison, desperate for more victims, and it only gets angrier and angrier when I deny it its nourishment. That kind of answer, I did give up on. If I let myself hold onto that kind of hope, I couldn’t keep the promise I made. And I have to.

The answer I wish I had is why it had to be at all. That’s an even more hopeless question to ask, but at least it’s not just mine. Other people ask that too. Babies are born with cancer sometimes, and there’s no reason why. Sometimes it just happens. And some people find an answer, just for themselves. God’s will, some cosmic equation—whatever works for them.

I haven’t found any.

It wasn’t fair that this happened to me. I never wanted to be different, not this way. I wanted to be special, maybe. I wanted to discover myself, to know myself, to see everything in the world. I can do that now, but I can only look. Not touch.

It isn’t much of a bargain.

And I can’t end it. I wanted to ask him to let me, the last time. I wanted to ask him to understand, to promise that if I found some way of defeating myself, to let me go. But I couldn’t. I saw in those eyes that can barely stand to look at me any more just how much he needs for me to be here, just how much he wants to believe that there’s still something left for me in this world.

All he ever wanted was to make me happy. I can’t give him that, but I can let him believe it’s possible. Just not if he’s here, watching me.

So I made him leave. I gave him the one promise that would bind him to that, and I won’t break it. I knew when I said it that he’d accept, but that little girl inside of me still cried when he left.

He knows that. He knows what it did to me to make him go, but it would be worse if he stayed. Because I couldn’t not touch him, if he were here. And I know I can’t do that ever again, because my skin wants him more than anyone else, all the strength and power that belongs to him—the richest, headiest mixture it’s ever known. It wants it all. The next time, it would take everything.

And I’d be left with the knowledge that I’d taken everything from him, his soul and his life and every chance for any kind of peace, and I would go insane. And I can’t do that. They couldn’t stop me, not quickly enough to keep me from destroying more than just the two of us, and I can’t let anyone else get hurt. It’s bad enough that it isn’t just me.

Just…why did it have to be him too? I can’t answer that. But god, it isn’t fair. If I could change one thing, it would be that. If I could go back, I’d leave that bar, walk out into the winter night and let the cold take me. I’d make sure he never even saw the little girl with hopeful, trusting eyes that would get inside his heart, and let him go to find his own answers, or not. He shouldn’t have had to watch her die, trying to make me live.

Someday it’ll be over. Maybe even someday soon. Who knows what’s out there, what we’ll be called on to deal with tomorrow or the next day or the next? All I’m doing is waiting.

I should choose not to feel. I should choose not to let my thoughts go to him, to focus on what is here and now, to rip that dream out of myself as thoroughly as I tore away the idea that I could ever tame my skin. I should. But I don’t.

That’s the only life that’s left to me now, and if I have to keep moving and breathing, at least I want that much. I love him, and that’s the only thing that makes me more than just a shell. I won’t give that up. I’ll die untouched, but I won’t die having denied that I loved.

I won’t die without having felt everything I can.

The View From Above

I knew from the day Logan left that we would not keep her long.

Though I have been called so, I am not a goddess, nor ever was. If only I had that power for a day, I often think. But that power of what is and what will be is not given to humans, even those like me. And it is well. We think to do only good, but such evil has been wrought in the name of good intentions. Such things are better left alone.

Or so I believe. Poets through the ages have spoken far more eloquently than is in my small ability to what happens when man reaches for what belongs to the gods. Prometheus stole fire, and paid in an eternity of blood. Cassandra knew the future, and went mad with knowing. For the sin of building a tower that would reach the heavens, man was forever divided here on earth.

Never is it given to us to hold such power long.

Twice have I seen it. Twice, a woman like a sister to me has held such power and I have seen it. Twice I have seen it destroy a friend.

They could not have been more different. Phoenix was beautiful and bright and terrible, embracing the fire even as it burnt her soul from her and took her from within. Rogue was ever a darkling child, reluctant, wanting nothing of what was given her. She accepted her lot, some might have thought too easily.

