HOW I GOT OVER



“The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past. The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act.”

Ways of Seeing, John Berger.


*


“The root of all pure joy and sadness is that the world is as it is. Joy or sadness that arises because the world is not what it seems or what we want it to be is impure or provisional. But in the highest degree of their purity, in the so be it said to the world when every legitimate cause of doubt and hope has been removed, sadness and joy refer not to negative or positive qualities, but to a pure being-thus without any attributes…

Seeing something simply in its being-thus—irreparable, but not for that reason necessary; thus, but not for that reason contingent—is love.

At the point you perceive the irreparability of the world, at that point it is transcendent.”


“Appendix: The Irreparable,” The Coming Community, Giorgio Agamben, trans. Michael Hardt.


*


“Take a word very close to giving, and that is forgiving. Forgiving is also a form of giving. If I forgive only what’s forgivable, I’ve forgiven nothing. Someone has done something wrong, committed an offense or one of those abominable crimes that were evoked earlier—the concentration camps. An immeasurable crime has been committed. I cannot forgive the person for it. If I forgive only what is venial, only what is excusable or pardonable, the slight misdeed, the measured and measurable, the determined and limited wrongdoing, in that case, I’m not forgiving anything. If I forgive because it’s forgivable, because it’s easy to forgive, I’m not forgiving. I can only forgive, if I do forgive, when there is something unforgivable, when it isn’t possible to forgive. In other words, forgiveness, if there is any, must forgive that which is unforgivable otherwise it is not forgiveness. Forgiving, if it is possible, can only come to be as impossible. But this impossibility is not simply negative. This means that the impossible must be done.”


“A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event,” Jacques Derrida, trans. Gila Walker.


*


“I know,
I know and you know, we know,
We did not know, we
Were there, after all, and not there
And at times when
Only the void stood between us we got
All the way to each other.”

“So many constellations,” from Die Niemandsrose, Paul Celan.



*


“Out on the streets
where I grew up (HOW I GOT OVER)
first thing they teach you is:
not to give a fuck. (HOW I GOT OVER)

That type of thinking
can’t get you nowhere.
Someone—has—to—care—”


“How I Got Over,” The Roots.



*


The next day, she is still lying in bed; knowing that Logan is in the Danger Room, teaching bajiquan to ten-year-olds, who will turn on him the second they master a single move; whom he barrages with near-constant insults, wrapped around tiny, treasured fragments of advice or guidance.

And later, she is still lying there; knowing that Gambit is now outside—it’s a sunny day—surrounded by teenagers, putting up a cardboard cut-out of Magneto up in the garden, with specific target points designated on his head, chest and groin. Someone has drawn a mustache and glasses on Magneto’s face.

Some of the things she knows.


*


The day after that, she finally ventures out of her room to make it for the next training session with Logan.

When she arrives in the room, he is already there, standing, addressing the children, who are sitting cross-legged on the floor. From an unseen corner, she watches his back as he speaks.

“We’re gonna start learning something called aikido today,” he is saying. “It’s different from what we were doin’ last week, yeah? This one’s definitely gentler than bajiquan—”

—and some students in the class groan—

“—all right, all right. But it’s gonna show you how to defend yourself from an attacker, without having to hurt your opponent. It’s about redirecting force, instead of coming at it head-on.”

“If someone’s attacking me,” a boy says to one of his friends, “I’m coming at ‘em head-on!” And the kids laugh.

“There’s lots of different ways to fight,” Logan says simply, and she wishes, doesn’t wish, she could see his face.

Finally, she calls out, entering the room: “So you guys bored of this guy yet, or what?”

The kids let out a chorus of surprised cheers. “Rogue!”

Logan whirls around, eyes wide. “Uh, hey—” he says. Then, in a lower voice, “I didn’t know you were coming to class today.”

“Well, I am, after all, a teacher at this dance studio you call a combat class,” she says. The same look of uneasy pleasure is on his face again.

“Yes!” one girl shouts out. “I wanna be in Rogue’s group today! Not learning—aiwhatdo—”

“Aikido,” Logan says, irritated.

“Nah,” Rogue says. “Let’s let Logan lead the class today.” And the kids make faces of disappointment.

Logan is wordless; then he blinks, clears his throat, and nods. “Yeah. Okay. All right. So.” He stands up straight, faces the class again. “Now, the first thing we’re gonna do is fall and roll.”

More groans. Rogue thinks they learned to really back-talk, while she was away.

“How come every week, we always have to start with that,” another girl complains. “I wanna learn new stuff, the really hard stuff!”

“There’s no stuff newer or harder than this, brat,” Logan barks. “Most important thing is knowing how to fall right. Now on your feet.”


*


After class, they are picking up mats together. Logan is doing everything he possibly can to avoid looking at her.

“Thanks for—coming in today,” he says, finally, sounding so uncomfortable it nearly makes her laugh.

“I told you, it’s my job,” she says. “And it’s important to me.”

Logan nods, his gaze darting everywhere. “So—” Then he swallows. “Er, how’s your—hand?”

She blinks, looks down at her hand. “It’s good,” she says. “It’s all fine now.”

“Good,” he says, still not looking at her. “Okay. Uh.” Then he glances at her arms. “Here, gimme those. I’ll take ‘em back to the equipment room.”

And then he takes the mats from her arms, slings them onto his back, and walks away.


*


Over the next few days, she re-establishes a kind of awkward rapport with Logan, as fellow instructors and something like old friends. She thinks she knows how Storm feels, regarding Hank, now. Friendship, that isn’t quite friendship; closeness that isn’t quite closeness.

She almost never sees Gambit; now that the weather is nice, his classes are held in a different area of the mansion, outside.

