A stealthy figure approached the quiet mansion, his black fatigues and dark, close-cropped hair allowing him to blend with the shadows effortlessly. He had no memory of how he had arrived there and no knowledge of where he would go after his work was done. This emptiness did not bother him. It was unimportant. He knew why he was here and what he had to do. That was enough.
The security around the perimeter was minimal for someone with his skills and information. He could not remember studying any schematics of the security system or plans of the house, but somehow he still had the knowledge.
Picking the lock on the main door, he entered the large home and easily disabled the interior alarm as he had the exterior. Sniffing the air, he determined that there were no pets in the home that would give away his presence. Also, the target, as well as the other residents, were upstairs and had been for several hours. He could move freely while he completed the mission.
Moonlight shone through the few uncurtained windows on the first floor, but the killer did not need the illumination. His eyes were as keen as a cat's, allowing him to see everything in the dim entryway. He walked easily through foyer and down the hallway to his first objective.
Entering the brightly decorated kitchen, he walked straight to the knife rack and pulled out a six-inch butcher knife. Holding it in his gloved hand, he tested the balance of the weapon. Satisfied with its heft, he left the kitchen and proceeded to the stairs. It would have been easier to kill with his claws or bare hands, but the mission called for a weapon on the scene.
Ascending the stairs, quiet as a whisper, the dark figure sampled the air again. The target was through third door on the left at the top of the stairs, and he was not alone. After pushing open the door, the killer could see the man in bed, sleeping on his back with his wife curled at his side.
Perfect. The man would be easy to kill. The only difficulty of the mission was that the death had to be silent. The wife must not be aware of the killer's presence. She must be framed for the murder: a domestic dispute gone horribly wrong.
As the killer slinked forward, he remained hyper aware of the heartbeats and breathing of the people in the bed before him, ready to act if either of them started to wake up. He was so aware of the bodies, that he noticed a discrepancy. One so glaring that, once discovered, the killer could not take his mind off it.
The target was an older man, his hair a mix of blond and grey. The smell of aftershave, cologne, soap, and deodorant couldn't cover the natural musk of the man himself. The musk was feminine. Not only that, but the smell was familiar.
Kelly had to die, but was this really Kelly? His scent and face matched those in the killer's head, but one or the other had to be wrong. If he killed this man now, would he be killing the target and fulfilling the mission or killing a decoy and leaving his work undone?
Independent thought had been discouraged in the killer by every means available to his owners. He was ill-prepared for any deviation from the expected mission. He had no memories to draw on, no prior experiences from which to extrapolate a new plan. Therefore, he followed the mission despite his conflicting senses.
Lining the butcher knife up, he plunged it deep into Kelly's chest between the third and fourth ribs. The man died almost instantly, never waking from his sleep. As the killer watched, Kelly's skin flickered, blue scales moving across his exposed face and neck, revealing the beautiful, blue mutant that had been masquerading as Kelly.
The dead mutant's face mixed with her smell was even more familiar. He knew her. This was not knowledge that had appeared from nowhere like his other memories. This was a nebulous, gut feeling. Sometime, before the mission, he had known this woman.
'There is no past, no future, everything is the mission,' automatically ran through his thoughts. Yes, that's right. He couldn't know the woman. There is no past.
Carefully and gently moving the wife's arm to the dead mutant's chest, he wrapped the woman's fingers around the handle of the knife, and she gripped the wood in her sleep, snuggling closer to the dead body.
His work done, he left the mansion, stepping to the curb and into the van waiting for him.
"The mission failed!" the young colonel yelled at the older scientist standing before him as he paced the small lab.
The man known only as the Weapon lay quietly in the sealed room before them, oblivious to their words. He had been returned to the base early that morning, and now, after debriefing, he was being wiped and reprogrammed for his next mission as the two men talked.
"The mission was a phenomenal success!" the professor responded, thrilled at the results of his latest endeavor.
"How can you say that? Your magnificent weapon didn't kill Kelly. He killed a shape-shifting mutant, probably planted there to hide the senator."
"No." the professor answered, quickly losing his patience with the younger man. "Think about it! Senator Kelly was anti-mutant for most of his political career..."
"He changed sides. That's why we had to eliminate him. He knew too much and wouldn't listen to reason."
"No. Don't you remember the panic right before that mutant terrorist attack? Kelly disappeared for a week and then changed sides in a press conference. Don't you see? He was replaced then! This blue shape-shifter probably killed him and took his place, switching his affiliation and working for mutant causes ever since."
The professor watched as the stunned colonel processed his theory. "Two years? There's no way that facade could've been maintained for two years. His wife would figure it out... wouldn't she? My heavens, the man was running for president!"
"Which is why this mission was such a success. Darlene Kelly is already being praised in the media for her act of self-defense against a mutant who was pretending to be her husband. A mutant who could easily have become president. This will increase the cry for mutant registration. Soon, we will be able to take our project out into the open."
"Kelly's been dead all this time?"
"Yes, and our weapon has eliminated a very dangerous mutant. Can't you see how successful this project is?
"I must admit, Professor. When you put it that way, it is quite impressive." Turning his attention to the man lying in the room beyond, the colonel asked, "What is he being programmed for now? Another political assassination or some mutant eliminations?"
"Another assassination. The only man that can stop us now is already petitioning Congress and pandering to the press, trying to calm the outcry over the shape-shifting fraud. With him and his assistant out of the way, there will be no one to stop us."
"So you're sending the Weapon against two targets? I didn't know he could be programmed with that much information at a time."
"Both targets live in the same building. He can kill them and be back out with minimum residual presence. It shouldn't be too difficult. It's not like these are mutants he's going against, just some rich people in a private school."
"Who are they?"
"Professor Charles Xavier and Dr. Jean Summers."
Marie stared blankly at the security cameras, looking for all the world like a recently-lobotomized patient in her boredom. She'd given up all semblance of concentration hours ago, allowing her thoughts to wander. It was the only way to make it through the night with her sanity intact.
What had she done to deserve guard duty on a Friday night? Well, nothing actually. It was just her turn. Mr. Summers was incredibly uptight about the school's security. Despite the fact that nothing ever happened, he'd doomed the training X-Men and high school seniors to guard duty, and they rotated through the weeks.
This night was always the worst. Friday night in the bowels of the mansion watching nothing but the occasional blowing leaves pass before the cameras was an endless, unchanging hell.
That was until Jubes and Kitty showed up.
"Rogue, babe, we've come to rescue you," Jubilee said, entering the cramped room with Cheetos, soda, and other snacks piled in her arms.
It took Marie a second to shake off her stupor, and in that time, she saw Kitty enter as well with a CD player in hand.
"Mr. Summers'll kill me if he finds you here. I'm supposed to be on guard duty," she protested weakly.
"So, keep guarding," Jubes retorted. "All you're doing is watching a bunch of monitors. You can still do that while munching on snacks and listening to tunes."
"Yeah," Kitty concurred. "Besides, the whole system's automated. No one could get through the security to make it onto the surveillance cameras, anyway."
"But..."
"C'mon, Rogue, live a little."
Marie reached out and snatched the bag of potato chips Jubilee proffered. "Well... I guess as long as I keep my eyes on the screens, it's ok."
They had gotten through the play-by-play of Jubilee's latest date with Remy and were now in the middle of "Why Rogue Needs a Boyfriend," when Marie caught something unusual out of the corner of her eye. It was just a hint of black on black, a strangely familiar movement that was gone before she could focus on the screen.
"Did you see that?"
"What?" Jubilee asked, caught mid-sentence in her rant.
"I thought I saw something moving out there." Marie said, fingers dancing across the panel to adjust the camera controls and aim the lens in a new direction. She could see nothing out of the ordinary.
"Don't change the subject, Rogue. We were just getting to the root of why you break off relationships at the second or third date," Jubilee chastised.
Marie ignored her, checking the other monitors and sensors for anything unusual.
"It's probably just a squirrel or a bird or something," Kitty assured her.
"No, it was bigger than that," Marie responded, completely engrossed in her search.
A minute later, she sat back and sighed. All the sensors were green, all the monitors were clear, no intruders detected. However, in her gut she knew there was something out there.
"I'm going to check it out," Marie said, dragging on her coat and standing up.
"C'mon, Rogue. There's nothing out there," Kitty said.
"Yeah," Jubes added. "We'll quit teasing ya about your love life. Don't run off."
"I'll be back in a few minutes. Keep an eye on the monitors for me?"
"Ok, but be back soon, or Jubes'll finish off all the Cheetos without you," Kitty warned in a mock-serious tone.
Rogue cringed in feigned terror and then made a dramatic exit.
He prowled along the edge of the woods on the large estate, the trees providing more than enough concealing shadows. There were two targets, both human, both residing in the large mansion which lay before him across an open, green field. He would have to leave the cover of the trees to reach his objective.
Lurking in the shadows, he heard a mechanical whirring. Looking up, he saw a camera perched a hundred yards ahead of him, hidden in the tree line. He hadn't known it was there.
There had been a number of unexpected surprises tonight. A sensor net along the stone fence surrounding the property and a web of laser beams just yards onto the property had been the first of several. If he hadn't possessed such keen senses, he would have been easily caught. As it was, he'd had to enter the property through the woods. It left him miles away from the mansion, but the animals living there made most security systems ineffective.
As he'd hiked to the mansion, he wondered at his disturbing lack of information. Even with the emptiness of his past, on a mission he always knew exactly what he needed. Now there were several worrying gaps. These people had much more expensive and extensive security than he'd been programmed to know. They had to be protecting something very important.
Now at the edge of the open yard, he paced back and forth in the shadows at a loss for how to proceed. The camera he'd recently found was trained on the lawn, sure to detect his presence immediately. He couldn't succeed, but he had to succeed. The mission was everything.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of the school's front door opening. A young woman emerged into the dark night and started across the grass towards his general direction as if she knew he was there.
He set his previous dilemma aside for the moment, knowing exactly what to do in this new situation. The primary objective of the mission was to kill Xavier and Dr. Summers. The secondary objective had three parts and was just as, if not more, important than the first: to avoid detection, eliminate any witnesses, and return to the base.
Marie felt silly walking out onto the deserted grounds of the school in the early morning hours. If there wasn't anyone out here, she would be teased mercilessly by Jubes and Kitty. If there was, then she was acting like a stupid, B-movie victim, walking right into the clutches of the slime beast or whatever the hell was waiting for her.
Back in the monitor room, she'd wanted to discount her sighting, chalking it up to exhaustion after hours of guard duty, but she couldn't. She just knew she'd seen something, and she had to find out what it was. Two years ago, Logan had told her to trust her instincts, and ever since, she'd followed that advice. His presence had faded in her mind to a faint whisper over the years, but she still thought of him almost every day.
She dated, boys at the mansion and guys at college, but she'd never felt the connection with anyone that she'd felt so quickly with Logan. She'd stopped wearing his tags around her neck, but they were never far. She kept them on her key chain and would find herself fingering them every so often, wondering when he would keep his promise and return. Lost in thoughts of Logan, she failed to see the dark figure step out of the shadows behind her until it was too late.
A hand with a grip like steel grabbed her neck and forced her to the ground. Using all the wrestling moves she'd learned in X-Men training, she fought to free herself from her attacker's grasp. She succeeded in turning over to face him and got in a few good kicks and punches before he sat down on her torso, pinning her arms to her sides with his legs and resuming his grip on her throat. She tried to push up, tried to kick, but he was heavier than his frame would indicate and she couldn't get enough leverage.
Her skin was covered except for her face, but the hands gripping her neck were protected by black leather gloves so that wasn't an option to defend herself. She was trapped and she couldn't breathe. She could feel the darkness seeping into the edges of her vision, but before she lost consciousness completely, she caught sight of her attacker's face in the moonlight.
It was Logan. His hair cropped short in a crew-cut and his face cleanly shaven, he looked different than he had when they'd first met. The biggest difference, however, was in his eyes. Before, she'd seen passion, depth, caring, and concern. Now she saw a cold, unfeeling emptiness. She saw her death in those eyes.
His claws were out and ready when the young woman passed his hiding place. It was obvious from her presence out here in the middle of the night so close to his position that she was looking for him. Somehow, he must have given himself away. However, she was the only person outside the mansion, so she must not be certain why or even if he was there. There was still a chance to fulfill his mission undetected. To be successful, however, she would have to die.
Even as he lunged at her, a part of him balked at the idea of her death and his claws instantly retracted. Her scent. She'd approached upwind of him, and he'd only caught her smell just now after she'd passed. It only took one whiff to know he couldn't harm her.
'Kill her,' a mental command echoed through his brain.
'Yes, the mission. Protect the mission,' he thought as he grasped her vulnerable neck.