I did not think so. She was strong, that little one, so strong. Strong enough to walk her path alone, to refuse the one thing that might have made her burden lighter, simply to protect the one who would have shared it. I knew that. I saw her where she went to remember that, when it would have been easier to forget.

I saw her in the sky.

Man was never meant to fly. Icarus died, sun-kissed into his oblivion, for daring to claim that power. I was born to that, for reasons I do not understand. She was not. But when the gift of flight was granted her, she accepted it as well. She never told me so, but I know the joy of flight, the touch of the soft winds that caress you and the clouds that brush your face, and I saw her there.

She took solace there, in the one touch, the one kiss that was not denied her. This I saw, and bear witness.

And it was in the sky that it ended for her. I alone was near enough to see the truth, and the truth I swore I would never tell. I was with her as we fought against the machines that man had built in this age to try and harness the power of the gods. I was with her as we were battered and torn by the forces massed against us, as slowly and inexorably we were splintered into ineffective remains of our battalion, until all those we had gathered were fighting only for their own survival.

It was then that she chose.

It seemed that she only tried to draw their fire, tried to give the remainder of our forces the time to regroup. It seemed that she hoped that my winds, Cyclops’ beams, Colossus’ mighty fists, would be in time to end the fight. She must have known that we would bear the guilt of that failure.

It was not enough to change her mind.

I saw her take the first strike, all the fire of a thousand suns against that little body, and she did not try to hide. She took that first attack, took all that it could do to her, and it weakened her just enough. As I tried to reach her, I saw her look down to earth, then back at the aiming Sentinels, and I saw her smile. And she closed her eyes.

I alone saw her fall to earth.

We won a Pyrrhic victory that day. The time that Rogue had purchased with her life was enough to turn the tide. The metal monsters were destroyed, and we escaped the explosions they set off as they fell, in an attempt to take lives even as they lost their own.

We returned to the field to find and bury our fallen warrior, but our numbers were not less. I did not envy Charles Xavier the task that was his that night. I do not know what words he used to tell Logan that Rogue was gone. I do not know what words there could be for such a message. I suppose he was prepared for that. He must have known the day would come, as well as I.

A man named Logan left us. Only the Wolverine returned.

It was he who found her. Found all there was. On that radiation-scarred field, in the midst of fires that still burned and earth scorched beyond repair, only he could have found anything that remained of Rogue. The force that made her invincible in life did not protect her body after death, and the power of the atom is not unlike the power of the gods. I saw him find the spot, find the scraps of bone and flesh. I saw him plunge his bare hands into the mud that had soaked up her blood and draw the earth across his face, his chest.

When he stood, battle-marked, I knew his intentions were fixed forever.

I am pledged to protect all life. Wolverine was pledged to protect only one, and now he turned his sights on bringing death.

It was hard for me to see it. All he cared for then was ending the lives of all those who had had a part in killing the girl he loved so much. He stayed with us only to finish what they had begun, stayed to destroy the thing that had destroyed her. He took no prisoners, accepted no surrender, and he did not allow the rest of us a choice in the matter.

He might have released me, if I had told him what I saw. But Rogue had paid with her life to buy my silence, to protect him from that knowledge, and I did not have the right to take that choice from her.

It was my penance for not preventing her death, and Wolverine claimed it from me to the last. My heart ached to see him, as we went through campaign after campaign. Bloodlust is a cruel mistress, never sated, and his kills did not bring him the peace he sought. Something else had taken Rogue from him before the Sentinels ever had, and that was something that could not be fought with fists or claws.

I have never known a darker time among us.

No Life That Breathes

Logan:

Something I never thought I’d say?

I’m tired of killing.