She doesn’t know how it could be possible, not to see him, when only two weeks ago it seemed like she couldn’t take a step in either direction without finding him grinning at her like a cat. But now he is never in the cafeteria, never in the hallway; he might be in his room, but she doesn’t go to his room.

Now he is nowhere, but it is that nowhere-ness that makes her feel all the more aware of him; knowing that for him to really be nowhere, he would have to know exactly where she was, at all times—in order to avoid being there, too. Everywhere she goes, she thinks he is just there, walking away, slipping out through a door she doesn’t know, turning into a corridor she cannot see.

But isn’t that what was always going to happen anyway, eventually, she thinks to herself. With both of them.

Thinking of Gambit saying in a grieving voice: That’s all we had going on anyway, right?


*


And as the days continue, and she still doesn’t see Gambit at all, she notices that the rapport with Logan isn’t quite as friendly as she had thought. There are times when he answers questions a little too quickly and loudly, looking immediately remorseful and irritated at himself afterwards. Or times when she catches him staring at her, as if he wants to ask her a question, then deciding against it.

Or times like when, in class, she volunteers to demonstrate a grappling move with him, and he says, hurriedly, “No, it’s okay—Jordan here can do it. Come on, pipsqueak.”

She remembers that he’d only said he’d give her time; and that he’d ask again. Until then, they are living in some limbo, some delayed time, in which he can’t seem to bear touching her or looking at her more than he absolutely needs to. And the dread comes back.


*


She is sitting in the cafeteria, long after dinner is over, at a table with Piotr and Bobby, asking lewd questions about their sex life.

Only Piotr is answering, delightedly, while Bobby turns bright red and keeps saying, “Shut up, shut up.” This seems to delight Piotr even more.

And as she is saying, “Yeah, I know, even with me he had a real thing about getting his ass licked when it was in ice form—”

—she sees a flash, nothing more, in one of the cafeteria entrances. She turns her head; but no one is there, and no one is coming in. A flash that could have been anyone; but she knows who it was. No one else wears a coat that long.


*


In bed that night, she remembers something Gambit had said; that he had gone on the mission to Québec for Storm. That means Storm must know—and Storm, she can talk to, she thinks.

She cannot stop thinking about it, so although it is verging on late, she climbs out of bed and makes her way to Storm’s room—she doesn’t want to have this conversation in her office, where anyone might come in; where Logan or Gambit might come in.

When Storm answers the door and sees her standing there, her eyes widen in surprise. “Hey, honey, come in,” she says, and opens the door wider.

It is the first time she has ever been in Storm’s room. It smells profoundly of her; of rose and amber and everything she had smelled in her embrace; wood, paper, rainwater, Storm, Storm.

The room is not as organized as she thought it would be; there are piles of folders and documents on the desk, a leather jacket thrown on an armchair, more shoes than anyone needs, a large bottle of hand cream, at least two different cell phones that she can see.

It reminds her of Gambit’s room; tender, lived-in, a devoted messiness.

“Sorry about the mess,” Storm says. “I never get the chance to tidy up around here.” She grins. “I’m kind of a slob, don’t tell anyone.”

“It’s nice,” Rogue says. “Cozy,” she adds, knowing it will remind her of Logan; not caring because it is the truth. Because Storm reminds her of Logan, too.

“You want a cup of tea or something?” Storm asks, moving towards the small kitchenette across the room. “I can’t really cook in here, but I can make drinks—”

“I wouldn’t mind anything with gin in it,” Rogue jokes.

Storm raises an eyebrow. “Gin and tonic coming up.”

Rogue watches her as she busies herself at the countertop, retrieving ice from a miniature freezer, pouring gin and tonic water into lowball glasses that say HAWAII on them.

She is dressed for bed, though she is wearing her glasses, so she must have been in the middle of doing something, probably work-related. In sweatpants, a sweatshirt. Bare feet, unpainted nails. White hair in a bun haphazardly held together by a butterfly clip.

Storm brings her one of the glasses. “Cheers,” she says.

“Thanks,” Rogue says, and takes a sip; then looks down, peers at the glass. “Hawaii, huh.”

Storm lowers her eyes, and Rogue thinks it must have something to do with Hank; but Storm says nothing.

Instead, she says, a little carefully, “So what’s up.”

Rogue takes another sip from her glass, then another one. She swallows, then says, “A while ago, Gambit told me—about Madrid.”

Storm’s face is still careful. “All right,” she says, waiting for her to say more.

Rogue swallows, and says, “That—that it’s not anti-mutant terrorists that after Hank, but some kind of—military company, or something. And that he went to find out more. Not just because of his—special abilities, or whatever.”

All of this is coming out much clumsier than she had hoped, and she doesn’t know if it is the alcohol, her nervousness at being in Storm’s room, or the fact of talking about this subject at all.

Storm examines her, still waiting to see if that is all she is going to say. It is all she is going to say.

“Well,” Storm begins. “It’s true that he was, as he told me—well-equipped for the mission.”

Still watching her, wanting Rogue to be the one to reveal things.

Rogue swallows, and asks, “Is the other stuff true, too.”

“Like what,” Storm says, gently.

Rogue stares at her glass. “About him—about him being an assassin, before. About that being how he knew what was going on with Hank. About him thinking that the people he used to work for were the ones responsible for it.”

Storm takes a breath. “Yes,” she says. “That’s true.”

Rogue inhales, a little sharply.

Storm continues, “Gambit thinks Hank is the target of a failed assassination attempt—well, two—by a private security contractor that specializes in training and employing mutant enforcers,” she says, as if she is reading the facts aloud, as if she has memorized them because she has been reading documents all day about the topic.

Then she adds, her voice lowered, “And I think he’s right.”

