The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Where am I?
The first sense to come back to me is sound. It’s steady. A low mechanical hum and a soft repetitive beep. The gentle murmur of voices.
For now it’s enough.
The second time I wake, I notice the light. It’s bright, glaring, even through my eyelids. But I feel no desire to open them, not just yet. Instead I just let the drifting sense of nothingness take me back to where it’s safe.
The third time I notice the pain. It wakes me, a dull throbbing behind my eyes, a sharp punching in my neck, a strange numbness everywhere else. My throat feels dry and raspy. I try to swallow, but instead I choke. There’s something there, something in the way. I try not to panic, but I feel like I’m suffocating and my head spins with fear. What is this? I can’t stop it! What’s happening? Where am-
"Easy there." A firm hand holds my head back against the bed. "Steady."
My eyes feel gritty and unused as I open them, the familiar blurry smudge of Dr McCoy drifting fuzzily into focus. Why is he here?
"...to stay calm..."
I realise he’s speaking, but it’s too late and my mind can’t quite match the movement of his mouth with his voice. It rings in my ears as I try to cling to it.
"You have trauma to... with a tube in your throat..."
Can’t concentrate. Words slip in and out of my head. Want to focus, but everything’s sludgy and... and... lilting... strange...
"...help you breathe..."
Head throbs. Vision worsens. Blackness creeping in from the corners of my eyes.
"...give you a sedative..."
Disjointed smudges of colour. Blue. Hank? I can’t...
"... need to rest..."
Then there’s nothing but a dreamless plain of darkness.
It’s morning. I don’t know how I can tell, but I’m sure of it. Even though I know I’m enclosed within four windowless walls.
...Where am I?
My thoughts slowly drift back into my grasp. I try and concentrate on them. First: that I can breathe if I don’t try and fight the tube in my throat. Okay, I can cope with that. If I don’t think about it too much or freak out.
Second: My head hurts. Like hell.
Groggily I let my eyes wonder around the room. To my surprise Logan’s over by the door, looking haggard and drawn in his scruffy jeans and shirt, hunched in an uncomfortable looking metal chair. He stands out in stark contrast to the stainless steel of the walls.
What’s he doing here? I don’t...
Then I blink as I remember he was hurt. But he seems whole now? Doesn’t he? I don’t think I’d have coped if he’d... he’d...
I can’t even bring myself to think it.
Is he really here? ...Maybe I’m still dreaming.
I close my eyes for a moment, testing the world, daring it to defy me and take him away. But when I open them again he’s still there, very much a presence. Part of me feels settled by the fact that he’s too scruffy for me to be imagining him.
I hope.
Too tired to do anything other than just stay quiet, I'm content to watch him for a while. He’s awake, but he hardly moves. A hand occasionally going messily to his hair, a sure sign of how stressed he must be, his eyes remaining focused on a fixed point upon the floor. He looks older somehow. Even though it should not be possible. Maybe it’s just tiredness. He must have had a lot of healing to do.
I push that thought away, not ready to think about what happened. Not just yet. Instead, forgetting about the tube, I try and speak.
Nothing really comes out, just a choking raspy sound that even I can hardly hear. He can though. His eyes snap up, and he stares at me for a moment, sits up straighter in his chair. Then in a second he’s over at my side. "Turn your skin on."
Turn my...? What? I don’t understand. It is on. It’s always on.
I frown, confused.
"Whatever you did, undo it." He looks grim.
A memory comes flashing back. The car. Shattered glass and not wanting to hurt him. Smothering it until it listened. Until it stopped.
...Did it really work? Has it really gone? Can it be controlled? Just like that?
Surely I’d know. Surely I’d be able to feel something?
"Marie." He’s looking even worse now, those two furrows between his eyes deepening until they look permanent. "Turn it on," he says again.
And that’s when I look down and realise that my hand is gripped in his. He’s rubbing my fingers. Skin to skin. And nothing’s happening.
It really did work!
For a moment the only emotion I feel is pure joy. I finally learnt how to turn it off! After everything I put my body through, after the pain and rejection of the cure, I finally learnt how to tame it! How to use it, like other’s use their mutations. How to stop it using me.
I smile up at him, wanting to share this moment. This is amazing! It’s...
But he’s not smiling back.
"Kid." His other hand goes to my forehead, sweeps the swish of pale hair back out of my eyes. "Listen to me," he begins.
And that’s when I realise.
The hand against my forehead is warm; it’s his and it’s comforting. The hand that’s rubbing my fingers is... is... nothing. It’s not warm, it’s not cold, it’s not heavy. It’s nothing. I can’t feel anything.
I see him squeeze my fingers, and I try to squeeze back, but...
Nothing.
Oh God.
I try not to panic, but suddenly I can feel the blood pounding as it drives through my ears. And I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.
"Hank!" I hear him yell.
This isn’t real!
"Hank, get in here!"
There’s so much noise. Everywhere. More faces swim in front of my own. Logan’s pushed out of the way. Dr McCoy’s face. A stranger’s. Everything’s a rush. A blur. A panic.
Then as suddenly as they started, things begin to slow again. Life unwinds around me. The noise softens. I feel soothed... sleepy.
"Rogue?" Dr McCoy’s voice drifts gently over to me. "I’ve given you a sedative, but I want you to listen carefully to me, I know you can still hear me. You were in an accident. It damaged your spine. You cannot..."
