DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
thatcraftykid
track four // “GREAT GIG IN THE SKY”
KNOW WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED
She pans the upset faces of the self-styled X-Men, defenders of blessed humanity,
and their blinded protégés. “Oh, the secrets that I know...”
– Rogue –
Awe is a palpable force that hums up her shivering spine to numb her overburdened mind. The world is astonishingly calm in the wake of the frenzied spin of searing metal and vehement purpose. Her hands are her own again. Light is distinguishable from dark. The taste of salt is on her lips.
Rogue is standing high on a pedestal, taking quick and easy breaths. Below her, Logan is motionless where he lay down.
The incoming jet blows back her hair. Rogue cannot take her eyes from Logan’s face. The enormity of his gift, tremendous and heavy, bows her shoulders. Voices yell her name. She doesn’t want them to break into this moment. They want to know how she is.
The answer is invincible.
Palms up, she claims the metal of Logan’s bones to raise him into the jet’s open hatch. Rogue reads Jean’s startled worry from above – If Erik’s powers are inside her, what else of him does she carry? – and compounds the marvel others have made of her by leaping into effortless flight.
Inside the cramped jet, Rogue follows Jean’s clipped orders with the clear, simple lethargy of a dreamer caught between asleep and awake. She maneuvers Logan’s arms so Jean can cut off his uniform at his torso, tilts a chair into a makeshift gurney.
Storm leads Rogue by the elbow into the seat one over and buckles her in sideways as best she can. “She’s is barely responsive. She may be drugged.”
She shakes her head. Nope, all better. Look what she can do: Turn her chin, and Logan’s inert head mimics her movement so she can watch his face.
While Jean sets her telekinesis to work securing an oxygen mask and applying gauze to gaping, draining wounds, Rogue gently squeezes the metal in Logan’s fingers so it’s like she’s holding his hand.
“What’s the status back there?” Cyclops calls out edgily from the pilot’s seat.
“Pulse is faint. His healing factor’s reversed itself – ” Jean’s words die on a note of distress. The display of power that before seemed like second nature weakens.
Storm catches a thick strip of gauze before it can slip and puts pressure on the wound beneath. In a steadying tone, she says, “What can we do?”
“He needs a transfusion.” Jean is soaked in so much of Logan’s blood, she’s forgotten that cause of death is never the snakebite, always the slow poison.
Jet engines give a slight jerk as their speed picks up. Unease rolls over in Rogue’s stomach in slow motion. She feels separate from herself. Something terrible looms behind her head. She has to keep stock-still against the horror-filled urge to look back, or else she’ll lose her balance.
The abrupt sound of her name makes her shoot out her hands to keep her from toppling over.
“Logan can’t wait for a defibrillator, but his adamantium is too thick. I need you to try to compress it. Rogue? Can you do that? I need you to focus, sweetie. That’s it. Right here.”
Where Jean’s hand indicates, Rogue pushes in.
“One, release. Two. Three – Good. Again. One, two, three…”
Logan still has a pulse when the X-Jet touches down in the underground hanger. Jean, clearly noting how much effort Rogue’s palpitations have become, concentrates hard enough to lift Logan’s heavy frame herself.
Rogue’s arms and legs hang inanimate. She should really move them.
A thick, leather glove cups her chin and directs her watery gaze somewhere vaguely around Cyclops’s nose. “God. What did he do to you?”
Her vision further blurs over. Logan or Erik?
Cyclops unbuckles her and scoops her into his arms. His gait as he carries her to the med lab is even, but Rogue’s lulling head is still jostled by each step. When she’s propped up on a cot, she lets it fall to her chest.
Quick shadows crowd her.
Kitty gasps, “Oh my gosh.”
“Girls, get back. Rogue’s in bad shape.”
“She’s completely catatonic,” Jubilee diagnoses.
Kitty ducks down to get a look at Rogue’s face. “No, she’s crying.”
“Girls. Back. What are you even doing down here?”
From somewhere behind Rogue, Jean calls, “Scott, I need you.”
