I wake to find my head nestled on Logan’s shoulder. This is a familiar position for us, and he just gives me a small frown when I pull away and begin to unbuckle my harness.
“We’re not gonna crash with Mags here, and I’ve gotta take care of business,” I mumble sleepily to him as I slip past. I feel much more in control of my body after the rest, and I am able to use the small restroom at the back of the jet with a tiny modicum of grace and dignity. Just as I head back towards my seat, we land on solid ground with a soft thump.
“Wow, I didn’t realize we were so close,” I tell Logan quietly.
He shakes his head with a small smile that quickly disappears. “You slept for nine hours, Marie.”
I’m surprised, of course, but I only shrug as I stand aside for the others to precede me out of the plane. A welcoming committee is waiting for us, so obviously the Professor contacted them. Hugs are exchanged by some, but not all, of the members of our two groups. I avoid Bobby and Kitty but carefully hug Blink and Warpath, whom I’ve met a few times before.
We hurry into what looks like an old Buddhist monastery, amazingly intact as little from the previous centuries is anymore. I force myself not to stare. Not at the beautiful mosaics and paintings surrounding me. Not at the two walking ahead of us hand in hand.
Logan must guess where my thoughts are headed. He reaches out to squeeze my shoulder as we all push into a relatively bare rectangular room. I make sure to take a place standing next to Logan but not quite directly across from Kitty or Bobby. I don’t want to accidentally glance up at either of them.
“What brings you here, Professor?” Bobby’s voice is slightly deeper than it used to be, but thankfully I no longer shiver in pleasure upon hearing it.
“Rogue was captured by the Sentinels over two weeks ago,” the Professor says bluntly. All eyes swing towards me. I blush and shrink into Logan, who wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Obviously we were able to rescue her, but they had access to her DNA for far too long. We may not have much longer.”
“Then why did you bring her here?” Kitty shouts, stabbing a finger in my direction. “She’ll lead them straight to us!”
“Rogue is no more a danger than any of us are by our mere presence,” Magneto defends me.
“We weren’t gonna just leave her for the wolves,” Logan growls at the same time.
The Professor raises his voice to be heard over the sudden din of protests for and against my continued existence. “I have a plan, Kitty, and both you and Rogue are imperative for its implementation.”
Kitty recoils with a thinly veiled look of disgust. “Why should I help her?”
The Professor shakes his head. “You won’t be helping her. You will be helping me. And you should do so because now that the Sentinels have her DNA and soon access to the full range of her abilities, our days on this planet are most likely numbered in single digits. We must all work together to adjust our circumstances accordingly.”
“And how are we supposed to ‘adjust our circumstances,’ Professor?” Even while mocking the older man, Bobby uses his old title.
Undiscouraged, the Professor continues as if Bobby never made a sound. “I have determined that it is possible to take a trip back in time to alter events so that the Sentinel program never gains the support it needs. That is where you come in, Kitty.”
“Me?” she squeaks.
“Your abilities have grown and changed over the course of the past decade. Being able to change the recent past is little different from changing long-ago events.” My eyes widen as the Professor continues. “Of course, there is the probability that you will not have enough strength to complete the necessary procedure. That is where Rogue will come in handy.”
“You want her to drain me?”
“You want me to drain her?”
We speak at once, our voices nearly reaching the same octave in our mutual loathing of the idea.
“Not entirely, no. Rogue’s abilities have matured as well, and I believe that she should be able to take enough from you without completely draining you to complete the mission without endangering your life, on the off chance that the changes to the past do not trigger the changes to the future that I believe they will.”
My head spins trying to follow Professor Xavier’s line of thinking. Somehow Kitty is going to go back into the past, and I’m supposed to be her back up? I left captivity less than a day ago. How does he expect me to have any more strength than Kitty? Suddenly it becomes clear.
“You want me to drain Logan first.” It comes out flat, and I move to stand closer to Logan even as I reject the idea of hurting him like that once again.
Xavier frowns at me. “You have borrowed Logan’s strength before. I do not think a full dose will be necessary. You should be able to take what is needed without incapacitating him, which is a good thing since Logan’s regenerative abilities are the final key to this plan.”
“Wait a minute, bub. What do I have to do with this?” Under any other circumstances I would grin at Logan’s tone just now, but I’m too busy fighting off a panic attack at the thought of being forced to use my powers against other mutants again, good cause or not.
“Kitty needs to send one of us back in time to 1973, which is when the events we need to prevent occurred. The level of effort to keep our consciousness in our previous body would be lethal to either myself or Erik, leaving only you, Logan, as an option since none of the others were alive or old enough to perform the necessary mission. I believe that you are ideally suited for this. Your body will heal itself despite the stressors that the procedure will place on it.”
He sounds reasonable for a madman. I wonder if we are going to be able to find a straightjacket somewhere around here. They aren’t in high demand anymore. No one really lives long enough to go that crazy, or if they do they’re already in the custody of the Sentinels anyway.
Apparently craziness is catching. Beside me, Logan nods slowly. I stare back and forth between the two, but especially Logan. How can he even be considering this?
“Are you insane?” The words leave my mouth in a hiss, and I only realize that I spoke out loud when all eyes turn back to me.