Never thought it would last this long. It’s pathetic, really. I should’ve had the guts to go years ago, and take her with me. She would have let me, would have been glad to have me with her. The claws wouldn’t have worked on her, not by the end, but I could have found a way. Pressure on the right points, just over the carotids—it would’ve been quick, and she would have welcomed that, the closest thing to an embrace I had left to give her. And then me, through my own chest, my own throat. Keep the metal there until even my body wouldn’t have been able to close up the wounds fast enough.

Apparently I’m the only one who knows how to kill me. Big fuckin’ cosmic joke. Maybe I should hand out notes. All I want is the same thing she wanted, but she managed to get it done cleanly. Me—I keep coming back from everything they throw at me. I stand there and just let them take their shots sometimes, but it’s never enough.

And while I’m here, there’s only one thing that matters, and that’s ending them. Ending every last one of them that made it impossible for my girl to live on this earth, that told her everything she was evil and wrong, just for breathing. Every last one of them that turned a bolt or wrote a program or signed up for the cause. I got a list as long as my arm, but it’s getting shorter every day.

I know she wanted this. I knew when I left that all she was promising me was not to do it herself. I thought I’d accepted that the next time I got that call, it would be the end of everything. I just wasn’t ready for it. Never thought she’d get it done so soon.

Somewhere I even had hope. Not for her and me—that would’ve been too much to ask. But for her to find something, somehow. Six billion people on the planet, there must’ve been one who’d have a mutation powerful enough to match hers. To withstand her touch. To give her what I couldn’t.

While there’s life, there’s hope. But she didn’t wait for that. She saw her chance and she took it, and all that’s left is the mess to clean up. So I’ll do that. I’ll finish this, finish them, and then it’ll be my turn, because I’m the last one on the list.

Think that sounds brutal? I’ve been called an animal before now. No big insult. Animals have a lot over humans, if you ask me. And I’ve always been sort of amused by being misunderstood by those who don’t bother to look closely at what I really am. Or by those who think I don’t really know myself.

Yeah, I’m a killer. A fighter. I’m an animal. Whatever you want to call it. But let me give you some clearer information. I have a certain amount of pride, after all. The word you’re looking for is warrior. I learned my trade from a great tradition. Want to know where? Let me give you a clue. Sokotsu-shi. That’s what I’m doing. I may not remember it all, but I know enough to know what I am. I’m not just a brawler or even a soldier. I know more than that. I know duty. I know ritual. I know honor. And I know my fucking obligations.

The only thing I ever could’ve done for her was to save her pain. Big goddamn hero, I thought it was more important to save her life. So all I did was give her a few years of breathing through what she couldn’t live without, and I didn’t even have the decency to admit the mistake and fix it.

Can’t fix it now. So maybe tomorrow someone’ll get lucky or smart, maybe tomorrow my reflexes won’t be quite fast enough, maybe tomorrow will be the last day I’ll have to think about her dying alone, breathing her last in the dirt with bombs exploding around her, no one to hold her as she died. That should have been me. I owed her that.

So now I’m paying. In blood.

Scott Summers:

I seriously question whether I should let this continue.

I can’t really imagine what I could do to stop it, though. I’ve never had any illusions about what Logan is, what he does. It’s not like he needs to spell it out. Whatever happened to him, whether he remembers it or not, it made him into pretty much the perfect killing machine.

I can’t say it hasn’t been a godsend, having him back on the team. Whoever you’re fighting, it doesn’t hurt to have someone like the Wolverine on your side, and when you’re in a fight for your life, you just thank your lucky stars. But no one in command could be entirely comfortable, working with him. He doesn’t take orders. He doesn’t exactly not follow them—he’s never put me in the position of having to say our missions have been jeopardized. But his objectives and the team’s are…not entirely confluent.

He’s out to kill and be killed, that’s all it is, and if I don’t let him do it alongside us he’ll just do it alone. I can’t see that as a better choice. At least if he’s with us, there’s some rein, however small, on his actions. I’m not kidding myself. He’s only putting up with this because, insofar as our goal is to destroy the organization behind the anti-mutant forces in the government, we’re after the same thing.

