Finally, the mansion was quiet. Rogue opened her door as quietly as possible and peered out into the dark hallway. She concentrated on listening for the sounds of any stray mutant who might be walking the halls in search of a midnight snack or, for the older inhabitants, something a little more risqué. No sound met her ears, although her hearing was admittedly something less than it had been a month ago.

A month prior, when she had still been a mutant, Rogue had been able to use the echoes of powers she had pulled from other mutants to enhance her own abilities. Her hearing and sense of smell had been the gift of Logan, the faint pull she felt towards metal had been the curse from her one contact with Erik Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto, and when she was angry or upset the air around her would grow cold due to the touches she’d received from her boyfriend of the time, Bobby Drake. Those powers, along with her own inborn mutation, were no longer hers to call on. The cure that had saved her from the curse of her mutation had also taken away the abilities that she had stolen, although the memories of the others were, for some unexplained reason, still clear.

Thinking about the way her life had been for the past year or so made her feel sad and nostalgic if she focused on how drastic the difference was in her current situation, so she pushed the memories to the back of her mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Rogue strained to hear any sound that might echo through the silent mansion, but there was none. Now positive that no one was awake to interrupt her, she slipped out of her room and closed the door silently. Stealth was no issue for her anymore. The training she had received with the X-Men had given her many useful skills that didn’t have anything to do with her mutation, even if they hadn’t been able to do anything for her control of her powers.

Rogue walked down the hall, keeping her movements smooth as she had been taught. Her short black skirt was too tight to rustle with every step, thank goodness, and the green silk tank top she wore hardly had enough material to catch on anything. She carried the black heeled sandals she planned to wear in one hand, knowing that they would make too much noise if she put them on before she got outside. She took shallow breaths as she passed the rooms on her hall, fighting the certainty that at any minute one of their occupants would burst out and demand to know what she was doing.

Not that she thought anyone would care anymore. Rogue knew better than that. Most of the mutants in the mansion weren’t talking to her, and the rest were so busy fighting off their grief and trying to keeps the Professor’s dream going that they hardly noticed her anymore. Sometimes it seemed to her as if she was just drifting through the shadows in this place she used to call home, uncared for, isolated from the touch she thought would be hers after the cure.

Rogue shook her head to dispel those thoughts. Self-pity would only cause her to slide back into the brooding, quiet shell of a woman she’d been for the past three weeks, ever since Bobby had broken up with her to chase after Kitty. After weeks of self-examination, she’d come to the decision just that morning that she wasn’t going to stand for that anymore. She’d chosen her path for a reason, and if none of her former family could be happy about it and accept her for what she had become, then she would grab for whatever happiness she could get.

A small smile teased her lips as Rogue made her way through the rest of the mansion and out the side door. She paused only long enough to grab the black handbag she had hidden behind a bush earlier that day before heading down the short drive and out the mansion’s gate. The black sandals were slipped on as she waited for her cab. When it finally appeared, she slid in quickly and gave the cabbie her destination. Tonight was about having fun. Cooped up for too long, Rogue was determined that fun was about to happen with a vengeance.

The club was loud and hot. Those were Rogue’s first impressions as she stepped past the bouncer and through the bright red door. Lights flashed, people danced wildly and the music blared. It was just what she wanted, the perfect place to start her new life.

Rogue entered the crush, delighting in the sensation of skin brushing and rubbing against her own. She began to dance, and before long some guys came up and were dancing with her. Her laughter rang through the crowd, her eyes sparkled and it felt like her smile would never end. She was sure that this was the best day of her entire life.

Then the music slowed into a song meant just for couples, and Rogue let herself be pulled into the arms of a handsome young man with dark eyes and just the right kind of face. The whole look of him said danger. To Rogue, fun and danger meant the same thing. She reveled in the way their bodies rubbed together during the song. Rogue felt like her whole body was on fire. This was what she had been missing. For this, she had given up her life as an X-Man. When she felt the stranger’s hands rubbing down her bare arms, she swore that it had been worth it. Distant friends and new enemies were nothing when compared to this.

