Illusions

Part IV: All the Lights of the Soul

by jenn

Warnings: Sex. Not pretty, romance-novel sex. Possible disturbing themes. Drug use, language, violence, angst. If you've read the first three parts, you know what you're getting into.

Dedication: Jennifer Hallmark, who I would write anything for. Darkstar for the poem "Alive and Dying" that is so beautiful I was breathless while reading it. Title of this part taken from the poem. (http://www.wolverineandrogue.com/fic/fic/ae/aad.html) Fyrdrakken, who walked me through my plot step by step and whose suggestions, comments, and thoughts were priceless. I owe her big time. Andariel and Ann for the beta, encouragement, and general well-wishing. Lena for going over Chicago with me to find where I needed to go. Dax for computer encryption information and translating it into Normalese for me. Gotta love CS majors.

*****

That wasn't what he wanted.

*****

"Don't call him."

Simple rote, paint by number application of words, nothing new or earthshaking in her statement, nothing never heard before. She wasn't sure she meant it anymore, even if it was right, even if it was the truth. She wasn't sure she'd meant it the last time either.

A long sigh, and Professor Xavier played with the smudged note on his desk--still sealed, Logan's name scrawled across the front in incongruous purple ink, handwriting unmistakable. Jean's fingers itched to take it, tear it open, burn the contents herself in the fireplace downstairs--wrong or right, she just didn't have the interest to sit around and fine tune her ethics anymore.

Though God knew, she certainly had the leisure.

She knew the words that were whispered in the dorms about her, knew who kept the flames high, knew why a year and a half later, she walked into her own classrooms aware that even the newest students were writing bad lyrics in her name.

She had her own bedroom, one floor from Scott's, her own special brand of exile that just acted as confirmation of every nasty rumor, every sideways glance that had at the beginning grated against her nerves, and somehow--God, somehow--it had become bearable. And sometimes that scared her, that she'd gotten used to the glances and the whispers and the blame that had been assigned solely to her.

It scared her even more when she began to welcome it. Because no one could hurt her more than she hurt herself, and they proved that every day.

"Jean--"

It was almost memorized by now--seven times in eighteen months, this same conversation, sometimes even the same words, and the first time, Jean had almost believed that it was what everyone thought, that she wanted Logan for herself, that she was willing to sell out a student so she could keep her dominance over Logan's feelings.

Even knowing, in the very back of her mind, that she'd never had that dominance to begin with. That in the elevator, whatever claim she'd had was gone in the time it took for the aftershocks of orgasm to fade. When she'd stared into her mirror hours later, tracing the lines of bruises on her body, she'd learned something new, something unexpected. She'd been used; she knew how it felt to be fucked when someone wanted someone else. If she'd been able, if she'd known less, God, if she was even as much the hypocrite as most believed her to be, she would have hated him for it. Hated Rogue for it.

Scott hadn't found out because he'd seen the bruises, because he hadn't. The school hadn't found out because mutants had some mystical connection that let them in on the secret. It didn't show on her face, or the style of her walk, or the smiles she was still able to achieve with so little effort that she should have hated herself.

It was Rogue, standing in snow up to her knees outside, still pale from her injuries, wrapped in nothing but a blanket from the lab over the thin hospital gown--and how the hell did she know Logan was running? Turning on Jean, staring at her with wide, unbelieving eyes, tears tracking her skin in black from the remains of thick mascara and smudged liner.

--blame again, and at least in that, Jean was blameless, and caught in that gaze, that perfect hatred, the kind that stood the test of time, Jean almost wanted to tell her why Logan had run, what he was escaping, why he was packed sixteen hours later. That what he couldn't face wasn't Jean or the school or Scott or even Rogue.

He couldn't face himself.

She'd locked the words behind her teeth, one more secret that she had to keep. As Rogue stalked through the snow to stand two feet away, Jean knew she'd seen that look before, though never on Rogue's face. The slow raking gaze that took her measure in a single glance, before coming up to meet her eyes again. All Logan, down to the fingers splayed lightly at her side, the inability to ever forgive, to ever forget.

And she had. God, she had. She lost more every day. Even herself.

"Don't call him this time."

The Professor didn't answer for a moment, fingers steepling on the desk in front of him, the patient look overtaking his face. A look she'd grown to hate, and she didn't bother to shield it from him anymore.

"Jean, we've gone over this before. Rogue is--"

"Almost twenty and perfectly capable of taking care of herself."

"She's highly unstable, Jean." Yes, the same argument, as if this time, this one time, it'd mean something. "She's a very confused young woman, Jean. We don't abandon our family. And Rogue is family."

And it was true. All of it. And all false, utterly and completely. Rogue knew exactly what she was doing, had learned how to jerk them around until she got what she wanted.

"We don't go carting off after Logan when he runs, Professor."

"Logan is--more stable than Rogue." A joke if there ever was one, and perhaps he knew that too, voice flattening at the words as if they left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Jean, I don't understand--"

And he didn't. Even when he touched her mind, brushing through her arguments as if they were nothing more substantial than finely-spun cobwebs, as if it still lingered in his thoughts that she wanted Logan. As if he believed the rumors, as if he didn't understand. Which he might not--he was a telepath, the most powerful telepath on earth, yes, but not a woman.

"How many times?" Jean said, switching tacks--and maybe she cared more than she thought, because her voice, even to herself, began to awaken, began to gather heat. "She's making a point--let her. On her own. Treat her like the adult she claims she is."

She couldn't win this fight, knew it in the gentle gaze. Her credibility was too damaged. Damn.

"Jean, Rogue needs us. We can't abandon her." A soft sigh. "You understand that. She needs help."

What he didn't say, what none of them said, even whispered, even those who loved her. Rogue wasn't just any mutant--Rogue was Rogue, whose touch could kill. Rogue was an adult, yes--and terrifyingly unbalanced. They didn't chase her anymore as much for her own protection as for the protection of others--because they didn't trust her out of their sight.

And Xavier, her mentor, was a fool if he didn't think everyone understood that. And she let him feel that too

"Rogue's not the one I'm worried about," Jean said, standing up suddenly, giving up with a dusting of her hands across her thighs as Xavier slowly wheeled himself to the door. A turn of his head and she didn't bother shielding herself, let him feel her every conflicting emotion.

"Logan can take care of himself, Jean." He said it with such certainty, as if he knew. He didn't know. Shaking her head, Jean turned away, staring at the desk, hearing him wheel out.

He hadn't glimpsed what happened in that elevator and he hadn't seen the bruising on Rogue's throat, the things he hadn't interpreted correctly from Rogue's thoughts because he hadn't touched Logan's too.

He had no idea what Logan was fighting, what Rogue was trying to do. And she could never tell. It was one secret she had to keep.

"He can't," she whispered to the empty office, fingers twisted together behind her to stop their shaking. "Not from her."

* * * * *

It was the smell that was so familiar. Sitting on the edge of the yellowed, sagging mattress, booted feet planted on the floor, fully dressed.

He'd been staring at the phone for two hours.

Like it was that simple.

Just breathe. In and out. Easy to do, he did it every day.

Breathe in the motel, the fetid odors assaulting him. He'd learned to tune it out a long time ago--super-sensitive smell could make places like this a bitch. Ratty motels, while the stink got to him, were familiar, safe, necessary. He'd grown accustomed to it, accustomed to the creeping feel of the dirt boring into his skin, the cheap perfume of the women he used, the tastes that lingered just on the back of his tongue. Once upon a time, he tuned it out automatically, stopped noticing. Didn't care.

He didn't tune it out anymore. He breathed it in, let it fill him--the rancid smell of rotting meat, the sour Clorox bleach under foreign sweat, excretions--fixed it in his mind, forced himself to keep it there. Or--or--

"Stop." He whispered it to the room, not caring if the sleeping woman heard him or not. Shifted his feet, breathing in again, trying to force away the memory. His jacket was on the chair a foot away--his duffel bag was right beside it. Logan had been expecting the call since that brief touch with Cerebro, and stared at the phone.

He had, once. For all of ten seconds, walked out of the room with his bag, promising himself he wouldn't go back in there. Count it up, bub, you were three seconds away from getting in that jeep and getting your ass gone for good and they never woulda called you again. Then he was back inside, scrambling across the musty sheets that smelled of sex and self-disgust, pushing the receiver down just in time for the first ring that shook through him.

Fuck them. Fuck her. Fuck himself at this point, he wasn't choosy about who he assigned blame to. Not anymore.

"What's wrong, baby?" A low, thick Southern drawl, like honey rolling down his back. She was stretching behind him--Logan didn't look back, shutting his eyes. "You okay?"

Sex had never been so dirty before.

"Get the fuck out."

For a moment, silence. Then the slow, languorous movements of her body, the groan of the ruined springs as she stood up, looking for her clothes. The whisper of her dress as she pulled it over her head, the sound of her slipping her shoes on, then something dropped in his lap that he didn't bother to catch, sliding down to rest on his thigh..

"See ya." The kind of women he picked up weren't too choosy how he treated them. Which said a lot more about him than about them--none of it particularly flattering, and awhile back he wouldn't have had the level of introspection necessary for him to figure that out.

The door shut without drama and there was the muted click of heels going down the sidewalk onto cool asphalt, disappearing into the night . Logan stared at the phone, took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

It was the same every time--when he said that this time, he wouldn't answer it, that he'd get dressed and leave, as fast as he could move--that this time, Cerebro wouldn't find him he'd run so far--that this time--

--that this time it would ring and they'd tell him she was dead, that she'd finally managed it, and he'd failed again. Logan grabbed the receiver with one hand, lifting it to his ear.

His hand wasn't shaking.

"Yeah."

"She left two days ago. We tracked her to Chicago."

Chuck didn't bother with the small talk anymore--shit, he had them as trained as Rogue did, all knee-jerk reaction and autopilot. Logan didn't ask why Scott or Ororo or someone else wasn't hightailing it out of there to find her, because they all knew the reason, and none of them questioned that when he was called, he'd come. Period.

Shit, he didn't even ask himself anymore.

"Chicago."

Chicago. Of all the places, all the cities, of course she'd choose Chicago. This time, he knew what that message was--more than he'd wanted to know, that he could have lived without.

"Address." He reached for the pen beside the phone--how disturbing was that, he carried a pen and pad around with him now, in every motel left it by the phone that he knew would eventually ring? Scribbled down the details quickly, ready to hang up, when the Professor stopped him.

"She left you a note, Logan."

Of course she did. She went to Chicago; she left him a note.

