Charles Xavier threw the newspaper down on his desk with barely restrained anger. The front-page headlines blared: ELVIS LIVES! It was immediately followed with an excellent photo of a heavyset man in a sequined jumpsuit with a distinct pompadour, flashing a decaying smile at the camera.
Xavier fixed his steely eyes on the deathly pale girl with jet-black hair and downcast eyes. She was slumped in a chair on the other side of his office. It would have been nice to know that she was pale because she was nervous, but she was always this pale. Her skin almost totally lacked pigment of any kind.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
She shrugged noncommittally. At sixteen years old, she knew how the blame game was played. Her shrug could have been taken either as feigned innocence or an admission of guilt. He had no proof. She hoped Professor X took it as the former.
"He sure looks good for a guy his age?"
The Professor's hand slapped down on his desk. She jumped.
"This is no laughing matter. Hundreds of people saw you."
Time for humor. "They didn't exactly see me-"
"Enough! I can't have you pulling these...these..."
"Pranks?" she answered helpfully. It wasn't the best idea; he looked ready to explode. As she watched, he actually closed his eyes and counted to ten in French before responding.
"Sally, your gift is unique. It doesn't work without certain...prerequisites."
She couldn't stop her snort of amusement. Is that what they were calling it these days?
"We encourage the students here to explore their gifts. I know you must be frustrated, but we are doing our best supplying you with..." he trailed off, trying to think of the most courteous word.
She offered him a rude moniker that was a synonym for "unyielding" and he scowled. "Yes. But this," he pointed at the newspaper, "is NOT what we had in mind. Need I remind you of last year's little stunt with Sabretooth?"
He didn't have to. She remembered the look on Wolverine's face when she made Sabretooth dance across the lawn in a tutu.
"I thought it would be funny," she defended, slouching down further in the chair. So half the X-Men nearly had a heart attack at the sight. What, being a superhero meant you couldn't have a sense of humor?
"The next time you pull a stunt like this, you will be put on six months detention. Am I understood?"
The problem with having a telepath lecture her was that there was no way she could lie. So she had to say yes and, for the time being, she had to mean it.
"Yes, sir." She did her best at looking chastised. Xavier's features softened.
"You are dismissed, Sally."
She exploded out of her chair, making a beeline for the door, wanting to jet away before he caught a mental wind of the next prank that was forming in her head. She had to get one last word in though. She paused at the door.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"I told you...call me Zombie!" She exited, stage left.
Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love of the dead?
She screamed along with Rob Zombie: LIVING DEAD GIRL! And then she proceeded to strut around the suite she shared with Kitty Pryde, Rogue, and Jubilation Lee. The second she and her friends had been promoted to junior X-Men, the benefits started to kick in. They no longer had to share a bedroom with ten other students; now they had a suite with two bedrooms: two people per room, plus their own mini living room and bathroom. It was a blessing in so many ways. It made the Danger Room training sessions worthwhile.
Most of the time.
She bopped around the room, continuing to screech along with the hardcore metal song.
Crawl on me Sink into me Die for me Living Dead Girl
A hand poked out from the wall and punched the stop button on the CD player. A cross-looking, sleep-rumpled Kitty followed.
"Don't you ever get tired of that song?"
Zombie grinned, nonplussed at the interruption, and flung herself down on a bean-bag chair. "Nope. It's my battle cry, my theme song, my mot-to-"
"Not at nine in the morning it's not." Kitty dropped onto the couch across from her roommate. "So. What did the Prof say?"
"Oh, the usual. I should have more respect for the deceased. Stop scaring the little kids by making the skeleton in the biology class move. Quit making celebrities rise from the dead. Stuff like that."
Kitty made a face and shuddered. "No offense, but that has got to be one of the weirdest gifts I have ever heard of. Doesn't it...doesn't it feel gross?"
Zombie pondered for a second. None of the students ever asked her what her mutant power felt like before. It really wasn't something she could put into words, at least not literally. Perhaps a metaphor-
"Pretend there's a car sitting in the middle of the street. Its doors are unlocked, the keys are in the ignition, and there's no one inside. You can just...open the door, get in the car, and drive off, right?"
Kitty nodded. "Sure."
"Now imagine if the car was a dead body-"
"Ewwwwwwwwww!"
Zombie half-grinned and continued. "-but you could still get inside, turn the ignition key, and take off." It was a crude explanation, but it was true. Her soul could leave her body, become a free-floating spirit, and inhabit the empty bodies of the deceased. They were really only hollow shells anyway. She filled them. And, as the Professor mentioned earlier, on one memorable occasion, made them dance across the lawn in a pink ballet tutu on April Fools Day. Wolverine had really not been impressed.
Her little analogy won her a stuck out tongue and another shudder of disgust. "Ugh, Zombie, I don't know how you stand it."
"It's not gross. Well..." She thought about one time, when she was 13 and playing around with her recently discovered mutant ability. She had slid into a corpse that was two years old, decaying beyond belief. There were even maggots crawling around in its eyes. The procedure of entering a corpse was entirely mental; her physical body never needed to come into contact with the corpse she wanted to inhabit. But when she came back to herself, she felt dirty. Like she had brought some residual decay with her when she vacated the rotting shell.
She had vowed to stick to the newly dead after that. Way less mess.
"...It can be," she finished. "But not really. Just gotta look at it like it's a car."
"But it used to be a person."
Zombie shrugged. "Vroom, vroom."
"Blech. Just...blech."
Zombie got tired of her roommate's squeamishness. "It's no worse than walking through people."
"Or not gettin' to touch people," someone drawled in a deep southern accent. Rogue sauntered into the shared living room and perched on the couch arm above Kitty. "Hey ladies. Logan told me to tell y'all: training module in the Danger Room at 930. Don't be late. Quote. AGAIN. End quote." Rogue grinned.
"Ooooooooo, Low-gin told you, huh?" Zombie teased, exaggerating the way the southerner drawled the name. It was widely known that Rogue had the hots for the burly gym teacher. Known to everyone except him, much to her roomie's frustration. Unfortunately the usual signs: showing lots of leg, plenty of cleavage, and subtle touching were strictly out. Rogue was right; not getting to touch people for fear of absorbing their life like a sponge was almost as "bad" as being able to make the dead rise.
But at least her gift came in handy every Halloween. There was no holiday for people who couldn't touch.
"What? A girl can keep hopin', cain't she?"
"What about Bobby?" Kitty asked. "Is poor Iceman left outside in the cold?"
Rogue rolled her eyes. "Hardly. How shall ah put this? St. John is keeping him warm at night."
All three girls giggled.
Jubilation burst in the room, fully dressed and sounding like she was on her fourth cup of coffee. Knowing Jubilee, she was. "What's so damn funny?" she demanded. Zombie repeated what Rogue said, and the petite Asian girl started giggling as well.
"Oh my gawd, you guys, you are not going to beleeeeve what I heard last night."
Rogue interrupted. "Y'all are not going to beleeeeeeeeeve what Logan will do to us if we are late. Again. So, puh-lease, can we go?"
Kitty and Zombie struggled into their workout clothes; bright, airy blue fleece for Kitty and black lycra for Zombie.
Watching them in amusement, Jubilee suggested a girl's night.
A girl's night in Jubilee-speak meant only one thing, and Kitty groaned. "If they catch me in the wine cellar again I am going to get EXPELLED. And then just who will filch your booze for you, Miss Lee?"
"So let's hit the gas station down the road."
"Who's gonna buy it for us?" Rogue pointed out. "None of us are old enough."
Three pairs of eyes turned to Zombie. She sighed.
"Man."
The cashier behind the counter at the BP station looked from the three six packs of beer on the counter to the withered old lady who was holding out money to him with a cracked smile on her wrinkled lips. Lots of beer. Little old lady.
"Are you okay, ma'am? You look a little" Dead, you look dead. “...pale."
Zombie forced a cough out of the bone-dry throat of the elderly body she was animating. Poor stiff; she was probably someone's beloved grandmother. She had also been the only usable body at the local morgue.
"I'm fine sonny," she warbled. "How much is that, please?"
With a tone of awe, the pimply teen behind the counter said, "$23.67."
Zombie handed over the money, careful not to touch the cashier. The body she was in had been embalmed; embalmed bodies didn't feel right. By the way the cashier was distinctly trying not to wrinkle his nose, they didn't smell right, either. With what she hoped was a nice, grandmotherly smile, she hoisted up the cases of beer.
"Do you...need help...with that?"
"No thanks, sonny. You've been a doll." And Zombie had left the building. She had to move pretty slowly; the legs of the body didn't work very well, they were kind of swollen. She opened the back door of the Jeep and snarled.
"Would someone help me? This is fuckin' heavy!"
Rogue slid out of the passenger side seat helped shove the cases of beer in the trunk, then gave Zombie a hand as she was having trouble getting the host body's knees to bend. Eventually Zombie managed to settle in the backseat next to her real body, which looked like any normal sleeping body. Deep, slow, rhythmic breathing. The second the car doors closed all the windows were rolled down.
"Whew, Zombie, did you have to take one that was so smelly?" Jubilee complained.
"The other two choices were a 7 year old kid or a guy whose head got ripped off in a car accident. Now I don't know about you but I think the cashier would have noticed a headless guy coming in for beer."
Jubilee hung her head out the window and refrained from commenting any further.
"TRUTH...or DARE?" Jubilee asked Kitty dramatically, nursing her third beer.
Zombie had to grin at the tableaux they made. Drunken junior X-Men. Rogue was slouched in the beanbag chair, on her fourth bottle and very much mellowed. One of her elbow length opera gloves had a dark stain from where she had spilled beer on herself earlier. Jubilee had raided her closet in the midst of her drunkenness and was parading around the room, looking very much like an overdressed Japanese doll. Kitty was so plastered that she hadn't noticed she had phased six inches into the couch. As for herself, well...she sat with her back to the wall; sunken down inside her frayed jeans and well worn black tank top. She was a skinny girl, borderline gaunt; she could hide in the shadows easily.
"Truth."
Jubilee screwed up her face, trying to think of something truly devastating. "If you could have sex with any of the X-Men, who would it be?"
"Colossus." Kitty said it a little too quickly and all three girls oooooo-ed at their friend. She had the good nature to blush.
"Ah know why," Rogue asserted loudly, "because of how hard he is when he transforms!" She was rewarded with a whack across the face with a pillow, courtesy of Kitty.
"Okay Zombie, your turn. Truth or dare."
Zombie shrugged. "Dare."
Kitty's eyes got wide and she squealed. "Oh, I was HOPING you would say that." She got an evil look on her face.
Zombie cocked an ebony eyebrow. "Why do I get the sudden feeling that I should be very, very afraid?"
"Okay Zombie. Your dare. Is to sit still. While Jubilee gives you..." Kitty leaned close, emphasizing her words. "A MAKEOVER!"
Zombie started screaming.
An hour later she was standing in front of the full-length mirror with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"C'mon Zombie, it's no fun if you don't look."
"No."
Jubilee snorted in annoyance. "If you don't open your eyes we're gonna shove you into the underclassmen common room. And we're giving them all cameras."
Zombie looked. And started to scream again.