The night continued along the same lines. Rogue lost count of the number of guys she danced with, short, tall, dark, blond, all with the look in their eyes that said they wanted her. It was a heady feeling, one she didn’t want to let go of. Eventually, though, Rogue became tired enough to admit that it was time to head back. Her feet were sore, her legs ached, and the thought of the comfortable bed waiting back at the school was too tempting. She smiled at the guys surrounding her and slipped away with the excuse that she needed to use the ladies’ room.

Rogue’s heart was light as she stepped out of the club and reached into her bag for her cell phone. She walked a few steps away from the door, enough to get away from the noise behind her. She dialed the same cab company and gave them the club’s name. Prepared for a wait, she glanced around at the dimly lit street. The night air, heavy with smoke from the club and the faint scents of food from earlier in the evening, smelled incredibly sweet to Rogue. She realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so much. Worse was that she also couldn’t remember when she’d last had someone to share that fun with. That would come in time, though. She wasn’t worried.

A sound behind her made Rogue turn, but there was nothing in the dark alley. She shook her head and turned back to the street. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her arm and she was dragged into the alley. Before she had a chance to scream, another hand slapped over her mouth, cupping it so that she couldn’t bite. Still, she struggled, but the arms wrapping around her were too strong for her to break loose. She did manage to get an elbow into his ribs before hands came from either side to immobilize her arms

“Such a cute little girl. Did you think we’d just let you walk out after all that?” a deep voice asked her roughly. Rogue felt hot breath against her ear as she was pulled farther into the darkness.

“I say we teach her what flirts like her deserve,” another voice said from behind. Rogue heard quiet laughter.

Without warning, the man holding Rogue spun her around. A fist slammed into her mouth even as she drew breath to scream. Another fist pounded into her back, while a knee connected sharply with her hip. Hands pushed Rogue to her knees, and she felt a fist in her hair, pulling her head back. She strained to see their faces in the dark, but before she could make out more than an outline one of them hit her in the eye. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that was going to leave the worst black eye she’d ever had.

“You talk, and we’ll kill you after we’re done, got that?” the one who’d spoken first asked. “We’re just going to have a little fun, and then you can go home and cry about how terrible life is. That’s what they all do, sluts like you.”

Rogue glared up at him and spat into his face. That earned her a punch in the gut, followed by another in the ribs. The one holding her wrenched her arms tightly behind her back. She threw her head back in an attempt to knock out the guy holding her, but no such luck. She was sure she knew what was coming. Her guess was confirmed when she heard the harsh rasp of a zipper.

“Now no biting or we’ll have to get rough,” one of the men said with a loud laugh. Rogue thought it was the man in front of her. She decided they had a skewed view of what “rough” was.

Suddenly, Rogue’s head was jerked back as the hand holding it was pulled forcefully away. She heard a dull thud against the brick wall to one side. The men around her started yelling, and she tried to get up to get a few good punches of her own in. Fire shot through her ribs when she tried to stand, though, and she collapsed back onto the ground, curling into a small ball in a futile attempt to avoid being kicked in the fight.

After only a minute or two, the alley was quiet again. Rogue risked lifting her head to look around. The only person standing was a woman, or at least Rogue thought the silhouette looked female. The figure hurried over to her.

“Are you okay?” It was a woman’s voice all right, and she sounded pretty concerned.

“I think I’ll be fine. Just a few bruises to nurse away,” Rogue said in a voice that croaked. She guessed that the first man’s hold had been tighter than she’d thought at the time.

“I’ll do worse for them, once I get you cleaned up,” the unknown woman said. She reached down to help Rogue up.

The ground seemed to rush closer as Rogue got to her feet, and she would have fallen again if not for the woman’s help. “Whoa,” her rescuer said. “Let’s get you into my apartment. It’s in this building right here. That’s how I heard your attackers. Stupid bastards.” The woman kicked one of the prone men for emphasis as she passed with Rogue hanging onto her limply.

“Who are you?” Rogue asked. She knew her voice sounded weak, and she hated that.

“My name is Carol. Do you have family, someone we can call to get you home?” the woman asked as she practically dragged Rogue up a set of concrete steps and opened the door to a nice, if somewhat shabby, townhouse.

“Not really,” Rogue said bitterly. No one at the mansion was likely to care all that much about her situation at the moment. They’d probably say she had brought it on herself. The bad part was, they would be right.