We just never intended this fight to turn into the bloodbath it has, and he did. Eventually this is going to come back to haunt us—how the hell can we say we’re not dangerous, when everyone we go up against gets annihilated? But I can’t exactly argue the other way. He’s good. He doesn’t execute bystanders, though how he makes those decisions in the heat of battle I have no idea. Still, at the end of the day, it’s the soldiers and officers and researchers who are lying in pools of blood, not the janitors. And it’s hard to dispute the theory that anyone with a gun—or a needle—is a threat during this fight.

What really bothers me the most, I suspect, is something that it’s hard to even consider in my own mind, much less say out loud.

I wish it could be me.

I wish I could be the one letting loose on every instinct of rage and revenge, the one whose primitive impulses and drives direct my actions. But I’ve never been that kind of man. All my life I’ve had to be the one in control, had to learn caution and planning, accept the responsibility of command. I can’t be like that. Like him.

But I understand the urge. I’m envious of that ability. Logan has changed, since his return after Rogue’s death. He was never exactly a ray of sunshine, but he used to have a sense of humor, at any rate. He used to have bad habits I despised, but at least I assume he enjoyed the drinking and carousing. He doesn’t do any of that any more. Between fights, he’s doing nothing but waiting for the next kill. And there are moments when I’m sure that the only reason he accepts the pseudo-legitimacy of being on the team is that he reluctantly acknowledges that others among us (read: me) have suffered losses too. That buys me a little validity, I guess. And there’s another connection. He stopped me from going over the edge after Jean died, in a strange way, and that was when it stopped being a sheer battle of wills between us. I can’t seem to do the same for him, though. Logan is as unqualified a loner as has ever walked on this earth, and we have nothing left to bargain with for his association with us than the extent to which our mutual aims overlap.

It’s not a healthy situation, and I shouldn’t be letting it go on. But I have to. More than that, I want to. He’s never taxed me with it directly, but Rogue was under my command when she died. Logan was a soldier at some point, I suppose, certainly enough of one to understand the nature of war. He understands that people die in battle. But a nineteen-year-old girl had no business being in that kind of a fight, and both of us know it.

It’s always been that way. Old men have made wars and the young men have died in them, all through history. It’s never been right. But Rogue wasn’t a soldier, wasn’t an enlistee. She was just a kid who got saddled with more than her share of power, and we used her. Never mind the excuses and justifications. We needed what she could do and we put her on the front line. I put her on the front line. And I’ve never been one to believe the ends justify the means.

I owe him, owe them both, for that. So I turn a blind eye, so to speak, to the fact that I’m not really in control of what he does in the field, and I accept his methods and his actions, and I don’t ask questions about it later. Let him get the revenge for both of us.

Someone should get that much out of this, at least.

Ororo Munroe:

I knew that disaster was upon us, and there was nothing I could do.

Our life in those times had the feel of an immense tragedy, about to come to its crashing conclusion—unyielding, inexorable. It was as if what had been set in motion would not be satisfied without the inevitable completion.

And still we had to play our appointed parts. As difficult as it was to watch the carnage around me, I thought that I could survive my duty. In true tragic fashion, I never clearly saw what was before me. I never imagined that Logan would take that final step and turn on one of our own.

I should have known that would matter little to him, in the end.

We all suspected that that last day would see the close of all. We had finally found the central facility, the developmental source of the new machines. They knew we were coming.

It did not make a difference. By this time we knew their weaknesses, had depleted their numbers, and shattered the structure of their command. Those who were left did not have either the conviction or the confidence to make much of a stand. They broke and fled. None of them escaped for long. By the time I reached the ground, again there was blood soaking the earth.

And Wolverine was waiting. He simply gestured for me to follow him with a jerk of his head, and led the way inside the gates. Scott joined us, bringing a satchel of explosives and recording equipment. If recriminations were to be made, we would not be without evidence of our own.