She looked nice. Gone was her trademark outfit of black jeans and a black tank top. She was wearing a wrap dress that was pastel pink with black piping along the edges and hem. She had almost no cleavage to speak of normally, but whatever bra Jubes had put on her created the illusion of a bust, which was enhanced by the low V-neckline of the dress. It was long sleeved to hide her gangly arms, ended at her knees, and was belted at the waist with a black wraparound tie. Instead of combat boots she was shoved into black open-toed slingback heels. Her unruly hair, which she usually wore down and in her face, was swept back into a sleek chignon. But her face...that was the worst.
Sometime in between Rogue pinning her down in order to hold still and now, Jubilee had managed to smear a bronzer lotion over her face, giving her a nice healthy glow that she hadn't had since she was 10. Her eyebrows had been tweezed by the semi-sober Kitty and then defined with a delicate brush. The black kohl she usually rimmed her eyes with had been wiped off; a drunken hand had applied five different shades of autumn brown, peach, rose, cream and cinnamon to quote bring out her translucent gray eyes unquote. Only it was kind of lopsided due to the fact that Jubilee was plastered. And blush; she was wearing blush. Her new look was crowned with a bright rose-colored lipstick that was smudged down her chin, again the handiwork of giggling, lit Jubilation Lee.
Except for the smudged make-up, she could have walked into Tiffiny's and fit in perfectly. Zombie stopped screaming. "I look horrible."
Jubilee pinched her arm. "No you don't. You look....respectable."
"Exactly."
"Oh ah dunno," Rogue drawled, one gloved finger pressed over her mouth in honest contemplation. "It's not half bad. Now all ya need to do is gain twenty pounds to fill out a bit and y'all wouldn't look like walkin' death."
"Fuck off," Zombie said crossly, desperately wishing she could make a break for the bathroom and change out of the dress, which was beginning to itch. Unfortunately Rogue was blocking her way. She tried to stomp angrily but with her heels she failed miserably. "Who's next? Rogue? Is it your turn?" She grabbed a beer and sank down onto the couch.
"Ah think so."
"Okay...truth or dare."
"Mmm, I don't wanna let you pick mah dare. So...truth."
"When are you gonna get off your ass and tell Wolverine you love him?" Zombie asked, dropping the bomb and scratching crossly at the mass of bobby pins that were keeping her hairstyle up.
Everyone waited, their eyes zeroed in on Rogue. She shrugged rather unhappily, took a deep swig from her beer.
"Ah dunno. He thinks ahm just a kid."
"Honey," Kitty advised, "the man has two categories he puts people in. Interested, and not interested. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the school's population is lumped into not interested, which means he doesn't talk to us, he doesn't smile at us, and he doesn't ask us if we want sugar in our morning coffee. But you...he does all those things to you."
"So?"
"So that's gotta count for something." Kitty dug into a bag of Doritos and started to munch. "Gawd, when I get drunk I get the munchies."
Kitty and Jubilee had drunk too much to stay on topic, and Rogue blatantly wanted to drop the conversation, but Zombie was genuinely curious. It was so obvious that the Wolverine had a special place in his almost non-existent heart for the southern belle, regardless of the student-teacher relationship. So Zombie pressed the issue.
"Well? Are you ever gonna tell him? Or are you just going to whine about it the rest of your life?"
Rogue, usually full of nothing but sugar and teasing sass, erupted.
"There's no point to tellin' him how ah feel if ah cain't touch him. And I cain't touch ANYONE. EVER. It's a stupid pipe dream and a stupid crush that ah have to get over. And the next person that mentions the name Wolverine tonight is gonna hit the sack early courtesy of this-" she peeled one of her gloves off and waggled her bare hand at her roommates. Kitty and Jubilee started at the threat of using her poison skin but Zombie just yawned, nonplussed.
Wow, Zombie thought. She really must like the dude if she's this pissed about it. So much so that, with the comical mood of their girls' night shattered, Rogue silently slipped away to bed and didn't say anything to her when Zombie came to bed a few minutes later, her face freshly scrubbed of all traces of the colorful make-up. She knew Rogue was awake on the other side of the bedroom they shared but she also knew when the line had been crossed; now was not the time for any smartass comments.
"I don't know what his stinkin' problem is," Zombie huffed to herself as she finished her tenth lap around the gym; punishment for not practicing her jujitsu moves before class like the other junior X-Men. Ever since the Sabretooth incident she had suspicions that Wolverine had it in for her; today he confirmed it by being an all-around jackass. Why Rogue liked him was beyond her.
"Sally!"
The subject of her dark thoughts was howling at her. She trotted over to the group and tried not to look like her legs were about to collapse.
"I told you." Pant, pant. "Call me Zombie," she wheezed.
"I'll call ya deadmeat if ya keep sassin' me," he growled. "Got somethin' else ya wanna add...deadmeat?"
Zombie wisely remained silent.
"Think you're able to join your team in the Danger Room? Or," he said with a smug grin, "are ya too tired?"
It took every ounce of energy not to huff and puff as she stood up straight and answered him. "Put me in, coach."
He stared down at her, a mountainous wolf of a man eyeing a pale slip of a girl. She was almost surprised when he nodded gruffly at her; she had been almost sure he was gonna say no just to rile her.
The junior X-Men lined up. Brooding Rogue took squad leader, followed by Iceman and Pyro. Moving down the line was Jubilee, Zombie, Kitty, and finally the huge Colossus, who towered over Wolverine by at least a foot.
Wolverine stood in front of them; a perfect study of calculated seriousness.
"We're gonna try something a little different today. Number One, this will not be a routine training exercise. We have programmed the mainframe to simulate a live combat mission. Your goal is to breach security, take the videodisc that will be highlighted in the southeast corner of the room and extract your team, leaving no one behind. Number Two, we will be using live ammo. Your jumpsuits have been calibrated to withstand a direct hit, but let me warn you boys and girls. If you get hit, you will be limping tomorrow. Number Three, I will be watching and grading you from the observation deck, but that is all. I will not be calling point to Rogue, I will not be assisting you. As always, should anything go wrong, all you need to do is tap your communicator twice, this will end the program. Are there any questions?"
Zombie resisted the urge to bark out "No, drill sergeant!"
"Very well. The exercise begins when the doors open. Good luck, crew." Wolverine vanished up the stairwell that led to the control center and observation deck for the Danger Room.
Rogue faced the team. "Iceman, you and Pyro flank left, Jubilee and Colossus, you flank right. Kitty and I will head down the center."
Zombie had a sinking feeling. "What about me?"
Rogue flashed her a wide sugary grin. "You grab the disc."
The massive nickel-titanium alloy doors to the Danger Room began to hum and click as the locks were disengaged. Zombie tensed, feeling a rush of adrenaline. The thought of actually getting to kick some butt and do some damage was more than a little thrilling.
"Go!" screamed Rogue the second the doors were open, and the team entered the Room.
Before they could gauge what they were up against, the doors shut, the lights flashed off and they were in pitch black. Zombie froze, unsure.
"Hold on a second." Wolverine's voice over the loudspeaker, sounding thoroughly annoyed. "Power surge. The system'll come back online in a moment."
Zombie could feel the team relax slightly, everyone letting out a collective sigh in the utter dark. She wanted to relax as well, but something prevented her from leaning against the wall and biting her fingernails. This was, after all, the Danger Room. There was a slight, almost undetectable sound of metal shuffling across metal. It could have been nothing, but...
Before she could say anything Rogue, who was on the same wavelength, spoke tightly.
"Jubilee. Lights."
"What? Why?"
"Just do it," Zombie bit out, foreboding washing over her in its sticky horror.
"Okay, okay," Jubilee said, sounding put out. A crackle and fizz, accompanied by the scorch of electricity, and Jubilee's energy fireworks lit the Danger Room.
Ten metal bots, their tentacles already deployed and ready to grab, surrounded the team.
Jubilee screamed. And the small display of lights dancing in her palm exploded outward and smashed into the nearest bot. That triggered the rest of them out of stealth mode; the robots attacked.
"Spread out!" Rogue cried and leaped over a tentacle, kicked another one out of the way.
Zombie ducked past a pair of pinchers and scooted behind Colossus, who had transformed and was smashing through anything and everything in his way. For a very brief second Zombie mourned her own restricting mutant ability; she really was no good unless someone was dead.
Kitty yelled at her from her left, dove, grabbed onto Zombie's leg and phased both of them out just in time for a laser beam to pass through. It hit Colossus from behind. He went down on one knee, shaking his head slightly.
"Thanks," Zombie said. If the laser had hit her, she would have not been able to shake it off with a quick twist of the head. "Okay, enough of this kindergarten shit. Cover me."
She went into full stealth mode, left Sally completely behind and became the thing that everyone used to call Death. Years of taunts and whispers and old women forking the evil eye in her direction...all of that culminated into this: a dark shade of a girl who could slip in and out of shadows unnoticed. She cast a quick glance at her teammates; at Iceman and Pyro who were mixing their skills into a deadly blend of elements, and at Jubilee who almost seemed to be humming in happiness as she whipped her energy firecrackers at anything that was shooting at her. Kitty, Colossus, Rogue; they were all busy grappling with whatever was being thrown their way so that Zombie was able to slip though, unnoticed.
A bright orange beam marked the videodisc: her target. Zombie licked her lips and grinned.
Just as she reached the display, laser machines lowered from the ceiling and cast beams on the floor; a grid that was very obviously not meant to be broken. Zombie rolled her eyes; she knew Wolverine expected her to fail since she hadn't practiced her martial arts moves.
Well screw him.
Zombie scurried over to a fallen bot that Colossus had decimated and rummaged through the shattered metal. With a crow of triumph she held up what she was looking for: the robot's trajectory mirror. She ducked under flying spears and quickly rigged the mirror in front of the laser grid. When the angle was right, the laser beams reflected off the mirror and the grid was broken up; a neat path was created right down the middle to the videodisc.
The louspeaker came on, Wolverine's voice sounding even more distressed than before. "There is a malfunction. We cannot stop the program; retreat out of the Danger Room, I repeat, retreat out of the Danger Room."
"Nice try," she muttered. What, did he think they were so stupid he could fool them a second time? With a wave toward the observation deck and a smartass grin, Zombie sauntered right up to the display and swiped the disc, stuffing it in her jumpsuit. She turned back to the team and her jaw dropped.
The Danger Room had turned into World War III. A maze rose from the floor and explosive balls were dropping from a metal grid in the ceiling. As she watched, Kitty managed to phase through three walls to get away from a rolling charge before she grew so exhausted she couldn't do it anymore; she ran smack dab into the fourth wall and knocked herself out. Colossus scooped her up and retreated out of the room. Iceman had a bleeding Pyro in a fireman's hold and was sliding toward the door on a path of ice. Jubilee was limping, her fireworks noticeably weaker than ever before.
"Jesus," Zombie breathed. Anger flared toward her instructors; a simulated mission was great but this was ridiculous! She took off at a sprint across the room, leaping over broken robots and ducking under lasers that sounded a little too overcharged for her comfort. Again frustration overwhelmed Zombie at the limitations of her gift. Unlike Kitty or Colossus, if she were hit with a laser she would be fucked.
She was running full tilt for the door when out of the corner of her eye she saw Rogue, grappling with the last working robot. She was using every blocking technique they had ever been taught but the machine was moving with lightning speed; pretty soon it had her arm in its pinchers and had lifted her off the ground.
Zombie forgot all about the lasers; she sprinted straight for her friend. "Rogue!"
"Get back!" Rogue cried.