Rogue stares at her. “But—why—just because Hank’s a mutant? They’re using mutants, too—”

“No,” Storm says. “Because he’s campaigning for stricter regulations on international arms trade. And he’s supporting a campaign for a mutant labor union in the automobile industry.”

Rogue doesn’t understand anything. She thinks, a little ashamedly, that she should read the news more often. “What?”

“Hank made enemies,” Storm says simply. “Already when he first entered the Cabinet. And then he was given this U.N. job, as a token, for mutant rights or whatever, to get him out of the way; keep him in endless conferences and meetings. But he’s causing as much trouble for them there as he was as Secretary of Mutant Affairs. If not more.”

She says, “I only found out what was happening when his house burned down, like everyone else.”

Storm’s jaw tenses. She says, “He’d been keeping everything from me.”

Rogue remembers Storm saying that she had been against Hank’s departure for Washington, his decision to take up a life of politics.

“So you—” Rogue shakes her head, struggling to understand. It seems as though in the past few days, everything she knows about her life and the people in it has been turned upside down.

Storm exhales. “After Hank’s house was burned down, Gambit approached me and told me about a company he worked for briefly, called Sagitta. He said they had been using enhanced mutants and humans to carry out corporate and political assassinations. He had concerns that they—or a related company—might actually be the ones behind the arson.”

Rogue stammers, “But I thought it was bigots—you know—the SB10700 thing—”

Storm says, “It’s not uncommon for these agencies to conceal their actions by framing activist or fundamentalist groups that would also have conveniently similar motives.”

She sighs, takes her first sip from her own glass.

“So now you see why I’ve been so serious about the bodyguard thing,” she says. Then she cringes. “Even though Hank hates it.”

“But why,” Rogue says. “If it’s so dangerous—if he’s being targeted—”

Storm sighs again, throws her hands up. “He’s proud. I don’t know. He says it’s hypocritical. Criticizing the arms trade when he’s surrounded by some of the strongest mutants in the world.”

Rogue stares at her. “So and Gambit—this whole time—you guys knew about this—”

Storm gazes at her. “Gambit has been helping me with information from some of his contacts: former Guild friends, or even former employees, discharged or escaped, like him, though I don’t really ask all the details,” she answers, carefully again.

“And you guys kept this to yourselves—” Rogue feels herself getting angry. “You didn’t tell us—we didn’t even know what we were up against, when we were out there—”

“I know,” Storm says, wincing. “And I’m sorry. But—I hope you can imagine why I wouldn’t want too many people to know about this. I don’t need anyone else in the mansion targeted for what they know.”

She frowns and says, “It’s better for us if people think Hank is being guarded against anti-mutant terrorists. Not snooping around trying to find enough evidence to bring a global mercenary agency to justice.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Rogue asks, eyes wide.

Storm smiles again. “Trying,” she says, and she takes another, longer, sip from her glass.

Then she closes her eyes. “If people came to the mansion again—”

Rogue stares at Storm. For the first time, she realizes, truly, that Storm is now the leader of this mansion.

That Storm is standing in the place where Xavier used to be—without telepathy, without Cerebro, without the years of experience and connections and advocacy he had been able to bring to the table. Just herself, and whatever she could do, to protect them. This community they had made with their hands. Everything her lost friends and predecessors had built.

“Who else knows,” Rogue asks suddenly. “Does Logan—”

“No,” Storm replies. “Logan doesn’t know. I was worried about how he’d react to hearing about something so closely connected with Weapon X.”

She pauses. “You know, I’ve never talked to him about all that. I always remembered the professor talking about how delicate and fragile his mind was—and if he, with his telepathy, didn’t think it was a good idea to try and go in there—” She bites her lip. “I didn’t think I had any business trying.”

Then she looks at Rogue. “But you’ve been in there, right,” she murmurs.

Rogue is startled. “How did you—”

Storm chuckles. “It’s not that hard to figure out, seeing what happens to you after he touches you.”

Rogue looks down.

“Does the stuff stay permanently?” Storm asks.

Rogue hesitates, then nods. “The stuff from Liberty Island stayed permanent,” she responds. “Not always coherent.”

“Wow,” Storm says.

“What?” Rogue asks.

The older woman shrugs. “I always thought that was pretty amazing,” she says. “That you could do something like that, even without any kind of telepathy. Just through touch.”

“Amazing,” Rogue repeats in disbelief. “I always thought it was pretty awful.”

Storm looks down. “I don’t know, I always thought that was sort of—moving. In its own way. I don’t know. Maybe I’m too simple-minded.”

Rogue doesn’t say anything here; not knowing what she would say.

“You know, before Alcatraz, I fought with Logan,” Storm adds; and this, Rogue doesn’t know. “I was sure that in the end, he’d betray us for Jean.”

And she thinks of Logan, not betraying them for what Stryker knew.

Storm says, “I thought—I thought he wasn’t really with us. In some way, I guess I’d never really trusted him. I didn’t like him when we first met, either; he was so—angry, so suspicious, so against the whole idea of who we were, what were trying to do, on the team.

“And then I heard, vaguely, about his whole thing with Weapon X, with the experiments and everything. When he fought—he was violent in a way I didn’t always feel too comfortable with.”

Storm laughs, a little nervously. “I wasn’t convinced that he was a good guy, really.”

Rogue remembers the attack on the mansion; seeing Logan leap down from above and stab two soldiers in the back, without hesitation, without a thought. Bobby had told her about how he had seen Logan kill the first soldier, in the kitchen: claws into the chest, up until his knuckles, shouting as if possessed.

Moving through the mansion like a professional, as if he knew intimately and exactly what the soldiers would do, how they would move; as if he had been on their side, before.

Then Storm grins fondly. “But then I thought, if this little girl is hanging around him, there must be something all right, in there.”