Even as he got a hold of her, his fingers relaxed. He couldn't break her neck. She had to live. It was important. She was everything.
'The mission is everything. She threatens the mission. Eliminate the threat,' the commanding, interior voice said, demanding compliance.
He wrestled her to the ground, using his body to trap her as she attempted to fight back. His fingers tightened around her throat, and she weakened under his grip.
He looked down into her eyes as he choked the life from her. The panicked, chocolate orbs changed in an instant, softening in recognition and then widening in terror.
'Kill her!'
'No!'
'Do it!'
'I CAN'T!'
There had to be another option. Wracking his shattered mind for a solution, he finally realized that if she was restrained, she couldn't stop the mission. His objective would be met and she would still be alive.
Immediately, he released his grip and checked her vital signs. She was still alive and breathing again, having barely fallen unconscious. Pulling the long gloves and scarf from her limp body, he flipped her onto her back and tied her hands behind her with one of the gloves. He tied the other glove around her head, gagging her. Using the scarf, he knotted her ankles together and brought them up to her hands, hog-tying her with the remainder of its length.
After checking to see that she could still breathe around the gag and positioning her so she was as comfortable as possible in the restraints, he left her lying at the edge of the woods on the cool grass. Running for the mansion, he resumed the primary mission.
"Rogue!" Jean sat straight up in bed, yelling into the night. Something was wrong. She had thrown off the covers and was stumbling for the door before she was even completely awake.
"Jean?" Scott's confused, sleep-addled voice floated to her from the bed she'd just abandoned.
"Scott. It's Rogue, she's..."
~Jean?~ the professor's mental call interrupted her thoughts, ~did you feel that?~
"Jean?" Scott asked, concern filling his voice. Jean held up a hand, begging him to wait just a second as she started a conversation with the Professor.
~I felt Rogue. She was frightened, but now I don't get anything. Can you sense her?~
She waited as the professor mentally searched for Rogue.
~No. It's almost as if she's unconscious. Go check on her. I'll be there shortly.~
Jean nodded and then opened her eyes. Her husband was standing before her, his hands grasping her arms in worry. He'd put on his battle visor while she'd been psychically communicating, sensing from her behavior that it might be needed.
"There's something wrong with Rogue," she explained as she opened the door and jogged into the hallway. "I felt her fear and now I can't feel anything."
Taking the stairs, they ran up a flight to Rogue's level and burst out into the empty corridor. Pounding down the hardwood floors, they finally made it to the correct door. However, Scott grasped her arm before she could enter. Shaking his head, he put a hand to his visor and then signaled to Jean to open the door.
She did and he burst into the room, flipping on the light, ready for battle. The room was empty, and Rogue's bed was neatly made. It was obvious that she hadn't been to sleep yet.
"Where could she be?" Jean asked, worry filling her voice.
As soon as Scott saw that Rogue wasn't in her room, he remembered where she was, feeling stupid for wasting precious seconds.
"She's in the security room," he said with a frustrated sigh. "She had guard duty tonight."
The ding of the elevator sent them into defensive positions again until they saw the Professor emerge, concern on his features.
"She's downstairs, Professor." Jean said, waving him back into the lift as she and Scott hurried to join him.
They rode in silence, each consumed with their own fears for Rogue. When they finally reached the lower levels, they were shocked by what they heard. They'd been expecting silence or alarms or even screams. They weren't expecting rock music blasting down the corridor. As they neared the security room, not only did the music get louder, but they could also hear off-key voices singing along.
Jean could tell that Scott was in full, righteous-indignation mode when they finally entered the doorway of the cramped monitor room to find Jubilee and Kitty jamming to the music.
"What the hell is going on here?!" Scott screamed over the blasting tunes. "Where is Rogue?"
Jubilee jumped and lurched for the volume control while Kitty phased through her chair in surprise.
"We... um... she..." Kitty stuttered after the CD player was off.
"She thought she saw something outside," Jubilee provided. "We were just watching the place while she checked it out."
"Outside?" Jean asked. If Rogue had seen someone then the mansion was under attack. She was about to voice her concerns when she heard the screeching sound of metal on metal echoing down the hallway, coming from the elevator they'd just left.
The killer approached the front door of the mansion cautiously, checking for any traps. He couldn't hear the hum of an active security sensor on the door. Also, there were no heart beats or breathing sounds coming from the other side, and he couldn't smell anyone but the girl he'd just left, so he decided it was safe.
Surprisingly enough, she'd left the door unlocked in her haste so it was easy for him to slip quietly inside. As soon as he entered the foyer, he could smell one of his targets: Xavier. The man's scent hinted at stress mixed with fear and it lead to a bare, wooden panel in the hallway. He must know that something was wrong. The entire school wasn't on alert, yet, but the killer couldn't waste time with subtle tactics any longer.
Releasing his claws, he dug into the wooden panel, cutting through the wood and the steel behind it to reveal an elevator shaft. Sheathing his claws, he grasped the elevator's guide wires and, wrapping his legs around them as well, lowered himself down the shaft.
Once he reached the lift compartment, he opened the access door and dropped into it. Then with a SNIKT , he cut through the doors, knocking out a hole and emerging into the metal hallway.
Breathing deeply of the air in this new area, he immediately detected both targets and turned with a growl to see the woman standing and the man sitting in front of an open door not more than 30 yards away. Claws out and ready, he attacked.
Jean saw the metal doors of the elevator fall into the hallway followed by a barely recognizable Logan. It had been two years since he'd left, and he hadn't aged a day. In fact, clean-shaven he looked even younger.
"Logan?" Jean asked, hardly believing her senses. How had he gotten on the property, let alone into the lower levels of the mansion, undetected?
Logan turned to look at her and his expression changed from purposeful detachment to murderous intent. Her blood ran cold and she froze in place like prey before a hunter. For a surreal few seconds, Logan charged at her, claws loose and ready to tear her to pieces, then a red beam shot from behind her, striking Logan squarely in the chest, throwing him the length of the corridor, and slamming his body into the closed Cerebro door. The claws jumped back into the arms of the unconscious man as he slumped to the floor.
Finding her voice again, Jean screamed, "Scott?!?", in a mix of disapproval and panic. He had used a kill setting.
"He was going to murder you, Jean!"
Jean looked at Logan's still form, then back at her husband, then at Logan again. She started to walk towards Logan.
"Jean! Get away from him! It's too dangerous."
"I have to treat him, Scott. I'm a doctor."
She was five feet away when Logan shook his head with a grunt and stumbled jerkily to his feet. If he hadn't had a metal skeleton, his chest would've surely been crushed by Scott's concussive blast. As it was, he was gasping for breath.
Still, when he saw her, so close as to be almost in arm's length, the claws came out and he lunged clumsily at her. Jean backpedaled away, out of reach.
"Jean, get out of the way," Scott yelled as he ran towards her, and she realized she was in his line of fire.
Logan took a step and then another, struggling to reach her. Then, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
Scott reached her and tried to drag her away from the prone body, but she resisted, looking at the suddenly subdued Logan and then back at the professor.
"Scott," the professor said calmly, taking control of the situation, "Logan is safe now. Let Jean treat him." He closed his eyes in concentration and then, turning to Kitty and Jubilee, said, "I think you'll find Rogue by the lake path on the edge of the woods. Please bring her down here for medical attention."
Marie's arms were aching, her legs were stiff, her throat was sore, and all she wanted to do was find Logan. He had acted so differently that it was almost like there was another person in his body. She knew deep within her mind and soul that Logan would never harm her. Why then had he attacked her so brutally?
When she'd first woken up, she'd wondered if it'd been Mystique, but then why hadn't she been killed or kidnapped? Logan had obviously been trying to hurt her when they'd fought, and she'd seen cold brutality in his eyes. Then, she'd woken up, restrained but relatively unharmed. It didn't make sense.
"Rogue!"
"Rogue?!?"
She could hear Jubilee and Kitty's voices calling to her in the distance.
"Mmmph!" she mumbled around the gag, trying to call to them for help.
"Rogue! Are you ok? Are you hurt?" Kitty asked frantically when they finally found her.
"Let's get the gag off first, Kit. How about that?" Jubes said, carefully unknotting the glove in Marie's hair and pulling it away from her face. "You ok, girl?" she asked once the gag was off.
"Logan?" Marie croaked, her curiosity more important than her current predicament.
"He's in the med lab," Kitty said, working on the knots in the scarf tying Marie's hands to her feet, ever cautious of her exposed skin.
"He kinda went loopy on us," Jubes added. "Professor got him under control, and they're trying to figure out why he went nuts... He do this to ya?"
"Yeah. I want to see him."
"No prob. Professor said to take you to the med lab anyway."
Jubilee helped Kitty with the knots, and once Marie was free and her wrinkled gloves were back on her deadly skin, they pulled her to her wobbly feet.
"You sure you're ok, girl?"
"My legs are just numb. Help me."
With an arm around each girl's shoulders, Marie made it slowly back to the mansion. Once there, she was lead down the hallway, past the destroyed elevator and into the emergency stairwell.
When they emerged on the lower levels next to the Cerebro entrance, it was easy to see a large dent in the door as well as the damage to the elevator further down the corridor.
"What the hell happened?" Marie asked.
"Logan happened. We told you he went nuts," Jubilee said.
"He was trying to kill Dr. Summers," Kitty added.
"Why?"
"That's what the Professor's trying to determine," Scott said, waiting for them in the hallway. His face changed from frustration and anger to concern bordering on panic. "Rogue? Are you ok?"
Marie saw his gaze fall to her throat and was sure that the bright lighting allowed him to see the bruises she could feel forming as a result of her near strangulation.
She nodded and opened her mouth to reassure him, but he was already overreacting, lifting her into his arms and carrying her the rest of the way to the med lab.
"Jean?" he called as they entered.
Jean turned and walked over to them, allowing Marie to see Logan lying on the examination table behind her. He was restrained with secure-looking straps, his arms spread-eagle away from his body, making his claws useless. The professor was leaning over Logan's prone form, his hands on either side of the limp man's temples and his face a mask of concentration.
As soon as Jean saw Marie's condition, she went into action.
"Put her on this table. Rogue, can you talk? How do you feel?"
"How's Logan?" Marie croaked, her throat scratchy and painful.
"He's ok right now... Did he do this?"
"He wasn't himself," Marie said, defending Logan in a knee-jerk response.
Jean nodded kindly and pulled on latex gloves to begin Marie's examination.
Logan's mind was a haze of half-remembered missions and half-forgotten truths. Charles Xavier treaded through it slowly and carefully, like a soldier in a mine field, never knowing what memory would explode into being next.
Finally, he made it to the core consciousness, or at least as close as he could. It was blocked off and protected by a mental barrier.
'Logan?'
~There is no Logan,~ a flat, emotionless voice answered.
'Who are you?'
~I am the Weapon.~
'Where is Logan?'
~There is no Logan.~
'Who created you?'
~That is classified.~
'How long have you been the Weapon?'
~That is classified.~
'What is your objective?'
~To fulfill the mission.~
'What is your mission?'
~That is classified.~
This was getting him nowhere. At least now he knew that Logan had acted so aggressively because of mental programming, and whoever had done this had been a mutant. Only a psychic could infiltrate so deeply in someone else's mind. He had to find a way to break this programming if Logan would ever be himself again, but direct questioning obviously wasn't the solution.
He backed out of the other man's mind and looked up into the worried faces that surrounded him, all waiting for answers.
Hours after Jean was done examining her, declaring her bruised but otherwise healthy, Marie continued to sit in the med lab. She watched Logan's chest rising and falling as he lay strapped to the examination table. It was a good thing he was unconscious. He hated being restrained because of the experiments he'd suffered through so many years ago. She'd had his dreams for a while after he'd left and they were just like this: confined to a metal table in the middle of a lab.
"It happened again, didn't it, Logan?" she asked the sleeping man. "They found you again and this time you couldn't escape."
Logan lay still.
"I'm so sorry, Logan. If we'd known, we would've come after you. If they hadn't gone, I would've come alone," Marie said with conviction.
Logan didn't respond.
"You're here now. You're safe. Do you hear me, Logan? You got to fight and come back to us."
Hazel eyes snapped open and gazed up at her. For a moment, she saw a hint of recognition, and then his face hardened into cold resolve and she heard a SNIKT .
"They are on full alert. The grounds are lighted like noon-day. The perimeter is fortified with electrical fences, sensor nets, and laser-sighted heavy artillery. There are ludicrously well-armed soldiers on patrol. This is a bigger operation than we'd possibly imagined, Colonel. There's no way we can get in there without more men than we've got on the entire project and more firepower than a small country. I'm afraid the Weapon is lost," the captain reported to his distant superior.