Zombie didn't bother to answer. Just before she could reach them, a laser module lowered from the ceiling and began firing. She had to take cover behind a destroyed robot, was pinned in her position halfway between the safety of the exit and her team leader. Rogue cried out again and that was it for Zombie; she punched her communicator twice. Time to end this bad joke.
Nothing happened. The laser was still firing at her, Rogue was now screaming in pain, and still the program didn't shut off.
Zombie hit her communicator again, called out. "Listen, assholes, this isn't a game, turn it off-"
Wolverine's voice was in a dead panic. "Sally, someone, get Rogue out of there." A scuffle at the microphone, now Cyclops’s voice. "We cannot end the program, repeat, the computer has been sabotaged and we cannot end the program."
Just as she was about to poke her head out from her hiding place, Colossus grabbed her by the back of her jumpsuit and shoved her behind him. Another three lasers joined the one that was firing at her and the massive Russian froze. "I do not think I can withstand four lasers."
Rogue's cries rose; Zombie and Colossus watched as the robot that held their teammate threw her to the ground, where she lay still. Zombie was immediately on her hands and knees ready to stand up, lasers or no lasers. Colossus grabbed her, held her down.
"Let go of me, we have to get Rogue! LET ME GO, ASSHOLE!"
"You think you are indestructible now?" he demanded in his thick Russian accent, shouting over the crash of metal on metal as something off to their left detonated.
Zombie didn't answer him; she was too busy noticing the explosive ball that was poising itself over Rogue's prone body. A direct hit with one of those and calibrated jumpsuit or no, Rogue wouldn't survive. She screamed at her friend but Rogue didn't move. The ball began to click and turn; they had twenty seconds before it fell.
She had no choice. Zombie lay down. She looked at Colossus. "Don't say a fuckin’ word and make sure nothing happens to this body." She closed her eyes and concentrated.
Zombie flew out of her body, across the room. Her talent only worked with dead bodies; they were empty shells that she could fill. She had no idea if Rogue was dead or alive, she had no idea if she could actually inhabit a live body, but it didn't really matter; she had to try something or else there would be no body left period.
Zombie shoved herself in Rogue faster than she had ever entered anyone before. Normally the bodies she entered were loose; there was no resistance when she tried to move the dead tissue. This…this was like moving through thick syrup. But she could move. There was no time to get used to the new body; the ball was falling. She simply forced Rogue's eyes open, rolled out of the way and dove awkwardly behind a steel barrier, shielding herself from the explosion.
Everything after that was a little woozy. She vaguely remembered seeing Colossus carry her real body out, a black-haired rag doll in his steel arms. She remembered even less the howls of Wolverine as he tore through the remaining lasers to scoop her new physical self up and carry her out. The next thing she knew, she was watching Jean Grey and Kitty huddled over a form that was prone on the floor.
Dr. Grey was calling her name. "Zombie? Zombie! Can you hear me?"
Zombie shook her head, which felt as heavy as a stone. "I can hear you, I can hear you, stop shouting."
It took her a minute to realize why everyone was staring at her.
Oh. Right.
She looked down. She saw two shapely legs that were way curvier than hers ever had been in her life, and breasts that were two cup sizes bigger than hers. A lock of snow-white hair fell in her eyes, blocking the view of her outstretched, gloved hands.
Everyone was staring at her because she was Rogue.
Jean Grey approached her cautiously. "Zombie? Is that you?"
"I guess so." It was Rogue’s voice she was speaking with, minus the usual southern accent.
Jubilee's breath became very hitched in the silence of the room. "Oh my god. Rogue's dead," she whispered. Zombie started; of course that was Jubilee's natural conclusion. Zombie could only enter dead bodies. Which meant Rogue had died. But that didn't feel right, not at all. She was way too cramped to be in the body alone.
Jean reached for a pulse point on Rogue's neck but Zombie blocked her arm, backed away. "I don't think you want to do that."
"Zombie, we have to see if Rogue-"
"She's not dead. I've been inside plenty of dead bodies and she sure as shit doesn't feel dead."
"Then I need to check her out." Jean reached for her again; again Zombie swatted her hand away.
"No offense, doc, but you're not touching Rogue's skin with your bare hands. She absorbs people's thoughts and there's already one too many people running around up here," Zombie tapped Rogue's temple with Rogue's finger, "as it is." She was semi-shocked to find herself ordering a teacher around but hey, she had to say SOMETHING.
Jean's jaw dropped, she looked down at her hands and drew away. Zombie turned to Wolverine, who was standing with his claws still released, a scorch mark vivid across the shoulder of his white t-shirt. So he had been hit trying to rescue her.
“What the hell happened in there?” she accused Cyclops. “We told you to shut the program off.“
“Someone sabotaged the mainframe. Manual control was overridden and shut us out.”
“Wha-“ she started but the pressure of two spirits in one body overcame her; she crumpled to the ground, fading in and out of reality.
“Help me get them to the MedLab,” Jean instructed, levitating both bodies and then directed them toward the lab that doubled as an in-house hospital. Zombie pretty much zoned out after that.
She was standing hip-deep in a field of some kind of crop. It was endlessly green-gold and it might have been corn, it might have been wheat. Or asparagus; she grew up in New York City, she didn’t know jack about plants.
She looked up. A warm morning sun was shining down, warming her winter-pale skin. She looked down; she was in her own body, which looked very out of place in the colorful country setting. Vaguely she was aware that somewhere, elsewhere, she was actually trapped in Rogue’s body . She wondered what was going on in the other place, if she was under a spell or hallucinating or just plain dead. But this felt so real, so warm and comfortable that she decided to take it step by step. Birds sang in the distance, welcoming the black and white stranger into their midst.
First things first. “Hello?” she called in that loudly cautious voice someone uses when they didn’t expect an answer but wanted to say something anyway just to make some noise. Strangely enough, she was answered by a familiar molasses-tinged voice.
“Hey stranger. What’re you doin’ ‘round these parts?” It was Rogue and her voice was coming from Zombie’s left. She headed in that direction, picking her way carefully through the plants in her oversized combat boots. By the time she stepped into a clearing she was covered in corn silk, weeds, and general sticky pollen-y things that refused to brush off her black jeans.
“As I live and breathe, its Sally!”
Zombie looked up from her futile attempts of picking off burrs. Rogue was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a massive Victorian-looking farmhouse. Well, at least Rogue recognized her, which was a step in the right direction.
“Hey Rogue,” she said casually, as if winding up in a strange field of corn happened every day.
Her friend frowned at her. “Did you hit your head or somethin’? Ah’m Marie, remember?”
Zombie stiffened in surprise. She took a second glance at the seated girl. She was dressed simply in a white cotton sundress, bare feet, bare arms, bare hands; more flesh showing than Zombie had ever seen on the girl with the poisonous skin. All warmed by the sun to a nice golden tan. The tell-tale white streak in her hair was gone. The quiet air of frustration that normally surrounded her due to her inability to touch was gone. She was just a young Southern woman swinging on a porch and sipping on lemonade, looking as if she had not a care in the world.
“Marie?” Zombie repeated thoughtfully. So that was her real name. Two years of rooming with her and she’d had no clue, never felt like pressing the issue.
“That’s mah name, don’t wear it out. Come and sit, you look tired.”
Zombie nodded and sat on the porch swing that faced out onto the vast field.
“Can ah get you somethin’ to drink, sugar?”
“Sure.”
Before Zombie realized what was happening, Marie reached over and gave her a friendly squeeze on her pale arm with a bare hand, got up, and padded inside the house. The screen door shut with a bang, as all sturdy old screen doors do. Zombie took the time to knock on the wood of the porch railing; it seemed solid enough. But no way could this be real; Rogue had touched her and nothing happened. No pull, no draining, nothing.
She scratched the side of her nose and waited for her drink, extremely confused.
Before Marie could come back outside with the offered glass of lemonade, a warm lethargic swelling flowed through her. Zombie doubled over and squeezed her eyes shut, small mewling sounds escaping her throat as nausea overwhelmed her. She collapsed on the porch.
The first thing she was aware of was the distinct smell of chemicals. It wasn’t entirely pleasant; it reminded her of the medicinal smell that usually surrounded the bodies she inhabited. A faint beeping in the background; an EKG machine was monitoring her. She definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
“Hey.” A gruff growl to her left. Zombie turned her head and saw an exhausted looking Wolverine perched on a plastic chair that was about three sizes too small for his bulky frame. Everything was lit in muted fluorescent light, typical hospital lighting.
“Hey,” she answered with Rogue’s mouth. Which felt incredibly dry. “Can I have some water?”
He poured her a glass of water and held it to her. Zombie tried to move her arms but it was like trying to move through pea soup. She fell back against the pillows and sighed miserably. Wordlessly he scrounged around for a straw, held it against her lips and let her drink. In the background she saw her real self, black-haired and pale, lying on a bed across the way, complete with matching EKG machine.
“How am I doing? I mean…my body. How am I doing?”
“Your body is fine, Sally,” said a voice from the doorway. She and Wolverine looked; Professor X, Cyclops, and Jean Grey entered the room.
“What about this me? How is Rogue doing?” She couldn’t feel anything physically wrong with the body she was in but it was all still very sluggish. Two people in one body will do that.
“She’s fine,” Jean assured. “You saved her life, you know. That was very quick thinking.”
Zombie fought the urge to say ‘shucks.’ Jean Grey was one of the teachers that she actually got along with on a somewhat respectable level. Plus she never gave her any lectures about her various pranks. A sense of humor went a long way in Zombie’s books. So the compliment actually cleared her head a bit and made her smile.
“You said someone hacked the system?”
Jean looked at Cyclops, who nodded, his face set in stone behind his ruby quartz glasses. “At first we thought it was a glitch in the system but when the safety protocols were overridden, we knew we had a hacker.”
“Who?”
“Mystique. Or one of the others from the Brotherhood. They were completely untraceable. While we were busy trying to get you guys out of there, they logged off.”
“We think they were trying to access the mainframe, not the Danger Room training program,” Jean added. “Hank is working on a new set of security measures as we speak.”
“Is everyone else okay?” Zombie asked.
“Aside from a few bruises,” Cyclops said. “They’re fine. They want to see you as soon as you feel up to it.”
“I feel…fine. I think.” Her eyes strayed to her pale form lying across the way. It was weird hearing Rogue’s voice instead of her own.
“Sally, can you give us a report?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened to Rogue?” Professor Xavier asked.
“She fell. She wasn’t responding to my calls. An explosive charge was set to drop on her; no one could reach her in time. So I entered her body and animated her, got her out of the line of fire.”
Wolverine exploded. “But where IS she?” The desperate tone in his voice made her eyebrows rise; he never got that emotional over anyone, not even when Jubilee slipped on a patch of Bobby’s ice while doing handstands and broke her arm.
Zombie closed her eyes for a second, feeling around inside Rogue’s body. She opened her eyes. “I’m not sure.”
Wolverine growled. “What?”
“I...I don’t know where she is.”
The big bad wolf choked. “So she is dead.”
“No! She’s most definitely…in here.” Her body’s alive, her heart is beating, I’m not doing that. A dead body stays dead when I’m in it. Which means she’s in here. Somewhere. I just…don’t know where.” A vague image of a golden field and a hulking white farmhouse flashed through her brain, followed by the idea of Scarlett O’Hara, the ultimate Southern Belle, dressed in all white drinking a mint julep on a porch and staring off into the sunset. Only instead of looking like Viviane Lee, it looked like Rogue.