"Read it."

Over the phone, he heard the crackling of paper, the rip of an envelope, and then the soft sounds of unfolding, paper being flattened against the desk.

"{The time for running's over, sugar. Come play with me.}" A pause. "Logan--"

"I'll call when I find her." And Logan hung up the phone, almost gently, almost quietly, before reaching down and picking up the black leather gloves from his thigh, staring at them for a minute, smelling the woman's sweat and cheap perfume on them, looking at the stains, the supple softness of them in his hand. The scent of sex and memory and the things he didn't admit to himself, that he wasn't even sure what she looked like, even when she moaned underneath him.

"The little bitch," he whispered, and threw the gloves against the wall, watching them slide down the cheap plaster to rest on the headboard, and he turned his back, as if he'd really leave them there. "Not this time either, Rogue. Not even there. Not ever."

A glance at the clock as he made the automatic calculations that life as a wanderer made instinctive. If he left now, he'd get there in ten hours.

* * * * *

She was in her lab, where everything was different. Heeled shoes and hose stripped and discarded under her desk, lab coat over the designer silk blouse and wool skirt, long hair pulled back from her face, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She knew where everything was, could walk in blindfolded and find anything she needed within seconds.

The lab was probably the one single thing that belonged to her alone.

There was her office and the medical bay, her nominal domains--shared space, where others could enter at will. Patients, students, the X-Men, random visitors. Anyone. Where she treated patients, where she was Dr. Jean Grey and ministered to others, where she was whoever they needed her to be. Where she was someone else entirely--the X-Man, the brilliant doctor, the instructor, the mutant. Once, the favorite student, treasured fiancée, trusted member of the team.

Past tense that she found she didn't regret nearly as much as she would ever have suspected.

Caress the table with one hand--solid sealed granite, cut to her specifications. Drawers that fit the length of her arm, organized so she could find anything by touch. Her desk and chair she'd had handcrafted. During construction of the sublevels, she'd been in a t-shirt and jeans, hair twisted up from her face, clipboard in hand, supervised this room personally, learning basic architectural terminology so she could understand what they were talking about above her head, her penciled design in her lap.

The rest of the underground was Scott's, Ro's, Xavier's, Warren's, even Hank's. This was hers and hers alone.

It'd been over a week since she'd been able to find time to come here, between meetings and students and conferences that seemed to make up her life as a mutant. The doctor briefly removed from her personality, the beautiful activist in high heels with a ready smile and a soft voice. God, she hated that woman.

Sitting down at her computer, she ran her fingers along the dustless edge of the desk and considered what she was going to do for the next few days, while the school revolved around the latest exploits of Rogue. Then tapped a few keys and changed her mind with the flash of data that strung itself across her screen in impossibly long strings of numbers and broken encryptions.

That wasn't normal.

First thought--someone had the audacity to come in here when she wasn't, and that pissed her off. A whole new level of pissed off, in fact.

Second thought--why in the name of God would anyone *want* to come in here?

A quick run through diagnostics--she frowned, staring at the lines of code, unsure of exactly what had happened. Something had been decrypted on her computer, but there was nothing on her hard drive that needed that--the sensitive information was on a second drive that wasn't even--

--she stood up, walking to the file cabinet, running the tips of long, sensitive fingers over the grooving, around the lock, closing her eyes briefly. Trying to find something--something like *that*, a scratch on the metal casing, too narrow to be caused by a key. Quickly, she found her keys in her coat pocket, opening up the cabinet, pulling it open, eyes flickering over the interior. She organized it, knew exactly how she placed everything. Zip drive with the sensitive information, second drive just behind in its tamper-proof case--

Nothing was different.

Jean liked mysteries. Liked distraction even more. This just made her day.

A flicker of acknowledgement, before he finished whatever he was doing, and Jean picked out the disks and the drive, placing both on the desk.

Flares of interest in soft yellow-green, and he searched her mind quickly, following the train of events faster than she would be able to relate them, before settling into the front of her mind, thoughtful.

In point of fact, the only reason she'd ever kept them separate was to avoid losing valuable information during any sort of accidental computer malfunction. The encryption had been her own idea--a cross between good security and simple avoidance of potential problems if a student made a mistake during accessing and damaged her files. Though if they asked--well, anyone could look under supervision.

The Professor seemed to reach a decision.

Worried? No. Disliked the concept of someone breaching her privacy--it was as if someone had gone into her bedroom and sorted through her clothes without her permission. She nodded slowly, giving him mental affirmation while she felt the edge of the case. Some of the younger students--hell, even some of the older ones--were addicted to continuing their less wholesome talents--such as Remy breaking into the lower levels just to prove he could, Kitty hacking Norad (and that had taken some fast talking), or Jubilee practicing some of her renowned burglary skills.

Kid stuff. Understandable. Jean just couldn't figure out why on earth they'd want to look at some of the most boring information in the school. With a smothered grin, she sat down, found the similar groove in the case. Hmm...nail file? Not quite, that wouldn't help with the tumblers. Probably a skeleton key.

Unlocking it herself, she took it out, shutting down her computer and as she knelt on the floor to start connecting it, wondering why on earth any student would want with medical files.

* * * * *

First times are first times are first times.

Logan had a lot of first times--the first time his claws came out and went through a man who had the idea that Logan was easy pickings. The first time he smelled fresh blood and blinked at the familiarity of it, the sheer instinctive pleasure that'd scared him as badly as it had excited him. The first time he'd had sex, in a cheap motel with an unlikely name, smelling of garlic and cheap bleach and a century's worth of dirt, staring down into the green eyes of his first lover. Short black skirt, black hose, high heels, no underwear.

Familiar ensembles by Rogue, her loudly private way of screwing with his head.

He never knew her name. Didn't know he was even looking for her those three nights after she disappeared back into the nightlife of the Chicago slums, when he found her body, slit from throat to stomach in a back alley, dropped in a dumpster and covered half-heartedly with blood-stained garbage. Soaked in a scent he didn't recognize, memorized before he even knew he'd made a decision.

First times are first times.

The first time he committed murder--hadn't taken long to find the bastard, and he was probably still wanted in Chicago for that particular exercise, though shit, it'd been almost two decades and adamantium didn't leave DNA evidence.

"What the fuck are you doing, Rogue?" Because he couldn't call her Marie, not anymore.

Chicago, where everything began--confusion and rage and hate and fear became something he learned to live with, sex became as casual as going to the refrigerator for a midnight snack, life became more than a series of days that stretched endlessly before and behind him without structure or meaning. When he left, he had a name and a life, and nightmares that almost killed a girl stupid enough to spend the night in his bed. She might still have the scars.

First times.

So that made two.

Logan opened the window, lighting another cigar, hating the smell of rental cars--he'd been in too many of them. Hated how familiar it was to go to the agency and pick up the keys, because Xavier had already paid for it, hated how he'd learned to run like a fucking trained puppy when he got the call.

Hated that he'd bought those gloves and carried them around with him like some sort of talisman, to keep him satisfied, away from the girl that wore them. Young enough to be his daughter--older than he'd ever be. Dangerous all around, and he stared at the road and waited out while it played over in his mind, everything he hadn't said in Jean's lab and everything he'd hidden even from himself.

The things he didn't talk about, didn't think about, when he redeposited her at Xavier's school. Every time.

The first time after Phoenix, he'd found her effortlessly and she'd only smiled--smiled slow and dark, promising him things he didn't want to admit he liked, curling herself in the back seat of the car with barely a word. As if she knew somewhere in her mind that she didn't need to do anything at all anymore, just looking at her reminded him of the touch of her skin, how she tasted, the curve of her body and the feel of her boots against his back.

He hadn't answered, because he didn't like what it said about him. There was nothing inevitable about this, nothing at all. He wasn't a fatalist, he wasn't that type, he didn't--

"Fuck."

--believe it, didn't acknowledge it. How his dreams were no longer of labs but of dark hair twisted around his hand, a girl who could have been his daughter silky-white on dark sheets, the things he could do to her with or without gauze, the things he wanted to taste and see and feel--take her and possess her, lose himself in her, in the thing she could promise with a look and a trail of leather gloves over his wrist. Be the first and only in her body, in her mind--

--things he told himself he didn't want. He was a good liar.

"Shit. Shut the fuck up."

Hell of a thing talking to yourself and almost expecting an answer. Hitting the steering wheel with one gloved hand, Logan took another drag of the cigar, wishing that the high would happen, wishing he could get far enough out of his skin so he couldn't feel this anymore. Sick with himself, sick with her, sick with this life he'd allowed himself to be trapped in.

Of course she'd known. He'd have been surprised if she didn't. And shit, he'd actually opened his mouth to tell her--God, he must have been tired as hell, he'd almost said it. Almost threw it at her, like an accusation, telling an eighteen year old kid he'd fucked Jeanie because he couldn't have her, and how sick was that?

Even sicker when he considered--and he did, he was that kind of person--that the right drug combinations would make her skin safe for him to touch. And in the recesses of his mind, he wanted--God, he wanted--to find out what they were.

He knew Rogue did too. Rogue, who woke up in Jean's lab with the bandages on her arms, staring at them in shock when Jean told her in a flat voice that he hadn't been able to help her. Memories of touch faint in her mind, reaching out, grabbing for Jean's wrist and Jean jumping back.

The Professor and Jeanie thought her little spurts of rebellion were her search for that mystery drug, the one that let her touch. And they'd be half-right, because at every pick-up in a half-dozen filthy cities when he found her, she was always high and always searching, always reaching for him with bared fingers, and damned if he didn't let her touch him, every time.

And every time the pull began and he grabbed her wrist with a gloved hand, pulling her away, watching the flare of hot rage and disappointment burning in her eyes.

Funny, how fucking accurate her memory was. Fuck if she wasn't right, how much he'd liked it. Liked the way she stretched her bruised body in the back seat for him, tiny shirts riding up to reveal the curve of her stomach, the lines of her ribs, creamy skin he could taste.

The heels of her boots digging into the seat while he stared at the windshield and drove, trying to remember the smell of Clorox and cheap motels while her scent washed over him, imprinting him until he wasn't sure of anything except drive. Just drive. And don't stop. God, don't stop.

He'd never made the mistake of stopping for the night..

* * * * *

"I don't get it." Jean frowned over the files. "I know someone broke in, I have the encryption records right here."

"What codes were used?" Ororo was sitting just behind her, looking down at the print-out with a frown of concentration.