Rogue felt as if she was floating up the two flights of stairs. When she looked down at her feet to check, her vision faded out. She let out a low moan and started to gag a little. It had been a while since dinner, so there was nothing on her stomach for her to throw up, but the feeling was terrible all the same. A disgusting taste filled the back of her throat and her mouth, making her want to gag even more.

“Hold on just another minute while I get my door open,” Rogue heard Carol say. She felt her weight being shifted. The sound of clinking keys rang in the otherwise quiet hallway.

The apartment Carol led Rogue into was clean, with sparse furniture. A red rug on the floor and a red sofa were the only bright splashes of color among the browns of the wood floor and the white of the wall. Rogue thought she glimpsed a small kitchen off to the left as Carol led her over to the sofa.

“Now you just lay down, and I’ll get you some ice,” Carol told her firmly. She sounded so much like a mother at that moment that Rogue obeyed without thinking. She looked around doubtfully as she heard cabinets opening and closing in the other room.

“By the way, I don’t know your name,” Carol called from the kitchen.

“It’s Rogue.” While she knew that she sounded gruffer and less grateful than she should under the circumstances, she didn’t want Carol to question the name that was admittedly a little odd.

However, Carol just gave her an amused glance. “I’m sure all of your friends call you that, but what’s your real name?” she asked as she began to apply a blessedly cool ice pack to Rogue’s bruised face.

Rogue flushed a little. Hardly anyone used her real name anymore. It didn’t feel like she was the same person, not that girl everyone had called Marie. That girl hadn’t known anything about the real world, no matter how much she thought she knew at the time. It seemed silly to admit to being that person, somehow.

“My name is Marie,” Rogue reluctantly admitted.

Carol smiled. “Marie was my mother’s name. I’ve always loved it.”

Somehow that made Rogue feel better, although she couldn’t begin to explain to Carol why she was no longer Marie. Carol seemed so normal, a nice woman living in a little apartment in a small city, even if she had done a fair amount of ass-kicking to rescue a girl being raped. She was probably a nurse or something like that. It seemed like taking care of people was second-nature to her. She hadn’t hesitated once in the short minutes Rogue had known her.

Rogue felt a sudden headache stab her between the eyes. She winced, and Carol asked her what was wrong.

“My head,” was all Rogue could manage through the searing pain. It felt like her brain was burning to cinders in her skull. She was paralyzed, even though all she really wanted was to curl up in a ball and will the pain away.

Carol put her hand on Rogue’s forehead in concern. At first, Rogue didn’t feel the pull through the pain that was traveling from her head to the rest of her body. When she realized what was happening, there was no way that she could stop it. She tried to choke out a warning, but it was too late. She was helpless to do anything but lie on that sofa and be washed away by both the overwhelming pain and the sensation of absorbing the woman kneeling next to her.

After what seemed like an eternity, Rogue was strong enough to pull away. She watched in horror as Carol collapsed beside her. The helpful woman’s face was gray, and her lips looked bloodless. Rogue scrambled to the far corner of the sofa and stared in horror. She struggled to accept the brutal truth being forced on her even as Carol’s mind battered at hers, seeking to take control. The cure had failed. The part of Rogue that wasn’t attempting to suppress the strong mutant she’d just absorbed howled in fury. They had promised her freedom, and now it was taken away again in less than a heartbeat!

No time for thoughts of revenge, though. Rogue straightened as much as she could with her ribs on fire and fell almost automatically into the meditation she’d been taught by the Professor to help her suppress other personalities inside her head. The battle was short, but it drained what little strength she’d regained through the absorption. Carol’s personality was locked away in the deep recesses of her mind for the moment. Rogue could feel her struggles to get out, strong and painful at times, and it was almost more than she could handle to block out the woman’s entreaties to let her go. That way lay madness.

It was time to concentrate on getting Carol some help. Rogue looked around frantically until she found something to cover her exposed arms. A sweater hung on a set of pegs by the door. Rogue slowly levered herself off the sofa, mindful of her rib, then hobbled over to the pegs and quickly pulled the bright blue wool over her skin. She wanted to cry at the thought of covering up her skin again, but it looked like there was no choice. As she walked back over to Carol, she wondered distantly if mutants all over the globe were regaining their powers. Things were going to get interesting again if they were.