“But if you go back to your body, she should…revive, right?”
Zombie shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know. I’d leave…I’m pretty sure I can leave…but right now I'm the only one that is aware of what's going on. She's here but she's not...awake. I think. I just...” She knew what she wanted to say; that if she left and Rogue's spirit didn't take over its rightful place then she could end up a vegetable. Or worse. She was just having a hard time explaining it.
She tried again. "If I leave and she doesn’t come out of wherever she’s hiding, her body may die.”
The room was silent. She suddenly felt an overwhelming amount of responsibility. Rogue’s life was in her hands, fully and entirely. When she was with the team, she had every single member watching her back, looking out for each other. No one was going to be able to help her this time.
“I’m sorry,” Zombie whispered.
Wolverine spoke immediately. “Don’t be sorry, kid. You saved her life. We should be thanking you.”
Zombie actually felt the body she was in blush. It was a new experience; the bodies she usually inhabited didn’t have enough blood left in them to blush.
"Sally," Xavier was asking, "May I?"
She knew what he wanted. "I guess. Just don't touch me. Two's company but three's a crowd." She already felt like a size 10 foot shoved into a size 8 shoe. No telling what would happen if Rogue's skin absorbed someone else's personality.
"All right."
Professor Xavier closed his eyes. Because the situation called for it, Zombie shut her eyes as well, and waited.
She didn't have to wait long.
She could feel his mind wrap around hers. Images flashed, like her life was being played on extreme fast forward.
Six year old Sally wondering why she didn't look like the other kids her age. Being an outsider on the playground. Whispers in the classroom; creepy, evil, death- hushed fearful musings that were as close as any of the other children wanted to get to the pale-skinned girl.
A memory of the first time she had left her body: looking down at her empty shell and thinking she had died. Another memory: being drawn, pulled like a magnet into a recently deceased body in a funeral home. Not minding the utter creepiness of the act, feeling more right being alone with dead bodies than she did with the normal kids in the fifth grade.
A memory of right before she came to the Institute: a thug on the underground circuit trying to convince her to kill bank guards and then animate their bodies to let people into safe deposit boxes. It never occurred to her to cause the deaths of others so she could use them- she was horrified at the idea that her powers could be used in such a way. Despite being an outsider, despite looking just strange enough that people could automatically identify that she was a mutant, she never wished harm on humanity. She was what she was. It wasn't right, it wasn't wrong, it just was. Animating dead Elvis for a photo op was sneaky and maybe disrespectful to the dearly departed King but it was all in fun. Killing someone just to use their body; THAT was wrong.
There was only one problem. These were all her memories, none of Rogue's.
~Do you see her~ she whispered to Professor Xavier, who was a distinct presence by her mental side.
A flash of the sun-warmed farmhouse, only now there was a massive oak tree in the yard, and a tire swing. The sound of Rogue's laughter.
She felt the Professor try and grasp this image in his mental fist, try and draw it out, but there was a strong, fierce resistance. For a second Zombie literally felt like she was being torn in two.
She hitched in a breath to moan in pain; a second later the Professor released her mind and she was alone in Rogue's body. Well, for the most part. She looked at the Professor, they were both panting.
“…ow,” Zombie said as an afterthought, watching stars dance across her vision.
"What, what happened?" Wolverine was asking as the stars receded.
"Sally was correct, Rogue is still very much alive. She is buried deep in her subconscious, pushed there when Sally entered her body. Unfortunately…she does not want to come out."
Every jaw in the room, including Zombie's, dropped. A collective "what?!" echoed in the stainless steel MedLab.
“I sensed her mind but when I tried to draw her out she resisted. If I pushed her, I would only succeed in damaging both Rogue and Sally’s psyche. I fear…” Professor Xavier sighed deeply. “I fear that Sally is right. If she leaves this body, Rogue may very well not come out of her subconscious. If that is the case, she will die.”
Zombie became acutely conscious that everyone in the room was, once again, staring at her. She shrugged. “Okay. So I’m staying put for the time being. What am I supposed to do now?”
“You are relieved of your duties in the Junior X-Men and you are confined to the grounds. You are to remain in Rogue’s body until we can find a way to coax Rogue out from hiding.” Xavier sighed philosophically. “It is true that every cloud has a silver lining. While you remain with Rogue, there won’t be any more stories of the living dead roaming around town asking for directions to Disneyland.”
“How did you know that was me?” Zombie asked.
Charles Xavier’s grin was wry. “You just told me.”
Zombie was under doctor’s orders to remain on bed rest overnight, and she would meet with Professor Xavier in the morning. Normally she would complain; she was a night owl and preferred to stay up late doing some mischievous thing or another. But with everything that had happened, she was wiped.
Everyone had left the MedLab. Well, everyone…but Wolverine. He was hanging back against the wall, staring at her. The two of them really weren’t on the best of terms, and oddly enough Zombie felt like a third wheel…or a brick wall, something that was keeping the Wolverine from Rogue.
“Look, I know this is weird, okay?” she finally said.
It won her a snort from his direction.
“You think I’m enjoying this?”
“I didn’t say that,” he rasped, still leaning against the far wall.
“Look…come over here or get out. I hate people who hover. They make me nervous.”
Zombie expected him to stomp out. Instead he came over and sat in the chair next to her bed. Automatically he reached for her gloved hand, and held it between his palms. That was waaaaaaaaaay too weird for her; she gently but firmly pulled her hand back.
“I may look like her, I may sound like her. But I’m not…I’m Zombie. And you ‘n I aren’t friends.” She almost wanted to apologize to him; he looked absolutely lost. Instead she asked, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure, kid.”
“How did you two meet?”
He sat back; a dark shadow that was wearing navy sweats. “She never told you?”
“No. Rogue and I…” Zombie shrugged. “One of the reasons we get along so well is that we both don’t like to talk about our past and we respect that about each other. I mean…I knew she ran away from home when she was 15. Other than that, I’ve heard rumors, but that’s about it.”
He nodded. “I picked her up in Canada. Well…more like she picked me up. She tried to hitch a ride by hiding in my camper.”
Zombie tried to imagine 15-year-old Rogue drifting through the Canadian territories; a young, frightened girl burdened with poisonous skin. Canada would have been a smart move; she could have covered herself from head to toe and fit in perfectly. Zombie’s respect for Rogue grew.
“Guess she didn’t know you were a mutant, huh?” She couldn’t see any other way teenage Rogue would pick the burly Wolf-man over someone who looked a tad…safer.
Wolverine shook his head. “She knew. She saw me in action when some guys decided they deserved the money I had won. But she didn’t care. She was…” His eyes drifted to a point over her shoulder but Zombie knew he wasn’t seeing the MedLab wall, he was seeing a scene from years ago. His features softened. “…She was something.” As Zombie watched, he caught himself and slid his “I’m a Badass” mask back into place. She realized with a start that she had just viewed the man behind the Wolverine, she had seen him the way Rogue saw him: as Logan.
Whoa. Score one for Rogue for having an ounce of taste. When he wasn’t being an asshole, he was kind of cute.
Kind of. Still not her type though.
“We were attacked by the Brotherhood but the X-Men rescued us, and brought us here. Seemed like a decent enough place.” Wolverine grimaced. “I’m not sure how much she’d want me to be tellin’ you. Rogue likes her privacy.”
Listening to his voice, hearing about how he and Rogue met, caused a stirring inside Zombie, and echo of agreement that yes, she did like her privacy so butt out, thank you very much. She must’ve had a funny look on her face, she saw Wolverine gazing at her intently.
“Is it her? Can she hear me?”
Zombie thought for a moment. “I have no idea. This is weird, it’s like…it’s like what I imagined it would feel like to be pregnant, you know, something’s inside of me that’s not me. Guh,” she said, shuddering. “Remind me never to try that one out. No thank you,” she muttered to herself. Whatever stirred before had now receded, leaving Zombie still and calm inside Rogue’s body. She closed her eyes and focused for a second. A light bulb flickered on in her mind, and began to burn brightly. She opened her eyes, and looked at Wolverine.
“Did Rogue…ever tell you her name? Her real name?”
Wariness edged his features. “Yeah. Why?”
Zombie felt like she was pulling an idea the size of an orange through a hole in her memory that was the size of a grape. She struggled with it but eventually it came through. “Is it Marie?”
His mouth opened slightly; it was the only ounce of surprise he showed. “How…?”
Again the image of a white farmhouse under a clear blue sky, surrounded by fields of green. She could almost feel the heat of the sun on her shoulders. She was sitting next to Rogue- to Marie- on the porch.
“She told me, in a dream.”
“You wouldn’t know her real name if it was just a dream.”
Zombie nodded her head. She desperately wanted to take her gloves off but it wasn’t a good idea; if she forgot she was in Rogue’s body and touched someone, she’d be in trouble. “So…what if it wasn’t a dream?”
Wolverine had started to get a look in his eyes, a look that said he was contemplating trying to reach in with his bare hands and physically pull Rogue out of the subconscious dream world she was hiding in. So Zombie told him to get the hell out of her room and let her get some sleep.
He hadn’t been very happy hearing those words from Rogue’s mouth.
Very slowly, Zombie climbed out of her bed. She winced at the cold floor beneath her feet, and stiffly padded to the other bed, where her own body lay.
This was weird. Way weird. She’d never really taken the time to look at her empty body before, never been in a position when she’d been unable to return from a host body.
“Hey,” she whispered softly, even though there was no point in talking; there was no one in her body that could hear her. That didn’t really matter; it felt good to talk to someone who wasn’t going to sass her back.
“We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
She waited, agreed with the silent answer.
“Yeah. You're right.”
Double-checking to make sure the gloves were on and there was no skin showing, she slowly traced the curve of her body’s cheek. Funny, in a way both bodies were hers and yet she couldn’t feel the sensation of touch or being touched.
She looked so small, so helpless with an IV in her arm and EKG pads stuck to her temples. The fluorescent light turned her unnaturally pale skin bone-white, and emphasized the dark circles under her closed eyes, the dried blood against the corner of her mouth where her lip had split in the midst of the firefight. She looked so young and fragile, and those were the two things she tried so hard not to be.
Zombie suddenly missed herself very much.
“I won’t leave Rogue in here by herself. Think you can handle being on your own for awhile?”
Her comatose body didn’t answer.
“Great. I knew I could count on you.”
Zombie sat down on a plastic chair next to the hospital bed and watched the slow rise and fall of her body’s chest. What on earth would make Rogue not want to face reality? What was it she was running from? Eventually her own breathing fell into the same rhythm as the limp form on the bed in front of her, and she was lulled to sleep.
The world bobbed up and down unnervingly. Her equilibrium was disturbed and Zombie stumbled. She looked down and realized that the world wasn’t moving up and down, she was; she was standing on a floating wooden pier that extended twenty feet into a clear pond. Behind her the dock was tied to a fallen tree. In front of her, Rogue was sitting on the edge of the pier, her bare legs dangling into the water, a fishing pole resting in her hands. Zombie caught herself; no, not Rogue: Marie. Marie Marie Marie. This was Rogue’s subconscious, her self-created world, and in her world, she was Marie. Which meant-
Yup. She was back in her own body. Even if it was only a dream, the pale spindly arms and wild black curls were a considerable comfort.
Zombie needed to talk to her friend, find out why she preferred this world to the real one. She tried to smile in a non-threatening, friendly way, something that was almost totally alien to her. She hoped she didn’t look like a grinning skeleton.