I want to concentrate on his voice. Really I do. But it’s suddenly so hard. It fades in and out. Snatches of words. Swelling. Shattered. Unstable. Partial paralysis.
Words I don’t want to think about.
They float away from me, and it’s so much easier not to fight them. So I let them go. I can see his mouth move, but the words are silent. Everything is silent. Everything except the thudding in my ears.
Then the stranger’s face appears before mine. It seems so familiar somehow that I wonder absently where we’ve met before.
"Rogue."
I see him mouth my name. It’s a kind face. Older, pale, as if it’s not often seen the sun, but peaceful.
"Rogue," his mouth moves again. Such a familiar face.
"Can you hear me?"
Such a... This time his lips don’t move. The voice comes directly to my mind and it soothes like a warm balm. I know that voice. I’d know that voice anywhere.
It makes me want to cry.
"Can you understand me," he says again, directly into my thoughts, and this time I do cry. Around me things are manic. Dr McCoy is injecting me, yelling something, doors are slamming, Logan is gripping my arm. But the only thing I can feel is the coolness of the tears as they trickle down my cheeks.
The stranger’s face looks kindly down upon me. "Let me help you," he says in that voice of his. The Professor’s voice. "Close your eyes. Trust me. I will be there."
And suddenly I can’t keep them open. I don’t know whether I’ve been given more sedative, or if it’s just my body responding to his words, but once again that void of blackness pulls me inwards.
Only this time, I’m not alone.
He’s there, sat in his wheelchair, just like he used to be, sunlight pouring in through the windows of his study in dusty streams, casting long shadows as they glance off the smooth angles of his desk. It even smells right. Clean and warm, like leather bound books and wood polish.
He smiles at me, that thoughtful, warm smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. "You’re safe now," he says.
And it’s so easy to believe him.
"Where are we?"
"In your head." He gestures to the study around him. "You’ve created this."
As soon as he says those words, his face flickers, just for a moment. It blinks into the face of the stranger, then back to the Professor again, as if nothing ever happened.
"I don’t understand."
He reaches out and takes one of my hands within his own. "Here, you can feel," he says, and he’s right. His hand feels warm and smooth. "Here you picture me as you remember me best."
I look at the wheelchair, confused.
"I am still that man," he continues gently. "Though I look a little different."
"I don’t understand," I say again, feeling faintly stupid that it’s all I can come up with. None of this makes sense. He was dead. Logan and Storm saw it happen. We buried him!
He gives me that kind smile again. "Before I died, I transferred my conscious over to another body. An empty vessel. A man who never had the chance of life as you or I did. I made a choice."
"But I thought..." I trail off, trying not to cry again. It’s all too much. First the accident, then this?
"It’s alright, Rogue," he says, his hand tightening around mine, squeezing it gently. "But right now I need you to listen carefully to what I have to say. I don’t know how long we have."
...Until what?
Suddenly I’m not sure I want to know. Could this be real? Is it a dream?
I slip away from his grip over to the window. Outside the sun bathes the gardens into a lush green, but they’re still. They remain empty and without detail. There’s no one here but us.
"What do you want me to do?"
He gets up from his chair and stands behind me. He’s taller than me, I realise, and the feeling is so strange. Like I’ve switched on the wrong channel by mistake. Like it’s happening to someone else.
"I need you to let me into your mind."
I frown. "You’re already-"
"Your unconscious mind," he adds softly. "Let me tell you a little known story. When Jean Grey came to me as a young girl, her mind was already a dangerous place. She allowed me to work with her, to erect mental barriers to prevent her mutation from taking control. However, when she returned to us after Alkali Lake, those barriers were no longer in place. She left before I could help her, the Phoenix already burning through her veins. Without those walls, she was no longer Jean Grey."
"What does that have to do with me?" I ask cautiously. Is he saying I’m a danger? Am I going to die? Like she did?
"You have built your own barriers," he says simply. "You have walled your mutation in so well, so completely, that you no longer know how to access it."
"You want to knock them down again?"
"No," he smiles softly. "I want to build you a channel."
"A channel?"
"A gateway. Something that gives you control. Your mutation will be out of reach, unless you call on it."
For a moment I just look at him, lost for words. "You could do that?"
"Just trust me. Close your eyes."
I feel his hands press lightly against my temples, and I do as he says.
Suddenly without warning, the room disappears. There’s a fleeting sense of falling. A blanket of blackness. And nothing.
Then... light.
Dr McCoy’s face, busy, hands furiously working on me. He’s holding paddles I realise. Shouting. He’s shouting.
Logan’s there. Drawn, worried, angry all of them. He’s yelling, cursing, swearing at the Professor.
The Professor.
He’s my sea of calm in all this chaos. He’s my serenity.
He gives me that smile. "Now," he says, and suddenly I realise he’s given me the knowledge to understand what he means.
I open the gate.
The first rush is almost overwhelming. So intense that...God it hurts... It hurts! I can feel it! Never before has pain been so welcoming. Beside me Logan’s face contorts and I try to let go, but he won’t let me. He grips hard. Holds on. "Take it," he says through his teeth. "Take it!"
And he doesn’t let go until I see the skin crack open on his face and he collapses.