Lifting the woman was incredibly easy, despite her pain. The information that Rogue had absorbed from Carol finally broke through her panic. Carol had been a mutant. She was able to fly, had super-human strength and was invulnerable to injury. *Except when a power-sucking mutant comes along,* Rogue thought bitterly. Now it was at least useful, though, that Rogue absorbed the powers of mutants as well as their thoughts and energy. She might be able to get Carol help in time.

Still carrying Carol, Rogue rushed over to the French doors that opened onto a small balcony. Using Carol’s memories, she quickly rose into the air and began to fly towards the mansion.

It’s a good thing this city isn’t very big, Rogue thought. It was disorienting to fly over buildings she knew should have been familiar. Carol’s memories, much stronger than any others she had ever absorbed, made it easier to navigate, but there were still several times when she had to drop below the tree line in deserted streets to get her bearings.

It was surreal to fly instead of walking or driving. The growing part of Rogue’s mind that was Carol reveled in the feel of the night air on her face, the sound of the wind blowing past and the beauty of the stars that seemed close enough to touch. The part that was Rogue thought the ground was a little too far away for comfort.

Carol’s breathing was very shallow when Rogue landed at the doors of the mansion and slammed them open accidentally. “I have to watch myself while I have her strength,” she muttered as she flew up the stairs to Dr. McCoy’s room.

Heads were popping out of the doors as she passed. Wide eyes followed her flight down the halls. Logan, Dr. McCoy, and Storm were already out in the hall, running towards the commotion in a reaction to what they thought was an attack. One look at Rogue stopped them in their tracks.

The sight of them waiting for her sent tears streaming down Rogue’s face. The blue skin of Dr. McCoy and Logan’s extended claws only served as a reminder of what she had just lost. She hoped they wouldn’t try to convince her that it was more “regain” than “lost.”

She set down in front of them as gently as possible so as not to jostle Carol. “It’s back,” was all Rogue could say around the lump in her throat. The pain from the beating she had taken caused her to stumble as she handed Carol to the large blue man, careful not to touch him with her bare hands.

Rogue’s mind grew fuzzy as they bombarded her with questions on the way to the med lab downstairs. It was too difficult to answer, to explain it all in any sort of rational manner, so she just shook her head and followed Dr. McCoy. The night was catching up with her with a vengeance. She protested only once, when Ororo helped her out of the sweater she’d taken, but the older woman was extremely careful not to touch her in any way. The last sensation Rogue’s exhausted mind registered was the feel of cool sheets against her skin as she was cautiously helped onto a bed in the lab. She knew she should be worried about all of the exposed skin, but her mind shut down on that thought. After that, a welcome darkness engulfed her.

Logan ran a hand over his scraggy jaw and glared at the two motionless forms lying on identical beds. One blond and one brunette, one slim and one curvy, one tan and the other still retaining some of the pallor of years covered from neck to toes. The only sign that either was alive was the rise and fall of their chests under the whit sheets.

“Do you have any ideas about what happened yet, Hank?” Logan heard Ororo ask. She sounded so calm. Logan didn’t know how she could react like that after seeing all the bruises on Rogue’s body. They made Logan’s fists clench. The anger raging inside of him was the first strong emotion he’d allowed himself to feel in over a month.

“The obvious signs force me to conclude that the ‘cure’ Rogue obtained was merely a temporary suppression of her mutation. I believe that the violence of her attack triggered a premature return of her mutation. For whatever reason, she then drained this other young woman. This is mostly speculation, of course,” Hank replied quietly.

Logan turned his glare towards the doctor. “Speculation?” he growled.

“Yes,” Hank said calmly, meeting Logan’s eyes with his own. “I am no longer able to pierce Rogue’s skin with a needle, so I cannot draw blood in an attempt to confirm my finding. I also have only a basic understanding of how the cure itself was supposed to work, therefore there is no way for me to confirm why it failed.”

Logan grunted and started to make a comment about doctors who needed to go back to medical school, but Ororo interrupted him.

“Does that mean that other mutants who have received the cure will eventually revert as well? I’m worried about Rogue, of course,” this in response to Logan’s glare being turned on her, “but we have enemies whom we need to keep an eye on if they are close to regaining their own powers.”

Logan’s grunt was the only acknowledgment he was willing to give as to the truth of that statement. He returned to staring at Rogue and the strange woman.