“Hey, Marie!” she called.
Marie had turned, a wide smile on her face. She obviously didn’t mind Zombie showing up unexpectedly. “Hey, girl! Where’ve you been?”
Zombie picked her way carefully down the free-floating pier. “Around.”
“Ah missed you.” Marie watched her awkward progress, a dimple denting her cheek as Zombie finally plopped down beside her.
It was a hot day, and Zombie was dressed accordingly in a black tank top, black cutoff jean shorts and her usual knee-high black combat boots. She stripped the boots off and dangled her legs over the side of the pier, her toes immersing in the cool water.
“Wow, that feels really good,” she said, watching the reflection of the light on the water distort her toes into tiny pale sausages.
“Wanna go swimming?” Marie asked.
“Won’t that scare off the fish?”
“Naw,” Marie scoffed, “Ah haven’t caught anything today anyway.”
Zombie glanced into the pond. “I don’t have a suit.”
Marie winked at her. “Ah won’t tell if you won’t.” With that she stood, set the fishing pole aside, and shucked off her cotton shorts. Before Zombie could say anything, Marie let out a yowl and jumped in wearing just her panties and her cotton camisole.
Zombie was like a cat; she hated water whether it was real or in a dream. But she desperately wanted to get closer to Marie. With an inward sigh she pulled off her shorts and tank top and stood; a too-skinny girl with gangly arms in black panties and a black bra, eyeing the water like it was going to jump up and bite her. Perhaps now would be a good time to mention she didn’t really know how to swim.
“Scairdy-cat!” Marie called, afloat on her back in the middle of the pond.
Zombie pinched her nose shut and jumped in.
It wasn’t as bad as she expected. The sun warmed the water, and once she stored up enough courage to let her death-grip on the pier go and saw that she didn’t sink like a stone, she didn’t have any reason to hate the experience. Zombie wasn’t a giggly girlie girl but she came rather close as she and Marie raced each other across the pond and back, got into a splashing fight and laughed their way through a pathetic attempt at water ballet. When Marie bombed her with a cannon-ball, Zombie retaliated by grabbing her friend’s shoulders and dunking her under the water. Touching the untouchable girl was getting easier and easier; Zombie didn’t even worry about it. In her world, Marie’s skin wasn’t deadly.
A-ha.
They were lying on the dock, their heads bowed together as they whispered meaningless secrets to each other, watching the clouds roll by and letting the warm breeze dry their clothes. Zombie learned that Marie liked Chinese food but hated broccoli. Her favorite singer was Nina Simone and back at the farmhouse she was raising a litter of kittens that some cold-hearted stranger abandoned at her doorstep. Bits and pieces of Rogue’s real life was sprinkled in with this made-up fantasy; she asked after Kitty and Jubilation but swore she had never been to New York state, where the Institute was located.
Zombie’s arms were flung over her head and Marie’s bare cheek rested casually on Zombie’s shoulder. By now Zombie recognized the unconscious need Marie had to touch and be touched. But was that a strong enough reason to shy away from a reality where she was untouchable?
Zombie was enjoying the carefree feeling of lying under the sun with a friend. She’d never done this before. Never really wanted to, before. She wanted it to last longer, but it was time to broach The Subject.
“Hey, Marie?”
“Hey, what?’ Marie said drowsily.
She had to be careful. "Did I ever tell you I loved your house?”
“No, ya didn’t. Thanks!”
“How long have you lived there?”
“All mah life.”
“What about your mom and dad, where are they?”
Oooo, that was a touchy subject; Marie was sitting up and looking strangely at her. A cloud passed in front of the sun and it got slightly colder. Zombie sat up too, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging them to her nonexistent chest.
“Why do ya wanna know?”
Zombie shrugged, hopefully looking nonchalant. “I’ve never met them before. I was just wondering what they’re like.”
Marie looked out over the water. “They left me a long time ago. Ah don’t think about them.”
It was definitely colder now. If this dreamworld was indeed connected to Rogue’s subconscious, then Zombie could tell she was obviously swimming into dangerous waters. She switched subjects.
“I’m hungry. Wanna go back to the house and make some popcorn?”
The cloud passed over the sun and it was warm again. Marie smiled, delighted at the idea. “Sure!” She stood and pulled on her shorts, slid on her well-worn Keds. “Race you to the house!”
Marie took off, leaving Zombie still shivering despite the sunshine. She felt a rising sickness in her stomach and closed her eyes.
“Not now,” she muttered.
And woke up.
"…and when I asked her about her parents, it got colder. Like the weather was reflecting how she felt. When she’s happy, it’s warm and sunny. If she’s sad or uncomfortable, it gets cold."
Zombie was sitting in Professor Xavier’s office, explaining the details of last night’s dream to Professor Xavier, who sat silent and contemplative behind his massive mahogany desk, Jean Grey and Cyclops, who were mismatching bookends on either side of the Professor, and Wolverine, who hung back in the shadows and brooded. It felt good to be out of the cold, impersonal setting of the MedLab.
"And you said she has no knowledge of us?" Cyclops asked.
"Well…yes and no. She asked about Kitty and Jubilee but the word ‘mutant’ was never brought up. In her world…she’s normal. She’s picking and choosing what to let in and what to shut out."
"Fascinating." It was the first thing the Professor said all morning.
Zombie pushed a lock of white hair out of her eyes with a gloved hand and shrugged. "I wanted to talk to her more but I woke up."
"Yes, of course."
The room fell silent, Zombie wanted to squirm in her seat. Too many years of being in an office getting lectured conditioned her to be uncomfortable in this kind of room. Judging by the way Wolverine kept shifting against the bookcase he was leaning on, he felt the same way.
"What should I do now?"
"It’s ten o clock. Why don’t you try and resume your classes today. It would do you well to focus on something new for the time being, lest frustration set in." It was the Professor’s final word on the matter.
He summarily dismissed her, and Zombie left the room slowly, muttering ‘easy for you to say.’ He didn’t have to exert himself making someone else’s body move.
"Hey, kid, wait up."
Zombie turned her head and glared at Wolverine. "Ha, ha." Two of his paces matched ten of hers. He could have run five laps around the mansion in the time it took her to walk the seventy feet to Ms. Monroe’s biology class. He slowed down to a snail’s crawl to match her pace. Annoyed that he of all people was witness to her struggle, she stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. And failed. She still wasn’t used to compensating for the fact that, unlike her normal body, Rogue had breasts. She settled for putting her hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently. "What do you want?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her, his gaze running from the messy ponytail Zombie had gathered Rogue’s long hair into, to her kohl-rimmed eyes, to the black mesh shirt, black denim jacket, black gloves, black jeans, all the way down to her black boots and then back up again. Zombie scowled at him; she had already dealt with smartass comments from Kitty and Jubilee about her choice of wardrobe. She couldn’t help it if she didn’t dress like Rogue.
"I'm not gonna stop being me just because I'm trapped in her body," she threatened before he could open his mouth. Now both his eyebrows were raised.
"I wasn't gonna say anything."
"Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure," she dragged that word out over five seconds and dripped every ounce of sarcasm she could into it. That caused his usual scowl he reserved solely for intimidation purposes to cross his face for the first time since he called her 'deadmeat' yesterday morning.
"You wanna watch who you're talking to, kid," he growled dangerously. "I'm your teacher, in case you’ve forgotten."
Zombie tensed, Wolverine tensed, and she thought for a fraction of a second that they were about to come to blows. Then she smiled and relaxed.
"I was wondering when you were gonna stop treating me like her."
It took a few extra seconds for her words to pass through his raised defenses. The second they did, he stood down.
"I wasn't-"
"Yeah you were. If you hadn't, my ass would have been grass for telling you to get the hell out last night."
That won her the barest of smiles. He regarded her for a few moments. "Yeah, yer probably right."
Holy shit. The Wolverine admitting she was right? Zombie would have paid a thousand dollars for someone to get this conversation on tape.
"Listen...I gotta get to class."
"Lemme help."
"I don't need your help."
He scowled at her again, but it was less fierce than before. "Just shuddup and say 'okay.' Okay?"
And that was how she found herself with her arm entwined through his as he helped her shuffle awkwardly down the hallway to the biology lab.
"Once I get warmed up its not as bad," Zombie said to fill the semi-awkward silence. "Normally I feel like a puppeteer, I mean when I'm...you know. Only with this body all the strings are twisted together and it’s hard to get it to move."
A group of younger students bumped into her as they rushed to class; she had to clutch at Wolverine's arm lest she collapse on the floor. She muttered a very distinct and loud, very unRogue-like curse, and all three kids turned to stare at her with round eyes. She barely managed to not snarl at them.
Wolverine decided to do it for her "Go on, get to class," he growled. One of the kids, Lightning, was gone before she could blink. The other two, the ones that weren't gifted with sonic speed, fled a lot slower. Zombie sighed and resumed her shuffling gait.
"I feel like I should have 'I'm not Rogue' tattooed on my forehead."
"They're just kids."
She reached the classroom door and slipped her arm away from his. He was a relatively tall guy; even as Rogue, who was three inches taller than Zombie was normally, she still had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes.
SHE knew that HE knew she wasn’t Rogue. But that knowledge didn’t bank the fires she saw burning in his eyes. In that split second Zombie realized that the Wolverine wanted Rogue as much as Rogue wanted him.
"Meet me for coffee," she said before she thought about the recklessness behind her invitation.
That one eyebrow of his rose sharply.
"After class. In the kitchen. I want to talk to you about-" she lowered her voice and glanced around before continuing. "…about Marie. I need to know some things before I talk to the Professor again."
"What-"
Zombie cut him off with a bright, sassy smile. "Just shuddup and say ‘okay.’ Okay?" she mimicked his gruff tone from earlier.
The look he gave her was so unruly and sadistic that she knew the second she got back in her regular body, she’d be doing laps until she puked.
Great. Just great.
It was illogical for anyone to expect her to be able to focus on something as mundane as cell structure. She could barely focus in class on a normal day, much less on a day when a) everyone kept turning around in class to stare at her because b) she was trapped in someone’s body that c) had a really bad itch between her shoulder blades, and everyone was too afraid to scratch it for her lest Rogue’s skin suck their life away. Zombie had to resort to using a pencil down the back of her shirt, twisting uncomfortably this way and that, until Ms. Monroe asked her to settle down.
Class couldn’t end fast enough. Rather than waste time in Dr. McCoy’s physics lecture, Zombie stiffly made her way to the kitchen. Since most everyone else was in class, she was the only one in the kitchen as she started banging around in the cupboards, looking for coffee. She opened the pantry, spied the coffee tin on the top shelf.
And swore. She couldn’t reach it. And she wasn't able to balance Rogue well enough to even think about standing on a chair. What she wouldn’t give for some telepathic skills right about now.
An arm reached around her and grabbed the tin, held it in front of her eyes. She grabbed it from Wolverine and turned.
"Thanks."
Nothing else needed to be said, at least not until the coffee was done. Zombie busied herself with measuring the coffee and pouring the water. It took her awhile; she was still slow. But he didn’t offer help or conversation, he just stood in the open doorway smoking a cigar and looking out over the trees that lined the massive lawn. She had to grudgingly admit to herself that she appreciated the fact that the man knew when to just shut the fuck up. She was even willing to maybe…MAYBE begin to contemplate the idea that the Wolverine wasn’t such a bad guy.