"Damn, Damn, DAMN!" an older voice, the professor's, broadcast into the captain's headset.
"Colonel? What are your orders?"
He was trapped. The mission had failed, and he'd been captured. All objectives had been left unfulfilled. He had to escape.
Releasing his claws, he tried to cut at the material binding his wrist, but his hand was at the wrong angle. He tried to shift positions, but he was securely restrained.
"Logan?"
It was the young woman he'd attacked back by the woods. She looked at him in fear and concern. Had she been his downfall? Had his inability to kill her gotten him captured? He hadn't followed the instructions he'd been given and now the mission was lost.
No! He fought harder against his bonds. While he was still alive, there was a chance to succeed.
"Jean? Logan's awake," the woman called to someone in the far room.
He sniffed at the air and caught the scent of one of his targets seconds before she came into his line of sight. The compulsion to kill her was overpowering, and he used all his strength to pull against the restraints on his right hand.
Ignoring the pain and resistance, he pulled until his blood-slicked hand, stripped of large portions of flesh, finally came free of the restraint. Releasing his claws on that hand, he reached over at cut at the fabric holding his left hand in place.
"We cannot allow this situation to continue, Professor. The Weapon cannot be allowed to remain in the hands of mutant lovers. They'll use him against us," the Colonel argued.
"He has no memories of this place. They'll never be able to track us down," the Professor reasoned with equal conviction.
"But they can still use him as a weapon against our cause."
The Professor paced the cramped control room, shaking his head in disbelief. "I've worked so hard for so long. I created this weapon before you were even out of high school."
"And you lost him, if I recall correctly."
The Professor slammed his hand down on a nearby control panel. "But we recovered him! It was fate that he returned to the Alkali Lake base. He was meant to fight for all humans against the mutant menace."
"My men cannot retrieve him."
"Then get more men!"
The Colonel shook his head. "You know that will take months of tricky requisitioning. Most government officials don't even know we exist. We can't afford that time. You must terminate."
"No! Not when we're so close," the Professor yelled, but now his strong voice was giving way to despair.
"It's the only way, Professor. If you won't, I will. There are other mutants. We can begin again."
The colonel reached for the remote activator, but the Professor snatched it first. "No. If it must be done, I will do it."
Flipping up the safety guard, he depressed the red button.
Logan was almost free, having unshackled his arms and one leg. Marie begged him to stop while Jean struggled to telekinetically hold him in place. Neither woman was successful as his claws inched closer and closer to the remaining strap.
Suddenly, Logan began to shake, collapsing back on the bed in spastic convulsions.
"Jean! Stop it!" Marie commanded, her voice filled with unrestrained fear.
"I'm not doing it," Jean responded.
Marie ran to Logan's side despite the threat he'd presented just seconds earlier, attempting to calm his seizure with her hands alone. As soon as she touched him, the electrical shock threw her across the room.
Ororo loved to watch the sunrise from her roof garden every morning. She was one of the few early risers in the mansion, and she loved this hour of solitude before the school began to bustle with activity.
Sipping her tea, she sighed in contentment. Her roses were in full bloom and the heady scent washed over her as...
~'Ro! Med Lab! Now!~ Jean's mental command interrupted her thoughts. The woman's tone was frantic, bordering on all-out panic. Something must be terribly wrong.
Ororo rushed to the nearby elevator, but it was taking far too long to come. She ran instead for the emergency stairs, taking them two and three steps at a time as she made her way from the roof down the ten flights to the lower levels of the mansion.
When she emerged, she was surprised to see the condition of the hallway. The Cerebro doors were badly dented and the elevator had been slashed open. Were they under attack? Why had Jean called her to the med lab instead of to the battle?
As the doors swished open, the sickening smell of burning flesh assaulted her. Jean was on the floor desperately giving Rogue CPR while a man writhed on an observation bed a few feet away. Another bed was rising out of the floor unbidden as syringes, heart paddles, and other medical equipment floated to Jean as if they were alive.
"Jean?"
~'Ro!~ Jean called to her mind, unable to stop the CPR to talk to her. ~Logan's being electrocuted. I can't touch him until the current's stopped. Can you... can your gift...?~
Ororo saw the psychic image of what Jean couldn't express in words. She was touching the seizing man, Logan, it barely looked like Logan. She was drawing the electricity into herself, pulling it away so it couldn't harm him any longer and so Jean could treat him.
The image disappeared as quickly as it had entered her mind. When she looked up, Jean was telekinetically moving Rogue's limp form to the fresh bed.
"I don't know..." 'Ro said, uncertain. "I've never done anything like that, Jean."
~If you're not sure, well, you can see what it did to Rogue...~ Jean paused, as if rethinking her proposal, then she thought, ~Don't do it, 'Ro. He's probably already dead. I just... maybe... it's the only way I can think of to save him.~
Rogue had touched him? Ororo had learned early in her mutantcy just how dangerous lightning could be, and she could almost feel the energy Logan was giving off from where she stood. Jean was probably right. Logan was already dead and Rogue would be lucky to recover. Still, she knew she had to try.
Opening herself to the very essence of nature, she saw the world turn a milky white as she focused on seeing and controlling the elements. The electricity was spiking through Logan's body so strongly. She reached out, allowing her hands to hover over his shaking frame, feeling for the source. His neck, a device in his neck was producing the current. She called to the power and it responded to her summons, leaping from the device to her fingertips, ignoring the beleaguered body it had been so gleefully destroying. Distantly, she felt the body go limp, but that was almost unimportant. The energy. She had to focus to control it. She couldn't worry about anything else.
Jean could hear the thunder start shortly after Ororo started drawing the energy from Logan. It was probably deafening above ground if it could be heard down in the med lab. She didn't pay it more than cursory attention, however, since her efforts were focused elsewhere.
'C'mon, Rogue. C'mon,' Jean thought as she placed the heart paddles into position on the still girl's chest.
"Clear!" she called to no one in particular and pressed the triggers on the paddles. Rogue's body leapt on the bed and then lay limp. The heart monitor had registered one beep and then the rhythm changed back to ventricular fibrillation.
'No, Rogue. Fight! C'mon.' Jean demanded, increasing the charge to 200 on the electrical stimulator.
"Jean?" Scott asked, running into the med lab. He took in the sight of Rogue lying on the bed before her and 'Ro sparking with energy next to Logan. "What the hell is going on down here?"
"Clear!" Jean shouted again, attempting again to shock Rogue's heart into beating. She watched the monitor intently. One beat... another... another. Soon, there was a steady sinus rhythm. The young woman still wasn't breathing, though.
Jean ignored her husband's questions, telekinetically pulling a intubation tray towards her from the cupboard across the room. She opened Rogue's mouth, keeping the tongue out of her way with one instrument while she tried to fit the tube down her throat. It wasn't working. The swelling from her previous injury had to be the cause.
"I can't see the vocal cords!" Jean huffed in frustration. Looking up and seeing her husband, she said, "Scott, come here. I need crychoid pressure."
"What do I do?" he asked, eager to help Rogue where he could.
"Pull on some gloves... Ok, press here," Jean said, positioning his hand on Rogue's neck and helping him apply the correct amount of pressure before she went back to tubing Rogue.
"Ok... ok... I'm in." Jean said, pulling out the guide wire and attaching the air bulb to the end of the tube. "Here, pump this," she said, handing Scott the bulb while she listened to Rogue's chest with her stethoscope. "Good breath sounds, bilaterally. She's ok," Jean declared, switching her attention to Logan.
Dammit, he looked dead. His skin was hot to the touch and already deeply bruised from the internal fires that had danced along his metal skeleton. He wasn't breathing and she doubted he had a pulse. She had to remove the device that had caused all this damage, but he couldn't wait. If she didn't bring him back now, she probably wouldn't be able to at all.
"'Ro, can you keep it up? I've got to help Logan."
In a dreamy, distant voice, Ororo replied, "Yes. Hurry."
She hooked up the heart monitor quickly to find that he was in V-fib. His heart was quivering too weakly to pump blood, but it hadn't stopped beating all together. It was better than she'd expected. At best, she'd thought he'd be in asystole, and at worst, flat line. Still, she couldn't do CPR or electrical stimulation because of his metal skeleton. The only possible way to bring him back was a massive dose of epinephrine. Still, how much should she give him? His healing factor might counteract too small a dosage, but it didn't seem to be doing much in the way of healing right now. She decided to try a dose on the high side of normal and hope for the best.
Plunging the three-inch needle into his chest between the third and fourth ribs, she felt it hit the heart muscle. She depressed the plunger all the way and waited. She didn't have to wait long.
Completely blood shot eyes snapped open as Logan took in a deep, gasping breath. The eyes slipped closed just as quickly as they'd opened, but his heart kept beating. It was an irregular, weak rhythm, and she tried to strengthen it with medication, but it didn't work. The heart muscle must be damaged.
His breathing was shallow, labored, and sounded a little wet. He needed a ventilator. Still, she pulled an oxygen mask over his face for now, opting to deal with the more pressing matter of the electrical device 'Ro was temporarily controlling.
"'Ro, where's the device?"
With some effort, Ororo whispered, "His neck, the spine."
"Ok... I'm gonna turn him over. Can you keep control?"
"Y... Yes."
Releasing the last of Logan's restraints which had held his left leg to the table all this time, she concentrated on turning his body as smoothly as possible so as not to distract Storm. Jean then called a surgical tray from the cabinet, setting it on the countertop she'd summoned from the floor.
There wasn't time to scrub up or sterilize the surgical field. She had to do this procedure quick and dirty, hoping that she didn't cause further injuries. Picking up a scalpel, she carefully sliced into the skin around 'Ro's fingertips. She didn't want to touch the current with a metal instrument, but she wanted to get close enough to access the generator.
Slowly and cautiously, she pulled away the layers of skin and muscle until the spine was exposed. An inch long metallic instrument lay fused to his adamantium spine between the second and third vertebrae. Bringing the laser scalpel into position, she prayed that it wasn't made of adamantium, too. Her prayers went unanswered. The metal seam wouldn't melt away, even on the laser's highest setting. The device was adamantium, and it wasn't coming off.
Jean wracked her brain trying to think of a way to remove the electrical micro-generator attached to Logan's skeleton. Lorna Dane? She could control metals, but she was barely a teenager, and she wasn't anywhere close to having the delicate control necessary for such a procedure. She'd probably pull Logan's spine out as well as the small device.
Could she telekinetically remove it? No, she'd probably have the same luck as Lorna. She couldn't even destroy the inner workings telekinetically because she couldn't remove the outer adamantium covering, and she could only mentally control objects if she could see them.
So, no destroying it from the inside out and no pulling it off. What about cutting it off? No, if the laser hadn't been able to cut through the adamantium, nothing could. Even Logan's own claws... wait! A memory flashed through her mind.
On the Statue of Liberty, when they'd all been trapped, she'd heard Logan yell and then the distinctive sound of metal on metal. He'd released his claws into his chest to get free and rescue Rogue. There's no way he could've avoiding hitting at least one rib, but he'd had six entry wounds and six exit wounds when she'd treated him later on. The claws must've cut through his adamantium-lined ribs. That's it! She had a possible solution. Now all she had to do was figure out how to pop Logan's claws.
Pulling his right arm around from his side, she manipulated the muscles in his forearm until she heard a distinctive SNIKT .
"Jean?!" Scott called from Rogue's bedside, his voice filled with concern.
She'd almost forgotten he was there. "It's ok, Scott. He's unconscious... How's Rogue doing?"
"I... I don't know. Her heart monitor's beeping and none of the alarms have gone off, so I guess ok so far."
"That's good," Jean said, trying to be reassuring. "Keep bagging her. As soon as Logan's stabilized, I'll go back to treating her."
Scott nodded and turned his attention back to the still girl before him. He wasn't a doctor, but he was doing the best he could.
'Damn it, Charles," she cursed silently. 'How many times have I told you we needed another doctor! Even a nurse would make this fiasco easier. How am I supposed to treat two critical patients at the same time by myself?'
She shook off that line of thought and turned her attention back to Logan's right arm, clamped in her hands with three, nine-inch, deadly claws shining in the medical lights. She knew he had finer, individual control over them, but after her clumsy attempts, she was glad she could get any of them out at all.
She bent Logan's arm awkwardly behind his back, bringing the claws around to his exposed spine. She kept one hand clenched around the muscles of his arm while the other gripped his hand to have more control of the blades.
'Take your time,' she warned herself. If she wasn't careful, she could very easily cut through his spine as well as the device, killing him instantly.