It was eerily soundless, as we walked through those halls. We spoke little, only when necessary. I think the same thought was in all our minds: this was the final battlefield of the war, and we felt all the solemnity of it. Logan seemed even more withdrawn than usual, for once not leading the way but following in our wake. We found the way to the lower levels, even more silent, more desolate. Here the corridors seemed as though they had never known the tread of feet before ours.

And then we found the room.

I could not even enter. Scott moved past me, the camera steady at his shoulder, and I heard Logan swear, a low rush of words I did not completely understand. Then he pushed me to one side and stalked into the room, suddenly on the alert. And I did not guess, or comprehend, what he was searching for. I was too stunned by what I saw.

To call it simply a laboratory or a morgue would not do it justice. It was a panoply of death, made all the worse for its methodical and scientific presentation. Specimens stood in jars, infants warped beyond comprehension and body parts made almost unrecognizable in their dissociation from human form, floating in liquids of abnormal colors. Dissections, half-completed, on sterile laboratory tables. Photographs and x-rays in bold relief hung from the walls or were illuminated by fluorescent lights. Whoever these people had been in life, in death they were utterly anonymous. No one would ever know what name to place over these remains.

I was paralyzed by the enormity of it. I knew that I must make myself move, that there was still some act I had yet to fulfill, some influence or words to offer towards the outcome of the day. But I could not step across that threshold. I, with all the elements at my command, was helpless in the face of that level of systematic malevolence.

And then Logan’s litany of profanity came to a abrupt end, and without conscious thought I looked toward the sudden silence. Scott stood between him and something they were both fixed on, and as I watched Scott lowered the camera from his shoulder and Logan’s claws slid free of their sheaths. Scott turned at the noise, and then I could see past them.

A tank, larger than the rest, and filled with another peculiarly tinted liquid. It seemed to be lighted from within by the same unnatural illumination that lit the rest of the room. And within it floated a human form.

I knew instantly, even without a clear view, what—who—it was. And as I stood, frozen in place, Scott held up a hand.

“Logan—no!”

And the claws flashed down.

Ever Truly Longed For

Scott Summers:

Until the moment I actually die, I am perfectly sure that I will never stare eternity in the face as closely as I did at that moment.

In that second, I spent every penny of whatever trust I had ever established between myself and Logan. I don't think he himself really intended anything other than slicing me in half on his way to the tank that stood behind me.

But somehow, he didn't. Those adamantium blades whistled past, an inch from my gut, and for a second I couldn't even breathe, let alone speak. The clearest thing I remember is Storm's face, looking stunned and terrified at what was about to happen. I realized later he actually sliced my uniform. But he didn't kill me.

He held back, just that much. And he spoke to me, even as he stared past me. “If you want to live, get out of the way.”

And I managed the words that kept me alive. Kept both of us alive, me and Storm. “Logan-look at her. Look at the setup.” I had to gulp for air. “She's not dead.”

I saw his head turn. I saw him take a breath. And then Ororo spoke instead of me.

“It's true. She lives.” There was a strange metallic sound, and then Storm was there, wrapping her arms around Logan and holding him back with everything she had. “Logan-listen to him. Only listen.”

I started talking-fast. “Look. There's a support system. There's tubes, an oxygen tank-we can take her home, Logan. We can help her. Just let us-“

“Fuck you, One-Eye. It ends here.” He turned his head just enough to stare me down. “Look at her. That ain't living.” Reluctantly I turned and looked at the tank.

Rogue's eyes were closed. Tubes ran into her everywhere, snaking around her body like so many serpents. From here I could see the scarred flesh, the way one eye was twisted shut, maybe entirely gone. One hand was almost missing, reduced to scraps of blackened flesh.

