The next thing Marie knew she was already running, her eyes fixed on the black surface of the water where Logan had disappeared, her mind jumbled with Magneto’s chaotic thoughts and memories as she tried desperately to push them aside.
As she ran, she saw Scott duck through the broken doorway. A flash of blinding ruby light caught the large man square in the chest. With unnatural endurance, he jerked and twisted against the force of it until a final widening of the beam blasted him clear off the deck and into the water on the far side of the boat.
She was at the dock now, and she broke the surface of the water in a dive, her breath driven from her by the shock of the frigid river. She opened her eyes underneath the surface, reaching her arms out frantically for some trace of him, but she could see nothing in the murky water.
She kicked desperately for the surface, gathering breath to yell against the numbing cold. “Scott! I need light!”
Scott’s head appeared, peering over the rail. He disappeared for a moment, and then returned with a flashlight. He threw it down to her and she swam toward the sinking light, taking another deep breath and flipping forward into a deeper dive.
She swept the light back and forth until finally the dim beam caught a flash of silver. She focused the light and swam closer. Logan had sunk to the bottom, knees and claws dug into the soft sand, the anchor chain still securely wrapped around him pinning his arms helplessly to his sides.
The beam of light caught his amber eyes as she swam toward him. He shook his head, trying to warn her away, but she ignored him. Her frozen fingers fumbled clumsily at the heavy chain, unable to catch a handhold, while her lungs burned.
A rosy glow lit the water, and she realized that Scott was using his optic blast to light the surface. She could see better now, but the chain was hopelessly twisted and knotted. Logan’s body began to convulse under her hands as he involuntarily sucked in water. Terror gripped her, her mind racing through her options. She could only think of one.
She moved closer, wrapping her arms around Logan, pressing her head against his heaving chest. She closed her eyes, pushing aside the screaming in her lungs and the freezing cold, focusing...
At first it was the barest hum. She opened her mind and the hum became a symphony -- the pure clear note of Logan’s adamantium skeleton like an aria, the deeper, richer tones of the rusty anchor chain curling around it in graceful swoops, the metal hull of the fishing boat like a drumbeat underneath.
She let the metal sing to her, its melody wrapping around them both, pulling them. She felt Logan’s knees suck free of the sand as they started to rise up through the water. Faster and faster they rose, Marie clinging tightly to Logan, until they broke free of the surface. She gasped in a painful breath, her head spinning, wet hair streaming in her eyes.
She had a blurred impression of Scott and Ororo’s shocked faces below her and her concentration broke. Her arms slipped free from around Logan as both of them crashed down to the deck. Her head cracked against the hard wood surface, and the world turned gray for a minute.
When she opened her eyes again Ororo was looking down at her, tears in her blue eyes. “Just stay still, my child.” Her eyes flickered to the side and Marie turned her head.
Logan was splayed out on the deck. Jean was pounding frantically at his chest, but as Marie watched she sat back, tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t...” she gasped, looking helplessly at Scott. “The adamantium...his ribs are too strong...”
Marie managed to push herself to her hands and knees, ignoring Ororo’s restraining hand on her shoulder. She crawled over to Logan, placing her bare hand against the wet leather on his chest.
“Show me where,” she rasped. Jean’s eyes met hers in confusion. Marie closed her eyes, using Magneto’s power to press down on Logan’s metal-laced ribs. A small trickle of water ran from his mouth, but not enough -- not nearly enough. His body remained unnaturally still and lifeless.
“Where?!” she asked again, and Jean’s eyes lit with comprehension. She tugged on Marie’s sleeve, moving her hand lower.
“Here,” she said.
Marie pressed again, and this time a small gush of water flooded from Logan’s mouth. Jean turned his head aside. “Again!” she said urgently, and Marie pressed again, and again, for endless minutes, Jean checking intermittently for a pulse until finally Logan’s large frame twitched, and then suddenly he was heaving up, rolling onto his elbow, vomiting a gush of water.
He collapsed back on the deck, unconscious but breathing, that eerie stillness of death absent. Marie scrambled back, tucking her bare hands under her arms, letting the wave of sickness wash over her.
Dead. He had been not just unconscious, but dead. She felt panic belatedly grip her, her thoughts swirling in confusion. The hull of the boat beneath her seemed to call out to her, Lehnsherr’s voice whispering in her head. She felt the hum of the boat, the soft melody of the X-jet parked a mile away, even the throbbing beat of the cities miles and miles distant, cars and skyscrapers, heaps and piles of metal, begging to be bent and twisted to her liking...
“Rogue!” A voice cut through the haze, and she opened her eyes.
“Charles,” she heard a voice that wasn’t quite hers say. My love...my betrayer...
Her mind was a twisted tangle of emotions -- passion and vengeance, regret and retribution.
“Rogue -- you must control this,” his voice said urgently.
Her dazed eyes met his intense blue gaze. “You must control Erik,” he stated, his voice grim.
She blinked, and suddenly realized that the heaving sensation she distantly felt was not her own dizziness, but rather the movement of the boat beneath her. A low, deep groan ran through the hull as the metal torqued and twisted under the strain of her chaotic thoughts.
Xavier’s reassuring voice reached through the tumult. “Concentrate, Rogue. You can do this. I will help.”
She closed her eyes, focusing as Xavier had taught her, pushing back against the foreign thoughts and emotions. She felt the siren song of the metal fade as she cleared her head, concentrating on her own thoughts and emotions and building a wall between herself and Lehnsherr. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold for now.