“We were visiting the Professor,” Jubilee replies, but Cyclops is already across the room.
“Logan’s O-negative.” Universal donor. Rogue herself is AB-positive, the universal parasite.
Cyclops indulges himself with a brief noise of irritation before unzipping his uniform to offer his recent tormentor a lifeline.
In a whisper pitched high by drive-by car crash distress, Jubilee tells Kitty, “A little blood isn’t gonna do much for a dude who looks like he got put through a woodchipper.” Jubilee sounds like she could hurl. “Wolverine’s about to kick the big one, isn’t he?”
A flinch turns into a shudder.
“She can hear you,” Kitty berates loudly.
The line on the heart monitor is audibly slow.
“Ororo, watch the blood – and hold this…” Electricity revs up. “Clear.” Jean takes a moment to say, “Try not to worry, Rogue. His pulse is much stronger than it was. You did a good job.”
Rogue made Logan’s heart beat. That’s a poetic thought.
White-hot mortification shoots straight to her fingertips. Poetic, noble – names given to elevated perversions to make what’s ugly seem beautiful. All that blood…The bottom of the cot crumples under her hands. No such thing as a clean sacrifice. And there’s no virtue in lesser evils. She can bet when Logan committed suicide on her he didn’t stop to think how long she’d have to watch him die.
“Worth it.”
She doesn’t know how those words came out of her mouth, but she crumbles on them completely. Suddenly, she’s shaking and crying with more abandoned sincerity than she’s allowed herself since the day she sent David to the hospital.
“Worth it?” It’s a cynical, sobbing question. She twists herself back. “What if it wasn’t?”
Mistake. Behind her isn’t Logan, but the void. Her fall is months in coming.
Bare skin pinwheels out of her way. There’s nothing to stop Rogue from smacking her skull against the floor with solid precision. Uncountable see-through toes curl horror, kneecaps jut out all around her.
Kitty reaches out with her bright blue cast. “Rogue…”
The monster crawls over Rogue in the dark.
“Don’t touch me!”
Jubilee doesn’t hesitate to drag Kitty back.
“Don’t touch,” Rogue sobs, struggling to her knees. “You did this – I just touched him. I didn’t mean to – It’s your fault – It’s not my fault!”
Storm edges forward to offer a blood-smeared glove to help Rogue wobble to her feet. “We know it’s not. We know.”
“I said stay away from me!” Rogue shrieks, skittering into the empty space between the prone forms of Logan and the Professor. “You should’ve listened.”
“I’m sorry – ”
Rogue hugs herself. “I had to know. It could’ve been psychosomatic – I am not psycho. My body, my decision. That’s what you promised! – How could I have known…You need so much more help than I can give you.”
“Out on a limb here, but I don’t think that’s Rogue,” Jubilee shakily observes.
Posture gone haughty, Rogue quips, “’I am vast. I contain multitudes.’”
Jean meticulously divides her attention between scrutinizing Rogue and reapplying bandages that don’t stay white for long. “Everyone keep very still and try to be calm. She’s having a schizophrenic episode.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you, my dear?” She pans the upset faces of the self-styled X-Men, defenders of blessed humanity, and their blinded protégés. “Oh, the secrets that I know...” Her hand comes to rest beside Charles’ head. “You keep your children so ignorant, old friend. Do you think they’ll turn on you? “
In the half-second she’s peered down, Jean has a sedative making a beeline for Rogue’s throat. She plucks the needle out of the air and snaps it in half. “It’s painful to see how far he has held you back. You could be transcendent.”
What are you afraid of?
Rogue’s attention is jolted to Professor Xavier’s static expression.
“I ain’t afraid.”
But outrage gives way to validation.
“So it’s true. There are mutants who can enter our minds.” In her unease, she addresses the more familiar party. “Tell me, Dr. Grey, why shouldn’t I, why shouldn’t the American people be afraid?”
Jean Grey’s head lifts. “Senator Kelly?”
