Kurt collapsed on the floor while the six children with him coughed and waved their hands in front of their faces in a futile attempt to clear the stench of sulfur from their nostrils. Their pinched, white countenances motivated Logan and Rogue to quickly grab several empty buckets from beneath the kitchen sink. Rogue slipped a bucket in front of the girl with lavender hair just in time. With a small gasp, the girl leaned forward and vomited violently into the bucket. Rogue gathered the girl’s hair in one hand and rubbed her back soothingly with the other. She noticed with amusement that Logan held his breath as he assisted a small boy with another bucket and kicked the rest toward the oldest of the children to pass around to the others.
“Sorry,” Kurt wheezed. “Ve traveled so quickly zhere vas no time for zhe children to be sick on zhe vay.”
“Ah’m surprised you figured out ya could travel with more than one passenger,” Rogue commented.
“Ja, vell I figured zhere must be a vay, so I’ve been practicing zhe last few veeks.”
“Good job,” Rogue acknowledged before turning her attention back to the girl in front of her. “Feelin’ any better, sweetie?” she asked sympathetically as the girl slumped back against Rogue’s chest for support. The girl rolled her eyes up toward Rogue’s face, really looking at her for the first time. Eyes widening abruptly, the girl straightened and pushed away from Rogue.
“She’s not gonna hurt you, kid,” Logan growled at the girl, recognizing her instantly as the one Rogue had helped in the library.
“S-sorry,” the girl stuttered, tears welling in her eyes as she looked quickly to Logan and then back to Rogue.
“Logan, Rogue,” Kurt said quickly, “this is Elizaveta. She lost her parents today.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Rogue murmured, reaching hesitantly toward the little girl. Her hands hovered awkwardly in the air between them for a moment before Rogue let them fall into her lap.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Logan rumbled. Elizaveta once again looked to Logan and then back to Rogue. Her tears built to muffled sobs and she launched herself toward Rogue.
Bringing her arms up quickly, Rogue caught the girl’s slight weight against her and began rocking her, murmuring softly into her hair.
Making sure that the boy he was helping was finished with his bucket, Logan slid over to Rogue and Elizaveta. He placed a large hand against the girl’s heaving back, marveling at how his hand spanned her ribcage. “Hey, we’ll take care of you, kid,” he vowed, meeting Rogue’s eyes solemnly. “Elizaveta is it? That name’s bigger’n you are, kid. Got a nickname?”
Momentarily startled from her misery, Elizaveta lifted her tear-drenched eyes from Rogue’s shoulder to look at Logan.
“They call me Triptych, sir.”
“Triptych?” Logan echoed, bemused.
Eyes strangely unfocused as she looked at the girl, Rogue murmured, “A three-fold view of the future, two that might be and one that will be.” Shaking her head once, Rogue blinked rapidly.
“H-how did you know?” Elizaveta demanded, brow furrowing.
“Ah…Ah just did.” Rogue shrugged helplessly, suddenly looking almost as sad as the girl.
“I saw it,” she blurted.
“Saw what, sweetie?” Rogue asked, smoothing the girl’s hair away from her clammy face. Logan was pleased to see that she didn’t flinch away from Rogue’s touch this time.
“What was gonna happen to my parents. I saw it and told the professor, but it was already too late.” Sobs shook the girl’s small frame and she collapsed into Rogue’s embrace again. Rogue and Logan looked at each other over the soft lavender hair before turning their attention to the other children in the room. Elizaveta looked to be the youngest of the bunch, perhaps eleven or twelve, while the oldest was at most sixteen. All of the children were obviously mutants.
Elizaveta with her strange colored hair was the most human looking of the bunch and the only girl. The oldest boy had the golden, slit-pupil eyes of a cat and slightly elongated incisors, the tips of which could just barely be seen beneath his upper lip. His fingernails grew into thick, flesh-colored points, making his fingers seem longer than they were.
Taking a last wheezing gasp of air, Kurt finally sat up and began the introductions. “Children,” he said, “Zhis is Rogue and Volverine - Logan. Zhey’ll be taking care of you vhile everybody back home vorks to make it safe for you again.”
“You’re all welcome here for as long as ya need,” Rogue said softly, meeting each child’s eyes in turn. Logan merely grunted and nodded his head curtly. The children were not put off, however, as they could all see how gently the gruff man’s hand rubbed Elizaveta’s back.