“I’m afraid that there is no way to predict whose cures will fail, or when. We must wait and see,” Hank replied behind him.

Ororo accepted this silently. Logan felt her eyes on his tensed back.

“And Rogue, was she…raped?” Ororo asked softly.

Logan felt his claws extend at the thought of Rogue raped. He’d seen the torn strap of that excuse for a shirt that she was wearing. Bruises covered her face and back, too. Logan could smell the scent of several males on her skin from across the room. It made his stomach clench at the thought of what they had done even as he memorized those scents. One day he would find them, he promised Rogue silently.

“That’s really a matter of doctor-patient privilege,” Hank began, but when Logan growled he added hastily, “but to relieve your minds, no. She was severely beaten, but that is all.”

Ororo walked over to the strange woman lying next to Rogue. “Perhaps she was the reason the attack didn’t progress that far,” she suggested.

Hank moved to join her. “You may be correct. We know that she has been affected by Rogue’s mutation by comparing her physical symptoms to the records of others she has touched. Since Rogue is demonstrating previously unseen abilities, it is logical to conclude that she obtained them from this woman. My only concern is that…” Hank hesitated.

“What?” Logan asked harshly, his eyes never leaving Rogue’s still face. Had he just seen a twitch?

“This woman’s reactions are not exactly the same as the records we have. I’m afraid that Rogue may have drained too much from her,” Hank said heavily.

“What will that mean?” Ororo asked with concern.

“This woman will probably never awaken from her coma, and Rogue will most likely retain her abilities and an unknown part of her psyche for the rest of her life. It will be completely unlike any of her other experiences with her mutation. She will probably need significant support in the next few days at the very least,” Hank told them. He looked sadly at the two still forms. “There is no way to predict how she will react to this news.”

Ororo sighed. “Well, it may be hours before Rogue, at least, wakes up. We should go reassure the others,” she suggested.

“I’m staying here,” Logan said shortly. He didn’t even bother looking at the other two, so he didn’t see Ororo nod resignedly.

“All right,” was all she said as she left. Hank followed her after making Logan promise to let him know when Rogue woke up.

Logan waited for a moment to make sure they were gone before he moved over to stand next to Rogue.

“You shouldn’t have made a promise you knew you wouldn’t keep, Logan,” Rogue said without opening her eyes.

“It’s all in the wording, Marie,” he told her as he ran a hand over her hair. He saw her flinch away from that touch and his frown deepened. “Want to tell me about it?”

Rogue sighed and opened her eyes. They were wet pools of brown in her battered face. “You’ll be mad at me,” she told him.

“You left the mansion dressed like that in the middle of the night, did who knows what that put you in the position to be attacked, and then turned up back here with that woman almost completely drained. Darlin’, I was pissed off as soon as I saw you, so you might as well get it out.” Logan refused to allow her the easy way out.

Rogue’s eyes narrowed slightly before she closed them again in defeat. She didn’t open them again as she began, “I was being stifled here. You may not realize it; you’ve been pretty preoccupied lately. I wanted some fun, after all of the stress and pain and anxiety of the last couple of years. So I decided to break the rules.” Rogue opened her eyes and looked at him defiantly.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You know you’ve done the same thing. Just because I’m only eighteen and barely graduated school here doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to have fun, the way y’all seem to think. My skin was finally safe again, so what harm would there be in enjoying myself, I thought. None of the friends I have left seemed interested in just having a little fun, so I didn’t think it would be such a bad idea to go out on my own. I’ve had plenty training in self defense, since my mutation was pretty useless in a fight unless I was able to access some bare skin.”

Logan snorted at that one, but Rogue ignored him and got on with her story, relating how she’d gone to some club out in Westchester to find the excitement she’d been missing. When she told him how she’d left to call the cab, he wanted to strangle her for being so stupid, but he kept silent and waited for her to finish. Her voice lowered when she told him about the men who almost raped her and the woman who had saved her.

Rogue was quiet for a moment, allowing Logan to ask, “The woman?”

Rogue grimaced and pointed at the bed next to her. “Her name is Carol Danvers. She’s a mutant, although I didn’t realize that at the time because I was too dazed. She was just trying to help me out, and I--I’ve done *that* to her,” she choked out, tears filling her eyes again.