“That madmen, his ‘old friend.’ He assassinated a US Senator and tried to murder a young mutant more afraid of herself than anybody else could ever be. So, do, tell me, what stands between us and chaos? A prayer? Your goodwill? This school? You might not advocate licenses to live, but do ascribe to a different brand of control: Diplomas.”
It’s Storm who answers, “Every school in America teaches ethics, Rogue. We don’t institutionalize values. And we can’t fix you, because there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Hissing, Rogue slides her hands through her hair erratically. This whiteness is not innocence, but the mark of an angry God. “Nah, she got them demons. I see ’em in her. Crawlin’ in, curlin’ up. Makin’ a nest all in her insides.”
“Mutations are based in science,” the redheaded witch counters. “They aren’t specters preying on people in the dark.”
What are you afraid of?
Oh. Rogue lowers her hands. Still itching for movement, she begins to pace around the Professor. “The dark? That what you’re gettin’ at with this cryptic whisper bullshit? So, what about it?”
No answer.
“Come on, old man. You got everybody in the room lookin’ at me like I’m sproutin’ heads.”
His silence looms.
Rogue whips around to the dumbstruck spectators. “What?” She’s invasion of the body snatchers. Worse, it’s like they’ve never seen her before. The look is called the I-knew-you-yesterday-but-now…? and it’s a popular one down in Meridian. Wetness streams down her neck. “Quit starin’ and get out.”
Logan’s comforting presence. She comes up to stand behind him, at a loss for how to reach out to him. His struggle for life is narrated by his heart monitor. Beep. Be-beep. Be-beep. Beep. Rogue carefully places her the top of her head against his.
That rhythm again. Me. Awake. Aware. Me.
Warmth settles on her back. She accepts the blanket, and Jean releases her telekinetic hold. The med lab’s door swishes shut, leaving Rogue and Jean the only conscious people in the room.
Rogue’s mind is a bruise. What is she afraid of? The dark, yes. The void and the personalities in it. Her monster. But she made up those things. They’re names she’s given her actual fear, which itself is two-fold. The girl with the plan and the girl with the lost eyes. One feels the urge to strike out on her own as intensely as the need to breath; the other suffocates on worry, knowing that no one gone is unforgettable.
Alone. Lonely. Strength exists there somewhere, but Rogue has submerged herself in weakness.
She took their strength. She welcomed their conversations, in spite of herself. She invented how they fill the dark and feed the monster.
Only now she’s losing herself to those interactions self-designed to keep her separate.
Rogue wipes snot on her sleeve as she looks up to Jean for confirmation. “He can’t die.”
Very honestly, she answers, “If he survives the night, he’ll make it. You can stay down here, but I will have to sedate you.”
“Not too much,” Rogue compromises. “I got things to sort out.”
She takes off her cloak and her shoes, while Jean prepares a bed for her in the far corner of the room where the lights are dim. Rogue submits to the needle, then curls up on her side, facing the wall.
“I heard him, too. The Professor. I find he’s never far away when I need him most.” Jean rubs Rogue’s arm. “I’ll be right here…” Her presence is already fading.
For the first time since her mutation manifested, Rogue dreams.
Night terrors visit her from the past – Desolate faces behind barbed wire, a rusted needle jabbing flesh. A gun trained at a girl tearing at her headscarf, translator saying she was raped by an American soldier. The agony of boiling metal seeping through bone over the clink of champagne glasses.
More and more, their nightmares, too. Mutants felling a giant robotic sentinel – what project Wide Awakeawake has deemed humanity’s last line of defense. Herself, locked in a mental institution, unable to recognize her even own mother. Kneeling in Logan’s blood in a red-lit motel. Her skin to his claw, both of them on the edge of death by each other. Underneath all that, she hears her name. Logan’s voice, her momma’s. Calling out to her. Marie! Marie, Marie, Marie…
When she was a child, Marie used to dream the monster under her bed was crouched on her chest, forcing her to scream and scream in silence, praying her momma would hear her somehow and come running. She never did.
Now, again paralyzed and screaming, she has to relearn how to distinguish what is real from what is not.