Ororo was holding on to the generator itself now that the skin and muscle had been removed. She was drawing the charge directly out of the top making the fused part safe to cut. However, her fingers were dangerously close to where the blade would strike.
"'Ro, I'm cutting now. Stay very still," Jean warned.
"Hurry," Ororo gasped, barely audible.
It all happened within seconds. Jean sliced through the tiny power generator, and Ororo staggered backward, setting the device in the plastic bowl that had been waiting for it before collapsing to the floor.
The silence that followed was nearly as deafening as the thunder that had preceded it. Now that Ororo was no longer drawing off energy, it wasn't necessary to keep releasing it into the storm above the mansion. The lightening and thunder that had awoken every resident and shaken the mansion to its foundation quickly dissipated, leaving quiet in its wake.
Jean scampered to her friend's side as Scott looked on helplessly, unable to leave Rogue unattended.
"'Ro?" he asked in a whisper, as if afraid of the answer Jean would provide.
After a quick examination, Jean declared her exhausted, but otherwise ok. She quickly moved Ororo to another medical bed to rest before she returned to Logan's side to finally assess the full extent of his injuries.
The surgical incision on his spine needed to be sewn together, but the lower levels of muscle were drier than living flesh should be and wouldn't pull back together to be stitched. The flesh was burned and almost cooked in parts. She had to be satisfied with stitching together the healthier outer muscle and skin.
She felt the hope that had filled her on the reestablishment of a pulse fleeing. If this was the type of damage throughout Logan's body, there was no way he would recover. Doctors treated burns by removing the dead skin and replacing it with grafts from other parts of the body. Logan's injuries were internal, not external. If muscle tissue and tendons had died, there was no way she could remove them. Unless his healing factor was capable of disposing of and replacing the dead flesh, he would get gangrene and die. He would die even sooner from poor circulation if too many of his major arteries and veins had been burned away.
Even if he did manage to survive, his skull was lined with metal. Had his brain been permanently damaged by the extended exposure to high voltage? She wouldn't know until he woke up... if he woke up.
Turning him around on his back, she discovered further evidence of massive internal injuries. The oxygen mask she'd quickly pulled around his head was streaked on the inside with blood. She'd thought his breathing sounded wet, and here was further evidence. His lungs must have been damaged along with his heart.
The bleeding wasn't limited to his mouth and nose. His ears and eyes were bleeding as well. She pulled the eyelids open for a second to see the hazel irises floating in a sea of red instead of the natural white. Not only were they totally bloodshot, but also the tear ducts were weeping blood. His ears had been dripping slow trails of red down his cheeks while he'd lain on his stomach. Now on his back, the trails disappeared into his hair.
She barely knew Logan, but had felt compelled to save him. He'd been at the mansion less a week before he'd left again, searching for his past. The professor suspected that he had found it, and been turned into a killing machine as a result. But from what she'd read in his mind those two years ago, she knew him to be a noble and caring man underneath. Rogue had missed him terribly, and she didn't trust people easily. Jean hoped for Rogue's sake as much as his, that he would recover, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
She quickly established a central line, open feed, to try and replenish the blood, fluids, and electrolytes his body had lost during the trauma. She then gently intubated him and hooked him up to a respirator, giving his injured lungs a chance to rest somewhat. She couldn't do anything more for him, so she turned her attention back to Rogue.
"Scott, stop bagging for a second," she commanded, listening for breath sounds with the stethoscope... There! "She's trying to breath on her own," Jean said, a genuine smile lighting her face for the first time since this all had started.
"Is that a good thing?" Scott asked, unsure.
"It's a very good thing; she's trying to come back. Her breaths are too shallow, so I'm still going to hook her to a respirator, but I'll adjust it to react when she initiates a breath instead of forcing a steady rhythm. If she improves and is able to keep her blood oxygen level up, I should be able to extubate her in a few days."
Every inch of her body ached, like she'd gone ten rounds with the heavy weight champion of the world. There was something in her mouth, and she tried to lift her arm to inspect it, but the limb felt like it was filled with lead and she couldn't move it. She tried opening her eyes instead, but the lids were just as heavy as her arm. What had happened to her? Why did she feel this way? Where was she? The curiosity overpowered her exhaustion, and after what seemed like minutes of trying, she forced her eyes halfway open.
Metal. She was lying in a room covered ceiling, walls, and she guessed floor, in metal. A blurry figure moved into her line of vision.
"Rogue? You're awake!" the feminine voice said in barely contained excitement. "I was just about to extubate you, but this will make it easier. I'm going to count to three. When I say two, I want you to take a deep breath. On three, I want you to blow it out like you'd blow out birthday candles. Ok?"
'Birthday candles?' she wondered. 'Yeah, sure, ok,' she thought, nodding at the woman above her.
"One... two... three!"
She blew out and felt the plastic tube being yanked through her throat and out her mouth. She couldn't resist the coughing fit that seized her, as she tried to catch her breath. She was grateful when a mask was placed over her mouth and nose, blowing cool oxygen down her sore throat.
Finally, when she had caught her breath, she asked the question that had been puzzling her since she'd awoken, "Who are you?"
Jean was floored by Rogue's question.
"It's Jean, Rogue."
Rogue's face twisted in confusion. "Your name's Jean Rogue?"
"No, your name's Rogue. Don't you remember?"
That answer caused even more confusion. "What kind of name is Rogue?"
"It's... well, the only one you ever gave us. You never told us your real name."
Rogue had forgotten who and where she was, Jean realized. Near-electrocution could cause brain damage. Most commonly the damage was caused by a lack of oxygen, but she'd started CPR immediately. In Rogue's case, this memory loss was probably not due to cell death, but rather modifications in the electrical properties of the affected neurons. Still, the question remained, was the memory loss temporary or permanent?
"What's the last thing you remember?" Jean asked, trying to assess the damage.
"I was... driving to school. I was running late for first period and worrying about how I didn't have all my homework done for Trigonometry. Was I... did a car hit me? Is that why I'm hurt? This isn't a hospital. Why am I here?"
"Rogue, calm down. This is a private school. You came here two years ago."
"Two years? No... How old am I?"
"Nineteen."
"No, I'm only sixteen! I haven't... I mean... none of this makes sense. Wait..." Rogue's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "if I graduated, why am I still in school? Who are you people? What am I doing here?"
"Rogue, you're still very weak," Jean said gently. "Maybe we should wait on some of these questions and let you rest."
"I want to see my parents," Rogue demanded.
"That's not possible, Rogue," Jean said, desperately trying to think of some other excuse for their absence besides the fact that they'd kicked her out. She didn't think Rogue could handle the added knowledge that she was a mutant just now. "They live in Mississippi and this school is in New York."
"Well, call them. I want to talk to them."
"I don't have their number," Jean answered, truthfully.
"How can I go to this school and you not have my parents' number? Look them up! Their names are..." Rogue's face set in concentration. "My name is... Why can't I remember? What happened to me?"
"Rogue, everything is going to be ok. You're safe. You were hurt when you tried to help Logan. He was..."
A glint of recognition lighted her features. "I know that name."
"You do?" Jean felt the first flicker of hope after days of worry. "What else do you remember?"
Rogue closed her eyes as if searching her mind for more information. She opened them and shook her head. "Nothing, just a name. Who is he?"
"He was..." Jean paused. How could she define Rogue and Logan's attachment? They'd known each other little more than a week, but even after two years, everyone knew Rogue still thought about him. As for Logan, even when he'd been completely controlled by whoever had sent him here to kill her, he could have easily killed or seriously hurt Rogue and he hadn't.
"He was important to you," Jean finally decided on saying.
"Why do you keep saying 'he was?' What happened to him?"
Jean looked across the room and Rogue followed her gaze. Logan lay in a coma not more than a few feet away from them. He had stopped breathing all together yesterday and now, a ventilator mechanically pumped air into his burned and ravaged lungs.
Rogue's terrified gaze met Jean's as she looked back down at her. "He's... Is he going to be all right?"
Jean sadly shook her head. "He's going into sepsis. I've put in shunts to try and drain away the infection, but... I'm sorry, Rogue."
Rogue's eyes glistened with tears that she was too weak to wipe away. Jean saw her trying and failing to lift her arms, and reached out to wipe the moisture with a latex-gloved hand.
"I... I don't even... really know him," Rogue hiccuped through her tears. "Why am I crying?"
"It's ok," Jean soothed, stroking Rogue's hair. "It's ok."
Rogue pulled her head away from Jean's hand, anger burning in her eyes. "How is it ok?"
Jean thought about the absurdity of her previous statement. The girl was seriously hurt and had painful physical therapy before her, she'd lost her memory, forgotten family and friends alike, and the one person she'd even slightly remembered was dying.
Jean just shook her head. "I don't know."
She was saved by the entrance of Professor Xavier and a large, blue haired/furred something.
"Jean," the professor said, "Here is your requested microbiologist, geneticist, physician, physical therapist, and a handful of other -ists. Dr. Henry McCoy."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Summers," Henry said, holding out a large hand.
Rogue's eyes grew until the whites were entirely showing and she stuttered, "He's a... a.... Mutant!"
"Of course, my dear," Henry answered. "It was my understanding that we are all mutants."
Rogue started hyperventilating. "You... I'm... How... What?... My dad'll... kill me."
Jean pulled off the oxygen mask and encouraged Rogue to slow her breathing, but it wasn't working. Jean could tell from the emotions Rogue was broadcasting that her surroundings and everything that they'd discussed finally made sense to the young woman. She was a mutant; her parents had disowned her; she was alone in a world she couldn't remember.
The young woman struggled to push herself up on the bed, and Jean worried she'd fall off and hurt herself, so she tried to keep Rogue lying prone. That was a mistake. Now, not only was Rogue hyperventilating and struggling even more, but her bare hands flew up in defense dangerously close to Jean's face. Jean grabbed the deadly hands, pulling them down to Rogue's side as she summoned a bottle of ativan and a syringe from the meds cabinet. Her hands weren't free, so she brought them in front of the new doctor.
He reacted like floating drugs appeared before him every day, plucking the needle and bottle casually out of the air. After measuring a dosage, he administered it as gently as possible to Rogue's struggling form. The girl's fighting immediately slowed and soon she was asleep, breathing regularly through the returned oxygen mask.
"Thanks for your help, Doctor." Jean said, centering Rogue's limp body again in the bed.
"Please," the blue-harried man said, holding his hands up in protest. "It's Hank."
"Ok, Hank. I'm Jean."
"Professor Xavier tells me you have an interesting case."
"Yes, Logan." Jean said, walking over to her other patient's bed and picking up a thick volume. "I'm afraid sepsis is already setting in so you're probably too late, but here's his chart."
Hank's face turned up in surprise at the size of the medical chart. "It was my understanding that he's only been here a few days."
Jean nodded. "Yes, but his mutation and *improvements* that have been made to his body make treatment complex."
"Indeed? Well, I will examine this documentation and present a treatment plan shortly."
The med lab doors whooshed open and Jean looked up from Rogue's medical readings to see Scott standing at the entrance.
"Hey, honey. Lunch time," he said with a cheering smile.
After the first day of basically living in the med lab, Scott had decided to bring home down to her instead of forcing her to leave. He'd set up two cots in her office and brought all their meals down here. He knew how she'd worry if she couldn't be close to her patients, so he didn't even attempt to come between her and them.
"What's on the menu?" Jean asked summoning a table from the med lab wall and pushing up two chairs.
"Deli sandwiches," Scott replied, "with the chef's compliments."
"Who's the chef today?" Jean asked casually as she settled into her chair.
"Remy, but don't worry. I watched him closely and there are no Cajun spices in that sandwich."
"What would I do without you?" Jean asked with a little smile.
"Starve."
Jean nodded in agreement. "Probably."
"So," Scott began, "anything interesting happen this morning?"
"Rogue woke up."
"You're kidding!" Scott said, his excitement shining through. "Is she ok?"
Jean shook her head sadly. "She doesn't remember us, Scott. She can't remember anything... Well, except Logan's name. That's a good sign, but other than that. Nothing."
"What about... physically?" Scott asked, hesitantly.
"She's weak. She got upset after she found out how much she couldn't remember, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn't even sit up. It'll take some therapy before we know how well she'll recover."
Scott nodded thoughtfully, and after a few minutes, Jean added, "Logan's dying."
Scott let out a long sigh. "Jean, I know that as a patient of yours, you're worried about him, but he's the cause of everything that's happened."
"That's not true, Scott. He was being controlled. The professor said so himself."
"He let himself be captured. If he hadn't left here in the first place, none of this would've happened."
"You don't know that," Jean countered, then allowing her defensive anger slip away, she said, "I've tried everything, and he's still going to die. I've felt so helpless. Of course, now that Hank... Oh, hey, Charles finally found another doctor for the school!"