If she had a single thing in this entire school that she could count on, it was Ororo. Who understood--in her slightly-distant-from-humanity way. Who was willing to be up all hours of the night looking at lines of code and computer commands and try to make sense of it when Jean finally got the equivalent of seasick staring at the fine print, so tiny it was almost impossible to understand how the hell this had anything to do with a computer.

"I think--I think it was a program." She felt Ororo's gaze at the computer screen and sighed, rubbing her temples absently. She felt Ororo's fingers close over her glasses, tugging them from her face and moving the red hair back behind her ears, had to smile at the familiarity of it. "I'm not sure." Pushing back from the keyboard, her chair rolled backwards until checked by pressing her bare feet back onto the floor before she hit the lab table. "This just makes no sense--*someone* got in here and they obviously were looking at something. And they didn't try very hard to make sure they weren't caught, either."

"You're not going to accomplish anything by staring so angrily at the monitor, Jean. When is the last time you chose to eat?"

Jean couldn't help her giggle at the choice of phrasing. Hysteria, low blood sugar, everything was funny after twenty-two hours awake.

"Awhile, actually." A pause, and she leaned back into her chair, closing her eyes. How long had it been? Some fruit this morning--apple? Orange, maybe--no, that was too messy. An apple and some toast she'd grabbed while the kids were making breakfast, for once ignoring the whispers. She heard the other woman begin to put away the disks and stack the papers. "Don't worry about it, Ororo. I'll lock my office and set security. Even Kitty would have problems getting through the latest--" She stopped, frowning. "Perhaps I should talk to Kitty."

The dark eyes flickered to her, one eyebrow arching.

"I thought you wanted to ascertain which files had been tampered with before proceeding to your suspect list."

Jean rubbed the bridge of her nose as she leaned forward, and her glasses took off for the air with a touch of her mind, settling themselves back over her face. She wasn't ready to give up, even if her body was under the general impression it might be time to take a break.

"I did--"

"And you will at this moment get up and go eat." Jean jerked and her glasses were once again plucked off her nose and moved out of sight--thereby foiling telekinesis. "It is nearly midnight--certainly your work can wait until you have eaten and rested. You cannot, after all, wake the children at this time of night and get your answers."

"You mean, 'Ro, that I *shouldn't* wake them. Not that I can't." Jean leaned back, waiting for her eyes to readjust to uncorrected vision. "Okay. I'll get something to eat--"

"Rest?"

Jean turned curious eyes at her friend.

"We've known each other for a decade, right?"

Ororo nodded warily.

"And you still have to ask if I'm going to rest?" Jean smiled, stretching the muscles of her back that protested the sudden motion, and stood up, absently pulling off her lab coat. Ororo's slow smile was her reward.

"Eat, then stare at your screen until you fall unconscious on your keyboard and drool over the keys?"

"There is a reason we buy keyboards in bulk. And I don't drool. Are you going to join me?"

Ororo shrugged with delicate indecision.

"Since I have little better to do--"

"Besides crawl into bed with that Cajun--"

A flare of color across Ororo's face made Jean pause, quirking an eyebrow.

"There is nothing between Remy and I--"

"Yet." Jean's smile widened. "I won't ask."

"There is nothing to ask about."

"Of course not." Still grinning, Jean unfastened her hair from the clip, running her fingers absently through it. It'd grown--she needed to cut it soon. "Let's go."

Jean grabbed a file as she walked out--habit, she guessed--and set the security codes before leaving and locking the door behind Ororo.

Eating was most productive when combined with research, after all.

* * * * *

If asking questions was an art form, Logan was an artist.

He'd learned the art of good interrogation somewhere along the line--unfortunately, the finer points were really unnecessary. His presence tended to scare people into honesty given a look at the claws or the judicial application of physical violence. Either one worked, and since he was interested in speed, things usually progressed to physical pretty damn rapidly.

If he said he didn't like it, he'd be lying.

Which is why the manager of motel number two was suspended four and a half inches above the floor so Logan could look straight in his eyes.

"She was here. You gave her a key. Who was she with, how many, and when did she leave?"

Keep it simple. Simple was always best. From the sudden smell--well, he might get his answers before he had to do anything really damaging. Shit.

Second motel--he was closing on her fast. Credit card receipts tracked to here. Paper trail--she was being deliberately sloppy or just stupid, and he'd call Rogue a lot of things, but stupid didn't make the top-ten list, not with her skill. She meant it like this, she was playing.

She had a way about her, he'd give her that.

The man gurgled something indistinct that could have been anything from a prayer for help to a mumble about needing clean underwear. Logan lowered him to the floor, freeing him at the same moment to watch him stumble and fall against the wall, gasping for air, fat hands clutching around his throat.

"Answers?"

"Sir, I don't--" The watery blue eyes widened at the appearance of nine inches of metal, and Logan thoughtfully looked between them and the man's exposed throat. "A girl was here like that--had--had two kids with her. Left last night. Freaks--eh, mutants." Wide eyes not leaving the exposed claws. "They--the police were here, askin' too. Wanted for a robbery on fiftieth, liquor store."

An amazing lack of surprise.

"Where'd they go?"

"Didn't tell me--fuck, why the fuck would they? She paid her way out and left. Cleared out the room--the cops been over it a dozen times, talkin' 'bout drugs and some crap like that. I don't know any more, I swear!"

He was silent at least, and Logan thoughtfully shifted the center claw so it rested neatly on the frantically bobbing Adam's apple.

"You had to have heard something. Anything. Where would they go?" He studied the sweat that was beading the man's forehead, then let the metal push into the skin. A startled scream, and Logan withdrew it, waiting.

"I don't know no more than that, I swear!"

Probably didn't at that. With a sigh, Logan nodded and withdrew the claws, dropping a handful of twenties on the desk and turning back.

"You ever say anything about her or me to anyone else, I'll slit your belly open and have a cigar while I watch you die. Got it?"

A frantic bobbing of the head that could have just been nervous tremors, but Logan decided to be generous and believe he'd gotten the point across. Turning toward the door, he checked the scents--nothing but crumbling motel.

She was playing, no question--with any kind of thought, she'd know exactly how long it would take him to track her here, and he was less than twenty-four hours behind her now. Think. Think. Where would she go, why would she go there--

Logan kicked the door open and climbed back in the car, shoving the keys deep into the ignition with a vicious jerk of his wrist, taking a long breath, trying to calm himself down.

Another breath, and he leaned back in the seat, letting his hand fall from the key and settling back.

"You want somethin', kid?" He didn't want to smile, didn't want to do anything at all--because fuck, she'd outmaneuvered him and that was supposed to be bad. But hell, she'd just shortened this little fucking useless journey and even with the metal of the gun pressed against the back of his neck, he had to be amused.

The feminine face that appeared in the rearview mirror grinned, revealing slightly pointed teeth and a pointed tongue. Rogue's friends were always amused by something. Dark red hair was haphazardly pulled back from her face and he identified three different kinds of smoke sheathing her pale skin. If she was sixteen yet, he'd be damned surprised.

"Actually, Wolvie, I think we got some business." She clicked the safety on, crawling over the seat and smiling at him. She was wired so high he couldn't even be sure she was aware of the twitches of her body beside him and he breathed a little easier when she dropped the gun on the floorboard.

"Where is she?"

A shrug of her bare shoulder and she reached over and flipped the ignition. The engine roared to life.

"Let's go find out."

*****

Nice, comfortable--not so comfortable, she was dreaming of sleeping on tiny rocks that made odd noises like clicks every time she shifted and if she had to dream about sleeping on rocks, was it such a stretch to make them quiet? Jean stretched an arm, and it was only blind luck that she didn't slip from her chair when she realized that--

"You find keyboards comfortable?"

--she'd fallen asleep on her keyboard.

Lifting her head briefly, Jean shook her hair, pushing back the strands that had matted to her face--she did *not* drool, damn it--and struggled to find the glasses that had slipped off her nose and onto the desk, resting beside her collection of colored pens. Glancing up, she took in the sight of Scott at the doorway.

"I suppose so." Rubbed her face, suddenly aware of the marks of the keys, then glanced at the monitor, but apparently, she hadn't done anything she needed to be worried about with her face on the keys. "What are you doing down here this early?"

"It's past noon." He didn't move from the open doorway. Maybe waiting for an invitation, she wasn't quite sure, didn't really feel a strong need to figure it out. Pressing a hand to her spine, she rubbed the muscles absently before standing up, looking over the assortment of paper that circled her desk, her chair, spread across her lab table.

"The Professor told me there was a breach in security."

Trust Scott to say it like that. She nodded, stretching her hands out on the lab top, trying to remember where she left off. Ororo had given up and gone to bed--maybe alone, maybe not--and Jean wasn't exactly sure when the world had finally gone dark on her, though she had to guess it was after four, since she remembered starting coffee around that time.

A glance, and there was a full pot.

"Yes. I'm trying to track down what was found."

"Anything priority on there?" Amazing how he could make it sound like it was her fault. Which she supposed it was.

"Not really. Just medical files. I just wish I could figure out why." A sigh and she leaned against the table, pushing the edge into the small of her back. Damn, sleeping in chairs hurt.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine. Just muscle strains." Unthinking, she pulled on the jacket she'd discarded over her wrinkled blouse, twisting her hair idly back and groping for the clip she'd left on the desk. Her glasses--ah, there by the keyboard. Shaking herself, she picked through the files. "I think I'll have to talk to Kitty--she hacks for enjoyment, and she's perfectly capable of doing this."

A pause.

"Do you know when it happened?"

Jean frowned a little, turning her eyes on the monitor.

"Not long ago--I just returned from Washington, so my guess is that it was accessed before I got back." She frowned again. "I suppose one of the students might have possibly--"

"Did you talk to Hank?"

Jean smiled brittley. Poor Scott, he wanted control of the situation. She didn't envy the Professor having to inform Scott of what had happened. The Leader hated to be left out of the loop, and he was going to take it out on her. So the hell what.

"He has access to these records--he would have left me a note to tell me. But yes, I spoke to Hank. He wasn't in here while I was away."

Scott ran his fingers absently through his hair, avoiding his visor with instinctive caution, before walking in the room, letting the door close behind him and taking a look at her monitor.

"Rogue's disappearance occurred the day you arrived back," Scott said calmly. Visored eyes flickered to her--maybe a light accusation that she'd yet again done something to upset the girl. Jean's existence was enough to piss Rogue off, so that tack was old, well-used, and lead to nowhere. She wondered briefly if Scott had actually bought into the 'it's-Jean's-fault-Rogue's-unstable' mentality or just used to it justify his own continuing anger. That way, he didn't have to get over her betrayal, didn't have to forgive her.