Rogue stares at her.

“I think I was right,” Storm says, gazing at her.

Rogue looks down at her glass, takes another sip. “Thank you,” she says quietly.

Storm sips from her glass again. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

Still looking at her glass, Rogue nods. “Thank you,” she says again. “For the drink, too. It’s—it’s late. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Storm smiles and stands. “All right, honey.”

In Storm’s doorframe, just before she leaves, Rogue turns around and asks, suddenly, “So, wait—what are you gonna do now? About Hank, and—everything.”

Storm sighs, and when she does, her face looks younger than Rogue’s and older than Xavier’s.

“Same old, same old,” she says, shrugging. “Keep fighting.”


*


Rogue feels tiny, ignorant, infinitely young. While she was running away from everything, treating everything like a game, they were—working like this, living like this.

And now she thinks about every smile on Gambit’s face, every “honey” from Storm’s mouth—everything now marked by this knowledge, the knowledge of everything they were giving, everything they were doing, in the meantime, in the background. To watch over their lives; her tiny life; their tiny life together.

Once she is back in her room, she goes to the drawer she never opens, where she never looks; opens it, looks in it.

Remy the bull greets her, and once again she does not know whether to laugh or cry.

Thinking of Gambit’s bullet wounds; Logan’s dreams; Storm’s desperate voice on the phone with Hank; Hank’s tense face as he ate his dinner like a gentleman and ignored the mocking across from him.

Thinking of her own hands in Kyoto. Wondering what she could do, undo.


*


She opens the envelope before she can convince herself not to.


*


JAMES HOWLETT
CN: WOLVERINE
ENTRY DATE: 11-01-1961
ACTIVATION: 01-03-1964
CO: WILLIAM STRYKER, ALKALI LAKE

INSTRUCTION, COERCIVE INTERROGATION, DISPLACEMENT, LIQUIDATION
SPECIAL NOTES: TRIPLE-DOSAGE REQUIRED

WEAPON X
INDONESIA: 1965
VIETNAM: 1966-1968

M-ULTRA
BRAZIL: 1969-1983
URUGUAY: 1969-1983
CHILE: 1969-1983
ARGENTINA: 1969-1983
NICARAGUA: 1979-1983
EL SALVADOR: 1979-1983

COMPROMISED: 1983.
TERMINATED: 1984.


REMY PICARD
CN: NEW SON
ENTRY DATE: 06-22-1994
ACTIVATION: 09-31-1994
CO: NATHANIEL ESSEX, EASTMAIN RIVER

INFILTRATION, ESPIONAGE, SNIPING, PROJECTILES, COMBUSTIVES

SAGITTA (CONTRACT, FENRIS INTERNATIONAL)
BELGIUM, 1994

SAGITTA (CONTRACT, HANDER NATIONAL/OLIVER SOUTH)
PORTUGAL, 1994

SAGITTA (CONTRACT, SORTON DEFENSE)
LEBANON, 1995

TERMINATED (MORTALITY): 1995


*


Nothing much, really; less than she had expected. Two pieces of paper, with names, dates, places. It could be anything, could mean anything. If she didn’t already know what they pointed towards, she wouldn’t comprehend it. Only the memories from Logan tell her what is behind the blank facts. Less than she had expected; not less than she had feared.

She notices that Logan’s contract was terminated the year she was born. The perfect silliness of that coincidence now makes her both laugh and cry.


*


That night, she dreams of nothing, or almost nothing; floating in a sea, underwater and yet she can still breathe, moving to and fro without swimming. It feels as though she might be dead, but she isn’t, she isn’t.


*


The next day, Storm calls her, Kurt and Piotr into her office and says that, once again, a last minute mission has come up. They will be escorting Hank to San Francisco, where he will be present for the groundbreaking of the new Mutant History Museum, to be built where Alcatraz used to be.

Storm says in an irritated but dry voice—as if she is used to this sort of thing by now—that Hank failed to inform her that he would be attending the ceremony at all. She had discovered that fact on her own, through a coincidental telephone call with the mayor of Los Angeles, a personal friend of hers.

“Hank said he really thought the ceremony was next week,” Storm says, rolling her eyes.

Rogue says, “I didn’t even know they were building a Mutant History Museum.”

“It’s the first one,” Storm says.

The groundbreaking is taking place the following morning—it is already nearly dinnertime. Storm says they will have to pack immediately and leave on the jet to meet him in Washington, this evening.

“In any case, I’m sorry for the short-notice, guys,” Storm says.

Then she comes around from behind her desk, and nods to Piotr. “So, Piotr, you’ll be in charge of the mansion, in my absence.”

Piotr and Rogue say at the same time: “What?”

Storm replies simply, “I’m putting myself on this mission.”

Piotr’s eyes are wide, but then he nods. “Absolutely,” he says firmly. “I understand, Ms. Monroe.”

Rogue remembers that Piotr was the one who evacuated nearly all of the other children from the mansion, through the secret tunnels—knowing all the pathways as though he had been reading the schematics every night, carrying little girls in his arms, converting into his metal form at the faintest whiff of a soldier. She would feel safe, with him in charge.

Storm grins at Rogue. “So you’ll be the muscle,” she says, and Rogue feels herself flush with pride.

Then Storm looks down at her watch. “I think we’ll have to be packed—well, yesterday,” she mutters. “But in the next half-hour will have to work, instead. I think the three of us should just get down to the jet now, and change in there.”

Rogue smiles to herself, at the thought of Hank’s discomfort at being surrounded by bodyguards in leather jumpsuits.

“What’s so funny?” Storm asks.

Rogue pauses, then says, laughing, “Just thinking about how Hank’s always so annoyed about the outfits, when we’re out together. Especially at functions and ceremonies, like this.”