Kurt cleared his throat and nodded at the boy with the feline features. “This is Max. Jesse,” he continued, pointing a thick blue finger at a slightly younger boy with pale skin and clear eyes that glittered like diamonds. “Trent.” A sharply pointed chin and ears and hair that tinkled like wind chimes even when the thin boy was not moving gave him such an otherworldly air that even Kurt’s appearance seemed somewhat normal. “Michael.” The boy dipped his head in quick acknowledgement while wisps of smoke floated from his nostrils and from between his lips. “And Jackson.” Kurt smiled at the youngest boy whose figure was blurry and indistinct. Logan blinked rapidly, his eyes beginning to hurt as he watched the nauseating way the boy’s outline shifted and rippled. The boy waved a shy hand, the slight movement seeming to snap him into sharp focus for the barest of moments.
Rogue had been observing each of the boys while she continued to rock Elizaveta. “Increased endurance, the ability to dehydrate whatever he touches, forced growth, breathin’ fire, and a ‘look away’ aura,” she assessed in a sing-song voice. Seeing the shock on the boys’ faces, Logan slid a glance at Kurt, who looked similarly unsettled.
“Ja,” he acknowledged slowly. “I zhought zhe professor had not had time to fill you in?” When Rogue did not answer, Kurt looked at Logan, who shrugged.
When it became obvious that the boys’ shock was turning to fear, Logan cleared his throat, drawing their attention to him. “So. We know what you can do; knowing that kind of thing is part of Rogue’s mutation.” The explanation banished the fear, but the children still looked uneasy. “Mine is enhanced senses and healin’ among a few…uh…other things,” Logan hedged, not wanting to scare them again with mention of his claws. With the way they all looked at his knuckles, though, he assumed they had already heard rumors about them. “Umm, so,” he cast a quick glance at Rogue, slightly disturbed by the intent way she continued examining their new boarders, “anybody got another name like Triptych here?”
The children responded in the order in which they had been introduced.
“Just Max.” The kid’s voice was a raspy baritone.
“Siphon.”
“Lichen,” the elflike boy responded in a tinkling voice, “‘cause I can make things grow anywhere.”
“Uh…Puff,” Michael muttered as little wisps of flame curled around his mouth. “After Puff the…well you get it. But I don’t much like it. Been thinkin’ maybe just Dragon instead?” he asked shyly. Logan nodded solemnly, glad his lips hadn’t so much as twitched with his need to laugh.
“The kids all call me Phantom,” Jackson admitted in a voice that buzzed and hummed like something not really heard. “Started when Miss Storm took to calling me Diaphanous, but I didn’t like that. So I only kept part of it and ‘phan’ became Phantom.”
Kurt entered the conversation again. “I brought zhe children’s files vit me,” he said, pulling a messenger bag in front of him and producing a stack of manila folders from inside it. “As you and Rogue can no doubt see, Logan, none of zhe children can blend in easily vit humans and none of zhem have…um…uh,” Kurt looked uneasily at Elizaveta.
None of them have families anymore. Rogue’s voice whispered into Logan’s mind. Judging by Kurt’s wide eyes, he, too, had heard Rogue.
“Um, ja,” Kurt covered smoothly, “none of zhem have anyvhere else to go right now.”
“‘Scuse me,” Jackson interjected shyly, lifting his hand slightly. “I know what a ‘rogue’ is more or less, but what’s a ‘volverine?’”
Rogue giggled abruptly, her gaze flying to Logan. He couldn’t help smirking when he saw Kurt’s embarrassment and the way Max was covering his fanged smile with one hand.
“It’s ‘Wolverine’ with a German accent, kid.”
“Oh!” Jackson exclaimed and his shape shimmered until he couldn’t be seen at all.
“Hey, where’d you go, kid?” Logan asked, alarmed, as he scented the air.
“He’s right there,” Rogue said calmly, nodding toward where Jackson had been sitting.
“Uh, no darlin’, he isn’t,” Logan countered.
“No, she’s right, Mr. Logan,” the boy responded in his fuzzy voice from his empty spot on the kitchen floor.
Logan frowned and squinted, blinking quickly a few times as he reached out and grasped what he thought was the boy’s shoulder. The child snapped back into view. “Darn, kid, quite a trick you got there.”
“Can’t help it when I’m embarrassed,” Jackson whispered, tucking his chin against his chest shyly. “Or when I’m scared. But how did you know where I was, Miss Rogue?”
