Within the minuscule time that had they managed to set up a make-shift M.A.S.H. unit three blocks away from the city. Three blocks was all that separated the already dead from others whom hoped to not join their ranks. Doctors unloaded moaning humans from ambulances as quickly as they could, throwing the recently deceased off of cots before setting the new arrivals on them. They hoped the disaster was now settling. It appeared those that were going to die did, and those that had a chance to live made it out to better equipped facilities. The doctors could stop running. They could breathe air that was hopefully not tainted with bile and blood.
It was not to be so. The humans stopped dying, stopped coming in with various shrapnel wounds from the debris that made up the air they were all forced to breathe that afternoon. But the thin flap on the tent that served as the entrance to hope was not opened, no, but ripped off.
Two large men clenching bodies tightly in their arms filled the doorway, allowing no rays of sunlight into the already dismal dirt hospital. One man, much larger than the other, was unharmed, safely coated in thick metal that still glistened and shined, despite the dirt and blood smeared all over it. The other was favoring his right side, although they could not see him wince when he tried to get a better hold of the man in his arms because his eyes were covered in a thick visor.
Behind them entered a man the doctors recognized, helping a woman who, despite her appearance and limping, could only be a goddess. “Help them,” The man begged, “Hurry!” The doctors follow the man’s orders, for he was the ruler of this desolate hell-hole, the one who cracked and pleaded the deviants for help in the first place.
Colossus tenderly and slowly placed the girl in his arms into the remaining hospital bed and gently moved the formally white locks of hair that clung to her face, now tinted pink from absorbing blood. Several doctors ran towards her to tend to her wounds but their hands were weakly slapped away each time they advanced.
“Stop touchin’ me,” Rogue groaned out as loud as her chalk coated throat could manage. “Mah healin’ factor will kick in momentarily. Damnit, stop fussin’ wit me and help Gambit an’ Storm first.”
Several reactions played across the doctors and nurses’ faces. The general disgust that they felt toward mutants combined with the awe at the gifts they possessed. So they left the girl and turned toward the others. Nurses began running frantically over the unit as doctors called out orders and supplies from the other tables. Cyclops stood vigil by the foot of Storm’s bed and tried to tune out the discussions from the M.A.S.H.’ s personnel on reluctance to touch or treat them, no telling what infectious diseases mutants carried. He eyed his fallen comrades before him and prayed. Prayed for them and the others that he had no clue where they were, including his wife.
Rogue tried to funnel out the noise in the unit, hoping to catch some mention the doctors’ were making about the condition of her friends, but all she could make out was the snide comments of the nurses to the left of her cot and the own thumbing of her blood pressure inside her skull.
“Rogue,” Colossus’ pained voice called out to her and she turned her head to him at the feeling of his cool metal hand against her forearm. “You’re not healing,” he choked out.
“No, ah am.” She realized the voice that escaped past her lips probably did little to assure him, but she continued to rationalize, “It’s just takin’ a while. Give me a few more minutes an‘ah‘ll be good as new…”
“No,” His stern Russian voice vibrated right through her, “You’re bleeding worse then before. Please! We need help over here!” He yelled out to no one in particular. One of the doctor’s left Gambit’s bedside and made his way to her and she began to panic. She panicked because her heart wanted to speed up from the anxiety but it couldn’t. With no other choice but to lay there as they ran their hands over her and poked her, she concentrated on the pain in the rest of her body so as to take her mind of the strengthen throbbing inside her head.
“Holy shit, this girl’s been stabbed right through the heart.” She wanted to laugh at how shocked they all were. She wanted to tell them that she would heal, to leave her *alone*. But they didn’t, instead they hooked her up to an IV and gave her a shot of atropine. She screamed then, and was disgusted by the tiny whimper that escaped.
“Scott!” She called at, jerking her head frantically to try and spot him in the crowd.
Doctors and nurses were thrown to the ground as he forced his way over to her and pulled them away from her bedside. “I’m here, Rogue. I’m right here,” he tried to soothe her and hide the desperation in his voice.
“What’s going on?” she sobbed, her green eyes glistening with tears that would never slide down her cheeks. “They put needles in me, Scott. How’s that possible?!”
“Rogue,” he choked out, not meeting her eyes. When he was sure his voice would work again he continued, “Look at your hand…”
She stares blankly at him for a few seconds wanting to scream at him that her hand was not the problem. It was the god damn hole through her chest. But his face stopped her. His soft, loving face was now stone-cold and she followed his glaze. His hand was tightly clenching hers, torn and bloodied skin to torn and bloodied skin. He didn’t bother to stop the silent tears from escaping his eyes at the contact. Nothing was more painful than feeling of her skin against his without the pain that accompanied her touch. They stared at their locked hands, neither willing to verbally confirm the omen.
The cry of a stranger’s voice that someone was going into cardiac arrest brought their attention to the bed beside Rogue. Where Storm laid, five doctors around her frantically applying pressure to her body, giving her shots, and trying to sew wounds up. One of the doctors pushed the others’ hands away and leans over the goddess. He pressed hard onto her chest before attempting to force life into her body with his mouth. The action did not revive her, the heart monitor blared the flat line in all of their ears.
Charged shock pads were placed to her chest to restart her heart, but her body remained unresponsive to the artificial lightening. The only signal that it went through her at all was the faint twitch of her left index finger. The doctors yelled to each other to not loose hope, they hadn’t tried epinephrine yet and could someone find a damned bottle of it.
“No!” Rogue screamed. She watched in aguish as Storm’s glowing spirit raised up from her body. Evidently no one else could see the magnificant aberration; all eyes were firmly fixed on the now unknowingly empty body on the cot.
“Please don’t leave,” She desperately pleaded to her friend, but Storm just put her finger to her own lips, as if to quiet the distraught southerner as she ascended through the roof of the M.A.S.H. unit and did the one thing Rogue asked her not to: left.
“Storm!” Rogue cried again and managed to jump off her cot. Doctors and nurses moved hectically to her, trying to calm her down and get her back into her own bed.
Finally Scott grabbed her off the floor and managed to maneuver the shaking girl back onto her rightful bed. He kneeled beside her so that he was eye level with her and could only nod in appeasement as she mumbled on about what she saw, her speech slurred both by her accent and the heavy sobs racking her body.
He wiped the tears off from under his visor before he gently stroked her cheek, mixing his physical and liquid grief with her own.
“Strom’s gone, Rogue,” he admitted, his voice shaking as he tried to hold her jerking body down and continued the consent motion of his bare hand against her face.
“But you have to stay still. You can’t leave me too, Rogue. Please! I can’t loose you too!” He begged her and lowered his forehead to rest against hers. Colossus could only stand with his head bowed at the scene in front of him. He didn’t dare cheapen the moment with reassuring words they all knew wouldn’t mean anything.
Scott waited for her reply, her angry lash, but nothing came. He opened his eyes and searched her face. What he was looking for he had no clue.
“Rogue…” He hesitantly called her name. No response came; there was no movement in her body at all. “NO, Rogue!!” He screamed and desperately shook her, uncaring of the shearing pain in his side caused by the action.
“Somebody get the fuck over here and help me!!” He yelled over his shoulders. Mentally he cursed the vile human doctors that were costing him everyone he loved.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, here we go, the actual story. This was inspired by X-treme X-Men #18, but I'm taking a hell of a lot of liberties. I want to tell you not to worry, that it is going to get better after this, but it's not... So my usual poor, broke, don't own nothing disclaimer and apology for all errors in spelling or otherwise goes here. Enjoy! Erm, well, you know what I mean.