He'd probably be surprised that she no longer cared whether she was forgiven.

"Yeah." She mulled on that for a minute, blinking at the screen. "I need to talk to Kitty soon--she's the only one I know of who could break all the encryption without leaving much of a trace. Though--" Jean stopped, frowning at the screen. "Kitty would have covered it all so well I never would have found out."

Scott's head came up sharply as Jean pushed her chair back, fingers dropping to the keyboard, quickly pulling up a file.

"What do you mean?"

"Kitty would have shut it down and hidden everything--but all the information was still here still--all the evidence that someone was in here." Jean sat back, frowning again, then straightened, groping for her glasses. "Where is Kitty now?"

"At lunch."

She'd slept that long?

"Looks like I'll be doing this interview sooner than I thought." Jean frowned as she looked down at the screen, then grabbing one of her pens, jotted down the string of dates she saw, access dates to the main database.

"I'll come with you."

"Suit yourself." Straightening her jacket, she grabbed a stack of files from beside the monitor and passed Scott on the way to the door.

* * * * *

There were a thousand ways to lose yourself in Chicago. Legal, quasi-legal, and illegal-- all could be found on the same street, and Logan glanced around briefly as he went down the main street ironically called "Broadway" (he had to wonder if anyone but him got humor from that). Once a nice part of town, it'd slowly slipped downwards and the street was rich with some of the less reputable life as night closed in on the city.

Familiar. Far too damned familiar. When Rogue made a point, she made it big time. All at once, the scent and feel of the city seemed to envelope him as they hadn't since he'd arrived--or maybe he was repressing, as the Professor was all too willing to point out with or without being asked. On a side-street he caught a glimpse of tall black boots and sharp heels, a woman's bare back flashing white under the raw glow of the streetlights for the briefest moment before she slipped into the shadows between the ramshackle buildings.

They'd been driving for hours around this godforsaken city and it had to say something about his patience that he hadn't snapped the neck of the girl beside him.

"Where we goin'?"

The girl shrugged, staring vaguely out the windshield as if she wasn't sure either--or she was seeing things he couldn't. The twitching was killing his nerves, beyond words to describe. Taking a breath, he tightened his fingers on the steering wheel, keeping his concentration on the road, trying to keep from simply slapping the girl to get an answer or maybe just to make her stop moving so much.

"She said soon," the girl answered after a few endlessly long moments. He wondered if it took her that long to figure out what he'd said.

"You don't know?"

It took an inordinately long amount of time for her head to turn, and the big eyes fixed on his with easy familiarity, as if she knew him. Then a slight brush--he felt it, like the scratch of sandpaper against his brain, and he dropped a hand and let the metal slide out between his knuckles, tips inches away from the femoral artery in her leg.

"Try that again," he invited

There was the off-chance she was too high to recognize her own danger, but she jerked in belated reaction, staring down at his hand as if she'd never seen one before.

"You're hard to read," she said, almost sulkily, but her eyes never left the claws, inches away from her exposed thigh.

"Good to know." A pause. "What the fuck is Rogue playin'?"

An odd smile turned up her lips.

"She's not playing, Wolvie. She's oh-so-serious." A glance from below her lashes, flickering from his claws to his face. Not much fear--she was too high for that. He wondered what would scare her, if anything could. "Put those away. You're not gonna find her by gutting me."

Though it would be fun. Definitely.

*****

Kitty frowned as she sat back in the chair, fingers twisting restlessly around the armrests.

"Honestly, Dr. Grey, I wasn't anywhere near your office when you were gone."

Jean pushed the files across her desk, frowning as Kitty looked over them. Mind open, breathe deep--the younger girl was telling the truth. She could sense that much--what she couldn't quite figure out was why Kitty was so jumpy. Taking a cleansing breath, she shut her eyes, once again tempted to see if she could read anything on the surface of the girl's thoughts, forcing herself not to try. After a few minutes, Kitty put them down, and the expression on her face was troubled.

"Rogue--back a few months ago, Rogue was saying that she thought she might know what it was she took that turned off her mutation. She might have been pulling the records you have in her file from your examination when she returned from Phoenix."

Jean straightened.

"She thinks she found it?"

Kitty frowned again, obviously struggling with her conscience. Jean struggled with her ethics. They both won.

Barely.

"She wasn't sure--she ran into some people that were at a party she went to where--when her skin was turned off. She said they could find her more, but she wasn't able to get it--"

"Because Logan showed up," Jean finished. Kitty nodded slowly.

"Yeah." Kitty let out a breath. "She was pissed about that. It's--it wasn't what she thought, though." Another frown, then her gaze snapped to Scott. "I told the Professor that she was getting restless before she left--but I didn't tell him that I thought someone might have contacted her."

"Here?" Scott straightened from his position by the door.

"No--a payphone at the mall when she went with Jubes and me. She called someone and wouldn't really tell us who." Another pause, longer. "I mean--we didn't think much of it at the time, but she left a couple of days later."

Jean Grey nodded slowly.

"She doesn't have the experience to break into my computer."

"No--but--" Kitty twitched slightly and glanced at Scott. For a moment, Jean considered, then felt her face flush a little as she realized what Kitty didn't want to say.

"You got the codes for her." For any reason--to play a little prank on resident pariah Jean Grey, to let Rogue release some aggression by causing trouble for her rival--Kitty turned away, flushing, but Jean didn't sense she was sorry. More that she was embarrassed to be caught in front of Scott. "Were you aware of the contents of that drive Rogue wanted to break into, Miss Pryde?"

Kitty's eyes jerked back to Jean's, startled.

"I thought it was--your private files." A slight shrug that could mean anything.

Jean didn't let her teeth clench together, didn't let her anger spill over. Folding her hands over the top of the folders and rubbing absently at the stain of purple ink on the tip of her finger, she gave a glance to Scott before meeting Kitty's eyes.

"The codes you so kindly provided Rogue went to the master database and medical records of all students and faculty in this school, not to mention other mutants." Kitty's mouth dropped. "The information is open to anyone, under supervision--but if you think Rogue was playing some sort of prank, I need to know. Otherwise, the safety of the students here could be in jeopardy, not to mention the possibility of corrupted medical files."

Kitty's mouth closed with a snap, opened again.

"She didn't say that--"

Scott interrupted.

"Kitty, if we are required to deny you complete computer access to assure that you don't use your talents for destructive purposes, we will." He waited a beat, and Jean let her folded hands tighten briefly. "What did she want?"

Kitty shook her head--Jean picked up her fear and anger and below it all--sinking suspicion.

Suspicion that Jean shared.

"She wanted to just--she said it was just to screw around with Dr. Grey's head," Kitty said, eyes fixed on Scott. "That's all, I swear. I fished the codes out and gave them to her and me and Remy ran interference so she could get into the lab. It wasn't--I mean, I didn't--"

Jean was thinking. Rogue found someone who might give her the drug combination. Get her records. Good so far--that was what Rogue was after. Useless as hell, because only a doctor could understand half the terminology and data-entrance methods Jean employed, so hmm.

"Thank you, Kitty. We'll discuss your behavior later." Scott nodded sharply and Kitty slowly rose, keeping her gaze carefully away from Jean. And for a moment, the older woman burned--this was her interview and Scott had taken it on himself to dismiss Kitty, without a word to her.

When Kitty was gone and the door closed, Jean leaned back.

"Well, that explains it." It left her vaguely unsatisfied, however, and she wondered if the Professor should contact Logan via Cerebro, give him an update, that Rogue might have found someone who could give her the right formula for her mutation and had absconded with stolen medical files. Scott crossed the room to pull Kitty's vacated chair closer to the desk and slowly sat down. She saw a similar conflict brewing on his face as restless hands twitched on the armrests--so very Scott, never really at rest.

"Could she read those files?"

"She could print them up, but I don't see how she'd understand most of it--to be honest, Scott, unless you're a doctor, they're useless."

"Hmm." A pause. "Would she know that?"

Jean blinked, flipping over the folder to pull out one of the hardcopies, studying the lines carefully.

"I taught her advanced biology her senior year and she had access to the medical records. She might know enough to skim them, but some of the information--I don't think she'd have the proper knowledge of medical terminology."

"So she took them knowing they'd be useless."

"Unless she knows more than I thought--" Jean stopped, frowning. "Even if she did--I don't see a real problem."

"Nor do I." In a single graceful motion, Scott rose, giving the pile of files a glance. "I'll inform the Professor. He can decide whether Logan needs to know." A pause--and Jean wondered if he'd ever say that name without looking as if he'd bitten into something rotten. A faintly amusing expression, and Jean supposed it didn't say much about her that she took a strange amusement from the experience of seeing it. Forcing her grin away, she closed the folders, beginning to rise herself.

Then paused. It was tickling at the back of her mind, and she glanced down, flipping the top folder open again, reading the string of dates. Well, useless information, she knew who had done it and roughly when, and she began to close the folder when it struck her again--the stained ink of her forefinger resting beside the scrawled dates she'd written in her lab.

"Jean?"

Their years together meant something, she supposed in a haze of surprise. He could still feel her. Slowly, she turned over her finger, lifting it to her eyes, looked down at the file.

Both were in purple ink.

*****

It was called the Uptown, and he knew the girl had been leading him in circles to get here and couldn't be sure why. Chicago was grid-based, and especially in this part of town, it was hard to get lost if you had the vaguest sense of direction. And Logan's sense of direction was flawless.

Rogue was planning something. What, he had no idea. Why the fuck she wanted him wandering the streets was a second question. Third question was what the hell he was going to do when he saw her, and not for the first time, it didn't seem so bad an idea to knock her out and sling her over his shoulder, carry her to the car and just drive until they got somewhere that *wasn't* the Mansion. Sit her down and explain a few things about being an adult, though wasn't it so laughable that he was the one to do the explaining?

Watch her when she turned those big, dark eyes on him and ran her hands casually down her own body, asking him if he liked what he saw, and answering that question was this side of stupid. Being in a situation where she could ask that and he couldn't run was even worse.

The girl beside him was off in her own world--telepathic, he decided, not very strong, probably not even as strong as Jeanie, certainly not as subtle if he could feel her every scrape. A weird sort of game, because she didn't stop trying to touch, but he sensed that she wasn't even completely conscious of doing it, and the imagery he sometimes let her get startled her every time. Being himself had taught him one thing--telepaths in his mind, even strong ones, got really disoriented really fast. He supposed it was something like eating what you thought was steak and it turned out to be tofu--touching Logan expecting something fully human was a shock when you figured out how much wasn't even close. He could play at being human with the best of them, but when it came down to brass tacks, so to speak--well, the truth was the truth. He wasn't.

