A searing pain in her midsection tore Rogue out of the blackness this time. She struggled against the bands holding her in place, whimpering, but an all-too-familiar voice just hushed her. A part of her realized that she was in friendly hands, but the agony that she felt overwhelmed her good sense, and she screamed when another wave of pain hit her.
“Rogue, you must try to calm down. Deep breaths, please,” she heard Hank say. She really wanted to listen to him but just couldn’t. He continued, “We need to cut this collar off of you, my dear, and there’s really only one way. But your skin will offer no protection until this collar is off, or so Dr. Grey tells us. Just hold as still as you can, please.”
Rogue couldn’t ignore the pleading in his voice. There was something truly wrong, between that tone and the pain she felt. So she did her best to hold still, even when a warm hand she didn’t want to recognize grabbed her jaw to steady her head and she heard a well-known snikt. She wanted to scream, but in moments it was too late. The sound of metal slicing was followed immediately by the rush of her skin pulling much needed power from the man holding her face.
He had known this would happen. As soon as he carried her onto the jet he was telling Hank that it had to happen. Rogue needed his healing, and she needed it fast if she was going to keep the baby. Hank hadn’t argued; without knowing what was in the serum Rogue had been injected with, an overall healing mutation probably was her best bet, he agreed.
Rogue groaned, broke through straps that were no longer enough to hold her, and pushed away the hand clamped against her cheek. It was too late. He was filling her, his mutation healing the damage of the past hours, changing the pain in her abdomen to a dull throbbing and then nothing, erasing the bruises on her arms from her captors’ ungentle handling. His emotions also flowed into her mind, his worry, his love, his guilt and grief at the actions which had torn them apart. God, he felt so guilty.
“Damn you, Hank,” Rogue choked out, finally opening her eyes to glare at the blue doctor hovering over her. She squinted across the narrow aisle where Scott was actually helping Logan up from where he was slumped against the bulkhead of what be the Blackbird. Jean huddled on the floor in a corner almost out of her sight, arms wrapped around her drawn up knees. “Damn you all,” she said bitterly. She turned her head to stare at the blank bulkhead next to her.
Hank cleared his throat. “Rogue, I must examine…” he began.
“It can wait,” she said shortly, refusing to look at him. “Whether it worked or not, it can wait until we get home.”
She felt more than saw Hank nod. “Very well,” he said quietly. He didn’t move from her side, but she heard the sound of Scott and Logan staggering towards the seats behind her head.
Kitty must be flying the plane, she mused. Her friend had much less finesse at the controls than anyone else qualified except Scott, who still had issues landing sometimes. It was easy to focus on little, current details like that. Much easier than examining the thoughts and feelings that had just raced into her mind, very much easier than considering what had just been given to her and perhaps her unborn child. She could hear Jubilee snapping gum like she always did when she was irritated or agitated. Her friends must have been so worried. Rogue knew she sure as hell had been. Piotr was tapping metal fingers against his seat’s leader-covered arm. It was a sound that usually drove her nuts when they were on missions together. That he was still metal after a mission was another sign of how this whole mess must have affected everyone else.
Scott and Logan were actually talking to each other, in low voices that she tried her damnedest not to hear despite still having echoes of Logan’s mutation running rampant through her system. She didn’t want to know what they could possibly be saying to each other in such a civil manner. Since when were they civil?
Since you were captured, darlin’, Logan’s voice in her head whispered.
Shut UP! Rogue mentally yelled at him. She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could to wall him out, to forget everything that she had just learned.
How could he possibly ask her to forgive him, even silently? How could he think the she ever would? No matter what he did, no matter how many times he healed her and she absorbed him, Rogue was sure she would never be able to trust him again. Logan seemed to be the type who could feel one way one minute and another way the next. There was no reason to think that he had changed at all.
Not fair.
This time Rogue ignored his voice. She concentrated on her anger at him, and Jean for getting her into this latest mess, at whoever was behind Carol’s one-time capture. The anger was a familiar emotion, one she knew how to handle. Trying to deal with strange urges to forgive, to be held and comforted after her ordeal, that was something she wasn’t ready for yet. She doubted she ever would be.