An eternity until it’s over. She fights her exhaustion, her compulsion to stay down.
She sits up. She touches her face, hugs her elbows, wraps her fingers around the bottoms of her feet. The disconnect has been erased. Rogue has been away from her body so long, the feeling of return is an odd sensation. She might be bigger on the inside now, but it’s still home.
It’s going to be a long, complicated battle to take back her sense of self. But she can start by renaming who she is inside once more time.
“What kind of a name is Rogue, anyway?” She never stopped being Marie.
Logan’s chest rises and falls regularly. Awe – and gratitude and bewilderment and devotion – swell her racing heart so big she can’t look at him. She’s is flustered by the feelings that led him to his sacrifice because he is.
Still feels worth it, and this time she thinks so, too. Finally, she’s found somebody as invincible as she is.
Getting centered, Marie stands up to reacquaint herself with the world outside her head. There’s a change of clothes and a laundered cloak neatly stacked for her on a table. Jeanie let herself fall asleep at her desk with a pencil between her teeth. The Professor’s cot is empty.
Alls signs that things are going to be okay.
Marie hangs the stack of clothes over her elbow on her way toward Logan. He’s still wrapped up, but some of his wounds, like the one across his forehead, are nothing more than red scratches.
“Give me a minute, sugar.” She slides her bare fingers through Logan’s hair before she heads out the door.
It’s light out but too early for the halls to be anything but empty. The Professor, himself again in white collared shirt and suit jacket, is expecting her when she opens his office door.
She’s struck for a moment by those secrets that she knows. The Professor is himself again but also someone more. But Marie finds she can respect his privacy by shifting her focus to who he is to her: that rare thing, a person who understands what she’s going through and genuinely wants to help.
“Mornin’, Professor.”
By the way he watches her take a seat, she knows how glad he is to see her well. “Good morning…”
She lifts an eyebrow. Marie is her name, but Rogue is for the rest of the world. Nothin’ personal.
The Professor steeples his fingers in acquiescence. “Rogue, I have a lot of news for you. To begin, I’ve just spoken with Dr. McCoy. Magneto is under strict custody at Hiram Prison, where a plastic cell is being constructed to contain him. The effects of the machine never reached Ellis Island.”
“Five guards lost their lives. Telford Porter. Henry Gyrich, Senator Kelly.”
“Yes.”
“Still.” If only clean-cut wins counted, there’d be no such thing as victories. Or heroes. Much as he begrudges them, Logan proved the world wouldn’t be better off without heroes by turning into one. “I’m alive, and so is Logan.”
“You’re more alive today than you have been in a long while, I think. I sense Logan’s personality at the forefront of your mind, but the rest seems to be completely at peace.”
“Whatever you did worked. All that fear talk. I figured out I’m my own worst enemy and…I dunno. I stopped forcin’ the others down and just let ‘em be. It was horrible – and it’s gonna be horrible – but it’s a start.”
“Last night, you survived Erik Lehnsherr’s nightmares in so many different ways with more grace than can be expected of any one under the circumstances. I’d call it an excellent start.”
Marie scrubs at her face. “I don’t know how I got so wrong inside.”
“Mental mutations are the most difficult to handle. Perhaps because evolution has not leaped forward enough to make the mind comfortable with so much intangibility. When I was your age, I battled with insanity.”
“But you taught yourself how to control it.”
“Control isn’t a lesson. It’s a lifelong process of negotiation. Sometimes I feel I’m losing an intrinsic connection to my physicality…As I said, it remains a negotiation.” His thoughts and his gaze return to Marie. “You’ve been engaged in this negotiation as long as you’ve been a mutant. People react differently when you touch them. Erik held onto you just as long as Logan did but remained conscious. You accepted Logan’s gift, but you rejected as much of Erik as you possibly could.”
The ghost of her pride ticks the corner of her lip up. “Sometimes it’s not hard to take just a little. There’s a difference I can feel sometimes. Especially in mutants.”