"Now that is good news. Maybe you'll be able to leave the med lab again."
"Maybe. He's about my age, but he's got more credentials than a business card can hold. I've read some of his articles in JAMA and they're genius. He's looking at Logan's chart in my office right now, and I think he just might be able to save him. In fact, with him as a doctor here, we probably don't need me anymore."
"Hey now," Scott protested, reaching over to cup her cheek, "you're a damn fine doctor. You said yourself that with all these inexperienced, powerful teenagers and a team of vigilante mutants, there's enough work to keep five doctors busy."
"Jean?" a deep voice called from behind them.
"Hank," Jean said, standing up and waving a hand towards Scott. "This is my husband, Scott Summers. Scott, this is Dr. Henry McCoy."
Hank reached out a hand and shook Scott's vigorously. "Hank, please."
"What have you found?" Jean asked eagerly.
"You are correct. It is a very difficult case. I believe, though, that we have no other option but surgical debridement."
"But that will cause damage to the otherwise healthy tissue we'd have to cut through to get to the dead cells."
"The wounds are too large and numerous for his healing factor to cleanse. The patient is already afflicted with necrosis and infection. I suggest that we remove the festering tissue and infuse his system with epinephrine, serotonin, and other natural stimulants to help his healing factor during the surgery."
"It might help, but he could die on the table."
"Without surgery, he will surely succumb to his wounds."
Scott interrupted, "What are you two talking about?"
Jean explained. "We're going to operate on Logan, Scott. The muscle, tendons, and vessels closest to his metal skeleton were burned during the electrocution. We need to remove the dead tissue so that his body can heal. Right now, poisons are filling his system and starting to kill healthy cells."
"I propose we begin immediately."
"Yes, uh..." Jean looked around the med lab. "Scott, could you watch Rogue? Both of us are needed in this. I know you have class, but..."
"Of course," Scott answered. "I'll cancel the classes."
Jean smiled gratefully and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Thanks, honey. If she has any problems, you page me on the intercom, ok?"
Scott nodded and watched silently as Jean and Hank moved Logan into the operating room. Once they were gone, he settled back down to finish his lunch, watching Rogue's monitors carefully for any changes.
Jean looked at the ravaged body before them and asked the obvious question. "Where do we begin?"
"According to the MRIs, the most severe damage is to the hands and feet, most likely because of the small bone to tissue ratio in those areas, but I propose we focus first on the torso, neck, and head. If necessary, we can amputate the extremities, but the survival of the patient depends on our success in the main trunk of the body."
Jean nodded in agreement. She hoped it wouldn't come to amputation, but Logan's hands and feet were starting to blacken, and she was worried they might not be salvageable. He was such a vital man. How would he handle losing one or all of his limbs?
She shook her head, forcing that train of thought out so she could focus on the task at hand. This morning, she was sure Logan didn't have a chance for survival. Now, there was hope. She would focus all her attention on saving his life, and worry about any possible aftermath later.
Deciding to begin with the chest area, they positioned Logan on his back and prepared the surgical field, draping blue sheets over his body and sterilizing the incision point. Then, they started the drug treatment they hoped would aid his healing factor flowing through his central line. Finally, they scrubbed up and Hank picked up a scalpel to make the first incision.
Jean waited breathless as he positioned the blade over Logan's vulnerable, bruised skin. She was surprised when he pulled back and turned the blade, offering her the handle.
"I'm sorry, Jean. This is, of course, your medical facility. You should lead the operation."
Jean held up her hands in protest. "Hey, I only work here. You're the expert, remember? Don't worry about ego, Hank. Let's just save Logan, ok?"
Hank's eyes smiled at her and he turned back to the patient, drawing a steady, deep Y-incision across Logan's chest and belly. It reminded Jean of the Y-incision used in autopsies to give access to all the internal organs. Hank asked for retractors, and as soon as the skin was parted, Jean's nose was assaulted by the fetid stench of rotting flesh. The black ooze of days old blood and yellowish puss flooded the incision.
"Suction." Hank ordered, and Jean drew the hose along the length of the surgical area, sucking up the foul smelling substance. Hank retracted the incision to give him access to as much of the dead tissue as possible. There was no way to crack Logan's chest, given the adamantium coating his ribs, so Hank cut holes into the chest cavity through the ribs instead, asking Jean to suction out the loose debris.
"Jean, my hands are too small. Can yours fit?" Hank asked, indicating the tiny space between ribs.
Jean could get her fingers in, but not her whole hand. In any case, she couldn't see what she was doing with her hand blocking the hole. They decided instead to use the endoscopy equipment and a laser scalpel to debride the necrotic muscle, trying to keep Logan's heart and lungs relatively intact.
After several hours, they were finally able to move on to the skull and face, which took about the same amount of time to clean as the chest, shoulders, and neck combined. Even before they were done, they realized they didn't have a sufficient blood supply.
Logan's hair had begun falling out two days ago and now there were only a few patches here and there on his head. The main arteries and veins that fed the blood hungry skull cap and face had been badly damaged.
Jean suggested they leave the clean wounds opened while they started on Logan's legs, hoping they would find a vein or artery that was still viable for a graft. It was his only chance for survival now.
Jean was busy suctioning the larger pockets of diseased muscle when Hank found a possible graft. He pulled back the sterile towel covering Logan's open head incision to check the necessary length of the graft again, when he exclaimed, "Oh my stars and garters!"
"What?" Jean asked, turning away from her work to see what had caused such a strong reaction from Hank.
As she looked at Logan's exposed skull she could see the superficial temporal artery knitting itself back together. It was coming together slowly, millimeter by millimeter, but the fact that it was actually healing was too incredible for words. An arterial graft was no longer necessary. It seemed that if they cleared out the dead tissue, Logan's body would take care of the rest.
"What about his chest?" Jean asked, thinking of the area they'd already treated.
Hank pulled away the surgical drape to reveal the stapled and sutured torso. The bruised skin was already changing colors from deep blues and purples to light yellows as it healed. The incision itself had already healed into a deep, red scar and given a few more hours, Jean was sure that there would be nothing but unmarked skin remaining.
"My heavens, the skin is already almost healed!" Jean exclaimed. "We should pull out the staples now."
"I concur," Hank agreed. "It should take longer for the underlying tissues to regenerate, but given this response, I believe the patient will completely recover within the next few days."
"What about mentally?" Jean asked, her relief giving way to concern.
"Given the admantium sheath on his skull, we cannot gain access to the cerebral scarring. We'll just have to hope that the damage wasn't too extensive and that after the rest of his body heals, his mutation can repair and clean any dead tissue remaining."
Jean nodded. At least he was healing physically, and quickly too. It was more than she could have possibly hoped for after these past few days of constant worry. They would deal with any mental defects once the surgery was over and Logan'd had a chance to heal. For now, she returned to her work with renewed vigor. Despite the fact the operation had already taken eight hours and would probably take several more, she felt a resurgence of energy that only hope could provide.
Progressing down his thighs, to his calfs and finally to his feet, Jean and Hank worked as a team to cut, cauterize, and suction away the infected tissue. Logan's feet were so badly damaged, they had to be cleaned until they were almost shells, only skin and a little muscle remaining. Jean and Hank watched in awe as the tendons and muscles slowly grew and reconnected. It was like watching a nature film on high speed as arteries and veins spread out and blood flow returned.
Finally, after thirteen hours of non-stop work, they were done. They wheeled Logan back out into the main med lab to return him to his recovery bed, exhausted but excited about the medical miracle they had been a part of.
"Jean?" a weary voice called from Rogue's bedside.
"Scott!" Jean answered, running to him and giving him a strong bear hug in her exuberance. "It worked! It was amazing! You should've seen it. Muscles, tendons, arteries, veins, capillaries, skin, all regenerating right before our eyes. It was incredible, wasn't it Hank?"
"It was indeed a deeply edifying experience."
"Jean," Scott said through a yawn, "it's almost two in the morning. Aren't you tired?"
"Completely, but I'm too worked up for sleep now. C'mon, Scott, let's celebrate." Then Jean paused, turning back to Hank positioning Logan's body on the recuperation bed. "Oh, Hank. I'm sorry. You probably need to rest. I'll stay down here. You go up to your room."
"I am as energized as you by our unique undertaking and would be incapable of slumber at this time. You have been caring for these patients indefatigably for days. Please, allow me to remain while you take a well-deserved respite."
Jean's face broke into a smile again. "Thanks so much, Hank." Pulling Scott to the door, she turned a final time to ask, "You'll call me if there are any problems, right?"
"Without fail," Hank reassured her, then once she vanished, he checked on both his patients' conditions before settling into a hardbacked chair.
Rogue settled into her physical therapy routine after the first few days. Hank always said he was amazed at her progress. After the first week, she could sit up all by herself and could stand as long as someone pulled her up and let her lean on them. Her hands were still a little sore from the contact burns she'd received when she'd touched Logan, but Jean had explained that her gloves had protected them from anything worse than a first-degree burn and that she'd been lucky.
She didn't feel lucky. She'd been introduced to her friends at the school, and they tried to be supportive, especially Jubilee and Kitty. Every day after their training session, they came down and just hung out with her, talking about things she used to say and stuff she used to like. They were really sweet gals and she could tell they cared about her. She only wished she could remember them.
Hank and Logan were the only two people at the school that she really felt comfortable with. Hank hadn't known her before, so he didn't try to tell her who she used to be or what she was supposed to act like. He accepted her for who she was now. It was so nice to be able to relax around him and not worry about being judged.
She felt even closer to Logan. It wasn't because she remembered his name. Despite that fact, she didn't really know anything else about him. No, the reason she became friends with Logan was that he was going through the same thing that she was. She could feel comfortable being uncoordinated and clumsy around him, because he was just as bad, if not worse. Jean and Hank thought that he also had memory problems. They couldn't tell for sure, though, because he never spoke. Sometimes he would whine when the therapy hurt or growl in frustration when his body wouldn't do what he wanted, but not one word passed his lips.
Late at night, when she couldn't sleep and Jean or Hank were away in the office, she would talk to Logan. She'd tell him her worries about not being able to walk again without help, about not ever remembering who she was or even what her real name was, about having to rely on other people for the rest of her life. For his part, Logan lay in the bed next to hers, calmly listening as she bore her soul. There was never judgement in his eyes, only caring, understanding, and something else. She sometimes saw it during the day, too. He would stare at her with that expression, like she was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.
They called him Logan.
It was one of the few things that felt right and familiar in this confusing metal world. He had been wounded, badly, and now his limbs wouldn't respond to his wishes. He told his hand to pick up the ball the blue-furred man held out to him, but it wouldn't cooperate. It hung by his side defiantly, like it belonged to someone else's body.
In frustration and anger, he growled at the disobedient appendage, but it wouldn't respond. Finally, at the edge of rage, the arm responded, clumsily flopping up onto the table and battering the ball aside instead of picking it up.
"Good, that's good," the blue giant praised in a gentle voice. Hank, his name was Hank. "Your paralysis is healing remarkably quickly. Now let's try the left arm."
Hank retrieved the errant ball and Logan brought his left arm up to grab it. This arm worked better than it's brother, but the fingers didn't want to extend from the claw they'd frozen into. He could settle his hand onto the round, red surface, but he couldn't extend the fingers wide enough to surround the globe.
"Try what we talked about," Hank encouraged. "Start the ball at your wrist and roll it back into your grasp."
Logan tried the technique, pressing against the surface of the table and using the elasticity of the ball to force it into his ever-present grip. It worked.
"Great job, Logan!" the white-streaked woman cheered from across the room.
She was working through her stretching exercises with Jean before she practiced standing, but she was obviously still keeping an eye on him. Everyone called her Rogue, but Logan knew that wasn't right. Sometimes, he felt if he stared at her long enough, he could figure out what it was that confused him about her, but no answers ever came.
"I think that's it for arms today. Are you ready for the ankle weights?"
Logan nodded and shifted positions in his chair, allowing Hank to strap on the one-pound weights for his leg exercises. He looked across the room at Rogue, standing next to Jean and trying to find her balance.
"You're doing great, Rogue!" Jean encouraged. "I'd say you're about ready to try walking. Are you willing?"
Rogue nodded, apparently too focused on keeping herself upright to add to the conversation.
"Ok, let's sit you down and we'll wheel you over to the parallel bars."
Rogue shook her head. "Lemme walk."
Jean looked skeptical. "No, Rogue. I think it'd be better if we practice on the equipment first."
Logan saw the determination settle on the younger woman's features, and he knew what she was going to do. As he watched helplessly, she pulled away from Jean's grasp and took a few hesitant steps before she tripped over her own legs and started to fall.
