She regained her bearings slowly. Last thing she remembered was the horrible pain slicing through her whole being, and Logan. Logan had been there, staring at her through bright blue mist with hazel eyes. That had to be a hallucination. She was dead, and somebody had seen it fit to give her a nice memory of him to go with. Logan couldn’t look at her. His eyes weren’t hazel. He was blind, and instead of eyes he had shiny silver discs that shimmered in the light. And he wasn’t here. He was in Canada, probably frozen at the bottom of some ditch or ravine because there had been nobody to guide his steps through the treacherous terrain.
She cracked her eyes open. Soft light greeted her. Shade of yellow that colored the ceiling high above her from dull grey steel to almost gilt. Was there steel in heaven? And what was that beeping noise echoing from her right side? She turned her head carefully. Logan. On a bed. Hooked up to tubes and wires. A hospital? Logan?
She sat up slowly, taking in her surroundings. She was in the infirmary. With Logan. With unconscious Logan. Clock on the wall told her that it was well past midnight. A small envelope laid on a table next to her bed, ‘Rogue’, written with punctual, yet elegant handwriting.
'Welcome back, child. We were waiting for you to wake up, but unfortunately we were all too tired to stay awake. You’re home now. Magneto has been taken care of; you don’t need to be afraid of him anymore. We’re sorry that we couldn’t get to you sooner.
At the moment Logan is in a coma, but we believe he’s going to wake up eventually. We have made sure that he’s comfortable, and not in pain. If there’s any change in his condition, somebody will be there with you within minutes.
Rest now. Everything has been taken care of, and we’ll talk with you in the morning.
Ororo'
She let the paper slide from her fingers. In a coma? What had happened? She stepped closer and reached for Logan’s hand, but something prevented her from touching him. A fleeting memory. Something cold and sharp cutting through her skin, parting muscle. Fingers probing the wound and pulling out black and bloodied lump of the inhibitor.
“Oh…”
Logan. Logan had done that. He had taken out the inhibitor and touched her. Held her, cradled her against bare skin of his face. And there had been so much blood.
*“Let me look at you…”
“Let go of me!”
“You’re so pretty…”
“Logan, let go! I’m hurting you!”
“No… You need more… The baby…”*
He hadn’t touched her once, but twice. First at the Statue of Liberty. Second time, severely weakened but still conscious in the Blackbird when she had started bleeding. Those hazel eyes locked to hers, his lips burning against hers, he had held on trying to stem the flow of blood that was all to eager to escape from her. All too eager to purge out the tiny life growing inside of her.
*“The baby… Won’t make it.”
“Let go!”
“Stop struggling… Have to stop the bleeding…”
“Logan, no!”*
Even the last traces of her ordeal at the hands of the researchers had been purged from her body. Logan had tried to stop it from happening. He had given his life to keep it from happening, and now she couldn’t even touch him. Couldn’t hold him and tell him how grateful she was for what he had done.
But why would he even want her to touch him? Hadn’t he suffered enough already? She crawled back to the bed and curled on her side, her eyes locked to him. He was naked, only thin sheet covering him from the waist down. She could still see faint red lines on his skin. Faint lines that had earlier been gaping wounds. There was a thick tube going down to his throat. A ventilator. It was forcing air to his lungs, making his chest rise and fall in steady rhythm. Silent beeping came from the heart monitor. It was beeping in the same pattern as her own heart.
She squinted her eyes. From this angle she should have been able to see the silvery gleam on his skin. Faint grey hue coloring his cheekbones. There was none of it.
*“Logan, no!”
“I have to, Jean. She’ll die…”
“You’ll die if you touch her! Magneto nearly killed you already!”
“The keyword: Nearly. And if I go, there’s no better reason to go than this.”*
Magneto. Logan’s leather uniform had been torn and bloodied, like he had exploded inside out. He had been weak, but strong enough to hold her. Magneto had done something to him. She had heard Logan screaming before. Before the machine had started.
Her eyes scanned over Logan once more, noticing something bulky under the sheet that covered his lower body. She crept closer and lifted the sheet. A cast. His left ankle had been wrapped to a white plaster.
“You… Your bones can’t be broken…”
“They can now. Magneto finished what he started few years ago.”
She turned to the sound of the voice. Jean was standing at the door, her hair tousled from the sleep, cheeks hollow and black blotches under her eyes. She swayed slightly, walked in and sat behind her desk, rubbing her face tiredly.
“What do you mean?”
“The metal on Logan’s bones… Magneto took it out. Tore it off right through his skin.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Don’t worry. Logan’s healing now. He’s already better. It’s only a matter of hours before he wakes up. He’ll probably be in better shape than he has been in years now that there are no poisons in his bloodstream. But it was a close call.”
“Why? Why did he do it? Why did he touch me?”
“I’m sure he’ll tell you when he wakes up. But before that… There’s something we need to discuss.”
“It’s okay. I know already.”
“Rogue, the machine… It caused a tremendous trauma…”
“I know! I lost the baby! Excuse me if I find it hard to care! I didn’t want it in the first place! They forced it in me!”
“That’s… You’re still tired. But I want you to know that if you need to speak about it, if you want any kind of help, you can come to me. You can come to me and we’ll deal with it together.”
“Why would I come to you?”
“I have gone through what’s happening to you. I know what it’s like.”
“Oh… I’m sorry…”
“It happened. I dealt with it. It’s still something… Something I do not wish to remember, but if talking about what’s happened helps you, come and seek me out. Night or day.”
“I will… Jean?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay. You… You should go back to bed now. You’re completely healed, but you need to rest.”
“Oh! The inhibitor!”
“What about it?”
“Is it here?”
“I believe it is. There’s something in Logan’s right hand. We haven’t been able to get him to open his fist. He probably took it when he cut it off from you.”
“Could you… When he wakes up, could you put it back?”
“Put it back? You want it back in to you?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t you if you had my skin?”
“Oh… Yes. I probably would. Yes, I’m sorry. I see what I can do. But I can’t promise anything. I haven’t had the chance to research the chip. I don’t know how it works, or if I’m even able to make it work again.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Ack. When this is finished, I'm happy. I have taken probably twice as long struggling with the posting of this than the actual writing. The archive hates me. '...' A letter. *...* Flashback.