Storm raises her eyebrows. “Well,” she says. “Hank can screw himself.”


*


Storm wasn’t kidding about the mission being short-notice, because she, Rogue and Kurt go straight from her office to the hangar. Storm says Piotr will notify everyone as to their whereabouts; that they’ll be gone not much longer than twenty-four hours, in any case.

Rogue thinks about Logan watching her pack, before Kyoto, about Gambit asking her if she would masturbate thinking about him, before Madrid.

She is not able to give either of them a similar good-bye before this mission; though she isn’t sure they would want to see her, right now, anyway.

In the jet, after they have changed their clothes, Storm takes command in the cockpit, putting on her headset and opening the hangar ceiling. The jet lifts, and they hover above the basketball court.

Rogue looks down at the mansion from above; its gardens, its rooftops, its tiny and tinier windows. She has seen it like this before, but it looks different, this time; she wonders why.

Because this time it looks like home, she thinks.


*


In Washington, they stop on the roof of an apartment building, where Hank is waiting, guarded by several Secret Service agents; one of whom is bright orange with a tail.

Storm lowers the ramp. Rogue turns around, greets Hank as he enters the jet. He straps himself into one of the seats, with the weary gesture of someone who has done this exact thing, far too many times.

“Good evening, everyone,” Hank says.

Then he peers up at the cockpit. Sharp humor enters his voice. “Ororo.”

The ramp closes again, in response.


*


The entire jet ride to San Francisco passes in near-total silence, and to Rogue it feels more uncomfortable than flying from Kyoto to Salem Center, with a tenderloin steak in the place where her hand used to be. Kurt busies himself by studiously reading his own tattoos, as if discovering for the first time that they exist.

“Should we listen to the radio?” Hank asks, finally.

Wordlessly, Storm presses a button in front of her. Classical music Rogue doesn’t recognize fills the jet.

Hank snorts, then smiles to himself, in spite of himself. Still looking annoyed, behind his smile; still smiling, behind his annoyance.

Rogue thinks of lowball glasses with the word HAWAII on them, of fast food eaten in a car during mission-time.


*


It is nearly midnight when they arrive, landing on a helicopter pad on the roof of their hotel, near Golden Gate Park.

Rogue is astounded by what she sees, even through the foggy night. She has never been to California in the first place: she only vaguely knows what the HOLLYWOOD sign looks like from movies, only vaguely knows what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like, or looked like, also from movies.

Now, before her, there is no more Golden Gate Bridge; a silver and red bridge is under construction, in its place. And there is another, newer bridge, already finished, between what she guesses is Alcatraz, and the mainland. The only San Francisco she will ever know is this one.

She realizes—she has never been here. Not just California, not just San Francisco, but here. Here where they fought; here, where Logan killed and saved a woman he loved; here where he, Storm, and Hank spent a month looking for survivors and clearing away rubble and human ashes. Where Gambit came to Storm, and asked how he could help.

Everything looks clean, fresh, new; and even the things that are still under construction seem whole, somehow; utterly undamaged. In progress, rather than in ruins. If she hadn’t known what had happened here, a little less than a year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to tell. But she does know; so she can tell.

Though that new bridge sure looks pretty, she thinks.


*


In the hotel, she shares a room with Storm, while Kurt rooms with Hank.

She hadn’t expected to be in such close quarters with Storm again, so soon after their last conversation. She remains awkwardly silent; she doesn’t even have a bag to busy herself with, as they had all come on the mission with the clothes on their backs and nothing else. She lies in bed, gazing at the ceiling.

With the mission coming so suddenly, everything she had been thinking about had been put on hold. She thinks about Logan, telling her he would give her time. About the two pieces of paper still lying on her nightstand dresser. About what she thinks she can do, undo.

She thinks about the first mission, when Logan and Gambit went together. She wonders if they shared a room; if they had spoken to each other; and if they had, how they had spoken to each other. Remembers Gambit saying, I don’t like him, he don’t like me. Back in the early days. When she had known almost nothing.

Storm eases into her bed, still in her jump-suit, and reaches to turn off the nightstand lamp. “Good night,” she says.

“Good night,” Rogue says. She still feels wide awake. Thinking, thinking.

They are both silent for a moment, and Rogue can hear Storm tossing and turning in bed, the leather making squeaking noises.

After several minutes, she can hear Storm’s voice, muffled by her pillow:

“If we can’t sleep, we can always start comparing how those two are in bed.”

Rogue laughs—and it feels like a long time since she has done that.

“You mean Hank and Kurt?” she asks. “You get around even more than I do.”

A pillow hits her face.


*


The next morning, they are in the diplomatic shuttle provided by the California governor, on their way across the new bridge between the city and the island of Alcatraz.

Kurt and Hank are sitting next to each other, while Rogue drives, and Storm sits next to her in the front passenger seat. Storm is craning her neck behind her, examining Hank in his deep blue suit.

She is taunting Hank: “So, what, were you half asleep when you did your tie this morning? Because I don’t see any other excuse for that disaster.”

Hank, retorting: “I don’t know that I ought to take fashion advice from a woman with a collection of leather capes.”

Rogue snickers with pleasure; she has never seen the two of them interact like this. Always hearing one half of the conversation, alone with one half of this duo.

She already likes their barbed affection, the vibrating distance between them. Friendship that is not quite friendship, closeness that is not quite closeness. She looks in the rearview mirror and sees Hank gazing at Storm, with a look she does not need to read, to understand.

Her hands on the wheel, Rogue scans the bridge. Not much traffic, this early in the morning. She looks in the rearview mirror again. Only one city bus behind her. Just a few cars, several morning joggers.

Then she freezes, staring at the bus.