Logan brooded in his seat during the last legs of the return trip to the mansion. He knew he had done the right thing, but the taste of necessity was still slightly bitter. It would have been so easy to let the miscarriage continue. He had actually considered it for a half-second as he carried Rogue through the smoke-filled hallways. Any such consideration was halted swiftly when he realized that he heard five heartbeats in their group, not just four, and the fifth heartbeat was behaving erratically. It was faster, and at first that seemed okay, but then the beats lost their rhythm. That was when he realized that he was hearing Rogue’s baby’s heartbeat. If he had ever heard it before, he had ignored it or pushed it away as his imagination, but there was no denying it at that point.
He couldn’t let it die after that, not if there was half a chance. Sure, it was part Scott, but it was also part Rogue, and losing her baby would damage her horribly. He had to do whatever he could to prevent that. In the split second it had taken him to acknowledge that, Logan had made up his mind. So he had explained to Hank what was needed after a quick interrogation of the now-conscious Jean Grey, and the doctor had agreed that it seemed to be the only course of action that might save both Rogue and the child.
Of course, part of him hoped that she would acknowledge how much he had helped her, would admit that he had saved her child’s life, but his more realistic side knew that wasn’t likely. She had hardly said a word since the healing, none of which were directed to him. He hadn’t even gotten a “thank you.” Logan guessed that she was pretty pissed that he had tricked her into absorbing his healing again since that meant she also absorbed his thoughts and emotions. He had very little doubt what she was thinking about any of it.
After what felt like an eternity they finally arrived back at the mansion. Logan stood up and turned towards Rogue. “Do you need me to carry you to the medlab?”
She turned frosty eyes to his. “Ah’m fine,” she said. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the built-in bunk.
Scott stepped forward to stand next to Logan. “Are you sure?” he asked. Logan saw that his body was tensed from unexpressed emotions, and he reeked of fear, guilt, and panic.
Rogue snapped at him as well. “Ah’m fine. Ah’ll go with Hank, find out what there is to find out, and then Ah’ll let you know.”
Scott’s already-pale cheeks gained a new shade of white, and Logan almost felt sorry for him. He slapped the other man’s shoulder. “C’mon, Cyke. Let’s get Jean somewhere nice and secure,” he said. They both turned to the woman glaring in the corner. Logan could tell that her anger was an act; she was scared, probably of what they were going to do to her. He liked that. He wanted Jean scared, very badly.
Scott nodded, reached down to grab Jean’s arm, and pulled her up. Logan grabbed her other arm, but before he moved too far away he listened for that almost-too-fast heartbeat. He could still hear it thrumming away like a little hummingbird. The sound was strangely reassuring. It made him believe that maybe Rogue would make it through this ordeal alright. Maybe they all would. Except Jean. His face hardened as he helped Scott drag her off the plane and towards one of the secure subterranean rooms that could be used as cells.
Once the two men had Jean settled into her new accommodations with the door firmly closed behind her and locked by voice command, they both turned towards the medlab. However, neither actually took a step. Instead, they looked sideways, sizing each other up. Since Scott looked like he was trying to figure out how to say something, Logan waited.
Finally, Scott frowned and said, “Thank you for what you did back there. I don’t know if it’s going to help, but I’m glad you did it, even if Rogue isn’t thrilled to have more of you in her head.”
Impressed that Scott was actually able to admit that Logan’s help might have saved the baby, Logan felt more comfortable making his own admission. “It was for her,” he said shortly. Seeing Scott’s mouth tighten, he relented slightly and said, “I could still hear the baby’s heartbeat when we landed. I think they’re both going to be fine.”
Logan was amazed to see Scott smile at him, a wide, happy smile. “Thanks, again.”
Logan nodded, turned, and walked in the opposite direction from the medlab. As much as he wanted to be with Rogue just then, he knew she might have no qualms killing him on sight. He decided to resist the temptation to see her, to reassure himself that she was physically recovered from her ordeal. His senses had told him that she was, and he was going to have to trust that for now. If he wanted to win her back, he thought he should give her some time to adjust to what she had unwillingly pulled from him. It wouldn’t help to go rushing in and ruin such a golden opportunity. This was the time in the hunt to wait for his prey to come to him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I had to write it this way to make my own self happy. Hopefully it makes you happy, too.
Chapter End Notes:
How was that? I think we're getting closer to the end.