Logan jumped out of his chair to go to her, but his legs collapsed instantly under his weight. As he fell, mirroring the young woman across the room, the thing about her that had been bothering him finally became clear, and he called out to her. "MARIE!"
Logan and Marie hit the floor at about the same time, with about the same bruising effects. Logan could only get his left hand in front of him in time, but he couldn't open his palm to catch himself against the metal floor. Marie faired a little better. She could throw her arms out in front of her, but they were still frightfully weak and she fell from a greater height.
"Logan!" Hank exclaimed, reaching out and pulling the heavier man back into his wheelchair with ease.
"Marie?" Logan asked, looking across the room.
"Logan, you're vocalizing. That's marvelous!"
"M-Marie?" Logan asked, looking pleadingly into Hank's face. "I need to evaluate your physical condition. That was an impressive leap for someone of your temporarily limited abilities. Please alert me if any of my actions cause you pain."
Logan used his stronger arm, trying to push Hank to the side and get a glimpse of the injured woman across the room. "Marie!" he called, and she looked up from Jean's ministrations.
"Logan, you're talking!" Marie whooped. "Stop it, Jean. I said I'm fine... Ouch! Jean!"
"Rogue, I need to make sure you didn't injure yourself."
"Nothing hurt but my pride. A few bruises aren't gonna kill me. Now wheel me over to Logan or I'll do it myself."
Logan watched as the beautiful young woman was wheeled over to him. Only after they were side by side and he could see that she was unharmed, did he finally relax a little.
"Marie," he sighed in relief.
"Hank," Jean asked in a lowered voice behind them. "Why does he keep saying 'Marie?'"
Hank started into a complex explanation based on the shock of seeing Rogue's fall coupled with the brain damage from which he was still suffering when Marie interrupted. "He's saying 'Marie' because that's my name."
"Rogue? Do you remember something?" Jean asked, intrigued by this turn of events.
"I'm not sure, but it feels right. I think that's my name."
"Marie," Logan confirmed reaching out to tenderly stroke her gloved arm with his palsied hand.
Marie was released from the Med Lab a few days later. She still had plenty of physical therapy to do, but Jean and Hank thought that being forced to get around on her own would help her recovery. She still couldn't walk more than a few feet with a walker, so she used a wheelchair for the most part. Thank heavens the mansion was handicap friendly.
Well, thank Charles, actually. After all, he knew the problems faced by the wheelchair bound intimately. Besides Logan, he was the only other person she even slightly remembered, knowing his name instantly. She could see his surprise and pleasure at being remembered, but it was mixed with a little sadness around his eyes.
She didn't notice until later that everyone called him Professor. She figured that maybe he didn't like his given name, but if that were the case, why did she instantly know it? It was one of many puzzles she'd have to work out, but for now, she tried to call him "Professor."
Shaking herself back to the present, she concentrated on keeping up with Jubilee and Kitty as they lead her back to their collective room of over two years. Along the way, they introduced her to the other students and X-Men-in-training that happened across their path. They all smiled at her, but she could see pain in some of their faces when she didn't recognize them. Jubes filled any awkward pauses with her own brand of chatter, and quickly moved their three-gal parade through the halls and up to their room.
Marie's first impression was that it was cramped. The chair required a certain amount of maneuvering space, which this room seemed to just barely have. Jubilee rushed in ahead of her, picking up the clothes that were strewn on the floor and piling them on a yellow-blanketed bed. After the floor was relatively clean, it seemed a little less daunting to live here.
"That's your bed, your desk, and your closet, Rogue," Kitty said, pointing out her personal space. "We'll just leave you alone so you can have a looksee."
Marie gazed around the room, but nothing held her attention. She opened her closet to find clothes neatly arranged: shirts, pants, and dresses all grouped together. She noticed with relief that at least they weren't arranged by color. She would've never figured herself for a neat freak, but here was the evidence.
Pulling open the drawers on the other side of the closet, she found the expected socks, bras, and underwear, in addition to a variety of scarves and gloves in all sorts of colors and textures. No memories here, just clothes.
She wheeled over to her desk, pushing the matching chair aside to gain access to the drawers. Pens, pencils, notebooks, and a few romance novels hidden in the bottom drawer and turned upside down. Nothing shocking or too revealing about who she used to be. It was like being in a stranger's room.
Marie set the brake on the wheelchair, pushed up the footrests, and planted her feet on the floor, taking a firm grasp of the chair's handles. Lifting with her arms and legs, she pushed herself up to a standing position and then plopped down onto her bed with a sigh.
She unconsciously reached over and picked up a ring of keys from a candy dish that resided on her desk. Rubbing her thumb across the rectangular, metal key chain felt familiar and wrong all at the same time. She focused on the familiarity, examining the keys more closely.
The first thing she noticed was the number of keys on the ring. There were two easily identifiable as car keys, but the other five were a mystery. Why would she need so many keys anyway?
Two key chains held the keys. One, a pewter X, was probably school-issue, but the other one was a mystery. It was a thin piece of rectangular metal with a word and numbers etched into it. Wolverine. 458-25-243. What could it possibly mean? Wolverine? Was she a friend of some sort of nature preservation society and this was her membership number? Nah. Maybe it was her last name and social security number. Nope, not enough numbers and she'd never heard of someone named Wolverine. What about a username and password on a computer system? No. If that was right, why'd she carry it around where everyone could see it?
She rubbed her thumb across the indented metal in thought, and there was that feeling again: familiar but wrong. Pulling off her glove, she clutched the keys in her bare right hand, rubbing her thumb across the engraved tag, her skin warming the metal. This was right, familiar. She'd done this before.
She was still holding the keys when Jubes and Kitty returned a half-hour later.
"Hey, girl, remember anything?" Jubilee asked, then saw the metal in Marie's hand. "The real this is downstairs and you just saw him less than an hour ago. Why are you in here pining over his tags?"
"What?" Marie asked in confusion.
"Logan's tags."
"This says Wolverine."
"Yeah. Also known as the very sexy, although currently a little clueless, Logan," Jubilee answered.
Kitty asked, "If you didn't know that, why are you holding them?"
"They felt right," was Marie's cryptic reply.
A week later, Marie insisted, "I want to walk outside."
Logan nodded in agreement. His vocabulary had grown every day since calling Marie's name, but it was still very limited.
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Jean answered. "If you fell..."
"The pavement outside is just as hard as the metal flooring down here. C'mon, Jean, it's a beautiful day."
Jean looked to Hank for support, but he let her down. "I believe there is no harm in ambulating on the exterior rather than the interior of the mansion. It might prove a satisfactory diversion."
Jean gave in with a weary sigh. "Ok, but we're taking your chair along in case you get tired."
"Fine," Marie answered, beaming at her success.
Marie envied all the people who made walking look so easy. It was hard work. Weight on your arms, right foot, left foot, weight on your legs, lift the back legs of the walker, roll it forward, weight on your arms, right foot, left foot...
The mantra running inside her head was almost enough to distract her from the sunny day she'd been so desperate to be a part of. Almost, but not quite. The birds were chirping and whistling in the trees above the bike path on which she trod. The wind blew through the branches, gently caressing her bare face and upper arms. She decided Spring must be her favorite time of year, even though she couldn't remember more than general impressions of the other seasons. The world, emerging from hibernation, reborn and fresh, was just like her.
She stopped to rest for a moment, puffing like she'd just run a marathon. Logan was right beside her, breathing heavily from his own exertions. His left hand and arm were almost completely healed, but he'd just started getting his right arm to consistently obey his commands. To push the wheelchair, he caught the rim with his right palm, using the leather gloves he wore to help his weak hand gain purchase on the metal, and dragged his arm forward. It was clumsy and slow, but it worked, and he was getting better at it every day.
"Rogue," Jean began. "If you want to sit for a moment, I've got your chair right here."
"No... I can... keep... walking," Marie gasped.
"Sit," Logan said, his eyes begging her to rest.
"Ok... sure." Marie reluctantly agreed, plopping unceremoniously into the chair Jean provided.
"Hank and I will be over here," Jean said, pointing at a bench about thirty feet away. "Just call us when you're ready to go back to the mansion."
Marie silently thanked her for giving her time alone with Logan to rest and enjoy the sunshine.
"How're you doing?" Marie asked, once she caught her breath.
"Good," Logan replied, nodding with emphasis. "You?"
"Good. It's such a beautiful day. I'm glad we talked them into coming out here. It feels nice. Not familiar, exactly, but nice."
Logan nodded in agreement. They sat in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the fresh air and each other's company.
Then, Marie said, "I remembered something today."
Logan turned to her. His eyes reflected interest, but he didn't press her for the details, waiting for her to reveal what she wanted.
"I saw Jean give Charl- the Professor a hug, and I remembered my dad giving me a hug just like that and kissing me on the cheek. I don't know why he did it or how old I was, but I remember feeling safe and loved and protected. I thought about that memory for an hour or so, about how I couldn't ever be held that way or have those feelings again because of my skin."
Logan brought his good hand up to grasp hers, running his thumb back and forth soothingly.
"Then, when I was just depressed as hell, I got another memory. I was sad, feeling alone and unloved and then you came and held me. I don't remember where we were. There were rows of seats, maybe a bus or something. Anyway, you held me close and talked to me, and I felt loved again. Not like my dad, different, maybe better."
"Good," Logan answered with satisfaction in his voice. "Marie. Love."
"I know," Marie said. "I love you too, sugah. We're all we've got."
They sat in silence again for another few minutes before Logan turned to Marie with a mischievous grin.
"Race," he said, looking down the bike path's mild slope and back at her.
Marie followed his gaze, then shook her head with a grin of her own. "No."
"Race," Logan insisted.
Marie looked back at Jean and Hank, chatting on the far away bench. "They'll be mad. They'll stop us."
Logan shook his head and smiled broadly. "Race."
"I'll beat you, ya know," Marie warned.
"Race. I. Win." Logan replied.
"Ok," Marie agreed, worn down by Logan's persistence. "One..." she began, gripping her hands around the wheelchair rims. "Two..." she said, leaning forward and getting ready to take off.
"Three!" Logan shouted, pushing with all his might and leaving her behind.
"Logan!" Marie yelled with a laugh and pushed after him. He'd beaten her to the start, and he had the weight advantage on the slight slope of the path, but she was stronger and would surely catch up.
Her speed picked up and the wind whipped past her, blowing her hair away from her face and out behind her like a flowing mane. She could hear Logan's howl of pure joy ahead of her, and she laughed along with him, feeling free and purely happy for the first time she could remember.
She pumped her arms, trying to shorten the gap between them, breathing hard, but not caring. Then, she saw her opportunity. The path curved gently to the right and then rose at an incline beside the lake. He would lose momentum on the hill and she could pass him then.
He reached the hill, slowing steadily despite his efforts, and she pumped her wheels all the faster, gaining momentum to climb the hill and pass him. The hill slowed her down too, but she was going to make it.
She didn't notice Jean and Hank until it was too late. They had probably cut through the woods, planning to catch up with their escapee patients here, where the hill slowed them down. Hank grabbed Logan's wheelchair, effortlessly slowing him down while Jean held out her hand and telekinetically slowed Marie down until she stopped.
"What'd ya... do that... for?" Marie panted. "I was... gonna... win."
"You both could have been seriously hurt," Jean chastised them. "What if you'd fallen? What if you'd rolled off the path into a tree? I think your therapy session is over for today."
Logan just smiled back at Marie. "Later?"
"Definitely." Marie agreed. "I want a rematch."
"Clara Harris?" the Colonel asked the young lieutenant entering the room.
"Charles Xavier is seeking guardianship of her through the courts."
"Xavier?" the Colonel fumed. "That's the second mutant we've been searching for to end up in his custody. He's not a mutant. Why does he keep trying to help them? We should've killed that mutie-lover when we had the chance, using real, human soldiers, not that worthless Weapon the professor developed."
Lieutenant Petersen cleared his throat. "If I may, Colonel. That's the real reason I came to see you."
"Xavier finally disposed of the body? Where? We'll have a team out to retrieve the adamantium before the day is out."
"Um, not exactly," the lieutenant said, handing the Colonel still shots from one of the many hidden surveillance cameras watching the School for Gifted Youngsters. They were clearly pictures of a young woman with white-streaked hair and the Weapon, both in wheelchairs.
"HE'S ALIVE!?! Get the professor, now!"
"Sir, it's not just that. Look, this is Jean Summers, one of the Weapon's targets."
The picture clearly showed the Weapon and the girl flanked by an obvious, blue-furred mutant and Jean Summers. She was holding out her hand in a commanding gesture at the handicapped woman.