She remembers Gambit’s panting voice—talking about a French defense minister—

—and she doesn’t remember having checked the car this morning—

She says, “Storm, fly out of the car. Kurt, teleport Hank out of the car, now.”

Storm’s head whipping around, saying, “What—”

“Now,” Rogue says, still driving, afraid of what might happen if she stops the car.

The three of them still stare at her—and she reaches up with her non-driving hand and punches straight upwards, so the roof flies back, still attached to the car, in a kind of improvised sunroof.

She says, “Get out of the car now!”

Kurt and Hank disappear in a puff of smoke, and Storm flies straight up into the sky.

Rogue flies upwards, but doesn’t follow Storm. She chases after the car, still in drive, grabbing hold of it with all her strength, using the hole she has made for leverage. Then she throws it—and it is a goddamn lot heavier than Warren was—off the bridge, into the bay—

—where it explodes in a wall of fire, at bridge level, still close enough for the heat and pressure of it to knock her backwards, nearly on her ass, before the burning skeleton of the car crashes into the surface of the water.

Rogue scrambles to her feet and stares at it, frozen; shocked to have been right. To have known what she knew.

She can hear the bus screeching to a halt, just at her side.

Kurt and Hank are on the ground, in the middle of the bridge. Cars are braking, honking all around them. Drivers and joggers alike have stopped, staring at the ring of fire in the sea.

Then she thinks she sees something move, at the top of one of the bridge towers.

She screams, “Kurt!”

Kurt and Hank disappear, and the ground pops with a bullet, at the place they have just left.

Rogue glares up at the tower, starts flying towards it, fast, faster; she sees him already. A man who looks like the men who came to the mansion, aiming his sniper rifle at her, now—

She dodges, but while she is fast, she isn’t quite faster than a bullet, at least not this one, and she can feel one bullet enter her arm, and another one straight through her stomach—too fast, too fast, and she remembers Gambit saying something about these bullets being able to penetrate even his armor, and she is only wearing leather—she cries out, feeling herself starting to fall in mid-air—

—but she isn’t going to stop chasing him. She forces herself to keep flying, through the pain, and she sees him take aim at her again, and she knows, distantly that she must be an easier target now, moving so fucking slowly—

—until a bolt of lightning comes down on him, and he falls backwards, arms raised, gun falling to the ground, firing once or twice into the air.

Storm lowers herself onto the tower, just as Rogue arrives, panting.

“Is he still alive?” she yells out, clutching her stomach, feeling her own blood pouring into her gloved hands.

The way Logan said, So is this the fuckin’ souvenir you brought back for me?

Seeing the blood, Storm cries, “Rogue—”

“He looks alive enough,” Rogue barks, and shoves her forehead against his.

Thinking: I’ll take it, then.


*


Storm is shouting and shouting, tries to pull her away, but she hangs on, long, longer, longer, long enough to get what she needs—and then a little longer than that—and then she yanks her head away.

Everything is moving all around her, the tower is raising, lifting, and she thinks, Fuck, there’s another one, a telekinetic—

—until she realizes it is herself, falling, falling, backwards into Storm’s arms.

Asking Logan in her head, Am I falling right?


*


Hearing Storm say her name, again, again, again, again—

She looks up at Storm and speaks, hoping the words come across. “Nyx—Sorton—”

And then she doesn’t see anything anymore, can’t say anything anymore.


*


She wakes up for a moment, just a moment—sees herself in the jet, with Hank holding an IV bag and staring down at her, looking devastated.

She wants to ask, smiling, teasingly: So what happened in Hawaii?

But then she doesn’t see anything anymore, can’t say anything any more.


*


The next time she awakens, she is in the medbay. Storm is next to the bed, asleep in a chair. A deep blue suit jacket covers her upper body.

How many days has she been unconscious. She doesn’t know. She remembers the fight, though it happened in less than ten minutes; remembers knocking her skin against the man’s head.

He had been a human, she realizes, not a mutant. Or something in-between; some kind of artificially advanced human. Sent there to supervise the timed bomb planted under the car; or, as a last resort, to shoot. They weren’t taking chances anymore.

He had been drugged, too; drugged and erased. There are only facts in her head; very few personal memories, quirks. Technology had improved, she sees; the man he had been given an even more sophisticated version of the treatment Logan got, Carol Danvers got.

Though she has a feeling she will be having a few more bad dreams in the upcoming weeks; the man had been having them, too, despite the improvements.

Had been, she thinks, because she knows she killed him.

Storm awakens; then sees that Rogue, too, is awake. “Hey, honey,” Storm breathes, seeing her.

“Hi,” Rogue says, but finds the words have no sound; her throat is still parched.

Storm says, “You want some ice chips?”

She nods, and Storm disappears for a second, comes back with a glass cup, wearing a pair of latex gloves.

“Open your mouth,” Storm says, and Rogue obeys. The ice chip tastes unbelievably good; she opens her mouth for another, another.

Then she looks around the room, for the two men she knows will probably be here.

But they are nowhere to be seen. She remembers that she hadn’t exactly been on best terms with either of them, so she lowers her eyes again.

“Ah,” Storm says, recognizing the look on Rogue’s face.

Then she says, wryly, “They’ve both been—banned—from the medbay.”

She gestures across the room, outside, where through tired and blurry eyes, Rogue thinks she can see a charred hole where one of the doors used to be; a series of claw marks in a wall.

“For life,” Storm adds curtly.

Rogue starts to laugh, but laughing hurts.

Storm gazes down at her. “You know you saved all of us,” she murmurs.

Rogue tries to smile, but finds that her face seems to be made out of plaster, she can actually hear the skin of her mouth and cheeks cracking.

“How did you know what was going to happen,” Storm asks.

Rogue tries to smile again, but it still hurts too much.