“Excellent, Rogue.” Xavier’s voice was warm with approval. Marie opened her eyes.
Someone had put a blanket around her shoulders at some point, and she clutched it to her. Ororo was close by her side, helping her to her feet.
A large, gentle-looking man she recognized from the videolink as Piotr detached himself from a brown-haired girl. Rogue watched as his skin transformed to metal and he reached down, scooping Logan up into his arms as if he weighed nothing.
A brown-haired girl. Rogue’s dazed mind took a few extra seconds to register it -- she hadn’t seen her before, and she was not dressed in the leather uniform. Rogue turned her head and made out another figure not in uniform hanging back at the edges of the scene -- a small Asian woman, also draped in a blanket. Her befuddled mind reached for the names. Jubilee, and Kitty. She had found them.
Jubilee seemed to feel Marie’s eyes on her. She looked up, scanning Marie from head to toe and mustering up a weak smile. “Nice night for a swim, chica?”
_______________
Marie sat in a chair by Logan’s bedside, her mind numb with exhaustion. It had only been a few hours since she had last been in this room, but she hadn’t really seen it in the darkness. For the hundredth time her eyes took in all the details that made this room Logan’s.
He was neater than she would have imagined him to be. A few pairs of scuffed boots were tucked under a wardrobe and scattered beer bottles cluttered the dresser, but otherwise the room was pretty tidy. One wall held a bookshelf of well-thumbed books ranging from philosophy to martial arts.
The faint scent of cigars hung in the air, and somehow she knew that his was one of the few rooms with a terrace -- Xavier’s tacit concession to his smoking habit. Just as she knew without looking that his desk drawer held a bottle of Jack Daniel’s that he only opened when the nightmares got bad enough.
She leaned her head back against the chair, watching Logan sleep. His face seemed younger in unconsciousness, the tense furrow between his brows finally smooth. For a moment she thought about what would happen when he awoke -- would it be anger, or disappointment in his eyes? -- but her mind shied away from the thought. She had made her decision.
She heard a gentle knock on the door, and then the soft hum of Xavier’s chair. He pulled in beside her, looking at Logan as well.
“He should be awake in a few hours,” he said.
She ran a weary hand over her eyes. “Then it’s long past time I was gone.”
Xavier’s keen blue eyes searched hers. “Is there anything that I can do or say to change your mind?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He reluctantly handed her the briefcase, and after a pause, the collar. “It would be my pleasure...I could provide you with more than the ten thousand, Rogue...”
She interrupted him. “This is what we agreed on. It’s enough.”
He nodded, and she had to avert her gaze from the disappointment and confusion in his eyes.
“The documents are inside. But Rogue...if I could only ask that you rest awhile. At least stay until Logan awakes.”
She pushed to her feet, realizing with disgust that she had to hold on to the chair back to steady herself. “Both you and I know that he wouldn’t let me go. And I have to. I have to go.”
“But Rogue...why? There must be more to this than you are telling us.”
His gaze was so piercing that for a moment she felt a rush of fear -- would he try to read her mind without her permission?
It was no easy feat to lie to a telepath, but she gathered her strength and did what she had to.
“It’s what I want.”
_________________
Marie sat on the front steps of the mansion, willing the cab to come faster. She had to do this quick, before she could talk herself out of it. She focused on the feel of the collar around her neck, the novelty of her gloveless hands on the leather handle of the briefcase. She wrapped Logan’s leather coat closer around her -- she had tried to leave it behind as well, but had grabbed it out of his room at the last minute. She breathed in the scent of him, biting back her tears.
The cab pulled up and she sprang to her feet in relief. She heard the door of the mansion open behind her and refused to look back.
“Rogue?”
A child’s voice, and surprise stopped her in her tracks, turning her head against her will.
“Owen?”
She had seen him around the mansion of course, but had never spoken to him. She didn’t even know that he knew her name.
He walked up to her and then seemed to lose his nerve, his eyes dropping, his foot kicking the gravel of the drive. “They said you were leaving.”
She tried to pull herself together a little. “Yeah. Sorry, kid. I’ve got places to go.”
“No you don’t.”
She drew in surprised breath, and it escaped her in what sounded suspiciously like a sob. She swiped at her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t. But I’m going anyway.”
He finally raised his eyes to hers. “I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t see it clearly. All I can tell is that...something’s coming for you. Something really bad.”
It was the oddest feeling, a rush of both dread and relief. It strengthened her, this confirmation from the unlikeliest source. “I know, kid. That’s why I’ve gotta go.”
The cab driver was watching them with interest, and she opened the rear door, sliding the briefcase on to the seat. She looked back at Owen. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
His eyes were serious. “You too.”
She attempted a smile, knowing she was probably failing miserably. “I’ll try.”
________________
Logan woke, his head aching, a bitter taste in his mouth. He groaned, running his hand over his face.
He opened his eyes to the concerned gazes of Xavier and Hank. He shot them a dirty look. “At least you put me in my own room this time.”
He tried to think of what damn fool thing he had done this time. It suddenly flashed through his mind -- drowning, he had been drowning, and Marie had been swimming through the dark water towards him.
He sat up, and as the sheet fell away his gaze fixed on his dogtags, now back around his neck.
He grasped them in one hand with a growl.
“Where is she?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Guess who's doing what she shouldn't? ;-) Oh well, leave me love. :-D
Chapter End Notes:
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