"What is she doing with her hand?" the Colonel asked.
"You don't miss anything, sir," the lieutenant complimented. "From the running footage, it looks like she's stopping the other woman's wheelchair with nothing but an outstretched hand."
"She's a mutant, too?"
"Apparently, sir. In fact, it appears that Xavier's school is a nest of insurgent mutants. No wonder the Weapon was unsuccessful."
"So instead of killing Xavier, we added to his growing mutant army. We must take action now," the Colonel said decisively.
Two weeks later, Rogue woke to the sounds of Logan grunting and whimpering in his sleep, the muffled noises drifting through the wall separating their rooms. It sounded like he was having a nightmare. She sat up and looked at her roommates' beds, but Kitty and Jubilee were still snugly asleep. They were apparently much deeper sleepers than she was.
Marie bent down and pulled on her forearm crutches. It had taken her weeks to wean herself off the walker. Logan had progressed from wheelchair to walker to crutches in record time. Currently, he was using a cane, but in a few days, a week at the most, he'd be able to give that up, too. A healing factor sure came in handy. Marie had to settle for a slower recuperation period.
Feeling her way with the crutches in the darkened room, she avoided stepping on the hidden obstacles of Jubilee's dirty laundry, books, and CD carrier that were strewn across the floor, and made it to the door.
Once she was out in the dimly lit hallway, she could hear Logan more clearly.
"Nnnn... Marrrr... Hmph... Nnnnn." Logan mumbled.
She reached for his door handle, but to her surprise it was locked. She knocked on the door instead.
"Logan?" she called, trying to keep her voice down so she didn't wake up anyone else.
Her voice only seemed to aggravate Logan's dream, his vocalizations becoming louder and more desperate. His mournful voice was filled with pain and anguish.
"Logan!" she called louder, concerned now only about waking him up despite the effect on other mansion residents.
"NO! MARIE!" Logan cried at the top of his lungs and then a SNIKT could be heard through the door.
"Logan?" Marie called through the wooden surface. "Logan, are you ok?"
He wasn't whimpering or moaning anymore, so he must be awake, but he didn't answer. All she could hear from his room was deep, labored breaths as he tried to bring his adrenaline-filled body under control.
Doors clicked open and half-asleep faces peered into the hallway, looking for the source of the disturbance.
"It's ok," Marie whispered in what she hoped was a calming voice. "Logan just had a nightmare. Go back to bed."
Most of the bleary-eyed people returned to their rooms without comment. A bleary-eyed Jean and rumpled Scott came rushing out of their room, however, almost as if her comforting words had woken them up more than Logan's scream.
"Rogue, are you ok?" Jean asked, looking her over.
"Yeah, fine," Marie answered, puzzled by their concern for her. "I'm worried about Logan. He won't unlock the door."
"He locked the door?" Scott asked. "Thank heavens he listened to me for once in his life."
"What's going on?" Marie asked, her suspicions rising every second.
"The last time Logan was here, he had nightmares, and he didn't wake well," Scott explained. "I thought if his memories started to return, the nightmares might too, so I suggested he lock the door."
"How will locking the door help bad dreams?"
"Rogue, the first time Logan slept in this room, he hurt you when you tried to wake him up," Jean clarified.
"No. Logan would never hurt me," Marie answered, shaking her head in denial. "Besides, I would have scars."
"He didn't mean to," Jean countered. "He thought he was still in his dream and attacked. You touched him and absorbed his healing factor. That's why you don't have scars."
"I... He..." Marie stuttered, trying to absorb this new information about her past which, despite her efforts, she couldn't remember. "Is he awake?" she finally asked.
Jean closed her eyes in concentration and then nodded.
"Ok, then it's safe. Go back to bed," she ordered them, turning all her attention back on Logan's door.
Jean and Scott exchanged looks and then turned and retreated to their room.
"Logan?" Marie whispered. "Everyone's gone. Open the door."
She waited, but there was no response.
"Please?" Marie asked, feeling her voice break a little. "I need to know you're ok."
"Go away," Logan growled through the wooden barrier.
"Not until I see you," Marie replied. Determined to wait, she settled herself down into a seated position on the floor, getting as comfortable as possible for what she was sure would be a long wait.
She was surprised that after only about 10 minutes, she heard a deep, surrendering sigh from the other side.
The doorknob clicked as the lock was undone, but the handle was never turned, and the door remained shut. Marie climbed back up to her feet and turned the handle on her own. Crutching in, she saw Logan's dark silhouette sitting on the bed, accented by the moonlight flooding in from the open window.
"Logan, sugah."
"You shouldn't be here," he grunted, but made no move to force her to leave. She slowly made her way to the bed, sitting down on the edge beside him.
"Tell me about your dream."
"I... Scooter was right. I hurt you."
"That was years ago, and you didn't mean to," Marie assured him, reaching out to stroke his bare arm with a gloved hand, trying to soothe his pain. "Tell me what happened exactly."
"The dream was so weird. It was night, and for some reason, I thought taking you to the Statue of Liberty in our pajamas was a great idea. Well, I got you to the top, right on the flame, and then I sta..." Logan coughed, trying to clear his throat of its sudden tightness. "I stabbed you. Right through the chest. You were gasping for breath and had this strange look on your face, like pain mixed with understanding and forgiveness.
"My heart ached, and I knew I had to save you. I reached out to touch you, to see if your skin would absorb my healing power when out of nowhere, this giant covered in animal skins and stinking of death hit me right in the face with a log, knocking me off the flame and down onto the head.
"For some reason, I'm out of my pajamas and in my regular clothes, and we're fighting on top of this statue head while all the time, I'm desperate to get back to you. I knew you were dying because of what I had done, but he wouldn't let me go.
"He tried to throw me off the statue, but I got my claws out and looped around one of the points on Liberty's head. When I land again, I'm dressed in tight, black leather, like I'm the star of a bad S&M movie. It wasn't just me and the Eau de Carrion guy anymore, either. Jean, 'Ro, and Scooter were there, dressed in black leather, too.
"They distracted the guy so I could attack and knock him off the statue in the same way he'd tried with me. By now, I'm frantic to get back to you, but I can't move. There's this guy as old as Chuck holding out his hand at me, and I'm frozen in place. Scooter blasted him good while he was distracted with me, and I'm finally free to go to you.
"I clawed my way up the arm of the statue and finally reached you. Blood had pooled around the metal floor from your wounds and your face was ashen. I ripped off my gloves and pulled you to me, but nothing happened. You were already dead, and I'd killed you."
"I'm alive. I'm here," Marie reassured him, looping an arm around his waist.
"It was so real and weird all at the same time. I felt like it was a memory, but it couldn't have been."
"Not unless you carry around three sets of clothing and change faster than Superman," Marie pointed out, trying to lighten the mood. "We can talk to the professor tomorrow and figure out what really happened, ok?"
Logan nodded, but he was still shaky from his nightmare.
"Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?" Marie offered.
"No!" Logan answered quickly, pulling out of her hold. Shaking his head and trying to calm down, he said, "No." again, almost sadly. "I don't want to hurt you."
"I trust you, Logan."
"I can't be trusted, Marie. Not while I'm asleep."
"I don't believe that," Marie answered vehemently.
"I can't sleep if you're here. I'd be too worried," Logan said, trying another tactic.
Marie conceded when she saw Logan's pleading eyes. "Ok, but we talk to the professor tomorrow."
The professor helped clear up matters a little. The main points of Logan's dream had actually happened to them; it was just all jumbled together and mixed with Logan's own fears of what might have happened.
Even with the professor's explanation, Marie still couldn't remember any of those events and that bothered her. She'd been getting memory flashes almost every day, but they usually related to her childhood and not her life over the past few years. Why couldn't she remember more of her life at the school or her time with Logan?
After their meeting with the professor, Logan and Marie decided to take a walk around the mansion grounds. Logan still leaned on his cane slightly, but it was clear to Marie that she was the slow-poke now, still struggling with her forearm crutches.
Content in each other's company, they walked in mutual silence, thinking about the past Logan's dream had revealed. The professor had warned them that Logan might experience his previous nightmares of torture and experimentation, and since she had absorbed Logan, she might, too. Marie hoped for both their sakes that that little bit of Logan's past would remain hidden.
They were just approaching the lake when the professor's mental shout invaded their thoughts.
~The school is under attack. All students report to the bunker. X-Men, we're surrounded, but the main contingent is towards the east.~
Logan and Marie looked at each other, concern reflected in their eyes. The lake was on the east side of the mansion. They were directly in the line of attack and neither of them could run.
Logan pulled Marie up over his shoulder before she knew what was happening. Her crutches flew out of her hands and landed on the ground where she'd been.
"Logan. I'll just slow you down. If you go alone, you can make it!"
"I'm not leaving you," Logan stated firmly.
He walked as fast as he could, but he wasn't even halfway back to the mansion, leaning heavily on the cane and puffing in exertion, when the soldiers appeared.
Logan pulled Marie off his shoulder and down in front of him, using his body as a shield when they opened fire. Pain blossomed in his back as he took a few rounds, then the shooting stopped and the real battle began.
A red beam shot into the soldiers approaching him, blowing their formation apart. Cyke! The X-Men had arrived.
Cyclops kept firing at soldiers while the winds picked up and lightning began to strike the ground around other troops. Logan could see soldiers take aim, but their weapons refused to fire. Jean's arm was outstretched, her face a mask of concentration. The professor sat beside her, his eyes focused on the men attacking his school.
Logan couldn't believe that four people were holding off an army, but he saw it with his own eyes.
"Get out of here!" Cyke commanded, pointing at him and Marie.
Logan wanted to stay and fight, despite his weakness, but he had to make sure Marie was safe first. He pulled her up and leaning on each other, they started again for the mansion.
They were almost there when a shot rang out, and Marie fell. To Logan, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. She was there, stumbling along beside him, and then her body slammed against him before pirouetting to the ground.
More shots echoed from both sides and from behind of Logan, and soon he joined Marie on the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds. The army or whoever they were had flanked the X-Men, keeping them busy with a heavy frontal assault while sneaking up on both sides with more troops.
Why hadn't Chuck seen it? Was he too focused on the battle in front of his face to feel the minds closing in for the kill? Logan would never know, for from his perspective on the ground, he could see the X-Men and their leader each be picked off and killed.
There was no time to mourn for the fallen, though. Marie was hurt. Chuck had told him this morning that absorbing his mutation had saved Marie's life twice. He could save her again if he acted in time.
Reaching out a thankfully gloveless hand towards Marie's face, he came up about a foot short. He had to pull himself painfully to her side before he could brush his fingers against that pale skin. Once he did, all he felt was soft skin. No powerful connection. No absorbing powers.
"No," Logan choked out of his shredded but healing lungs, pulling her face into both hands and willing her to take everything he could offer.
After a few agonizing seconds with still no response, Marie's mutation finally activated. Logan could feel his body weakening, the pain from the gunshot wounds building again in his body. He didn't care. Marie needed it more than he did. She had to live.
As he touched her, their memories were released, and he relived the feelings of concern, panic, caring, and even love that he'd had for her two years ago. Feelings that grew even stronger when combined with his experiences after arriving back home. They were meant to be together. Marie was everything.
'I love you,' he thought to her before he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Marie could feel gloved fingers feeling her pulse, as well as a cool hand against her cheek, when she finally woke up.
"This one's alive, sir."
"Very well, tie her up and put her in the truck with the others."
The cool hand was pulled away as the body lying next to her was pulled from her side.
"This is the Weapon, sir. He's dead."
"I can see that, Johnson," the irritated commander's voice retorted. "He's supposed to be invincible. How did he die?"
"Just a guess, sir, but from how this gal is healing, she probably absorbed his powers."
'Healing? Absorbed? Dead? Logan?' Marie's disjointed thoughts swirled through her head before an inner voice interrupted.
~Hi, darlin'.~
With Logan's mental voice came a flood of memories. Marie relived their first week together, feeling the inexplicable connection that had developed between them from the moment she'd first seen Logan to his departure, leaving her his dog tags.
She was so caught up in these memories and still so weak from blood loss in spite of her now rapidly healing wounds, that she barely felt the rough hands grab her, tying her wrists behind her back and knotting her ankles together.
When she was thrown forcibly into the back of a large, hot, canvas-covered truck, she was jolted out of her thoughts and back into her current predicament.
"Rogue," St. John called to her. "You ok?"
Marie looked up to see St. John sprawled next to Bobby towards the back of the truck. Both were bloody and battered, but they looked like they would heal. A few of the younger kids were there as well, whimpering quietly. She nodded in response to his question, although she was most definitely not all right.