So it made for easy entertainment. Telepaths high and low were a dime a dozen, and IDing them in a crowd was easy by the way they jerked when they looked at him.

"The Uptown," she whispered unnecessarily, and her fingers splayed slightly to scratch down her thighs over her skirt, absently rubbing her knuckles after. That scrape again, trying with childish determination to push deeper with nothing but sheer strength to recommend her, and not much of that to begin with. He wondered if he should tell her that he worked with a telepath that could fry her in under six seconds and if *that* man sometimes had problems getting into Logan's head, her chances were nil.

Would make conversation at any rate. Whether she'd understand it or be able to pay attention was another matter entirely. She was spacing out so hard he had to wonder how she was even staying conscious enough to lead him in circles.

Big circles too, and shit, he would have thought Rogue would know he'd recognize being led around like this.

"The Uptown," she repeated as he pulled into an alley, not much caring about auto safety here as long as he could get out. Stepping into the garbage-covered concrete, he took a breath and winced at the stench. Something had died back here and he had no intention of discovering what or whom or where. He shut the door, automatically locking it, before circling the car and jerking the girl out onto the stained concrete. She stumbled and he glanced down at the platform heels, totally unsuitable for confrontation with feral mutants and what the *fuck* was Rogue thinking?

"Show me."

He closed the passenger door as she leaned back against the car, squeezing her eyes tight. Tension vibrated from her. A startled suspicion crossed his mind, a little late, granted.

"Are you talkin' to Rogue up there?" Tapped his fingers sharply against the thin, pale temple and she winced. How *fucking* odd, he could smell the vaguest trace of Rogue on her. Thin, light, surrounding her as if she was wearing Rogue's clothes or had rubbed up against her full body, some imagery that did interesting things to his head.

"Yeah, and it's not so easy, you know?" A frown and then her clear eyes opened. Dark eyes, startling in their power, looked up into his for a moment, and maybe those sandpaper scrapes of hers had bared his nerves more than he'd thought, because the resemblance was startling, the smell so familiar, he felt himself take a step toward her, almost reaching out to touch her, touch the bare skin of her hands--

"Wolvie." Her voice jerked him back into the here and now. {Fuck.} This time, he welcomed the nauseating odor of death and disease around him, kicking garbage out of his way, wanting to slam a fist into the wall just to get rid of the tension. Hated this, hated her, hated everything that was keeping him here when he could be anywhere that wasn't here, anywhere that didn't make him faintly sick and in some weird way nostalgic.

"Rogue's waitin'," she said softly, and he glared at her, pleased to see her shrink back against the car.

"She thinks she's gonna call all the shots?"

A pause--the girl frowned again, pushing her hair back with small bare fingers.

"She said it's what you always wanted." A smile, rather natural, made her almost pretty. "Third floor."

No shit, he thought, turning away from her and going to find the door.

He knew this place.

"Wolvie." He didn't want to pause, fixed on Rogue somewhere in this decrepit building, but--

"What?"

Her smile was utterly Rogue's and almost stopped his heart.

"She's ready to play."

*****

"Jean--"

Fourth stanza, new words, same rhythm. Jean, however, was less interested this time in playing along and planted both hands on the desk.

"Professor, I'm asking you to just contact him. If she's found that formula, Logan might be up against the same circumstances he faced in Phoenix, and he deserves to know what he's walking into." A pause--that was an argument she knew he couldn't work against, couldn't deny. Rogue still carried the scars on her body.

"He's aware of what he could face, Jean."

Purple ink. It just stuck with her now--Rogue sat in her office and wrote that note. In the middle of frantically downloading her med reports, had stopped and took the time to find paper and grab the pen beside the keyboard, scratch out a note to Logan. Just to make sure he followed.

Jean wanted to know what had inspired her to do it at right that moment.

"So we don't warn him that this is likely going to be a replay of what happened before? Instead, he walks in blindfolded? Professor, there's no good reason not to at least let him know."

The Professor sat back, dark eyes narrowing on her face in thought.

"You're worried about something." His gaze flickered to Scott, then back to her, waiting for her to explain. He'd never violate the privacy of her mind without her permission.

"Yes." She slowly sat back in her chair, feeling Scott's gaze as well, wondering how she was going to phrase this. Perfectly, or they'd both dismiss her out of hand. "I don't have anything but--I'm not sure. Unease. It doesn't fit, this isn't Rogue's usual behavior before she runs." Hesitating, she weighed her options, then finally decided and opened her mind, letting him seek through it. After several minutes, he nodded slowly, and she wasn't mistaken--there was a distinctly different expression on his face, a new shading to the powerful mind.

"I see." A glance at Scott. "Do you have any opinion?"

"I agree with Jean that it seems odd, but I don't understand her unease, sir." Quite non-committal. She shook her head, calling up relaxation techniques to force her body to calm, to evenness, her mind to clarity.

"It couldn't hurt to tell Logan, sir. If for no other reason than he should be prepared for whatever he walks in on."

Jean breathed out, a rush of relief leaving her faintly dizzy.

"If he hasn't found her already and assessed her condition, sir." Scott's voice was stiff. Turning her eyes on him, the wooden posture, she shook her head slowly and looked away.

"If he had, he would have informed us already." Another pause, and Jean watched him divide his gaze between her and Scott evenly. "I'll contact him. Be prepared to share your feelings with him, Jean." Jean felt the startled stab of hurt from Scott, turned her head in surprise, and from the Professor's pained expression, wondered with a little sick amusement whether the phrasing could have been a little better. With an uncertain smile, she rose, and she and Scott followed the Professor to Cerebro.

*****

The Uptown had begun as a theatre, turning burlesque house sometime in the last twenty years, moving on to restored hotel most recently, though this wasn't among its best eras. The stairs creaked under his weight and the receptionist barely gave him more than a cursory glance when he walked by her, almost as if she didn't see him at all.

It was like the Twilight Zone he'd watched with the kids years ago--with Rogue, come to think of it--where everyone was one shade off what they should be. Everything in him was sensing something wrong, something very wrong, and the twitchier he got, the worse it was.

{Think about Rogue. What you're going to.} Easier, quicker, have a plan ready for her. Get her downstairs and out, see what she was on, get her home to be dealt with.

But--

--made him think about the effort Rogue was putting into this, made him edgy, more than he cared to admit. She'd never done this before. This smacked of strategy, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. Or rather, why she thought it would work.

Faintly, though, he could smell her on the stairs. She'd been on them recently. Faintest trace, he wanted to follow it, felt it pull at him.

Startled, he almost tripped over the first stair and the receptionist glanced up in surprise. Grabbing the banister with both hands, he took a breath, focusing on the voice in his head with some effort.

That scent was calling him.

Cerebro couldn't keep up this level of contact long--the Professor wanted to know where he was, wanted to call, and Logan wasn't ready for that. Closed his eyes briefly, turning to lean himself against the wall so he could concentrate. He didn't want anyone fucking with his mind.

:::Stay the fuck out, Chuck.::: It took effort, but Logan forced his mind into perfect stillness, blankness, feeling the connection begin to slip. Then opened his eyes, knowing the connection was broken, and shook his head to clear it and began to take the rickety stairs two at a time. The musty smell of the air begged for something resembling ventilation, and the heat was getting to him.

Her scent was just below it, barely a trace.

Summer in Chicago sucked, big time, all the humidity that held the smells and the heat. Another few stairs, first landing, and why was Chuck trying to contact him? Did the man know where he was, did he fish it out in an unguarded moment? Logan wasn't sure. Looking up the staircase, took a breath--he had her scent now, she'd been here very recently. Drawing him toward the wall, where she must have pressed her bare hand briefly, he could pick up traces of sweat and the lotion she used to keep her gloves from chafing. Over and around it, a host of scents he tuned out to concentrate on her, on the feel of it slithering inside him, like feeling her naked skin brush against his body.

He took the stairs two at a time.

*****

When the Professor emerged, Jean read the look on his face before she even felt the negative touch of his mind.

"Do you know where he is?" Jean asked finally, and the Professor shook his head again. Cerebro's doors closed behind him. Scott automatically fell into step with her as they followed the Professor down the hallway.

"Chicago is all I can be certain of. Some vague images of location, but nothing I can use to pinpoint him." The Professor paused, turning his chair to look at Jean. "There was residue of another telepath's touch, however."

Jean was startled enough to freeze in place.

"Would you normally be able to feel that, sir?"

The Professor frowned.

"No. I should not." A pause. "He was very focused on something else entirely--so focused that he barely responded to my query. He broke contact within seconds." The frown deepened. "I don't like this, Jean."

Even Scott was beginning to frown, and Jean leaned back into the wall, trying to think.

"I don't understand--what makes this different from any other time Rogue has run away?" He sounded honestly curious, obviously wanting to follow their logic and was unable to, needed more information. Intuition wasn't Scott Summers' forte. Until yesterday, Jean would have said the same about herself.

"From what I felt--Logan feels Rogue is playing a game." The Professor's frown deepened. "She's setting him up for something, and he's not sure what."

"And he's walking into it?" Jean asked. A pause. "That's not like Logan. He doesn't walk into a situation without having some control, even with Rogue."

"Yes, I know." Another pause. "Jean, you're worried because she took those files--that she felt the need to take those files."

"Yes." Paused for a minute. "Worried because whatever she found made her write that note. That was impulse, sir. She saw something that made her want to assure it was Logan we sent after her. Jotted that down, sealed it, then put everything back up. Forgot to stop the decryption program. Left that same day. She was in a hurry." Jean paused, seeing the Professor's eyes focus on her. "Kitty said she might have found the formula that would turn off her skin, and she got a phone call about it soon before she left."

"She reacted to it badly last time," Scott observed. Jean nodded slowly. Coming together, there it was-- "Hallucinations, physical discomfort, nausea, vomiting, schizoid behavior--not safe."

Got it.

"She'd want to test it."

Silence for a moment, as Jean's words fell flat between them. The Professor's head came up sharply, and she felt her entire body stiffen as the importance of what she said took hold in her mind.

Beside her, Scott was straightening. Denial was flooding off him in waves. Below it--deep below, she was scared to read it. He believed. He knew Rogue, knew her obsession. He believed.