“I was well-equipped,” she whispers, then she thinks she falls asleep again.


*


When she wakes up again, in the middle of the night, the chair next to her bed is empty, but Storm’s jacket is draped over the armrest. She looks more closely; no, not Storm’s jacket.

She can hear Storm talking to someone, just outside her room.

“Hey—stop, stop. It’s not your—”

She can hear Hank replying, “If she hadn’t—if—”

Storm, saying, “Hey. Hey. Hey.”

Hank saying, “Because of me, she—she—just a child—”

Storm saying, “She’s not. She’s strong.”

A long silence.

Then, Hank saying, fiercely, “If—if anything happened to you—”

Another silence.

Then, Storm saying, “Now you know how I feel.”

Rogue falls back asleep.


*


In her dream, she thinks can feel a warm hand on her face; a warm hand in her hair. A whisper of breath against her mouth. Tobacco, leather, sweat, saltwater.


*


When she wakes up, it is daylight, and Storm is in the chair, watching daytime television. When she sees that Rogue is awake, she smiles, says, “Ice chips?”

Rogue nods. Storm reaches over to a cup that is already prepared. She already has gloves on her hands. She feeds her two ice chips.

“I could get—used to this,” Rogue rasps out.

Storm laughs. “Yeah, I think you’re getting spoiled.”

Rogue looks up at the television. A man is taking a woman in his arms, shaking her by the shoulders, desperately—he loves her, only her, and why won’t she believe him? He never slept with Helena!

Storm sees her looking, cringes. “I know. Don’t say anything. I love it.”

Rogue laughs. The pain of laughing feels good.

Then Storm says, “Before you passed out, on the bridge, you were trying to tell me something.”

She gazes at her curiously. “What was it?”

Rogue closes her eyes briefly, then opens them again.

“Name was—Matthew Risman. He worked for—Nyx,” she rasps, trying to get the words out clearly. She hasn’t quite regained enough strength to speak yet, but she has to say this.

“It was a contract—Sorton—Defense. I know who—C.IA. contact is. Where—based. We can go in—get what we need—”

She coughs a little, trying to clear her throat.

Then she says, making a great effort to lift her eyes, to look at Storm: “The evidence—you needed.”

Storm stares down at her, face paling; realizing, realizing. Tears start to slide down her from her eyes.

She chokes out, “Honey—”

“We’re fighting, right,” Rogue says hoarsely.

Storm wipes her face and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah.”

Then her eyes close in pain and regret. “But god, honey, you—”

“Storm,” she interrupts. “I love you.”

The older woman’s eyes widen in shock; and then she starts to tremble, dissolving in tears and laughter.

“I love you,” Rogue says again.

And now Storm is laughing and laughing, and crying and crying, all at the same time, bringing a hand to her mouth, tears and snot mixing together over her chin.

And Rogue knows well what that feels like.

“I love you,” she repeats, her voice still weak; thinking that she has never said this before to anyone but her parents—and even then, not so much. But now she wants to say nothing else but this. She can barely speak; but when she does, she wants every word to be these words.

“Storm, I love you,” she says. “I really—really love you.”

And now Storm has to cover her face with both hands.

“Fuck, you cry loud,” Rogue mumbles.


*


The next time she wakes up, it is in the middle of the night, and Logan is at the foot of her bed, staring at her.

“Hey,” she greets him; and he jumps, startled.

He has been watching her this entire time, so intently, that he must have become frozen like that. He hadn’t even noticed, staring right into her face, that she had already opened her eyes. Or maybe he had been asleep with his eyes open, she doesn’t know.

“Hey,” he says, in a voice she can barely hear.

“Thought you were banned from the medbay,” she says, or tries to say.

“You want ice chips?” Logan asks immediately, his voice rising.

He looks down at a glass in his hands, now full of water. “Just a minute.”

He leaves, then returns with a new glass. He is already wearing his leather gloves.

She opens her mouth, he feeds her a chip. Staring down at her.

“So everyone seems to think you’re some kinda hero,” he remarks. “Kids in class aren’t letting me hear the end of it.”

“I hope not,” she croaks.

He eyes her. “You really throw an exploding car off a bridge?”

She laughs, coughs. “Sorta,” she replies.

He snorts. “Guess you are a certified bad-ass,” he says.

Then he adds, “Though you know I’m gonna have to kick your ass when you get outta here.”

And his joking voice is trembling, slightly.

She thinks of herself, whispering to Gambit in the medbay, I’m gonna kill you.

She says, “I’m surprised you didn’t heal me in my sleep.”

“Thought about it,” he mutters. “Still thinking about it.”

Then he frowns. “But Storm and Hank swore you’d be okay; that your powers made you pretty durable, even if it looked—bad.”

He looks down at the cup he is holding. “And then I thought—about all the stuff you must have in your head because of me. Because of all the times I did that.”

He clenches his fist around the cup with the ice chips. “And I didn’t wanna put you through that again.”

She stares at him. Logan is looking determinedly at the cup now.

Then he lifts his eyes to her, and says, “Look, kid, I’m so—”

“Wait,” she interrupts. “Wait, wait. Don’t say anything yet.”

He looks at her, confused.

She says, “Before the mission—you wanted me to tell you how I got my powers—and all the things I saw in your head—”

Logan raises his hands, starts shaking his head vehemently.

“No, no, no,” he says, his forehead wrinkled. “Don’t worry about any of that, I mean—you can just forget I said any of that. I don’t—I don’t want you to relive shit like that—”

He scratches his head, runs a hand through his hair anxiously. “I mean—this week, while you were out—when Storm told me why you did what you did—about this Nyx thing—or Sagitta, or Weapon X, or whatever—she pretty much told me the gist of what she thought you might know, about my past—and—just—just—just—you don’t have to—”

He is rambling. Logan, who never rambles, who barely speaks, who thinks a dialect of growling and insults serves as a perfectly valid form of communication.