"We think Kitty, Jubes, and Remy got most of the kids away. At least they were trying to. St. John and I were caught trying to gather these strays," Bobby informed her, indicating the younger children in the troop truck with them. When she didn't answer, he continued to speak. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought Logan would..."
Bobby's voice cut off as another body was shoved into the back of the transport with them. It was Logan. Bloody, pale, limp, and obviously dead.
"Oh, Rogue," Bobby whispered, "I'm sorry."
Marie lay silent, not moving from where she'd been thrown and staring at the only man she'd ever really loved. He was dead, and it was her fault.
~No it wasn't, darlin'.~ A gruff voice corrected her. ~I touched you. I couldn't let ya die.~
'But now you're dead.'
~I'm still with ya, and now I always will be.~
'That's not what I wanted,' Marie thought, flashing through all the hopes she'd had over the past two years for a life with Logan.
~You're alive and we're together,~ Logan projected firmly. ~That'll have to be enough.~
After all the remaining survivors had been captured, a little more than a dozen mutants total, the troop transport drove them away from the only safe haven they'd known since their powers had manifested.
The younger kids turned to Bobby and St. John for guidance and leadership, asking questions about where they were going and why these soldiers wanted them. The duty fell to them since they were the oldest people in the truck. Well, besides Rogue, who wouldn't talk to anyone, and Logan...
"Why did they bring Logan?" St. John whispered to Bobby. "I heard them say they only wanted the survivors."
"Maybe they thought he'd heal," Bobby guessed.
"The dude is dead, Bob. What could they possibly want him for?"
"Am I wearing their uniform?" Bobby answered. "How should I know?"
"Not only that," St. John continued. "What happened to the X-Men?"
"They're dead," Rogue blurted out.
Bobby and St. John looked up at Rogue. They evidently hadn't been whispering as quietly as they thought if she could hear them from the other side of the truck over the engine noise. Then Bobby remembered. She'd absorbed Logan's powers so her senses were probably heightened. Damn!
"Sorry, Rogue," Bobby apologized. "We didn't mean for you to hear us, but what did you say about the X-Men?"
"They're dead. Even the professor. Logan saw it."
"Are you sure?" St. John asked, unbelieving. If the X-Men were dead, then they were on their own with no possibility of rescue.
"Look," Rogue growled. "Do you want a play-by-play? Fine. Chuck went pretty quick. A couple of rounds from armor-piercing bullets through the skull'll do that to ya. He was dead before he even started to fall. 'Ro took longer. She was cut to ribbons by..."
"Stop!" a young voice interrupted her. Kara, one of the newest and youngest students at 12, was clutching her hands to her ears and shaking her head. "No. It didn't happen. I can't hear you."
Bobby scooted over to the young girl as quickly as he could, given his bonds and his injuries, and tried to comfort her.
Rogue just looked at St. John with a fierce stare and said with absolute certainty, "They're dead." Then she went back to watching over Logan, sinking back into her own thoughts.
St. John settled back to pull at his bonds again. Damn his stupid mutation! He couldn't make fire; he could only manipulate it once it was alive. If only he hadn't lost his lighter in the fight, he could have them all out of there by now.
When he thought about it, he realized that they all had pretty useless mutations for escaping. All the students that had useful powers hadn't been caught. Bobby was the closest thing to hope they had, but he'd already tried and failed to freeze and break the cords holding him. He could only freeze things down to around zero degrees Celsius, and these ropes seemed to have a lower breaking temperature than he could generate. If only Rogue had gotten Logan's claws. But no, that wasn't a mutation, that was a science experiment.
He'd just have to keep trying to pull apart the knots by will-power alone.
The truck finally stopped after hours of bumpy travel. Almost immediately, two grenades pluming gas were thrown into the back with the helpless mutants.
With Logan's help, Marie recognized the smell almost immediately. It was a nerve gas that forced unconsciousness but didn't kill. They were trying to disable their captives before they moved them.
~I know that smell,~ Logan thought to her, and she could feel his fear flowing through her at that realization.
Marie struggled against her bonds with the strength that panic gave her. She saw her fellow prisoners succumb to the gas, but she fought against it, hoping that Logan's mutation would keep her awake. Eventually, though, even her struggles slowed and ceased.
She could hear voices outside the truck saying that it was safe now to enter. Just before she gave into the unnatural sleep the gas was demanding, she saw the canvas covering the back of the truck pull away to reveal a face that filled Logan with terror. It was a bald, old man with square-rimmed glasses. Then she passed out.
"This is better than I could have imagined," the Professor said, rubbing his hands in glee.
"But your precious Weapon is dead," the Colonel said, confused.
"Yes, but now we have a new batch of mutants as well as something better than the original Weapon."
"What?"
"That girl, the one they call Rogue. She absorbed the Weapon's powers. Tests show she's gained the heightened senses and quick healing, and X-rays even show the claws growing in. In about a week, they'll be fully grown, and we can line her skeleton with adamantium," the Professor said, waving around the papers detailing the test results like a child showing off an all-A's report card.
"So," the Colonel said with a shrug. "That makes her the equivalent of the previous Weapon."
"No. She can absorb mutations with a touch. That makes her upgradable."
The Colonel quickly thought of another problem. "That metal's extremely rare. Where will you get..." but then he trailed off, realizing the answer to his own question. "Of course, the body."
"Yes," the professor agreed, nodding vigorously. "We strip the metal off one skeleton and seal it to another."
"So you're going to start the surgery immediately?"
"No." The professor's face turned down in confusion. "I just told you we're waiting for the claws to grow in."
"No, not for her. To get the metal out of the other body."
"Oh that." The professor waved his hand dismissively. "We've already got a tub of hydrochloric acid. Soak the body in there for a few days and nothing will be left but the metal."
The Colonel still looked confused. "But what about the bone the metal protects?"
"You never took biology did you?" the professor sniped. "If you did, you'd know that bone is alive with connective tissue, veins, and arteries running in and out. The acid will simply slip into the bone through the gaps these tissues provide."
"Oh," the colonel said. It was a gruesome thought, dissolving a man's body for spare parts. But then he reminded himself that it was just a mutant, not really a man. Whatever happened to his body didn't matter.
Rogue woke to the familiar feeling of a pen marking her skin. Both she and Logan immediately panicked, trying to get up only find she was restrained by metal straps. It was Logan's dream! No, Logan's reality.
That face she'd seen right before she passed out. That was the man who'd cut into Logan and given him his metal. She remembered him from the dreams despite the bio-safety headgear he'd been wearing. Logan also recognized him from his half-remembered more recent experiences as the man's personal killing machine. She'd been captured by the people who'd tortured Logan, and the drawing meant that they were going to do the same to her.
"She's woken up too early," a female voice observed. "I can't get these lines accurate if she keeps thrashing around like that."
"We had to take her off the sedative drip for the surgery. She's been on it for almost a week. It should've taken longer to wear off," a male voice explained.
"Well, it didn't," the female's voice countered.
Marie opened her eyes to see a mousy, middle-aged woman and a gray haired and bearded doctor.
"NO!" she growled, a mixture of both her and Logan.
They had been there, in the dreams. They were going to hurt her. Logan raged inside her at the thought of his Marie going through that mind-killing agony. He wouldn't let it happen. He had to protect her.
Despite both her and Logan's efforts, the shackles held.
"Maybe if we gave her the paralytic early..." the doctor mused.
"It couldn't hurt." the woman concurred.
Marie watched helplessly as the doctor went to the counter and filled a syringe with a yellow substance. The needle stung as he injected the drug into her vein, burning as it pumped into her system.
Soon, despite being wide awake, she couldn't move a millimeter. Her eyes drooped and lost focus until she could only see blurry images. She could feel though. Every movement of the pen was amplified up by her touch-deprived skin until she was consumed with terror of the ordeal to come.
'Logan survived it,' she thought, trying to reassure herself. 'Sure, it drove him insane for years, but...'
~I don't want you to have to survive it, Marie. I'm trying. I'll figure a way out of this. I promise I'll keep you safe.~
It was a promise they both knew he couldn't keep.
Once the pen made the last stroke on her body, the bed moved and she was wheeled into an adjoining room. Her vision was blurry, but both she and Logan recognized the tank.
Marie and Logan combined their strength, trying to move her body even an inch, but it was completely unresponsive. She was trapped and completely helpless to resist them.
She was quickly unstrapped from her bed and shackled onto a platform suspended just above the liquid in the tank. Just as her left foot was being locked into place, she felt it move. She regained a little control of her body. Of course, now she was trapped. Too little, too late.
A rubber breathing mask was forced over her mouth and nose and the platform was dropped into the liquid of the tank, tinting her vision green.
She saw the man with the square-rimmed glasses come to stand beside her, just as he had to Logan so long ago. He was dressed in a biohazard suit, and he held a shimmering scalpel in his hand. As he reached down towards her thigh, Logan and Marie both screamed into the mask.
Pain tore through her body as muscles were ripped and pulled apart. That wasn't the worst of it, though. After the metal clamps were in position, the man picked up a flat metal instrument and began scraping her bone free of clinging muscle. It was like a root canal performed without anesthetic multiplied by a thousand. The pain froze her breathing as every scrape added a new shock.
The metal came next. They formed the liquid adamantium to her bone, the chemical used to soften the metal burning into her ravaged flesh. It was pain without end, torture without solace. She knew for certain that she couldn't survive this.
Just as she had that thought, she felt strong, comforting arms grab her shoulders and pull her away from the pain. There was no more agony, and as she looked around, she saw a black empty world where before only a green lab had existed.
Turning around, she found herself in Logan's arms, and her joy was as overwhelming as the pain had been mere seconds ago. He was here. They were together. But how?
Sensing her question, Logan answered, "It wasn't until I felt the pain again that I remembered. I came here the last time they operated on me. It took damn long to figure out, and they were almost done once I found the place, but it helped me hold on to the last bit of my sanity."
"Where are we, Logan?"
"Your mind, darlin'. A place so deep that they can't hurt us. Here, we can do anything and be anywhere. See?"
Logan swept his arm out and the blank emptiness changed to a bright, snow-covered valley. Marie could feel a crisp chill and breathed deeply of the clean, undisturbed forest's scent.
"Alaska," she sighed. "This is what I thought it'd be like."
"I know," Logan said with a contented smile, his face completely relaxed for the first time since she'd known him.
"How long can we stay here?" Marie asked.
"As long as you want, darlin', but you should probably check back sooner or later. If something happens where you can escape, you have to be ready."
"I don't want to leave, Logan. Ever."
"But, Marie, if you can escape, then..."
"Then what, Logan? I have everything I want right here."
"If something happens and they don't take care of you, your body'll waste away and die."
"Then I'll die. I don't want to go back and be a puppet to some sadist scientists with God complexes. Let them do what they want with my body. I'm not going back." Marie was firm in her conviction and Logan understood completely. If he hadn't had revenge to drive him on, he might never have emerged from the calm depths of his mind the first time.
"Ok, Marie. We'll stay."
Erik was surprised to find that the much touted Weapon, hunter of mutants, was the girl he'd almost killed over five years ago. Her body had matured, but the real change was in her eyes. They were empty and dead. Windows to a soul that had packed up and left long ago.
How had it come to this? If only Charles had listened to his warnings about humans, perhaps he would be alive today. Perhaps his children would be with him instead of fighting in Erik's Brotherhood or living in fear and hiding. Perhaps this young woman would still have life in her eyes.
After their capture of the human's "ultimate weapon," the metal in her skeleton made it easy for him to control her. He kept her alive for months, maintaining her health by controlling her body with his powers.
Jubilee, one of her old friends, talked to her for hours every day in an attempt to bring her back. She was the last to give up on the girl with the white-streaked hair, but after six months with no sign of life, even she conceded that it was hopeless.
Erik took pity on the dead-eyed girl. She would live decades, perhaps centuries, longer than her friends with her healing ability. His mutation was the only thing that could put her suffering to an end. If he didn't act now, he might die, and she'd be abandoned to slowly starve to death after all her friends were gone. This was the humane... No humans were butchers. This was peace. This was right.
Her few friends, Gambit, ShadowCat, and Jubilee, each took a turn to privately say goodbye. Then Eric entered her room.
After saying a quick Jewish prayer he remembered from childhood, he reached out a hand and commanded the metal in her neck to twist and move. Her spine cracked like a twig, severing her spinal cord. The metal, contorted as it was, kept healing from occurring. The girl stopped breathing almost instantly and within a minute, she was dead.
The transition was miraculous and almost instantaneous. Logan and Marie moved from the quiet, stunted peace of her mind to the vast, unimaginable eternity that heaven provided. They were overjoyed to find themselves still together, forever.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
There are several character deaths spread throughout this story.