“Ah don’t rightly know,” Rogue said slowly, glancing down at Elizaveta to see that the girl had cried herself to sleep. “Ah mean, Ah couldn’t actually see you, but Ah couldn’t really see anythin’ else where you’re supposed to be. That make any sense to ya’ll?” She directed her question to everybody in the room.
“Yeah,” Jesse said eagerly. “It’s like seeing something from the corner of your eye, but when you turn to really look at whatever it is, you can’t make it out anymore.”
“Exactly.” Rogue nodded, satisfied with the explanation. “Now, Kurt,” she said, turning to him. “Ya stayin’ the night?”
“No, Rogue, sadly I must get back to zhe mansion. Zhe school has been publicly uncovered as a school for mutants so ve are vorking on returning zhe students to zheir homes if it is safe.”
Logan muttered a foul word, earning an admonishing look from Rogue and looks of near worship from the boys. “And if it isn’t safe?”
“Because it is a private school, zhe government has not yet been able to force Xavier to turn over zhe school roster and he is in zhe process of destroying zhe students’ records. Once zhey are home, zhere vill be no vay for anybody to track zhe children from zhe school.”
“The parents who knew about their kids weren’t advertisin’ to their neighbors what school the kids were at, Logan, so they’ll be safe enough at home,” Rogue soothed.
“You sure?” he growled, garnering more wide-eyed adoration from the kids.
“Quite,” she returned calmly. “Scott is workin’ on gettin’ some o’ the students out o’ the country and will be comin’ back to get their families later.” She frowned in concentration, ignoring Kurt’s wondering look. “Ah think they’re mostly focusin’ on Scotland right now since the professor has friends there an’ frankly the country needs a young population so badly they’re even openly welcomin’ mutants.” Rogue nodded decisively, her frown clearing. “Yes, that’s what they’re doin’.”
“If you say so, darlin’,” Logan rumbled.
“Zhat is exactly vhat ve are doing, Logan,” Kurt exclaimed. “But, how did you know, Rogue?”
Rogue shrugged and tapped her right temple. “Got it straight from the professor. ‘Course, Ah don’t think he realizes is just yet.”
The children all looked at Rogue, incredulous.
“Are you saying you’re spying on Professor Xavier’s thoughts?” Max asked.
“And he doesn’t know it?” Jesse added.
“Way cool!” Michael blurted loudly in a swirl of flame.
“Hush now,” Rogue admonished with a pointed glance at Elizaveta.
“Oops,” Michael mumbled, clapping his hands over his mouth. Smoke wafted from between his fingers and curled around his ears.
Rogue? The professor’s mental query sounded harried. Was that you just now?
“Ah, there he is!” Rogue said, winking at the boys at the same time she mentally answered the professor. Yes, it was me. Ah’m sorry, professor, Ah was reading’ ya before Ah even knew it.
The professor sent a long-suffering sigh directly into Rogue’s mind. I am going to assume that you were able to do that only because I am physically exhausted and quite mentally fatigued at the moment and not because your telepathic abilities are rapidly outpacing my own. Please do not read me again without my permission, my dear. It is most rude, you know.
“Yes, professor, Ah’m sorry,” Rogue murmured, striving to look properly chastised in front of the children. She ignored Logan’s huff of amusement, but the professor did not.
I heard that, Logan, Xavier said, delivering a psychic smack to the side of Logan’s head.
“Ow!” he growled, rubbing his head and frowning. “What the hell’d you do that for, Chuck?”
Because it is rude to hit a lady and I felt somebody deserved punishment.
When Kurt and the boys started snickering, Logan knew the reply had been shared with everybody.
“Keep laughin’, Elf,” he snarled and lunged toward Kurt.
Kurt loosed a panicked German oath and teleported just as Logan’s hands were about to curl around his arms. Overbalancing due to the lack of resistance, Logan turned the forward momentum into a controlled roll and whirled around on the balls of his feet. The boys were once again staring at him in awe and Logan sent Rogue a quick, satisfied wink.
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Chapter End Notes:
It seems interest in the story has waned now that Logan and Rogue have slept together...how did I know that was going to happen? ;)
Getting very close to the end now, but I have tons of crazy possibilities in mind for the sequel, so you'll have to let me know if that's something you'd be interested in. Once this story ends, however, I'll immediately continue working on Last Chance.
Getting very close to the end now, but I have tons of crazy possibilities in mind for the sequel, so you'll have to let me know if that's something you'd be interested in. Once this story ends, however, I'll immediately continue working on Last Chance.