Logan didn't wait any longer. He shook Storm off, and then before either of us could react he strode to the tank and slashed his claws down. Glass and acrid-smelling liquid sprayed everywhere as the tank practically exploded. Logan knocked away shards of glass and simply climbed into the tank with her. He gathered Rogue into his arms, all that was left of her, and he pulled away the tubes that ran into her mouth and nose.

Storm had raised her cape to protect herself from the flying glass, and now she started towards the tank as well. I caught her arm.

“No. Storm-leave them alone.” I didn't know what we were about to see, but damned if I wanted him taking anyone else with him.

Logan

She wasn't dead. Not yet.

I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

I almost hoped she wouldn't wake up. I almost hoped she was past that, past everything except the faint heartbeat I felt when I took her into my arms. But she coughed a little when I pulled the tube out of her throat, and she tried to open the one eye that looked like it still worked as I wrapped her in a sheet Ororo silently handed to me. I almost wished I could just go ahead and do it, before she really knew what was happening, before she had time to be scared or hurt any more.

But I couldn't. It wouldn't have been the honorable way. But even more, I just wanted to see that she knew we'd found her, that she wasn't going to be forgotten and disappear. That she wasn't alone. It was a chance to make at least that much right.

I wanted to take off my gloves, but that would have been too dangerous. I brushed her wet hair out of her face and held her as close as I could. There was something around her neck and I tried to pull it away, but it wouldn't move. Then she winced and her hand came up to weakly try to bat mine away. I said whatever I could to reassure her, hoping she could actually hear me. “Shh. It's all right, Marie. It's just me. It's Logan. I'll get it off.”

Her eye did open at that, and I could see how hard she was fighting for consciousness. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. I reached for the collar again and she shook her head weakly.

“Don't,” she managed to whisper. Then her fingers tightened over mine, just a little, and she tried to smile. I had to lean close to catch her next words. “Knew you'd find me,” she murmured, and then her head fell forward on my shoulder.

Christ. I hadn't even been looking for her. But it didn't matter any more. I just held her, in the wreckage of that hellhole, and feeling a sense of absolute peace settled over me.

Because it was almost over.


Rogue:

I don't remember much about what happened to me.


Probably just as well.

All I thought I wanted was death. I thought it would be the kindest solution for me, and for everyone else. And when the Sentinels took aim at me that last time, that was what I expected. I thought I was dead, when I took that last volley and felt myself falling, and I just hoped it was enough.

But they wouldn't let me die. I was frightened, when I realized what was happening, where I was. But it was then that I knew I didn't want to die, not really, and certainly not like that. I tried to fight them, but I was too hurt and sick and then too drugged to be able to do much.

I knew they wouldn't let me get away. They let me sleep, though. They let me dream.

The dreams were wonderful.

I dreamed I was flying. I dreamed I was back home with my parents, before any of this ever happened to me. I dreamed I could walk down the street like anyone else, not different, not dangerous. And I dreamed that I saw him again.

I dreamed that Logan came to get me.

I dreamed that over and over, and when it really happened the only reason I knew it wasn't still a dream was that in the dreams I was never cold and wet and my lungs didn't burn with the unaccustomed exposure to air when I finally heard his voice.

I could barely open my eyes, but I had to know for sure. I heard him telling me it was all right, that he was there. And it was real. Then he tried to take the collar off, and it was all I could do to stop him.

I wanted to explain, but I couldn't. And he didn't understand, but he stopped. He held me, and he kept telling me it was all right, that he would take care of me, that he would be with me.

He kept talking to me, so quietly. He said I shouldn't worry about anything, that he would do it all. That he would follow me. He told me not to be afraid. He told me it was an honor, that there was a name for it. That I only had to give him permission.

I couldn't talk, but I couldn't let him do that. So I did the only thing I could, the one thing that would make him understand.

I reached up with my one good hand and touched his cheek.

Ororo Munroe:

My eyes were filled with tears, only partly because of liquid that hissed and bubbled on the floor around us. Wolverine drew in his claws and climbed into the tank with Rogue, lifted her out of the draining fluid and into his arms.