Logan gives me a sideways hug and then turns me so that I’m facing him directly. Hands on my shoulders, he gives me a look that pleads for understanding. “This is what we’ve been searching for. It may be our one chance to get rid of the Sentinels and change things to how they should have been.”
This is surprisingly eloquent for Logan, and I can see that his words are influencing everyone even more than the Professor’s had. This is it, then. This is truly our last chance, our last stand against a world gone horribly wrong. If Logan is willing to face it, take it head on, how can I do less?
I reach up and press my fingers against Logan’s briefly and then turn, pulling out of his grasp.
“All right. What do we need to do?”
Xavier gives me a slight smile and a nod of thanks for going along with his plan. “I will brief Logan on the necessary historical background. Rogue, you and Kitty will need to rest and eat to store enough energy to succeed—“
“Wait a second? Who said I was going to let her touch me?” Kitty shouts. I glare at her.
“Katherine, what is the longest time you have been able to sustain a temporal field?” The question barely makes sense to me, but apparently the Professor has gotten through to Kitty because her chin trembles and she looks down.
“Nine hours.”
Xavier sighs. “It is very likely that this mission will last days. If the link between Logan’s present mind and his past body is not constantly maintained, it is possible that any changes he makes will not be permanent. I have examined the information you have provided on the way that your mutation has evolved, and everything I have learned tells me that this is the only way. Would you rather be stuck in this timeline, knowing that an alternate version of you is happy but that you will never know for sure?”
Kitty winces, and I almost feel sorry for her. This lecture is all too similar to ones we received as teenagers when we got into trouble with our friends—friends who might still be alive in the new timeline. Suddenly her eyes rise to mine, and I can see that she is thinking it too. Jubilee might be alive in the new timeline. Jubilee, who fell so early to the Sentinels. A new determination enters her eyes, and she snaps out, “Fine.” Then she turns and stalks through an entryway behind her into what I can only assume is another room. Without a backwards glance at us, Bobby follows her. I can’t find it in me to be upset about that, although I let my eyes follow them.
Their departure seems to be a signal to the rest of the group. Ororo mutters a few quick words about arranging for some food, and Blink and Warpath follow in Bobby’s footsteps. Erik and Xavier step to one side, quietly discussing their plan.
Logan’s hand lands on my shoulder once more, a comfortingly familiar presence. I turn back to look at him.
“If you’re going to be helping with this crazy plan, you need to let me help you first,” he offers gruffly.
I shouldn’t, but part of me wants one last remnant of him in case…I won’t even think it. Instead, I strip off my glove and let my bare hand hover near his face. He smiles at me gently, trusting that I will take only what is needed and let go quickly enough that he will heal in time to play his part in this bizarre scheme.
I brush my fingers along his cheek, smoothing the hair on his jaw for a moment before moving on to the exposed skin over his cheekbone. Seconds after I am able to feel the smooth silk beneath my fingers, his life force, and thus his mutation, drain into me. I only hold on for a count of three, only draw enough to cause him to pale while the veins in his face pulse black and thick. Then I pull away and catch him as he stumbles. His arms wrap around me, and we hold on to each other silently until Ororo returns to offer us both a hoarded apple and packages of jerky.
Logan and I drop unceremoniously to the ground to eat our rations. As I chew a bite of apple, the renewal of his presence in my head brings unexpected feelings. I swivel slightly to my left to find him watching me. He knows.
“When we lost you—when I thought I lost you, it was worse than any other loss I’ve ever known.”
My breath catches in my throat, making it difficult to swallow the food I know I need. This was the man who hated to be vulnerable, who faced physical threats with uncompromising bravery but shied away from emotional pain at the deepest levels. I know him almost as well as I know myself, or I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure. He just allowed me to use my mutation on him, knowing what I would find. Knowing what I would see.
I lean over and thread the fingers not holding food through his. “I’m so happy to be back,” I tell him.
Left unspoken are the thoughts about what this new plan could mean. What will we be like, if he succeeds? Will he still love me? Will I love him? Is the remaking of a world worth losing a love we have both waited for?
The answers are obvious. Of course it is. We have all had to make sacrifices in this existence ruled by Sentinels. Wiping this reality away, creating something better, more permanent, is worth anything. It is worth all of our lives, our sanity, our love. Nothing can flourish in the Hell we now live in, not even a love as strong as I know ours could be.
I scoot across the hard stone floor until our thighs and shoulders are touching. We continue to eat in silence, taking sips of the water Ororo brings us in ancient metal cups, until the food is gone. Then I rest a final time in his arms, his lips pressing into my hair, until the Professor comes to take him away with regretful eyes, saying that he must explain Logan’s task to him.
As the Professor and Logan go off to a far corner of the room to talk, I lean back against the wall behind me and pull my knees up so that I can wrap my arms around them. So much has happened in less than twenty-four hours. I went from prisoner to vital part of a plan to change all of our lives permanently. I think about whether or not I should have refused, but the answer is “no,” of course. I don’t want to miss any of this. I have faith that Logan and I will develop feelings for each other even in the new “future.” I can’t imagine a world where I don’t love him.