"Morning you two, how was your weekend?" Jean asked, smiling brightly at the odd but complementary pair.
"It was good," Marie replied, with a soft, almost secretive smile.
"We ran into a bit of a snag though," Logan added, and Jean could tell from his tone he thought he was understating that. Before she could ask the nature of this 'snag', Logan lifted his hand, where he was holding Rogue's hand, her bare hand. "Nothing's happening, she's not drawing anything off, it's just stopped," he voiced Jean's half formed thought.
"What's stopped?" Scott asked, catching the end of the statement as he walked into the room, along with the other doctor, with a morning coffee for Jean.
"Rogue's mutation appears to have shut off," Jean said, brow furrowed in confusion, more to Hank than to Scott, as she moved to take a closer look.
"I don't know if it's not working completely, or if it's just not working on Logan," Rogue added, quickly drawing her uncovered hand away as Jean approached.
"Well, I suppose that would be the first thing to ascertain," Jean responded softly, understandingly, as she sat down on a nearby seat and held out her hand for Rogue to touch her. "Come on Rogue, you have to touch someone to find out and, no offense, you already hear voices in your head what's the difference with a touch of temporary telepathy... surely it's better than shooting lasers out your eyes, or turning blue," Jean added lightly, when she spied Rogue's hesitation.
Heaving a dramatic sigh Marie gave in, briefly brushing her fingers across the other woman’s skin. Her skin immediately sucked hungrily at Jean's energy, leaving her to sag heavily against the back of her chair, even after the brief, fraction of a second, touch.
"Okay then," Jean said cheerily, once she had caught her breath, "Your mutation still works." She ignored the tears in the young woman’s eyes, as Logan wrapped an arm around her and hugged her gently; clearly she had been hoping for a different outcome. "Now let's make sure Logan's is still working," Jean added, maybe the change was with him, rather than with her. She explained to Logan that she needed to test his healing, flinching as his claws tore through his fist a moment later, then slid away again, the jagged splits in his flesh instantly sealing shut.
"Well, that wasn't how I was going to suggest going about it," Jean commented in dark amusement; trust Logan to completely ignore the what ifs of his mutation not actually working.
For a moment the doctors observed them uncertainly before Jean turned, and collected the scalpel she had been aiming for when she had first suggested testing Logan's healing.
"Rogue, can you hold out your arm please," she said, voice saturated in curiosity. As soon as Rogue's arm was extended in front of her, she lifted the scalpel, and quickly sliced a knick in the pale exposed flesh. The action drew an instant growl from Logan, as he stepped even closer, reaching to yank Rogue's arm away from the blade, only to freeze in shock as the flesh knit itself back together.
"I wondered if this might happen," Jean murmured, "I'm theorizing here but I think, Rogue's mutation has reached saturation point, so many small, frequent touches have led to her developing a possibly permanent version of Logan's mutation, I think your mutation isn't drawing any more off Logan not because it doesn't need it any more but because it has it now," the doctor eventually suggested.
There were more tests; blood tests, tests on Rogue's new healing ability, an MRI, even a couple of tests on Logan. By the end of the day Marie was over it all, bored, grumpy, and yearning to get out of the lab. Jean promised them the results of all the tests the following day, and gave Rogue permission to leave. Her laugh followed them down the hall as Rogue made a mad dash for the elevator, Logan slipping in behind her as the doors slid shut.
"I'm free!" Marie shouted dramatically, rushing out of the elevator once it stopped at the ground floor.
"Come on, let's get out of here for a while?" Logan suggested with a chuckle. Marie readily agreed, and quickly fell into step with him as they headed for the garage.
An hour later found them at a quiet, out of the way park, sitting under a sprawling oak, eating Chinese takeaway out of little cardboard boxes, trying to steal and defend each other’s food with chopsticks, as they watched the sun slowly sink toward the horizon.
"Mine!" Marie growled playfully, as she speared the last piece of her chicken, currently held between Logan's chopsticks, and on its way to his mouth. With a twist of her wrist she liberated her food, and quickly shoved it into her own mouth, smirking at Logan as she did. He just laughed in response, watching as the sinking light cast an orange glow over the girl sitting almost in his lap. Her hair blazed red, as her eyes sparkled brightly, lit up as much from the sun as from her brilliant smile.
"What are you thinking?" Marie asked a little while later, catching him staring at her again; he had been doing that a lot lately.
"Just thinking... did you have any preference on where we should head when we wander, are we going to Alaska first, or is that more the final destination?" Logan murmured softly, he wasn't quite ready yet to tell her just what he had actually been thinking.
"I'd like to head to Alaska first, though I'm not in any hurry to get there, so we're going to be making lots of touristy stops along the way, think you'll be able to handle that?" Marie teased.
"I think you could make it worth my while," Logan replied cheekily, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into his lap, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck.
By the time they got back to the mansion late that night, they both slipped silently up the stairs and into Logan's room. It was 'their' room now, though they didn't think anyone had noticed yet that all of Marie’s belongings had migrated. Her two roommates had already left the mansion, Kitty heading to college in Boston – the same college as Bobby, much to Pete's annoyance; the poor boy had had a crush on Kitty for years but she just didn't seem to notice, Pete was staying at the mansion to go to a community college nearby. Jubilee had set off on her own American adventure road trip, solo as far as anyone at the mansion knew, only her two best friends knew her long distance boyfriend was accompanying her on her trip, with the intent of squirreling her away down South at the end of it, so long as she liked the climate. So that room was now empty, with no one to give Rogue’s departure away.