"She wouldn't do anything to hurt Logan, Jean." Convince her, convince himself, he believed. Oh God.

"No, she wouldn't," Jean said, closing her eyes for a moment, letting the memory of Logan inside her in that elevator overtake her, images from Logan's mind. Logan whispering Rogue's name in her ear. "All she'd need to do is ask."

*****

Three doors down to the right, her scent got steadily stronger, and it should have worried him that everything else was becoming so trivial. She smelled tired, oddly exultant, sweet. She smelled like she was waiting.

He had a feeling she was waiting for him.

He ran a gloved hand across the wall where her scent was strongest, where she'd dragged her skin, addicted to the scent of her. The door was almost an afterthought when his hand encountered it. Wondered if it was locked. A turn of the handle and no, it wasn't, and he pushed it open, found her scent concentrated near the window in the dark room and took her in.

All in black again. Big dark eyes, white streak pulled back behind her ear. God, she was beautiful and had he forgotten that somewhere along the way?

"Hey, sugar," she whispered, and nothing else existed, because her hands were bare at her sides, raising slowly toward him. Five steps, four steps. So close, that scent, her bare skin in reach. He wanted to touch her. She was smiling, lit up from within. He wanted to touch that bare wrist, see if the skin was as smooth as it looked, if it tasted like he thought it would.

"Wolvie."

The door was slammed shut behind him and a hand closed over his shoulder.

Rogue's eyes widened and shit, he was slowed down too much, focused too much, the smell was too good, and both Rogue's hands went out before he felt something pressed to the back of his shoulder. Someone had walked up behind him and he hadn't had a clue.

He knew what injections felt like and the animal inside rose briefly in a battle he knew he'd lost. Telepathic girl to distract him, Rogue to bait him. This could be funny. He'd look back on it and laugh. God.

"Shit, Beth!" Rogue's voice from a distance, angry. "I didn't have time to ask--"

"What if he'd said no? Ten seconds, Rogue. It'll work."

Someone caught him when his legs collapsed, lowering him to the floor, and Rogues' face just above went dim. But her bare hand was on his face and he didn't feel any pull at all and even with tears in her eyes, her fingers were moving over him, and there was a sudden smile lighting up her face. She'd found it, she'd found what she was looking for.

"It's working," she whispered, from a truly amazing distance. "No pull. Nothing at all."

He wanted to ask her why she'd doubted.

*****

"Rogue?"

There was the discordant view of dark yellow paint in hard edges, fading out almost instantly back into dreamy unreality.

"Rogue, what the hell are you doing?"

"Rogue, you gotta stop. He doesn't look too good--"

"Get out, Beth. I don't need you anymore."

*****

Jean curled in the hall outside Cerebro, listening to Ororo and Scott pace before her.

Her eyes were closed.

It was twenty-five minutes and he hadn't come out yet, and that wasn't good. That meant he couldn't find Logan at all and Jean's heart was trapped in her throat as she thought about that, thought about what it meant.

Whatever Rogue had done was done. There was nothing anyone could do.

"Jean?" Scott's voice, a cross between worried and angry and so hurt--she didn't need to be a telepath to guess what he thought, why she was so worried. Her lover, he was thinking, with Rogue, and just below it all, she felt his hope, the hope he'd never admit, that Rogue had gotten what she wanted, that Logan and Rogue were fucking each other in that city somewhere.

Didn't matter what condition Rogue left him in when they were done. Scott hated Logan like he hated no one else and she sometimes wished she could take Scott's face between her hands, make him look in her eyes, and show him what she knew, what Rogue had been doing to Logan inside and out.

No one should go through that. No one deserved that. And she wanted him to see what happened in that elevator, wanted him to see what she'd seen, what she felt, make him understand.

It wasn't her secret and she couldn't tell, even now. If she owed Logan one single thing, if there was one thing she could ever do for him that meant something, that could take away the hurt she'd done to him that day, it would be this. No one would ever know. Ever.

The doors opened and the Professor came out, a little pale, very shaken. Jean was on her feet before Scott was, reaching out to touch the Professor's face. It was cold, clammy, and she watched him slowly fold his hands into his lap. Without a word, she slipped behind him, pushing the chair forward.

:::Not that I can find. I felt--flares. Of them both.::: His mental voice was laced with exhaustion and she dropped her shield completely to make it easier for him, reaching out to support him if he needed it. :::Thank you, Jean. I am not so decrepit as that, however.::: Forced humor.

Jean nodded slowly, belatedly aware they'd reached the far door and that Scott and Ororo were walking silently behind her. As it opened and she pushed the Professor through, she shut her eyes briefly.

Silence for a moment, flares of dark browns of fear that matched hers before he brought down his shields sluggishly--he was exhausted. And he wasn't trying to hide it, not from her.

*****

This was called a hangover, he was sure of it, and Logan somewhere in the back of his mind remembered in a distant sort of way that he wasn't supposed to get those. Healing factor wiped that crap out. He was also incredibly thirsty--water, beer, liquid, just hand it over, he'd be happy with it.

To get it, he'd have to move, however, and that wasn't high on his to-do list by any means. Every muscle in his body hurt.

{And that's fucking weird too.} Slightly distant hurt, like he could tune it out if he wanted to. Like it didn't matter.

Slowly, Logan lifted the arm from over his eyes, wincing slightly. The room was utterly dark, utterly silent, thick with humidity, and where the hell was he, anyway? It danced before his eyes a little, like the air was made of honey, a little too liquid, and it made him dizzy. He shut his eyes again.

"You're awake."

Thickly southern, soft, warm. Three inches to his left. A hand slid over his chest, lingering to trace his nipples with the tips of small, hard nails, before sliding with casual possessiveness down to his stomach. Under the sheet, there was definite interest.

But he kept his eyes closed, something in him yelling loudly that opening them would be huge mistake. He knew the scent--it covered everything, even him.

A soft, warm mouth brushed over his throat, settling on his shoulder, sucking idly, and he heard himself growl in response. Lazily, it slipped down, wet tongue tracing each nipple, the hand pushing the sheet aside and running up and down his length. A dip into his stomach, nibbling across his hip, silky hair falling over the sensitive skin and he arched into the touch, hearing a low chuckle in response, and then her mouth closed over his erection.

He opened his eyes on the yellowed ceiling while bare hands reached out and found her hair. Dug his fingers in and pulled her up, looking down to meet Marie's dark brown eyes, lips reddened and swollen, parting in a slow smile.

"Rogue," he whispered. This hadn't happened.

"Marie," she said softly, and she was naked, very naked, except for her boots. "Marie, just for you, sugar." Parting her legs, she straddled him and lowered her head from his nerveless fingers, mouth slowly working from his stomach up his chest, dragging her breasts and stomach over him as she climbed the bed. It was good--he was running his fingers through her hair, couldn't stop himself.

She felt so good, so soft, she was naked and that wasn't right.

"You're still a little out of it, sugar. S'okay, it'll be off in a few hours. We can still have fun." She ground her pelvis down briefly, then slid off and lowered herself to her stomach beside him, revealing the long, clean line of her back. "You want me, Logan?"

God, yes, and he shouldn't, couldn't, didn't--his hands went down her spine, over the curve of her ass. She lifted herself on her elbows, pulling her knees up under her, still giving him that smile.

"Let go, Logan. Do it. Play with me."

He didn't, wouldn't--he pressed down on her shoulder, lifting up, aching muscles forgotten, seeing her gloves on the bedside table. Reaching out, he grabbed them.

"Put them on." He barely recognized his own voice.

A low delighted laugh and they went on, covering her to the elbows. Shimmied her hips back and he settled behind her, drawing his hands over her hips, over her ass, then slowly up her back. Her skin was amazing--perfectly smooth, not a blemish or a scar, he couldn't get enough of touching her. Pushed her thighs apart when she whimpered softly, ducking his head between and brushed his tongue over her exposed core.

She tasted delicious, just like he thought--like he'd known. Felt her push back against him, moaning, and jerked her thighs farther apart, pulling her hips a little higher, his tongue sliding inside her.

"God, Logan, please--"

She tasted like herself, like him, and it was dizzying, heady. He slipped a hand between her legs, running a finger along her clit, finding it easily, then moved forward, pressed into her scent, and brushed it with his tongue.

She began to moan softly and he could feel her tense--she'd come, and he wanted to feel it when it happened. Pulling back, he jerked her hips toward him, pressing his cock against her entrance, and her hands went up, grabbing the headboard at the first strong thrust.

"YES!"

He bit into the back of her shoulder, letting instinct ride him completely, forgetting everything beyond scent and taste and touch--traces of heavy-iron on damp wet skin, her blood and sweat mixing under his tongue when he pushed inside her again, breathing her in. Sweet, hot, wet, writhing underneath him and he wanted to make sure she felt him, knew who was fucking her, bit the lobe of her ear so she turned her head, glazed brown eyes meeting his.

"Baby--" he whispered and her full lips parted wetly, hypnotizing, and he kissed her, biting her lower lip sharply.

His Marie. Not a kid. Pushing back against him, moving under him with every thrust. He reached to cup her breast, squeezing as she whimpered something that might have been a word if he was listening, pulled back to thrust inside her again. Panting in rhythm, her heartbeat was so high, she'd come any minute now and he ran both hands down her sides, over her hips, sliding between to find her clit and she screamed out his name again, loud enough to wake anyone sleeping and he didn't care, didn't care when he knew she knew, that she was his and he wasn't letting her go, not ever. Not with her tight and wet and contracting all around him and he felt her begin to collapse, grabbed her hips to hold her, thrust quickly, hard, wanting to ride out her orgasm with her.

When he came, he was whispering something, something that made everything make sense, or close to sense as he could get. It was her name.

"Marie."

*****

Jean hadn't slept, didn't know if she could.

"Jean?"

She glanced up in surprise, seeing Scott walk into her office. Slowly, she pushed herself up on the small worn couch that she'd moved in here years before, brushing her tangled hair back with one hand.

"Did the Professor find something?"

A tense moment before a quick shake of his head, and Jean slowly nodded, lifting one leg to wrap her arms around, resting her chin on her knee.

"He'll call soon, Jean. He has to have found Rogue by now." If his voice was any stiffer, he'd have been talking through starch. She shook her head a little. "What the hell is making you so tense anyway? It's Logan, for God's sake. His mess with her. He can damn well clean it up."

Jean turned her head just enough to bring Scott in her line of sight, studying him. He wanted to blame Logan. Just like always.