Rogue could do a lot worse.
Zombie poured two cups of steaming coffee; the fumes making her feel at least a little less like a Rogue clone and more like herself.
"Did Rogue ever talk to you about her parents?"
Wolverine was shaking his head slowly. "Uh-uh."
Zombie bit her lip, sipped her coffee and winced. "Shit, too hot." She blew on the scalding liquid. "Did she ever talk to you about her childhood?"
Wolverine sipped his coffee, didn’t even flinch. Macho bastard. "Nope."
"Well Jesus, did she EVER talk to you?" Zombie said crossly. She couldn’t help Rogue if Wolverine couldn’t help her. He was the only person Rogue ever opened up to, really. "What about her skin? Did she ever talk to you about that?"
Wolverine paused.
Bingo.
"Yeah, sometimes." He fell silent.
"Wellllllllllll?" she prompted. "Like…does she deal well with the whole not touching thing? What’s it like for her when she touches someone?"
"You’ve seen her touch people."
"Duh. I know what happens. But I mean…how does she feel about it? Come on, you know what I’m trying to say."
"Then say it."
She sighed. "Does she hate it?"
Wolverine was silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. She turned away.
"Yeah. She does."
Zombie waited.
"She doesn’t just take their energy or their mutant gift or…whatever. Let me put it this way," he said quietly, "you’re not the first person she’s had camped out inside her head."
"Has she ever…killed anyone?" She was awed in a horrified kind of way. Maybe it was the fact that she had never thought about how easily Rogue could have hurt her as they shared a living space…or maybe it was the look of fear on Wolverine’s face as he spoke: the man who feared nothing looked like he feared the skin of the untouchable girl.
"She came close a few times."
"Who?"
"One of her friends from back home. Her mother. Some random guys in a barfight. And me," he finished so quietly, Zombie thought she hadn’t heard him right.
"What?"
"It was awhile ago, when we first came to the Institute. Both times...it was a matter of life or death. She had to touch me...she had to take my healing factor or else she would have died. Both times she almost did die...and she almost took me with her."
The Wolverine? Dead? "But I thought you couldn't die."
"Yeah, I thought so too...'til I met Marie."
Rogue's name trembled on his lips, Zombie mistook it as fear. "So you're afraid of her."
Up his gaze came from his coffee to smack her square in the face, pin her where she was standing. "No. I'm afraid for her."
You're not the first person she's had camped out in her head.
Zombie understood. "She took you into her along with your healing factor, didn't she?"
His silence was a confirmation. Zombie knew of his insomnia; suddenly Rogue's matching sleeping problems made sense.
"Those nightmares she has...those are your nightmares, aren't they?"
Wolverine advanced on her in a heartbeat; he looked so furious that her hand spasmed in a brief moment of fright and her mug crashed to the floor, splattering her jeans with coffee. She didn't notice; he was right in her face.
"What do you know about the nightmares?" he hissed.
"N-nothing. I only know that when she has them, she doesn't sleep. And neither do I."
"Does she...talk to you about them?"
Her moment of fear had passed, now Zombie was pissed at him for thinking that somehow, someway she was invading Rogue's privacy by knowing about his nightmares. She stood her ground and scowled up at him. "No."
"Then why don’t you sleep?"
"Because when you're woken up from a dream by someone screaming bloody murder, it would take you awhile to get back to sleep too," she shouted at him, her grating New York dialect distorting Rogue's normally sweet and gentle voice.
She stomped across the kitchen as best she could, which meant she sort of limply hopped, to grab the paper towels and hobble back. She shoved the roll of towels in his hands. "You clean it up. If I bend down I can't guarantee I'll ever manage to straighten up again."
He silently complied, a muscle in his jaw ticking steadily. She leaned against the fridge and watched him, both of them taking the time to calm down.
"You're not afraid of her skin? Even thought she almost killed you? Twice?"
Wolverine shook his shaggy head. His jaw was still clenched.
"But you're afraid for her. Why?"
"Because she has to live with my nightmares," he said simply. "And the nightmares, the hatred, the greed, the rage of everyone else she touches. One day it might overwhelm her." And the thought of losing her kills me.
He didn’t say the last sentence but he didn’t need to. Zombie read it clearly in his eyes.
All these pieces of a puzzle given to her by both Rogue and Wolverine were starting to form a picture of who they really were: a man and a woman named Marie and Logan. And she was learning way too much for her own comfort about a certain gym teacher. She still didn’t like him but her respect for him was growing beyond the borders of their mutually antagonistic teacher-student relationship. It was a dismal thought; one of her favorite pastimes was yanking his chain. Like the time she replaced the leather cord his gym whistle hung on with a doggie collar.
A smile spread across her face at that fond memory.
And Zombie felt the flutter of Marie across her mind. She closed her eyes and stilled.
Yup, there she was, a faint glimmer on the outskirts of her consciousness, brought there by Zombie’s memory of Wolverine.
"Sally? What-"
"Shut up," she hissed, trying hard not to scare off the small part of Rogue that ventured out of her subconscious. Come on, little Marie, I have something you want, don’t I? I have Logan looking at me and wishing I were you-
Wolverine was waiting anxiously. Marie had paused and was listening. She needed to do something, something that could bring the three of them closer together.
She started to speak. "When I was 13," she said so calmly she could have been sitting at high tea with the Queen of England, "a bunch of older boys grabbed me as I walked home from school. Rumors about mutants had been flying around and they wanted to teach the freaks a lesson."
There was no reason whatsoever to be telling both Wolverine and Rogue this bit of her past that she had never spoken about until now…but something told her it was a good idea. She was privy to their hidden secrets, it seemed fair that they were privy to one of hers.
She continued. "I thought they were going to rape me. But they said I was so ugly they wouldn’t be able to get it up, and that they didn’t want to touch a freak. Instead they hit me over the head, knocked me out. The last thought I had was that they were going to kill me." Her mouth was dry from the painful memory; Zombie had to swallow. "When I woke up, I was in a coffin. I heard muffled thumps on the lid, and I realized what was going on."
The faces of the six boys who surrounded her were burned into her memory, as clear as if they were standing in front of her now.
"They buried me alive."
She felt Marie’s horror, felt her flee away from the story of mutant persecution, back into the safety of her kitten-and-popcorn filled subconscious. Shit.
Zombie blew out a frustrated breath and cursed. "Fuck." She opened her eyes. "So much for sharing, she ran away. Guess she didn’t want to listen to my anecdote. Dammit."
Marie may have been gone but Wolverine wasn’t. He was staring at her, a look of muted horror and understanding on his face. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction to her story she was expecting, but it wasn’t…empathy.
"What happened?" He wasn’t talking about Rogue and she knew it.
"Well, duh, I obviously got out, I’m standing here aren’t I?" She looked down at Rogue’s body. "Well…kind of," she amended.
"Tell me."
Zombie glared at him suspiciously. "Why?"
"Ya wouldn’t have said anything unless ya wanted to say it, kid. So tell me."
Knowing he wanted to know more about her suddenly made her awkward. She wasn’t really used to sharing about herself. Ever. Period.
"I screamed and screamed," she said eventually, unable to meet Wolverine’s eyes. "They heard me…they laughed. I was fairly new to using my gift…it took me a long time to calm down and realize where I was, and how I could use that to my advantage. I left my body and animated the closest corpse I could. The boys were gone by that time. I went through three corpses trying to dig myself out. Dead people don’t have a very good grip on shovels," she finished, smiling morbidly. "I dug the coffin out, opened it up, returned to my body and climbed out of the grave."
She looked up from the tile that her gaze had been fixed on as she related her story. Wolverine was standing in the doorway again, puffing on another cigar.
"I know why Marie didn’t stay to listen."
A puff on the cigar, a bird call in the distance. Zombie shivered; it was getting cold out.
"A group of men grabbed her outside a bar and tried to rape her."
"What?"
He nodded stiffly, stubbed out his cigar on the porch railing and tossed it into the bushes. "It was a few months before I met her. She doesn’t like to talk about it. All I know is that she had to use her gift to get out of the situation...kinda like you."
Wolverine paused to let the similarity between the girls’ pasts sink in.
"She came close to killing all of them with just a touch of her finger. They were with her, inside her mind, for a long time after that. She had to carry it around all by herself, all their lust and anger…"
Zombie’s mouth was dry. How could she have known?
"…she nearly killed them, but they nearly killed her."
This was exactly what Rogue was choosing to run and hide from. And Zombie had just shoved it in her face. Fuck. She had to talk to Rogue. NOW.
Zombie squared her shoulders and held out a gloved hand. "Help me to the Professor’s office."
Hypnosis is a natural and normal state of the mind in which the body experiences a state of deep physical relaxation while the mind remains clear, alert and focused. In this altered state of awareness, the subconscious mind becomes open and suggestible.
Zombie needed a quick and easy way into Rogue’s subconscious that didn’t involve consuming massive amounts of alcohol to induce sleep. Hypnosis seemed to be her best bet. She related the gist of the conversation she and Wolverine had been having to Professor Xavier, categorically leaving out the most personal details.
"Hypnotize me. You can do it, I know you can," she finished.
Charles Xavier sat behind his desk, across from her. When Zombie fell silent, he maneuvered his wheelchair around the desk to rest within arm’s reach directly in front of her chair.
"On one condition. I want to join you."
Zombie hadn’t considered inviting him along. "Can you do that?" Then she remembered she was talking to the world’s most powerful telepath and felt incredibly stupid. "Fine. But let me do the talking."
Professor Xavier smiled. "Hold out your hands," he instructed calmly.
They were gloved, it was okay; she wouldn’t hurt him. She gave him her hands, and he held them lightly.
"Close your eyes."
Zombie complied willingly, forcing herself to relax as she felt the first touch of the Professor’s mind against her own.
When she opened her eyes she was standing in the field of corn-wheat-whatever that surrounded Marie’s farm. It was nighttime now, and the moon hung low and pregnant in the sky, shining so brightly that she could see fairly well. Once again she was back in her own body, and the moonlight made her too-pale skin glow like a pearl. The stars were bright diamonds in the sky and it was so beautiful that Zombie let out an impressed ‘wow.’
"Indeed," Xavier said from her left. Zombie turned and started; he was standing next to her. Key word being standing: his wheelchair was nowhere to be found.
"Professor!" She had to resist the urge to grab him for fear he would fall to the ground at any second. He heard the shocked urgency in her voice and smiled.
"It’s all right. Apparently there are more benefits to living in Rogue’s subconscious than I thought."
Zombie sighed. "Come on…her house is this way."
They walked through the field, Zombie leading the way because the Professor was savoring the ability to stand on two feet.
The lights in the house were blazing, so Marie was obviously up.
Zombie clomped up the wooden steps and rapped three times on the screen door. She waited with a smile on her face as she heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.
The door opened.
Her smile was frozen on her face. It was a good thing Xavier was a born diplomat because Zombie had no clue what to say.
"Logan. What a surprise. We didn’t expect to see you here," Charles Xavier said smoothly, extending his hand.
There was no question whether or not this was the real Logan. His hair was groomed and his normal muttonchops had receded into decent-looking sideburns. He was still wearing faded jeans and a white t-shirt but the man that shook Xavier’s hand had none of the world-weariness or arrogance of the Wolverine that Zombie knew. He was Marie’s creation: this was her Logan.
He seemed happy enough to see them. "Sally, Charles, we had no idea you were gonna drop by."