Scott tried to pull me away, but I could not leave them. I brought a sheet to cover and warm her, and I heard what Wolverine said to her as he held her.

I could not imagine that she could still understand his words. But she did. I know that now. He spoke of death as a blessing, of the honor it would be for him to join her on her final path. He asked for her consent to act as her guide, her kaishaku, and follow her into shadow. Wolverine is not a man of words, and I had never heard him say so much together.

I did not think she heard or comprehended, but when I saw her reach up with the one hand that still was whole, I knew she did. I thought she was refusing his offer, choosing her own way of closing the story, making sure that even at the end of all things, he would not know the grief of being the one to end her life. Wolverine thought so too. I saw him close his eyes, resign himself, waiting for that last touch. He made no move to stop her.

I thought that even implacable Time should have the decency to pause in his courses and let that touch stretch into eternity. Truly, it seemed to.

And then I saw him take a breath, a great gasp of desperation, and a tremor shook his body. And I saw that Rogue's face was utterly serene.

Then he lifted his head and bellowed out a name, and I saw stark terror written on his features. “Summers!”

It was not until I saw him tear off his gloves and reach to hold her hand where it still rested against his cheek that I understood. Scott moved, though I could not, and then Wolverine's words to him sank in.

“-got to get her out of here, now, back to the Mansion. Christ, help me--help her!” He was nearly crazed with concern, terrified that she would slip away from him now. “That thing-you stay with me, baby, you understand? We're going to take you home.”

“Come on.” Scott's voice was crisp and his directions were firm. “Bring her. Storm, go ahead, get the emergency kit out. Oxygen and blankets. We'll be back at the Med Lab in an hour.”

The journey home is a blur. Rogue didn't want the mask I placed over her mouth and nose, wanted nothing that could separate her from his touch, but Wolverine ordered her to leave it alone and she did. He was on the floor, holding her in his arms, and he had torn off the jacket to his uniform so Rogue could better feel the warmth of his flesh against hers. She was barely awake then, but he brought her hand up and held it against his chest as he pressed his lips to her forehead again and again. I stumbled back to give them room, strapping myself into my seat, and whatever words were spoken then must remain unknown to others.

But Logan wept.

Our revels now are ended. The rest of the story is mere denouement. Rogue lived. They stayed with us, for a short while. Long enough for the Professor and Dr. McCoy to decipher the technology of the collar she wore and learn to use its power. Long enough for them to harness the flow of energy, to control it, to shape it into a form that would be easier to wear--a necklace instead of a collar.

And long enough for Logan to convince her that they understood it well enough to dampen her powers without negating them completely, for once. To allow him to make one sacrifice on her behalf, however temporary.

She was hesitant, but she agreed, as long as it was under the controlled conditions of the lab, where medical help was nearby. I was not there, so I will say only that it worked. Those who did observe tell me it was uneventful. That Rogue let go as soon as she felt her flesh knitting itself together, and by the time she turned to take her necklace from the table beside her and put the weaker one aside, she was healed and whole. And that she took Logan's hand in both of hers and sat beside him until he awoke, so that her face would be the first he saw.

And soon after, they left. Not forever, I am sure. But the war for now was ended, and there was much lost time to be made up for. They were not needed here, and so their story for now I can only conjure and imagine.

Sometimes, somehow, out of utter evil, comes a great good. So odd, but true.

Did they marry? In their hearts, I believe. There were no outside words that could have strengthened the bond between them. There was something splendid in the way each of them laid claim to the other, both selfless and accepting, the giving and receiving of equal measure. It was complete, and beautiful to see. That is one reason I wish for their return. There is not beauty enough in this world that I can spare the sight of any.

We are only human, and imperfect, but sometimes, in our way, we achieve heaven here on earth.

Finis


The titles of the last two parts of the series are from The Two Voices. I highly recommend it.

No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson