I will try to upload a chapter a day. If a day goes by without a new chapter it's probably because I'm back to not being able to log in again!
And the Story Text is still not working right, so I will be loading the story text in the Chapter Notes box again :)

"Rogue? Are you okay?" Jubilee asked from her seat on the couch, as she stuffed another potato chip in her mouth.

It was nine pm on Friday night, on the last night of the school year, so the graduating senior class was having an all-night horror movie marathon to celebrate no more high school. But Rogue wasn't feeling great; truth was she hadn't been feeling good for the last six months.

At first, she had thought it was just stress, you know, from the whole 'being brought back from the dead' thing, courtesy of Magneto's psychotic plan (the dead), and Logan’s desire to not lose the first person who had shown him compassion for as long as he could remember (the brought back). Lately though, she just couldn't shake the constant nausea and dizziness - but she had just spent two months studying her ass off for finals... maybe it was still stress.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I'm just feeling dizzy again, probably low blood sugar because I skipped dinner, I'm going to get a more substantial snack, don't wait for me, start when you're ready, I've already seen this one," she replied, as she gingerly picked her way out of the room, carefully stepping over the outstretched legs of her friends who were lounging around the darkened room.

The chatter in the Rec Room, while the teens were waiting for everyone to settle down so they could hit play, continued - until a loud, solid thumping sound was heard from the hallway.

"Rogue? Are you alright?" Jubilee called out again, as the room went instantly quiet. A couple of kids sniggered, expecting to hear an embarrassed Rogue admitting to walking into something in the dimly lit hallway, but Jubilee's query was met with silence.

After a few seconds to process, several people jumped up simultaneously, and followed Rogue out of the room.

"DOCTER GREY! DOCTOR GREY! SOMEONE GO GET HER! QUICKLY!" Jubilee was heard shrieking a moment later, and kids flooded the hallways, some to find the adults - specifically the onsite doctor - the rest to gawk at Rogue, passed out cold on the floor.

"What's wrong?!" Jean's voice was heard a moment later, as she ran toward the stairs from the upstairs teachers’ wing, having heard Jubilee's frantic screaming and psychic shock. For a moment all was chaos, as everyone tried to speak at once, while the teachers tried to work their way through the throng of students to see what was at the centre.

"What happened?" Jean addressed Jubilee directly, as she knelt down next to Rogue and began to check her over.

"We don't exactly know, she didn't look well, she said she was dizzy, she thought she was just hungry so she went to get herself something to eat from the kitchen, and then we heard a thump, when we came out she was on the floor... there's blood, here, it looks like it's coming from her ear," Jubilee added, pointing to the little puddle of blood spreading around Rogue's cheek.

"An ear infection would explain dizziness, maybe her eardrum ruptured," Jean hypothesized, murmuring mostly to herself as she checked Rogue over to make sure she hadn't damaged anything else in her fall. "She's safe to move, gently, Scott can you carry her to the med lab," Jean directed, as she shifted Rogue into a position she could easily be picked up in. Then she rushed ahead to call the elevator as Scott followed.

--

"Hi sweetie, you're awake again," Jean teased, as Rogue slowly blinked her eyes open. She had been unconscious now for almost four hours, the exact cause of which Jean was still no closer to pinpointing.

"What happened?" Rogue asked croakily, coughing against her dry throat and gladly accepting the straw Jean placed to her lips. "Yuck, that stuff is foul," Rogue grumbled, once her throat was saturated again.

"Yeah, sorry, you're a little dehydrated though, so it was either oral electrolytes or IV fluids, I know you don't like needles but if you'd been out for much longer I'd have had no choice, so be thankful," Jean said, nervously fiddling with the gloves she had left on Rogue when she and Ororo had changed her into the disposable hospital gown. "Now, what happened young lady, and what happened leading up to it?" Jean asked, hoping Rogue's explanation could provide her with more clues than her current raft of test results.

"I was feeling dizzy, was going to the kitchen to get something to eat, then everything went dark, I thought the guys in the Rec Room were just being idiots, turning the lights out, trying to scare me, until I realised I couldn't hear anything either, I knew I was falling but like, in slow motion, felt myself hit the ground, then nothing until I woke up here," Rogue explained, continuing on to detail the progressively worsening symptoms she had been experiencing over the last six months.

"Why haven’t you said anything earlier?" Jean demanded crossly. "You should have come straight to me and--"

"I thought it was just stress, it wasn't so bad, until last week, I figured lack of sleep, lots of studying, I was going to give it a week, to rest and recover from exams, and if that didn't do it, then I was going to come and see you," Rogue assured her. Jean didn't look entirely convinced but said no more on that front.

"Well, so far, all your results are off, your immune system is in overdrive, which is making me think some kind of infection but I'm still waiting for some results... Scott carried you down here, he said you were even lighter than when we first brought you to the school, what's been going on with your weight?" Jean continued to question her.

"It was steady until about a week ago, then it started dropping, I've started feeling weaker, like the muscle's wasting, and I'm always starving too," Rogue added, almost as an afterthought.

"Hmm, I'm going to start a few more tests running, just to cover all our bases," Jean advised, after a moments thought, pulling out a needle and a vial for blood as she glanced apologetically at her patient.

"Can't it wait until tomorrow? I'll probably be fine by morning anyway," Rogue suggested, anything to get out of being stuck with a needle.

"Nope, the sooner I get it started, the sooner we'll have a result, also, you're staying down here until I discharge you, no arguments, we found you unconscious and bleeding on the floor, it would be remiss of me, as a doctor, to let you go before I was certain you're okay," was Jean's response, as she slid the needle into Rogue's arm.

Rogue watched in sick fascination as her blood flowed into the clear glass vial. "Is it supposed to be that thick?" she asked curiously.

"No," Jean replied, worriedly. "Your cell counts are way up, while your plasma content is way down, and I don't know why. You try and get some sleep, I'll be in the next room, if you need me just yell," Jean instructed, as she packed up her blood sample and left Rogue to sleep, dialling down the infirmary lights as she headed to the lab next door.

Rogue didn't think she would be able to sleep, not with all the worries running around her head. The next thing she knew though, it was morning... and she had drooled on her pillow.