Zombie found her tongue. "It was a last minute decision."
"Great! Always glad to see ya, come on in. We were just making popcorn."
We?
Zombie followed Xavier into the house, talking advantage of the men chatting about the woodwork to silently take in the house Marie had created for herself. It was large and roomy, with shining wood floors and lots of casual, comfortable furniture that begged for company to sit on it. The walls of the hallway were decorated with photos filled with smiling people: Kitty and Jubilee and Zombie sitting on a beach and making funny faces at the camera. Scott and Jean on their wedding day. Logan with a red nose and a big grin as he built a snowman. Marie and Logan lying together reading books in a patch of sunlight.
Some pictures Zombie recognized as real but most were fabricated from Rogue’s imagination. Which was a very, very bad sign, the photos, Logan, all of it added up to one thing: this place, this dreamworld, was becoming more and more like home to Rogue.
Zombie stepped on a piece of newspaper lying on the floor.
"Pardon the mess, the kittens still aren’t housetrained," Logan said, explaining the expanse of newspaper-lined hallway. "Hey, Marie, look who stopped by!"
A head poked around the corner, smiled brightly when she saw Zombie.
"Sally! Hey! And Charles, wow!"
It wasn’t long before Zombie found herself seated next to Xavier on an overstuffed couch with kittens crawling over her lap. She glanced at Xavier, who seemed content to observe quietly.
"It’s so weird that you guys came bah tonight," Marie said with a beaming grin on her face, her fingers intertwined with Logan’s. "’Cause we have an announcement."
Zombie knew what Marie was about to say five seconds before she said it. She stiffened in anticipation.
"We’re engaged!"
Jesus. Training kittens. Logan. Pictures. Touching. Marriage. What was next, babies?
Sure. Why not?
Zombie felt cold all over. Exactly- why not have marriage and sex and babies if she could? These were all things Rogue obviously wanted and she was learning real quickly that in this world she could have them. In this world there were no such things as mutants or hatred. In this world she could touch, in this world Logan loved her and wanted her. She could have anything and everything she wanted.
And Zombie had to figure out a way to convince Marie to leave? Fat chance; it sounded so much like paradise that she was considering asking about the real estate prices next door.
Shit, pay attention, she’s talking about how Logan proposed; oh it was so romantic he took me to our favorite spot under the old oak tree and we watched the sun set and he asked me to marry him and-
They looked so perfect together. He was perched on the back of an armchair and she sat between his spread thighs. He was rubbing her shoulders, giving her impulsive kisses on the cheek, running his fingers through her hair…all light and easy touches that indicated a deep love and trust. Whenever they caught each other’s eyes they beamed at each other as if sharing a secret joke. Together, Marie and Logan glowed with happiness. Reality couldn’t compete with this. Could it?
Before she could figure out the best angle to approach the subject, Xavier spoke.
"Marie, I was wondering, would you like to visit my house?"
Marie shrugged. ‘Where is it?"
"In New York. It’s a very special house."
Zombie heard thunder in the distance.
"Special? Like by a lake?"
"Not exactly. It’s a very big house that is also a school."
"Ah don't need to go to school." The thunder was getting closer.
Xavier was undaunted. "It's a special school for special kinds of people."
Marie’s face darkened. Logan, sensing his fiancé’s distress, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Zombie glanced out the window; the trees in the yard were starting to bend in the growing wind. Not good, very not good.
"There are a lot of people like you who live there."
"Ah don’t want ta visit your house," Marie said stubbornly, her lower lip pouting out.
Xavier was determined. "You might like it."
A trace of Wolverine ran through Logan as he growled, low in his throat. "She said she doesn’t want to go."
The thunder was loud now. The storm was almost here.
"But-"
"Shut up," Zombie hissed suddenly, grabbing Xavier’s arm and digging her nails in. "She doesn’t have to visit your house if she doesn’t want to."
The outrage in Xavier’s eyes was clear.
What are you doing, Sally?
The message in her eyes was just as blatant.
Saving your ass from getting hit with a mental thunderbolt. Now shut the fuck up.
She turned to Marie, all smiles. "That is so cool that you guys are getting married. When’s the wedding?"
Just like before, at the pond, the storm dissipated when Marie wasn’t being threatened with reality. She smiled brightly and began to discuss the details of the special day with all the exuberance of an evangelist discussing the Holy Lord. Zombie could tell Xavier was livid but she shut him out and focused on Marie and the smitten Logan.
What the Professor didn’t get was that he couldn’t bring reality into Rogue’s world. Rogue had to want to leave her world for reality. And there was only one way she could see that happening. But there wasn’t much time.
As soon as it was appropriate she excused herself, tugging on Xavier’s sleeve and nodding her head toward the door. He got the hint and made his apologies. Logan walked them to the door as Marie cleaned up the kitchen.
"It was nice seeing you again," Logan said politely, but the smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes this time. It was apparent that this Logan was as protective of Marie as his flesh and blood counterpart was. Don’t fuck with my woman.
"Nice seeing you too, Logan. Bye."
She practically had to drag Xavier off the porch.
"You are deliberately playing into her delusion," he accused the second they were out of earshot of the main house.
Zombie stomped her foot on the ground. "Does this look like a delusion?" She reached down and ripped up a fistful of grass, held it to his face. "Does this feel like a delusion?"
Even with all her years of experience of being lectured by the man, she had still never seen Professor Xavier this pissed…
"The longer she stays in her subconscious, creating her own world, the harder it will be to convince her to leave."
…but for all the numerous times she had done something that warranted being disciplined by him, she had never been this pissed either.
"DUH."
"This is not one of your pranks," he fumed, throwing his hands in the air. "Rogue will die-"
"No she won’t-"
People accused her of being lots of different things: a freak, a bitch, a junkie, a loser, and that was okay. People could think whatever they wanted to, but the one thing that she wouldn’t ever let anyone accuse her of was leaving someone behind. She may be a bitch, but she was loyal.
Even if it meant spending the rest of her life living with Rogue’s untouchable skin, Zombie would not leave her friend to die.
"-because I’m staying in this body as long as it takes to convince her to come back. But I’ll wind up having to go through menopause in this body if we don’t wake up RIGHT NOW-"
Zombie opened her eyes. Rogue’s body was a heavy weight that wanted to sag toward the ground, it took all her concentration just to keep it sitting upright. The Professor was staring angrily at her. Fine. Let him be angry. Just because he was the world’s greatest telepath, didn’t mean he knew jack shit about teenage girls.
Her eyes slid across the room to the burly figure that lurked in the shadows.
"Please leave us alone," she asked Professor Xavier, never taking her eyes off Wolverine.
"Sally-"
"Trust me. Please," she pleaded, "for once, trust me not to fuck up."
Xavier was silent, for a moment she thought he would refuse her request. But then the motor of his chair hummed and he rolled out of his office, slamming the door behind him with a quick and angry thought. Zombie was alone with Wolverine.
Whatever crazy reason destiny had in mind when it cast Zombie, the living dead girl, as matchmaker for two of the most obstinate mutants on the face of the planet, it would just have to be figured out later. Right now she instinctively knew she had one chance at this before Rogue built up a wall in her subconscious that would block out all other attempts to coax her back to reality. As Zombie sat, watching Wolverine, she could feel the bricks start to clap into place.
Just because she would live in Rogue's body as long as she needed to didn't mean she wanted to. It was hard enough dealing with one mutant ability, let alone two. As awkward and odd-looking as it was, she missed her body. She wanted to help her friend and she wanted to go home. This had to stop. Now.
She stood up with great difficulty. It was even harder to get Rogue’s body to move toward Wolverine, but she did it. She walked like a drunken monkey, but she still did it. He watched her every step of the way.
"Here’s the deal," she said thickly, Rogue's southern tongue twisting into Zombie's harsh New York accent. "In her world she touches people. She has a home of her own. She’s not a mutant. There is no anger, only beauty. She gets everything she wants."
Don’t be mad, Rogue. But you didn’t have the guts to admit it to his face, so I guess it’s up to me.
Zombie took a deep breath. "Including you."
Wolverine inhaled sharply.
"The last time she was alone but now she has her very own Logan living with her…" Say it, Zombie. "…proposing to her. Loving her. She’s choosing to shut us out completely and frankly I don’t blame her."
It was the truth. Zombie didn't blame Rogue for choosing to hide. Living with Rogue's mutation for the last 48 hours was mildly annoying and a little lonely at best. What would it be like after another 48 hours? A week? A month... She wasn't big on being touchy-feely but even Zombie couldn't imagine what it would be like to never touch anyone again for the rest of her life. She couldn't imagine what it was like to live with other people vying for space inside her head. Nothing in the real world could compare with the life Rogue was mentally building for herself.
Except Logan.
"Every time you talk to me I can feel her listening. She'll listen to you...if you say what she wants to hear."
"And what is that?" His voice was low.
All differences were set aside. Now was the time for truth. "That you love her."
Zombie watched his face run through a gamut of emotions- surprise, anger, fear, sadness- before his expression settled into its characteristic surly frown.
"I don't-"
She interrupted him. "You do. I've heard you talk about her. I've seen you watching her. It's time to get over this badass act and just admit it. You love Marie. And she loves you."
"H-how do you know that?"
Frustration and desperation filled Zombie and caused her to do something she would never normally dare consider: she smacked Wolverine upside the head.
"How dense can you be? I'm her roomate. I'm her teammate. I'm living inside her fucking head. She's in here," Zombie tapped a gloved finger to her temple, "planning your damn wedding. If you don't love her, fine, let her stay in here where its warm and happy. But if you love her and you don't tell her RIGHT NOW you are going to LOSE her FOREVER." She had wanted to be calm and rational but Zombie wound up yelling in Wolverine's face. In retrospect, screaming felt a lot better than calm and rational.
He looked like he didn't know whether to cry or punch her. The latter she understood; it was easier to fight something that was attacking with teeth and knives rather than words. Emotional attacks were a lot harder to defend against. And she didn't give him any time to find firm footing.
"Do you?" she asked, quiet now. Quiet and very curious; what if she was wrong? "Do you love her?"
His jaw was clenched and his eyes were bright. Slowly, very slowly, he nodded.
"Yes? Is that a yes?"
Wolverine's lips formed a 'yes' but no sound came out. He cleared his throat and tried again, this time managing a muted whisper.
"Yeah. I do." He shook his head, guilt falling onto his face like rain. "But she's so young, she's-"
"No. No buts. You can deal with 'buts' later. Right now, you tell her how you feel."
He looked like he would rather be playing dueling banjos with Sabretooth while wearing a glittery leotard. Again Zombie understood exactly what he was thinking. She would have to be present during his intense admission, which would normally have been a private, intimate moment between him and Marie. Regardless of the mutual respect they had developed for each other over the last few days, the fact remained that they were a teacher and a student who were at odds most of the time. Zombie didn't know how he felt but she didn't think just because she now had the inside scoop on his private life, that they could put aside the year and a half of mutual antagonism.
"I won't put up anything you say on the internet, I won't sell the photos on ebay, my LIPS are SEALED. Promise. Just...think of me as the camera guy in a porno." Zombie grinned cheekily. "Just pretend I'm not here."
"Ha ha." He gave her a wry look. "What do I do?"
Zombie moved to the leather couch near the door. She lowered herself carefully into a sitting position, patted the cusion next to her. Wolverine sat next to her warily.