“Perhaps the difference is between life-force – memories, personalities – and certain…we could call them genetic-based skill-sets, as in a human’s ability to run fast or a mutant’s gifts. Life-force correlates to consciousness, skill-sets to how much of their abilities you retain.” The Professor contemplates her like a puzzle.
Marie shifts uncomfortably. It’s too soon to start relabeling herself. “Yeah, I’m real fascinating. But you said you had news?”
“I do. Dr. McCoy has informed me that, after hearing your story, the International Mutant Rights Initiative contacted Jim and Lisa Danvers. The Initiative wants them to file suit against Southaven.”
Marie lets out her held breath. “Magneto had Mystique steal evidence the Southaven evidence to make me think dying for his bullshit cause would be my greatest revenge. It’s all on a laptop in his lair. I can’t get to it no problem.”
“Yes, I see. I’ll will have it taken care of immediately. But what you must consider is how much of a role you wish to have in the proceedings.”
“You mean if I mind havin’ my name in the paper.”
“That, and the Danvers have requested to meet with you before they agree to file suit.”
She swallows back a throat-gut twinge. That’s the one she never figured. “When?”
“They’re flying into New York City today. Scott will escort you to their hotel, if you agree to the meeting. If not, Dr. McCoy will persuade them to continue without you.”
Marie pushes back her chair. “Lemme think on it.”
“Of course.”
“Anything else?”
“Not for now. Come back when you’re ready.”
She goes straight upstairs to Logan’s room. The cigars he normally keeps on his nightstand aren’t there, so she roots around in his bag where a few loose ones have settled on the bottom. Even the familiarity of the scent under her nose relaxes her. Unfortunately, the large inhalation also gives her a whiff of herself. Shower first, smoke later.
Marie has gotten used to symbolic gestures, so she takes her time washing away the madness.
Clean enough for fresh starts, she wipes the fog from the mirror. Against her reddened skin and dark mass of hair, the bleached white strands have an almost preternatural glow. She’s heard of people’s hair turning white because of fear. She figures that’s what happened, and decides to own it. When people look at her hair, they’ll see that she’s been as scared as anyone ever could be – and not only survived but become all the stronger for it.
That’s the plan, anyway. It starts with looking the Danvers in the eye and telling them how sorry she is for their loss.
Who can say where it ends. Maybe in jets and fancy uniforms. Magneto and Kelly have given her insights into the coming war – and made her certain Professor Xavier’s hero squad, uptight geeks that they are, at least got the right idea.
Under the sink she finds a blow-dryer and a hairbrush. She takes time with her appearance, because she’s fashioning a persona. A better, faster, wiser Rogue. Long black opera gloves, tight dark jeans and a black belt with shiny silver buttonholes, gray lacy tank under a dark green button-down rolled to her elbows and her cloak to go over it. She empties Logan’s hiking pack and picks it up. His cigars and John’s lighter go in her pocket.
Before she heads out, she checks herself out in the full-length mirror. Overall effect: feminine and tough. And older. Definitely older. Her eyes roll up from her curvy hips to her hint of cleavage. “Lookin’ good, darlin’.” It’s a strange thing, making herself blush.
Her roommates are still in bed when she comes in. Marie just needs her toothbrush and some underwear and another shirt. She’s got a soft spot for her damp, ratty Converse – ew, the money stuffed in there is probably so gross – but there’s a whole new selection in the closet.
At the noise, Jubilee sits up in bed and stares.
Marie holds a gorgeous black leather fuck-me boot against her bare foot. Perfect fit. “Mind if I borrow these, Jubes?”
“Uh…Power to you, I guess.”
Kitty is awake now, too. Her eyes are wide and watery. “…Are you okay?”
“Peachy-keen. How’s the paw, Kit-Kat?” Marie zips the boots up like butter and takes a few steps. “These feel expensive.”
Jubilee props herself on her pillows with a slight snort. “They were liberated from a Christian Dior. Consider them a gift. Mazel tov on the quick recovery.”
Marie puts a cigar between her teeth and lights it expertly. “A sheynam dank,” she replies on her first exhale.