Logan, who touched her dead sixteen-year-old face;

Logan, who on the train hugged her like a beloved child, not five minutes after she had been staring, jealously, at another beloved child being hugged by his mother;

Logan, who gave his body away, to be more perfectly turned into the monster he knew himself to be;

Logan, who has more blood on his hands than can be measured;

Logan, who folds mats by himself after training class and carries them on his shoulders, back to the equipment room;

Logan, who shakes after sex, and during, sometimes, too;

Logan, who has been giving her his entire life, without hesitation, since they first met;

Logan, whom she cannot forgive. But, she thinks—she doesn’t have to be able to, to do it.

She lifts the arm that had not been shot and reaches out to grasp both of his hands in one of hers. She brings the hands up to either side of her bare face, pressing them there, tightly, tightly, tighter. The knuckles resting, just where her temples are.

These hands. Logan’s hands. Logan’s hands and the life inside them.

She presses the knuckles to her temples.

He stares down at her. “Wait, careful—right there—the claws—”

“I’m gonna tell you,” she says. “I’m gonna tell you everything I saw, that you did, that you were, back then.”

Petrified, he stares at her.

She repeats, “I want to tell you.”

He looks like he might start howling, but he closes his eyes, takes a breath, and says, in the same voice that broke her, in the car on the way to Boston:

“Okay.”

The hand against her face is warm. She can feel his knuckles through the gloves. With her bare fingers, she can feel the tip where the claws begin, just beneath the surface of his skin. She traces that place with one finger, again and again.

“I love you,” she says.

The hands around her face freeze. His eyes fly open to stare down at her, in panic and fear and incomprehension. He starts to pull his hands away, so she gazes back up at him, and grabs the hands with all the strength she has recovered; to keep them in place, to keep his hands against her bare face.

“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen,” she says. “In lots of ways. In the same way. From the start.”

He shakes his head, his face full of terror and denial, saying, “Wait—hold on—I thought—you were gonna tell me about—”

“This comes first,” she says. “I want you to know this, before you know everything else.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. She is reminded of herself, in Gambit’s arms: closing her eyes, shutting out the sound of his voice, the words she could not bear to hear.

“I love you,” she says again. “I love you. The dead you. The you now. The things that made you. The you you.”

Logan’s eyes are still closed. The hands on her face start to shake.

“I looked at everything,” she says, and his eyes squeeze shut even more. “Or nearly everything. I saw it. I dreamt it. Everything.”

He makes a noise of pain.

“I love you,” she says. “I’ve loved you since even before you touched me the first time. Since before you even saw me, in that bar in Laughlin City.”

She says, “I’ve been loving you, the same way, all this time.”

The hands are shaking more than ever.

She says, speaking words she has been taught, and has only now learned:

“I love you. In the real way. Like anybody can love anybody. Simple and stupid.”

Logan’s eyes are still squeezed shut. There are deep lines in his forehead, his eyebrows knitted together, so closely they look like a scar on his face.

“Logan,” she says to his closed eyes, still holding his hands. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah,” he chokes out.

“Good,” she says gently. “Keep listening.”

And then she starts over: again, again, again, and again, and again, and again.

The hands on her face never stop shaking.


*


After she has told him everything—Manhattan, Kyoto, Harada; every remembered name, every image, every nightmare, every fact and half-fact—he falls asleep in the chair where Storm was sitting, his head slumped over onto the edge of her bed, his hands on her stomach.

He had wanted to move the hands, to keep them elsewhere, away, just in case—but she hadn’t let him.

Saying, “If something happens, then I’ll touch you.”

And his hands had started shaking all over again.


*


The next morning, he is still there, despite the protests of several medbay workers, some of whom leave to locate Kurt in an effort to teleport him out.

“So you want me to heal you,” he asks.

“Nah,” she says. “It’ll be cool to have scars for a while. Next time.”

Logan looks down. That expression of uneasy, tentative pleasure is on his face again.

She thinks of the way she had once thought that someone could fall in love with him for that face, alone.

She wants to touch it; this face of his. So she does; just on his beard, from the top of his hairline, down his cheek, to his chin. Stroking her bare thumb across the hairs; back and forth, again and again. Sometimes she feels a shimmer of pull; but nothing more. She knows how to be careful.

Logan goes still under her touch; then swallows, blushing slightly. She can feel his skin grow warm beneath his beard, her fingers.

“All right,” he says. “Next time.”

Then they are silent. Her gaze wanders, out the door, to the wall with his claw marks still etched in it; to the door that is now a scorched hole.

He follows her gaze and snorts. “Yeah, that wasn’t great.”

“Looks worse than what happened on the bridge,” she remarks.

He shrugs. “We both wanted in,” he says.

She laughs. “Ever heard of visiting hours?”

Logan doesn’t respond for a long moment, so she glances at him. “What?” she asks.

He says, quietly, “You love him, too.”

She looks at him, smiles faintly, but doesn’t answer.

He scowls. “I’m not gonna like that at all.”

“Nope,” she agrees, her smile widening a little more.


*


And once more then there is silence between them. She can see him clenching and unclenching his left fist, while his right hand holds hers.

Then he looks at her again. He seems to have gathered up courage for something. “Kid—I—I—”

She shakes her head, raises her hand to stop him. Logan stops, blinks.

Then she smiles again, taps her temple twice.

“I already saw,” she says. And Logan lets out an endless, trembling breath, gripping her bare hand in his. He squeezes it once, twice, three times.

She likes it better the way it is—in his head, in her head: something with her face on it, and no words.