"She likes any memories that have to do with you. I'm going to close my eyes and focus on whatever you're saying. Let's try and draw her out."
Zombie closed her eyes. Wolverine cleared his throat.
"Marie was the first person I can remember that knew I was a mutant and chose to trust me anyway," he said slowly. "I remember the day we met, it was in some sleazy dive I was fighting at." He rubbed a large hand over his face and sighed. "She stood out in the place like a peacock standing next to a buncha pigeons. Marie was different from any other woman I'd met. She wasn't out for a quick fuck with a mutie...she just wanted...to be with someone like her."
There it was. Like butterflies in her stomach, the first flutter of Marie. Just like Zombie predicted, she was listening to Wolverine.
"Keep going," Zombie whispered, her mouth dry. "She's here."
"I remember...she wasn't afraid of me. She was young and scared but she was so full of fire. I always admired that she didn't ever back down when I was mad. She stood her ground."
Behind closed eyes, Zombie could almost see the scene: a smoky bar, a young girl watching an older man and feeling inexplicably drawn to him. Watching him fight and feeling the same thrill he was feeling running through her veins. With a start Zombie realized that she was seeing a memory of Rogue's. A real memory.
Wolverine's voice describing the first meeting with Marie faded out, the roar of the crowd faded in. Zombie was jostled by a crowd of large men in plaid flannels, all screaming for blood. In front of her was a chain link fence cage, inside two shirtless men were fighting. Not the organized, competetive kind of fighting: they were wailing on each other. Well...they kind of were. A familiar figure with familiar muttonchops and a familiar snarl on his face was kicking the other guy's ass.
"He's somethin', isn't he?" a sweet voice drawled. To Zombie's left was a 15-year-old Marie in a full length hooded wool coat. Her eyes were fixated on the man in the cage.
"He sure is," Zombie agreed.
"Ah've wanted him since the moment ah laid eyes on him." Marie glanced at her, daring Zombie to deny her what she wanted.
"He wants you too."
"How do you know that?"
"He told me. Listen."
Zombie could hear Wolverine talking about the first time Marie touched him. She had tried to wake him up from one of his nightmares and had been skewered for her troubles. The horror he felt as the nightmare receded only to find he was faced with a new nightmare: the realization that he had killed the girl who he had wanted to protect. At that time he hadn't known the power her skin held, and instead of killing her she almost killed him.
Marie was listening too. "No he doesn't. Ah nearly killed him. He's afraid of me."
Zombie shook her head vehemenantly, black curls tumbling into her eyes. "He's not. I swear he's not."
She was met with a small smile, and realized that Marie was two steps away from retreating. She moved back from Marie's memory to yell at Wolverine.
"This isn't working. Tell her you love her, not that you're afraid of her."
"I'm not afraid of her," he insisted.
Marie was pulling back into her fantasy world. If she went back now, she'd never allow Zombie back in, and she'd never come out.
"I'm losing her," Zombie wailed, unable to move Rogue's body as her mind was divided between this world and Marie's.
"Hold onto her! Marie!" Wolverine howled in Zombie's face, making her feel like a drive-through order box. One consciousness of a mutant named Marie with a side of fries, please.
"I can't," Zombie bit out, frustration overwhelming her. "For fuck's sake, DO something," she snarled viciously.
And then nearly gagged as he kissed her. Oh God, the Wolverine was kissing her, his tongue sliding against hers as he deliciously ate at her mouth, his fists buried in her hair, fucking kissing her for all he was worth.
"Come back to me, Marie," he growled against her mouth. "Come back, baby."
Please come back, Marie, Zombie prayed silently, desperately beseeching Rogue’s consciousness. Because I don't think I'll ever be able to look him in the eye again if he tries to go for second base.
And then the pull began. Rogue's skin had awakened and was draining his life as easily as sucking milk up through a straw. It was the weirdest, most amazing feeling. With his energy came his thoughts, and Zombie was flooded with images of Marie surrounded with love and light and happiness. For a few brief seconds Zombie fell in love with him herself.
Wolverine was making strangled sounds in the back of his throat, choking as Rogue's skin drained him of life. Zombie wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to push him away.
Rogue did it for her.
With the force of a cannon, Zombie was shot out of Rogue's body and at the same instant, with tears in her eyes Rogue shoved Wolverine away. He fell to the floor with a groan, weakened by the kiss. Floating, free from physical form, Zombie watched as Rogue dropped to her knees beside Wolverine, hovering over him, unsure of how to aid him when it was her skin that hurt him in the first place.
"Logan," she whispered huskily, the tears now dripping down her nose. "Ah'm so sorry."
He grinned slowly, tired now. "I'm not. I got you back." With much effort he lifted a hand to cup the side of her face, the fall of her hair blocking contact with her skin. "I missed you, baby."
Rogue half-laughed, half-cried. "Ah missed you too."
Feeling the own unique pull of her empty body calling out to her, Zombie left Wolverine and Rogue curled around each other in Xavier's study. Any more mushiness and she was going to vomit. As it was the first thing she wanted to do when she got on her feet was sterilize her mouth with a gallon of Listerine. It may not have been her physical body that Wolverine was kissing but it sure felt like it. Yuck.
Zombie opened her eyes. Her real eyes. And realized she felt like the bottom of a bar floor after a Saturday night brawl.
It was the most beautiful feeling in the world. Because it was hers.
"Bluh," she said, her mouth bone dry.
From her bedside: "Holy shit!"
Wincing, Zombie turned her head and saw Kitty staring at her in shock.
"Huh," she attempted to say something again and failed.
"S...sally?" Kitty asked tentatively, creeping half an inch closer to the bed.
"Yuh."
"OH MY GOD!" Kitty screamed excitedly, then clapped her hands over her mouth as the echo from the steel MedLab turned her voice into something akin to Banshee's wailings. Kitty rolled her eyes and grinned widely behind her hands. She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper.
"I'll go get Dr. Grey."
"There's no need to do that," a voice said from the door. Zombie's eyes rolled in their sockets; Jean Grey smiled at her from behind a stern-faced Professor Xavier. As she watched he manuevered his chair to her beside. The good thing about his presence meant that she didn't have to talk to communicate what she wanted to say. The bad thing was that she had no idea if he was going to expel her for ordering him around.
~Are you mad?~
He was silent for so long, regarding her with a deep intensity, that she was sure her career in the Junior X-Men was as good as used toilet water.
Then he smiled.
~Well done, Zombie~
Dammit. Godammit. She could have handled anything but that. His acceptance was met with hot tears of exhausted happiness running down her white face. Dorothy was right: there really was no place like home.
Life, or something like it, got back to normal within a few days. Zombie had to stay in the MedLab for an extra two days due to dehydration and exhaustion. Being clinically in a coma for as long as she had will do that.
With Dr. Grey's consent, she'd had a steady stream of visitors and well-wishers, pretty much every resident of the mansion.
Except for two.
Wolverine and Rogue had gone AWOL for two days and no one seemed to know where they had gone.
But no one was surprised. Much.
By the time Dr. Grey discharged Zombie, she was ready to mutiny. So much good behavoir wasn't healthy.
Kitty and Jubilee were waiting for her in their suite with big grins and a large cardboard box.
"Is this good enough?" Kitty asked anxiously.
Zombie grinned, a truly scary sight. "Perfect."
It was a few hours before Rogue returned home. Zombie was in their shared bedroom, lying on her bed and reading a Sandman comic. The door opened and there she was. Zombie felt a slight chill when she saw Rogue. It was only natural, after all, she'd had custody of that body for a few days.
Zombie spoke first. "Hey."
Rogue smiled. "Hey, yourself." She tossed her knapsack in the corner and sat on the bed. Zombie threw the comic book down and rolled on her side, propping her chin up on her hand.
The first thing Zombie noticed was that Rogue wasn't wearing gloves.
The second was that she positively GLOWED.
Zombie had to restrain the urge to giggle. "You didn't."
"Ah did." Rogue was grinning like a maniac.
'How?"
"We got creative."
Zombie matched Rogue's smile. "It's about fuckin' time."
"Literally," Rogue sassed, and both girls had to clap their hands over their mouths to stop from laughing hysterically.
Eventually they calmed down. Zombie sat up on her bed. Both girls regarded each other.
"Listen, I-" they both said at the same time, and then blushed.
"You first," Rogue said.
Zombie insisted. "No, you."
Rogue nodded, tucked a strand of white hair behind her ear. "Ah just wanted to say...ah mean, ah really appreciate what you did. Not just about Logan...about sayin' you were gonna say with meh no matter what."
"You heard that?"
"Yeah. Ah also heard you tellin' off the Professor. That took balls, girl."
"Biggest ones in the Junior X-Men." Zombie grinned. "And I just wanted to say...your secret's safe with me...Marie."
Rogue smiled ruefully. "Thanks. Ah don't know why ah don't tell people. Ah just...like it to be private. Although...ah'd really like to hear more about...what it was like for you...you know. Growin' up."
"Ditto." Zombie lit up. "Oh man, I almost forgot...I have something for you." Zombie reached under her bed for the cardboard box. Carefully she slid it across the floor to Rogue. Something inside the box shuffled.
"What is it?"
"Let's call it...a souvenier of our little adventure."
As she watched, Rogue picked up the box, setting on her lap. Her eyebrow rose when she saw the airholes punched in the lid, but she didn't say anything. Off came the top and a furry white face poked its head into the air.
"It's a KITTEN!" Rogue squealed, sunshine blossoming on her face like a flower for ten seconds before it fell dark. "Why did you get me a kitten? Ah don't have gloves on, ah can't-"
"Yes you can. She's a Persian...anywhere you pet her there's gonna be fur. You're safe."
Rogue was staring, open-mouthed in disbelief at the furry body that was climbing out of the box, a steady purr already buzzing from its throat as it made its way onto her lap. Bright green booties were fitted onto each of its paws.
"The pads on her feet are the only vulnerable part of her," Zombie explained, "so I had Miss Monroe knit some booties and Jean planted the hypnotic suggestion in her head that she looooooooooves wearing them."
"Are you serious?" Rogue breathed, not daring to believe.
"Yup. I don't wanna be the person that tries to take them off her." Zombie smiled. "Her name's Tiger. At least...that's what the cat told Jean it's name was. Personally I think she's having delusions of grandeur."
Rogue looked like she was about to cry. In fact, when she picked up the small ball of fur in her bare hands and held it safely against her cheek, a tear did leak down her face. She got up and embraced Zombie in an impulsive hug. Zombie didn't even flinch at Rogue's bare hands. She knew her friend would keep her safe.
"Thank you," Rogue whispered, squeezing Zombie tight. "For everything."
For the first time in her life, Zombie felt one hundred percent comfortable in returning the hug. "No problem." She looked Rogue square in the eye. "Just don't say I never gave ya nothin'."
Tiger, trapped between the two girls, meowed in protest.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
1) Thank you to my EXCELLENT betas Taryn & UKTara. 2) An excerpt from the song "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie is used. Its also the reason I thought up Zombie in the first place. I thought it would be a nifty motto for a mutant. 3) I think Zombie looks like Neil Gaiman's character Death from the Sandman comics. I claim no ownership of the image but I claim a big fat love for Neil Gaiman. That man rocks. 4) Yes. I spelled out Rogue's diction phoenetically. Ah've always wanted to try that. :O) Sidenote: I am not opposed to anyone who would like to include Zombie in their story, but please contact me before you do so.