And it made her think for a minute, because he hadn't wanted to blame her. She'd made him do that, taken the responsibility when she moved from their room, took off her ring to leave it on the dresser. Packed her clothes in neat stacks in brand-new cardboard boxes, TKed them to the next floor, clearing out her presence memory by memory.

"You think it's his fault Rogue's gotten to this point?" Jean shook her head when the visor moved just a little, enough that she could guess he wasn't choosing to meet her eyes. "Ah. That's the problem. You think everything that's wrong with her is because of Logan and me."

They'd never talked about it. Not once. Not the day he found out, not the morning she'd moved out.

"I don't think you helped, no."

"If you're going to hate me, Scott, do it for yourself." And she was a little too tired, a little too frustrated, to try and help him duck on the truth. She didn't have any reserves left to cushion the blow. "Don't coat it with self-righteous bullshit about Rogue. I fucked him." Scott winced. "That's it. Be angry about it. Be pissed about it. But don't turn it into a reason Rogue's in the middle of her own private crisis session. You pamper her, Logan pampers here, we all walk on eggshells around her. Poor little Rogue, can't touch, deserves to lash out at everyone and everything. Poor Rogue, Jean screwed around with the man she loved." Jean focused her eyes on her lab top. "I'm tired of it."

"You hate her."

Jean lifted her head in surprise.

"I love her. She's my student. This is her home. I've never hated her."

"She has Logan."

Jean laughed softly then, couldn't help it. He didn't understand at all.

"It's not about Logan, Scott. It never has been." She let her head tilt down, pressing her forehead to her knee. "Get out."

"Jean--"

Maybe he wanted more. He wanted her to say that she loved him, that what happened with Logan had been an accident, except it hadn't been, and she wasn't going to sugarcoat it, not even for Scott's pride. He wanted her to throw out apologies and excuses, let him finally shift all the blame to Logan and then be able to forgive her. And maybe a year and a half as Jean the Unfaithful Ex-Fiancée meant something more than she suspected, because she didn't even try to whitewash it to herself.

She'd fucked Logan. She didn't love him, she wanted him, and painting it pretty didn't change the facts. She'd pushed him in that elevator when he was vulnerable and she knew it, knew from Rogue's mind what had happened, knew from his mind. Unforgivable for a telepath to use those weaknesses. Unforgivable in her to be so weak herself.

"Forgive me or not, Scott. Your choice. But don't make it about Rogue. Don't use her as an excuse to keep blaming me."

There was a stiff silence and Jean listened to the soft sounds of his boots as he went to the door, then hesitated.

"You betrayed me."

Jean looked up, meeting the smooth glass gaze without fear.

"I betrayed myself too," she said softly. "Don't look like that, Scott. I hurt myself in ways you never could. Take some satisfaction from that."

All shields up, she refused to look in his mind, shut her eyes tight and lay back down on the couch. After a few brief seconds, the door opened, closed behind him with deliberate and faintly ominous quiet, and Jean pulled her knees up to her chest.

She still didn't sleep.

*****

Second waking everything was edged and morning bright and so fucking hot he thought he'd crawl out of his skin. Felt like he was about to as well, a faint itch that tickled along every nerve, and he'd *never* experienced *anything* like that in his life. Superhealers got all or nothing in the pain department, and he felt himself twitch when he stretched out one arm, rolling onto his stomach.

Second waking, everything was memory, and he turned his head to confirm her scent over him, over the sheets, and presence on the bed, inches away. Long dark hair spread out on the pillow, strands inches from his arm. He felt his skin crawl again, pulled away from the innocent hair.

Her head turned suddenly, eyes opening with lazy pleasure.

Fuck, that itch. This was why she was cutting herself up in the bathroom. It *did* feel like his blood was itching.

"Hey," she said softly. Across her bare back was a colorful assortment of every kind of non-fatal wound under the sun and Logan braced himself on his elbows to get a better view of his handiwork.

Well, yeah. That was the idea, from her shoulders down to her calves. Patterned lightly across creamy white skin. He could remember each one, how it got there, what he was doing to her, the sounds she made.

It made him itch even more.

If he thought about it now, he'd never, ever get out of this room. If he thought about it now, what he'd done to her, what she'd done--{She was high, Logan, not her fault. No idea what she was doing. No idea.}. Say it and believe it, he should have known better. Older, wiser, an adult to her child--he'd fucked his daughter and was suddenly, intensely glad he'd never gotten into the Freudian bullshit Hank and Jean spouted during those endlessly long psychology classes with the students, because he got the distinct impression it could only make things worse.

And God, he itched. He hated that.

"Logan? You still feel a little strange?"

Yes, he did, how kind of her to notice. The brown eyes were still glazed--she was still on the up. Okay, things to do--don't think, concentrate on what you need to do now. Then her bare hand went out, beginning to brush against his arm--

--and Logan found himself standing on the floor by the window with no clear idea of how or why, only instinct. And he was shaking--not itchy-shaking, but he remembered shaking like, it was familiar, his nightmares ended like this.

From the look on Rogue's face, she was having a similar response. The glazed brown eyes widened as she looked from the space in the bed that he'd occupied seconds before to him.

"Logan?" A thousand questions he couldn't begin to answer, couldn't begin to even formulate a response to. He couldn't think through the itch, through the strange taste on the back of his tongue that he couldn't quite identify.

"Fine. I--feel weird, baby. Just--go to sleep. We'll talk later." He wanted a shower. The smell of her on him was making him faintly nauseated and *that* didn't fit into the superhealer's user's guide either.

The bathroom was only a few feet away, but the phone was closer. God, he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up bad; this wasn't what was supposed to happen. He barely avoided the long heeled boots on the floor, grabbing for the phone, watching from the corner of his eye as Rogue slowly lowered herself back onto the bed.

Three rings and it picked up.

"Hello?"

Jean's private number. He closed his eyes at the sound of her voice, breathing deeply.

"I found her."

Startled silence for an endlessly long moment. He thought he could hear the shift of her legs as she moved.

"What did she do to you?"

Fuck, he couldn't be projecting, could he? And not from fucking Chicago to New York. But his mind wouldn't settle enough to center, he couldn't manage it, and he grabbed a chair when his legs felt a little too weak.

This wasn't right; by no stretch of the imagination could it be right.

"Logan?"

"I'm fine. I'm not bringing her back."

For some reason, he thought he could see Jean--red hair a mess from sleeping, long legs curled up under her, giving her patient schoolteacher look at the phone, as if she thought he could see it. And he could, hahaha--oh, was this fucking freaky as hell.

"Logan, come home."

"She can't. I--she needs something else, I don't know--" And *why* wouldn't his mind clear up more, why couldn't he think? Hadn't he thought about this before? Or had he? Wasn't sure, wasn't at all sure, and he slowly sat down, the chair irritating against his back. Logic, there was something there--he'd said this before, he'd said it in Phoenix, but this time he *meant* it. She never should have gotten to this point. This shouldn't have happened. He had to fix it.

He looked down at the phone and realized there were tiny half-healed wounds on his knuckles. His legs dropped under him and the chair was hard, hot and hard and it made the itch so much worse. He couldn't deal with this.

"Logan?"

He healed from anything, including random claw use, but the wounds were covered in half-dried blood, they hadn't healed. He wasn't healing. He flexed lightly, the intense pain a relief from the itching, taking all his attention, and there was more blood. Much more. They slid back in.

He didn't heal and the pain continued, the itch increasing dramatically. His blood did itch and he wanted it out, out, out.

"Logan, tell me where you are."

He felt the phone plucked from his hand and the room was spinning. Not good.

"We don't need you." Rogue's voice was far away, and he lowered his head into his hands to stop the nauseated spinning. "Leave us the hell alone, Jeanie. We aren't coming back. I'll take care of him." There was the sound of plaster tearing off the wall and the phone fell on the floor.

Cool hands were on his face and he wanted to jerk away, but he didn't have the energy. Didn't have anything but a strong need to sit very, very still but he kept twitching. Her body slipped easily into his lap.

He wanted to pull away. It was worse when she touched him.

"It's okay, Logan. I'm here. Everything's gonna be good." Long fingers skated across his bare shoulders and he felt himself twitch at the contact. "I'm here, Logan. You don't need anyone else. Just rest. It'll be okay."

She was still talking, but the words stopped making any kind of sense. The itching was everything--God, let that stop. He couldn't stand that, wanted to scratch his skin off to get down there and *make* that itch go away.

He wondered if he said it out loud, and if she understood.

*****

Jean shut her eyes.

He was awake immediately, sorting through her memories, and she kept her mind passive, letting him control the connection until he felt everything. Her sense of urgency almost immediately translated to him.

"Already on it, Professor."

*****

He wasn't sure what time it was anymore--Rogue had pulled the curtains shut when she led him back to the bed and he knew he'd heard the door lock earlier. Sometime earlier.

The room was spinning, spinning hard, nasty, and he itched, GOD this was hellish and he'd been through some seriously hellish crap. There was a heavy weight on him, pushing him deep into something soft and smothering and he pushed up. Tried to, but nothing seemed to happen and maybe he was imagining it all or it was a new variety of nightmare to give him some spice in his life. Like he needed more spice.

He had to be back at the lab. Those fuckers knew all kinds of fun ways to fuck with him.

"Logan." Cool hands on his face, with that scent that made him want to pull away. She was tilting his head. "Sugar, this shouldn't be happenin'. You shoulda used up all of it by now. Everything'll be okay. Everything. I'll take good care of ya, 'kay? Doncha worry. It should work outta your system. That bitch took off without leavin' me the formula, but I saw what she used, I can make it. Doncha worry. It'll be over soon. It's not as bad as last time. You're gonna be fine."

Worry is what you did when you had an idea of something to worry about. All Logan had was yellow paint. He shouldn't worry about yellow paint. It moved a lot, granted, but it didn't attack.

"Jeanie," he finally said. Hadn't he been on the phone with Jean? Wasn't sure, felt the something--something big?--on him, tense.

"You don't need Jeanie Grey no more, sugar. Just sit tight through the ride. It's all good. Logan, I had to, you gotta understand. She told me what went wrong, how to fix it--me half and you half. It was t'help you touch me. You do understand, right? And I woulda asked you, but Beth moved too fast. You woulda done it anyway, right? Right?" A pause, and she was talking so fast, he couldn't follow the conversation. "Logan, look at me, sugar. Logan, focus. Focus on me, sugar. Listen to me."