Logan reached over and covered one of her hands with the sheet before taking it in his own. “You couldn’t have known that the cure wasn’t permanent,” he told her.

There was a bleak look in Rogue’s eyes as she looked back at him. “I should have known it was too good to be true,” she told him sadly. “There’s no easy way out, I guess.”

“Not really,” Logan agreed. “Sometimes we need to find that out for ourselves, though.”

“Does it always hurt so much?” Rogue asked, wincing as she sat up.

“Usually.” Logan wasn’t going to let her get off that easily, though. “So what happened with Carol?”

Rogue shrugged. “She took me back to her apartment and was getting me some ice while I lay on her couch. I had a sudden headache, and she touched my forehead. I don’t remember much except a lot of pain, and then I realized that I’d been absorbing Carol’s strength and her powers. I couldn’t pull away fast enough, though, because I was too weak. I got her here as fast as I could, and you know the rest,” Rogue told him. She wrapped her arms around her raised knees and stared at Carol.

“Did you even bother to ask one of us to go with you?” Logan asked softly.

Rogue raised an eyebrow, unconsciously mimicking him. “Sure, right before I thought about the fact that you’ve hardly done anything but teach kids during the day and brood at night. Or that Ororo’s so busy trying to run this place by herself that she falls asleep over dinner. Not to mention Jubilee and Piotr, who’re busy going after their teaching degrees so that they can help. And there was no way that I would have asked Bobby or Kitty to join me, even though they’re the only other ones my age here, because goodness knows they’re as hostile as anyone besides the four of you these days. I didn’t have many options there. Besides, like I said, I thought I’d been trained well enough to take care of myself. I guess I didn’t figure on an attempted gang-rape, though,” she said bitterly.

Logan’s claws popped out again. He made the effort to retract them and then said, “Yeah, one on one you could probably have gotten away, but guys can be like a pack of wolves when they get the scent of a pretty girl. They’ll do anything, especially if it seems like she was flirting with them and then dropped them.” He held up a hand at her angry look. “I’m not saying you did it on purpose, but I bet your fun included a lot of that hormonal touchy stuff you haven’t been able to do, didn’t it?” It was his turn to raise an eyebrow.

Rogue blushed. “I didn’t think it would hurt anyone, especially not me!” she snapped.

“Now you know better,” Logan told her.

The silence stretched between them. Logan was willing to let it draw out. He knew Rogue, knew that she would start spilling her guts to him if he kept quiet long enough. It was likely that she was being defensive about what she’d done as a cover-up for her emotions about her mutation returning and the consequences of that, but he knew that things would go much more smoothly for her if she’d start trying to accept it right away.

“What am I going to tell everyone?” she finally asked. “A lot of them saw me come in. I shouldn’t have banged that door, but I didn’t realize how much strength I’d gotten from Carol.”

“What you’ll tell them is up to you. I think they’ll understand that you didn’t mean to do it, since you thought your skin was safe now, but I can’t say that they’ll like what you did to this woman,” Logan said quietly.

Rogue looked down. Logan recognized the look on her face as the one that meant she was trying not to cry, and he really didn’t think he’d be able to handle her crying while she looked so alone, so he carefully put his arms around her, thankful for the sweatshirt he’d pulled on when he heard the original commotion. She buried her face in the rough material, and he felt moisture begin to seep through. There were no other signs that she was crying, though. Her body didn’t shake, and she didn’t make a sound. Just that wet spot growing on his shoulder.

“Now no one will ever forget what I did,” she said finally, raising her head to look at him. Her red-rimmed eyes were so sad. “If my mutation had come back at any other time, showed itself in any other way, I think that everyone might have eventually forgotten that I ever took the cure, but if Carol doesn’t come out of this, I won’t be that lucky. Everyone will always look at me differently.”

Logan couldn’t stand the bitterness in her voice, but he thought he knew why it was there. “You did take the cure for the boy, didn’t you?” he asked.

Rogue frowned a little. “I don’t know. I think that maybe he was part of it, that seeing how he was starting to want Kitty was the push I needed to decide, but I really did want to get rid of this damn curse, you know. If I had been accepted more, it would even have been worth it. I was hardly able to touch at all afterwards, though, Logan, and that’s probably the worst part of it all. I took the cure so that I could touch, but no one wanted to touch me because I took it, because I ‘betrayed’ the other mutants. They didn’t understand,” she said softly.

