"I know we've been at this for awhile now, but you got to remember, she is my daughter." The others looked at him skeptically, all thinking the same thing; how much longer was he going to drag them down paths with dead ends? Anyone could have seen that the scent was stone cold. They would follow him to their deaths if he asked, but how much longer were they going to have to wait until Logan realized it was over?
"Logan," Cloud jumped in before any of the others could set him off, "I've traveled with you for a year now, first to find Rogue, and now this. I know you believe that if we found one, we can find the other, but we don't even know what we are looking for now. Maybe we should go home and help Rogue before anything else happens. She needs you right now.”
“I know, but my child is somewhere out here. I’ve got to find her.” In that moment, Logan looked as if he had the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
“You go home and make that poor woman your wife,” Colossus replied angrily. Both Logan and Rogue were like family, and he hated watching them hurt like this.
“The cher don’t need to be locked up like this no more, neither, Homme,” Gambit chimed in. “Remy ain’t known the Rogue for long, but he saw the way you was hurtin after she done disappeared. Remy knowin you gonna be hurtin more after the Cher leaves on her own. Alls Remy sayin is that’s one dove who don’t wanna be caged is all.”
“I know.” Logan would never admit it, but he was afraid. If those animals could take her from her own room, then they could grab her from anywhere. He couldn’t take that risk. It just might kill him.
He looked around the dingy motel room he had frequented during his days on the road, noticing for the first time just how stained everything was. He allowed his gaze to drift over the faces of the four people sitting in the room with him, all former students, all the best of their class, two were Rogue’s age. If she hadn’t taken the cure, she would probably have been sitting here with them, receiving orders for some mission. Things would have been different. He wasn’t sure if they would have moved on to the roll of lovers yet, but at least things would have been easier.
He studied each of the four people sitting in the room, knowing that they all had some tie to Rogue. She had always cared for Cloud as if she was her younger sister. She had always stuck up for her against the others when the girl’s clinginess had become too much for the others, not able to understand why she needed someone to care about her. Rogue had been the only one to truly understand, and the younger girl had always admired her for it.
Although Remy hadn’t known her that long before she disappeared, he and Rogue had a lot in common, both coming from the south. They enjoyed many of the same foods and memories of home. Plus, she was the only one who could differentiate what he was saying half the time.
Colossus, on the other hand, was not only a friend, but a confidant for her. Like Logan, he had always been supportive of her decisions, including the cure. He had never made her feel like an out cast, and had always had her back, in and out of The Danger Room. They had to be close, of course. With their combined mutations and physical abilities, they were the perfect match, both working off of each others strong points, and supporting each others weaknesses. With his ability to turn completely steel, he was the only person she could touch with out having to worry about stealing his life. He never begrudged the metal man their bond, though. He knew that there was nothing romantic there. When they were students, he often wondered why they never became an item. When he had asked her about it, she replied that her life was just too complicated to add another love interest. At the time, he thought that she meant that one man was enough for her, when, in reality, there were three; Bobby, St. John, and, of course, himself.
The fourth person in the group, a boy named Armand, was a student of his before Rogue disappeared. She had helped him a great deal to control his abilities and to learn how to become one of the best fighters of his class. He had been one of her favorite students, one of the few who actually seemed eager to learn all that he can, not just one thing. He had enhanced hearing much like that of himself and Cloud. Unfortunately, Cloud was very young when her enhancement happened, and always remembered having control. Logan, on the other hand, couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have control. Neither could help him. Since Rogue had to learn how to control her own heightened senses after absorbing Logan so many times, she was able to give him the training he desperately needed. His headaches ended, and he was finally at ease in large crowds. He was able to come out of his room during the day, and be able to attend classes and meals. He was also the only one who hadn’t given his opinion.
“What do you think, Armand?” Logan asked slowly, watching the boy carefully. There was something about the boy, about his smell, that rubbed the feral man the wrong way.
“I think we need to go home,” Armand replied softly. Logan didn’t like the way the boy’s eye’s shifted away from everyone.
“Then we’ll go,” Logan forced the boy’s gaze to meet his own, “on the condition that you will help me in the event that I get a solid lead.”
“Of course,” Gambit replied, a sly grin spreading across his lips. “We are a team, no?”
“I want to hear it from him.” Logan watched Armand shift nervously. There was something that the boy wasn’t telling him. Something that had to do with everything that was going on. Logan had a feeling that he needed to go about this very carefully, otherwise the boy might just conveniently disappear.
“We’ll help. Like Gambit said, we are a team.” Armand returned Gambit’s smile half heartedly. Everyone else in the room began to think on the same lines as Logan. Something was up.
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