Her voice was high enough for canines to hear. Logan had no problem hearing it. Shutting his eyes, he tried to breathe over the weight, even though the softness under him was pulling him slowly downward, until there was nothing but that eternal itching and her hands closed over his wrists, jerking them up from his body. He got a glimpse as they passed his face.

There was blood and shreds of flesh under his fingernails. And from the burning on his stomach, it was his.

*****

Jets broke sonic with interesting and obvious results, which is why they rarely did it. Jean sat by Ororo in the cockpit and gave the order without flinching. This was her mission.

"Jean." Scott was behind them, she'd relegated him to backseat driver, the Professor accepting her private demand without a fuss. She didn't care, focused on Ororo instead, focused on where they were going, what they were doing. Hank was in the back, sorting through their stores, making sure everything was ready. He might think she was overreacting. She hoped to God she was.

"Not now, Scott."

They could be in Chicago in an hour, a miracle of modern technology, but Jean wanted to be there already. Something was so wrong, something that every nerve in her body was screaming for.

When she found herself pushing her feet into the console like a phantom driver, she didn't care.

*****

He could trace the lines of the wall in bright yellow. And maybe he should be seriously disturbed by that.

"Logan, sugar. Please talk to me. You're gonna hurt yourself."

Leather now, she was wearing her gloves. That was interesting. Trying to be soothing, he guessed, as she stroked them over him, but it wasn't quite right, because wherever she touched made everything worse.

And his arms ached, he wasn't sure why. Extended somewhere above his head. Maybe. Possibly. Nothing was certain except he couldn't get to the itch and maybe he was imagining all this.

"Logan, please."

Other noises intruded--everything was so fucking loud. And cold, and wasn't this Chicago, where it was hot?

"Get out!" That was Rogue, she was pulling away and he wished he could catch her, ask her a few questions about the paint. Another shape--red hair, green eyes, no smile, long fingers that didn't make him itch when they touched him. And they did, across his forehead, and he flinched from the touch. "Get the hell away! He doesn't need you. Get out!"

The hands smoothed over his forehead, then over his wrists. He wasn't sure his hands were even there anymore, and that was--something he shouldn't be thinking.

"Get away from him, you bitch! Shit, let me go!" Other sounds, then a soft thud and whispered conversation.

"Ororo, get her to the jet." The green eyes didn't leave his. "Logan, do you know who I am?"

Good question. Those hands went up to his arms and abruptly, his hands were free, but she lowered them back to his sides, keeping a grip on his wrists. "Logan, there's an empty syringe by the bed. Is that what she gave you?"

"Yeah." Was that verbal or not? There was the lightest, cottony feel of something drawing along his mind and then a soft grunt of some emotion he didn't have the strength to identify.

"You don't need to talk, Logan. Just rest. I know you're itching, but doing anything about it is only going to make things worse. All right? Scott, come here, hold his wrists--I don't think he could fight off a strong breeze right now. Just keep away from the knuckles. Let me cut the rest of the restraints off. Damn." A breathless pause. "Logan, we're going home."

"Rogue."

"She's with 'Ro. She'll be fine too. Listen to me. We're going to walk out of here very normally. You're going to feel me in your mind but I won't do anything but help you walk. Scott, help him get dressed. Looks like Rogue didn't bother to even bandage him, and there's no way we can take him out like this. Jubilee, get over here. Clear out the bathroom--there's blood everywhere. Clean up the room, bring everything you find that doesn't belong here. Kitty, cut that sheet up--two inch strips, nine inches long. Hurry." Her voice was sharp. "Don't leave a trace of anything at all. The last thing we need is police interference and I don't know if Rogue covered her tracks."

The voice was carefully neutral--maybe she knew how much it hurt to hear yelling. Made his ears itch. He tried to raise a hand and found it still trapped, and figured he should probably be upset about that for some reason.

"All right." The woman's hands withdrew and he felt himself levered up--then he was standing. And not really on his own.

"Jean, how long can you possibly do that?"

"To the car. I'll be fine. Once we're out of public view, we can carry him. Just don't distract me. Hurry--if I keep physical contact, it'll be a little easier."

Logan decided this wasn't working and shut his eyes again, letting the yellow slowly take up his entire line of sight.

*****

Jean hadn't moved from the second Logan collapsed across her lap in the back seat of the rental car, freed from the power of her mind. Jubilee and Kitty were taking care of the room, of Logan's rental, and Ororo had hopefully gotten Rogue in the Blackbird already without mishap. They didn't need two schizoid mutants on their hands.

"How is he?" Scott asked from the front. He was ultra-focused on traffic, and it was one of the very few times she'd ever seen him flustered. When he'd walked in that room--she shut her eyes, remembering the images that had assaulted her from Logan and Rogue on that bed, the streaks of blood still on the walls and the phone wrecked on the floor.

His heartbeat was too slow, no healing factor making an appearance, and his mind was a mass of distorted images that she had to force herself to ignore. She could feel something thick and warm soaking into her jeans and she took a breath at the heavy scent of blood in the enclosed space.

He could bleed to death right here, right now, even through the layers of shredded sheet.

"Breathing." Keeping a hand near his pulse, her mind shivering from exhaustion in keeping the connection between them open and at the same time shutting down everything else. Focus. Focus. She hadn't expected this. Even worst case scenario.

She hadn't believed, and that told her she'd underestimated Rogue.

"Is he conscious?"

"No--I'm keeping him under. He's getting his strength back and I can't keep him from hurting himself for as long as it'll take for his healing to wipe that drug from his system." When it came back on, when his body finished dissolving it. Which had to be the reason why those physical injuries weren't being healed. Please God.

There was blood on her hands from doing some quick and dirty bandaging of his injuries--the open wound from a sharp heel on the base of his spine, the lines of fingernails over his back, his chest, rusty imprint of teeth, the bruising everywhere that made her wonder what on earth Rogue thought sex was supposed to be, because this just didn't resemble it.

Rogue had been fully dressed--it suddenly occurred to Jean to wonder what physical shape the girl was in. Dismissed it for now--she had to keep her concentration. Keep Logan unconscious. Feel for that heartbeat. Pray the blood stopped.

Then the scratches that were different, rougher, scratches that came from his blood-flecked nails, trying to crawl out of his skin from whatever it was Rogue had given him. Jean shut her eyes and brushed her fingers through the unruly hair, keeping her concentration.

She wanted her lab, she wanted Logan in it, she wanted titanium-laced restraints to keep him still so she wouldn't see him scratch his own skin off and she could go to work fixing all the damage. She wanted to be home and she wanted her bed in a corner of her room so she could pretend this never happened.

Most of all, she wanted to have arrived here and been completely wrong.

"Jeanie," the whisper from the man in her lap, and she made sure latex covered her hands when she touched him. Refused to sort through his mind to find out what made him shiver at the touch of bare skin, tuning out the random projections, because she could do this for him, leave him his privacy.

She knew too much already, didn't want to know more, didn't know if she could stand to see more.

"I'm here. We're on route to the jet. Just rest. Don't talk--save your energy." Her tired mind moved sluggishly but she reached into him again, pushing him gently into dreamless unconsciousness, and the twitches of his body eased as he slumped back against her.

"How long, Scott?"

There was a pause before Scott answered.

"Five minutes. I'm making the turn now. Do you want me to carry him to the Blackbird?"

"Hank'll be waiting," Jean answered, brushing her hair back with one hand. "If he's gotten Rogue stable, he'll be ready for us."

"Okay."

*****

The Professor hadn't removed his gaze from her as she and Scott made their report twenty-four hours later.

"His healing factor has returned?"

Jean hesitated, then nodded slowly.

"The chemical seems to have finally been metabolized and washed from his system. The wounds are beginning to heal twelve hours ago, though the rate is twenty-five percent of his optimal. I think another week and he should be physically recovered. I released him from the med lab this afternoon."

She hadn't even tried to keep him in the lab. She'd never seen anyone look so desperate to get out of anywhere and had simply gotten fresh clothes and sent him on his way, hoping he'd listened to her request for a check-up in twenty-four hours. She doubted it.

Slowly, the older man nodded, recognizing what she didn't say. "And Rogue?"

Jean tightened her control another notch before responding.

"The combination found in her bloodwork has been analyzed." A pause. "Some of the properties are--unusual. I suspect the remains we have won't be enough to copy the formula." Jean took a breath, letting it out slowly. "Her skin was fully recovered this morning, a few hours after Logan began to show signs of improvement. I would suspect she received a much lower dose of the compound."

"Yes." Jean supposed everyone had heard Rogue's hysteria, her urgency to look at the toxicology reports. "She hasn't remembered who she received the drug from?"

"Nothing--Rogue's memory is heavily distorted. From the information she gave me, she's been experimenting with the compound for several days before Logan arrived. She remembered the name was Beth, but she doesn't remember where or when she met her. I'm waiting for Logan to regain some equilibrium before I ask to search his mind."

Fat chance. Logan was so locked that Jean almost felt a blank space where he was supposed to be. The Professor might have better luck, but she sensed that Logan was going to avoid close contact for a long time. Take no chances.

"Very well. Has Logan--suffered any other ill effects from his time with Rogue?"

Jean let her eyes half-close.

"He'll be fine once he's recovered." She frowned, seeing the Professor glance down at the folder in front of him. "Professor?"

"Logan's asked to join the team and begin training Rogue to eventually begin field missions, when she's recovered."

Jean's mind froze in place, all shields coming up full and sharp, and she knew the Professor felt it. Couldn't even speak for a moment, and the Professor continued after a barely noticeable pause.

"I've agreed. I think it will do Rogue good to be exposed to the discipline and training. To give her some stability, especially since Logan has agreed to stay."

Rogue's reward. She finally got what she wanted. This was why Logan had wanted that promise. Jean could feel the Professor's approval--because he did see this a different way, because he didn't know. He'd never invade Rogue's or Logan's privacy. And Jean couldn't say a word because of that.

"Yes," Jean said softly, and wondered that her voice was so even, so calm. "Yes, you may be right, sir. If you'll excuse me, I need to finish up some reports." Standing up stiffly, she found a smile and pasted it on, before turning to the door, walking out with an even step, feeling the gaze of the students when she went to the elevator, typing in her codes to go to the sublevels.

When the door shut, she hit the emergency stop and leaned back against the far wall, shutting her eyes tight before sliding into the floor. Wanting, God, so much, to beat the walls, the floor, scream at something, at someone.

Take Rogue's mind, rip it open and *show* her what she'd gotten, what it'd cost, what she'd done to him. Logan was right, Rogue didn't remember.

And he would never tell.

End Part IV