“Girlie, I hate to notice…”
“Concern appreciated.” She waves away the smoke curling in front of her face. “It’ll fade.”
Kitty hooks her arms under her knees. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Nah, the Professor just has some things for me to square away in the city.” She hoists Logan’s pack to her back by one strap. “Keep your snot-noses clean.” She raises a fist. “And keep the pride.”
Jubilee shakes out her bed-head. “We’ll sure try, Grandpa Rogue X.”
By now, sleepy-eyed kids have started wandering the hallway. The wide berth they give her doesn’t feel like fear – Because it’s respect. Marie exhales a long puff out of the corner of her mouth.
The Rogue has already become legend.
Door to Cyclops’s room proves irresistible. She pushes it open and catches him doing his morning exercises in just a tiny pair of boxers. Logan thinks of him as “pretty boy” in a belittling way, but from Marie’s point of view…Damn.
Cyclops is awkwardly frozen under the force of her very Wolverine-like leer.
“Professor needs you to give me a ride later on. You’ll find me in lab with your girl.” Marie tilts her head to better see the curve of his ass. “Nice. Keep it up.” She takes her sweet time closing the door.
And that, dear Logan, is how you render the fearless leader of the X-Men speechless. Win.
Marie puts out the butt of the cigar in a plant in the entrance hall before taking the elevator down to the med lab.
Jean is on the phone, her back to the door. “Scott, I’m sure she wasn’t looking at you inappropriately.”
The buzz of Cyclops’s voice turns insulted.
“That wasn’t what I meant. Of course I find you attractve.” Jean sounds exasperated. “…What do you mean ‘Logan’s influence’?”
Oh, that is too rich. It gives their cockfights a whole other connotation.
Jean turns around to Marie’s out and out snickers. “Um, what? – No, Scott, she’s here. I have to go.” She puts down the phone.
“For the record, I was checkin’ him out. Nothin’ wrong with a little pretty. Don’t tell Logan I said this, but that’s kind of my type.” Rogue eyes Jean up and down, too, for good measure.
Her hands stop suddenly on their way to fix her messy ponytail. “Um, hello. Rogue. How does your head feel? Any headaches?” She digs around her desk. “I know I get migraines, so I have plenty of pain relievers.”
“Nice thought, Jeanie, but I’m right as I can be.”
The good doctor goes back to her patient. “I’ve monitored Logan’s healing ability very carefully. His recovery is faster by the hour.” She lifts one of the bandages to run her fingertips along the roughly knitted skin underneath. “See?”
The dedication is flattering. But that’s her man lying there, so outside the med lab Red better keep her absurdly large hands off if she knows what’s what.
Possibly catching her drift, Jean takes her damn touchable skin away. She messes with Logan’s IV drip instead. “You know he won’t be happy if you’re gone when he wakes up,” she comments.
“Should just be a night. Scooter’s gonna give me a ride to Manhattan later to meet with Carol’s parents and the Mutant Rights whatever.”
Jean sends a smile of encouragement. “I hope it goes well. As I’m sure IMRI will tell you at length, a trial like one against Southaven could be a huge step forward for Mutant Rights.” She pauses. “More importantly, I hope you get the sense of closure you need out of it.”
“Yeah, me, too. Can I get a minute?”
Jean finishes up what she was doing. “I’ll bring Scott down. After I apologize.” She gives a rueful smile, almost like she and Marie aren’t teacher and student, adult and kid. But friends. Which they could be, someday. That’d actually be nice.
When she’s gone, Marie puts the hiking pack down and takes her place beside Logan. “Hey,” she whispers, resting her gloved hand on the left side of his chest. “I know you don’t like big shows of gratitude…So, thanks.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if he woke up right now? But his steady heartbeat has to be enough. He’s here and he’s not, like how he is in her head. Maybe it’s another way he’s giving her the space to draw her own conclusions.
His dog tag is laying in a pile above his shoulder. She picks it up and presses it to her lips before fastening the chain in place behind his neck. She settles it against his skin where it belongs.
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
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