Logan ran out of Rogue’s room and down stairs, ignoring the startled stares of the students watching movies and hanging out in the rec area. He caught a glimpse of Jean rushing into the elevator to the lower levels. The doors closed just as he reached them, and he waited impatiently for them to acknowledge the hand he slammed against the controls. After what seemed like an hour, the wood rolled aside and metal doors slid open to reveal the empty elevator. Logan growled as he entered and commanded it to go down to the medlab.

The hall from the elevator to the ICU unit was short, but it had never seemed longer to Logan, not even during his first disoriented visit in the medlab. He knew that Jean would be willing to help him find Rogue. He no longer trusted Chuck to be straight with him where Carol was concerned, but Jean would be. He’d find some way to persuade her to look for Rogue as soon as whatever had drawn her down here was settled.

The door to the ICU was open, and Logan’s urgent stride slowed. Jubilee. She’d been stable; what had happened? Logan felt worry for his unlikely friend build inside of him. She wasn’t Marie, but he couldn’t afford to lose any friends, not when he had so few. He picked up his pace again.

The sight that met him as he entered the ICU hit him like a punch to the gut. Despite the bandages, Jubilee actually looked better than she had since before they left the mansion weeks before. The same couldn’t be said for the other woman lying on the bed next to her. Jean worked diligently over the second body, hooking up an IV line.

“Rogue!” he snarled. “Jean, what the hell happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Jean replied in her calm voice. “I think that Rogue figured out a way to reverse her mutation. Somehow, she gave Jubilee the healing abilities she absorbed from you and Sabertooth.”

Jean’s lack of panic, not to mention that she was actually taking the time to put the situation into simple terms that didn’t make him want to strangle her to get a straight answer, told him that Rogue’s decision hadn’t been fatal. He wasn’t sure what he thought about it, though. She shouldn’t be going around risking her life like that on a guess. He was sure that was all it had been, too. A wild hunch born out of whatever craziness had resulted from her complete absorption of Carol.

“She’s going to be okay?” Logan asked, stalking forward to stand on the other side of this woman he’d once thought he knew, someone who was now almost stranger to him than when she was only Carol.

Jean glanced up at him. She pushed a piece of her red hair behind her ear and smiled tiredly. “I think they both will be, in a day or so,” she said, and he heard the relief in her voice.

Logan nodded. “I’ll stay here with them,” he told her. “You go get some sleep. You look like you need it.”

Jean shook her head and shot him a small glare. “Thanks,” she said drily as she straightened from bending over to check on Rogue’s vital signs. Then she sighed and rubbed the small of her back. “I think you’re right, though. I’ve spent too many hours over patients today. I never thought I’d say that, back when I first dreamed of being a doctor.”

Logan didn’t reply as she headed out the door and closed it softly behind her. He just sat in the chair at the end of the two beds and settled in for a long wait.