“No, Marie, they didn’t. I do, though, and I think that, if they were honest with themselves, they would realize that they were all at least a little bit tempted. Everyone wants to be normal. Hell, in my case, it would have meant that I’d die, but at least the fucking military wouldn’t have been able to use me anymore,” Logan said.

Rogue looked at him. “So why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you take the cure?”

Logan’s lips twisted up. “When would I have had time? I was trying to juggle a bunch of shit that was landed in my lap to make sure that a bunch of kids wouldn’t get hurt, and then I was trying to make sure that our entire world wasn’t blown to bits. There was no one else. Let me tell you, though, I wanted to run out of here so many times that it drove me crazy. It still does, at least once a day.”

Rogue glanced over at Carol’s body and then looked back at him. “So why don’t you? Why don’t we both just go, find a small hole somewhere in a back corner of the world and stay there until all this shit is over with?” she asked him. Her eyes told him that she was more than half-serious.

The idea had merit to the side of him that still wanted to run, but he knew it wouldn’t work. “We could run, sure,” he said. When her eyes lit a little, he added, “What would happen to the kids here, though?”
Rogue frowned again, her dark eyes thoughtful. “We’re the strongest ones here, aren’t we? Well, except for Piotr. I mean, if Carol’s powers don’t fade, I’m going to be as strong as either of you, maybe stronger. Carol was really serious about protecting people from hurting each other, humans or mutants. I …I think she would have wanted me to stay here and help, if she won’t be able to anymore.”

“Stay or not, it’s up to you, Marie, but now you know why I’ve stayed here. You’re right about us being stronger,” Logan said, reaching out to run a hand over her hair as her eyes clouded.

“I haven’t done a very good job at helping out around here lately, and even now I’m only thinking about myself. That’s a pretty crappy way to see yourself,” she said and sighed. “So you think it’d be better to pick everything up where I left off and just keep going.” It wasn’t a question, and he knew from that she would probably listen to him.

“Yep. That’s what we do. We go on with our lives, and we get better at learning to take the hits, pick ourselves up, and get going again. What you do with your life is your choice, though. I’m going to stay here. I think you could help a lot now,” Logan said.

Rogue thought about that for a moment. “I think Hank was right. It feels different this time. It’s harder to keep Carol locked up in my mind like I was able to with David, you and Erik. When I use her powers, they feel more natural to me than any others have, too.” She grimaced. “I guess I owe her for that one.”

Logan nodded. “The best way to pay her back would be to make sure that other mutants have the protection that they need, the way she protected you even though she didn’t know you. You couldn’t help draining her so much, not with the way your power returning affected you, but there are plenty of others out there who are hurting mutants because they want to. Xavier was right, I think. The world needs people who care to make sure it doesn’t rip itself to pieces,” he told her.

Rogue smiled up at him a little. “You’re a big softy, aren’t you, Logan?” she said.

Logan felt his spine stiffen. “I’m not a softy,” he said. “Never have, never will be. But this place is my home now, and the people here are the only family I can remember. I’m going to protect them.”

Rogue’s smile softened. “I know. They’re my family, too, even when they’re angry with me,” she said. The smiled faded. “They’re my family, so I’ll stay. I’ll keep ‘em safe with these new powers. I owe them, too.”

“You owe yourself just as much, Marie. You need to remember that you’re worth something. If your friends are ignoring you because they’re concentrating too much on the big picture, give us a big kick in the rear. We’ll do the same for you,” Logan said, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

“Gee, thanks,” she said.

“You want me to call Hank down so you can get out of here?” he asked. He noticed the way she looked at Carol before replying.

“Yeah. At least I can,” Rogue said. “It’s time to face everyone, I guess.”

“I won’t let ‘em bite,” Logan said as he moved away.

It felt right that their friendship was back. It was something that he’d missed, even though he didn’t realize it while he was trying to work himself to death to ease the grief inside. She was young, probably too young, but he felt closer to her than any other person alive, so it was good that they’d gotten everything straightened out and were comfortable with each other again. He looked back as he reached the lab’s phone. She was watching him with her serious eyes, but she smiled in response to the smirk he gave her.

The night had been traumatic for her, but he knew she’d make it through. He wouldn’t allow anything else.