Remnant of the Past

©2000 Domenika Marzione

Genre: Romance/Drama

Sexual Content: PG-13

Violence Content: PG-13

Language Content: PG-13

Characters: Original Female, X-MEN characters

Chapter 1

A few years ago..

Peace River, Alberta

"Hey, Mali, you clean up the tables yet?" A gruff voice called from the back room.

A woman rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Yeah, Joe, they've all been wiped down. Someone puked in the corner, but I ain't cleaning it up." Instead, she went behind the bar and started wiping down the surface, careful to avoid the heads of the drunken sops asleep on the counter.

She worked her way towards the other end of the long bar, picking up stray glasses, piling up bowls filled with stale peanuts, and dumping out filled ashtrays. Finally she reached the other end, where she did not move the ashtray from the man still using it.

"You almost ready to get out of here?" He only looked up at her when he was finished speaking.

She nodded. "Lemme clean out the till and I'll grab my coat."

Taking the till from the register, she walked around the bar and into the back room.

"I'm outta here, Joe," she announced as she put the till down on the desk. "See ya tomorrow."

The fat man grunted.

Taking her coat from a hook along the wall and checking to see if her toque, scarf, and mittens were still inside the pockets, she stepped back into the main room of the bar. He was gone. She sighed.

Mali put on her outerwear and went outside, walking towards the parking lot. "Logan?" She walked towards a tall tree stuck unceremoniously near the edge of the lot. "No games tonight, please," she said quietly to the still-cigar smoking man. "It's too damned cold."

"That's fixable," he shrugged. He's never quite figured out how she always knows where he is waiting.

"Not out here, it ain't." She tilted her head back towards the lot. "C 'mon. We'll take my car."

If the casual nature of their relationship seemed to bother her, she hides it well, Logan mused as they walked to the small pickup. She didn't smell frustrated or upset or especially angry. Mali always smelled a little angry, though, but not at him. Not at anything around here.

They spent most nights together, except when they didn't. If he was still sitting at the bar after she finished wiping down the tables, then they'd go back to her place. If he wasn't, she went alone and he went back to his trailer, hitched to his truck on the opposite side of the lot than the tree.

Logan wasn't one for long-term relationships and he wasn't one for commitments. They had sex, very good sex, but they were not intimate. They were considerate of, but not concerned about the other. He didn't know much more about Mali's history than he did about his own, which was nothing. She didn't ask about him, either, and for that Logan was both thankful and occasionally (very occasionally) curious.

Mali lived in a tiny apartment on the same edge of town as the bar they worked in, sparsely decorated with only enough to distinguish it from the average hotel room, but not enough to call it personalized. The phone never rang while he was over there and she didn't have an answering machine. The mail was comprised of bills, junk mail, and a subscription to MacLean's. No cards, no letters. They had spent Christmas together, but there were no cards on the shelf that weren't from the others at the bar and no phone calls to or from family.

"You want to eat?" She asked after they had taken off their coats and boots. He nodded, suddenly hungry.

He heard her rummaging through the fridge and putting something in the microwave as he went towards the bathroom. She always let him shower in peace, never interrupting his nightly washing away of both the mess of sweat and other men's blood as well as his own daily accrual of self-loathing. He came out of the steamed shower (at least the pipes haven't frozen) a cleaner person and a (temporarily) cleaner soul and he strongly suspected you didn't need heightened senses to notice the difference.

As he dressed in the sweatpants he had left on the hook the night before, Logan could smell the leftover stew. He had brought over bison steaks the other night and the leftovers had gone into stew. As Mali set the table, he turned on the television.

It was set to a francophone station. If Mali spoke French, she didn't use it at the bar and there weren't any books or magazines around, but Logan had gotten used to finding the television and more often the radio set to SRC channels. Someone else might have suggested that she was looking for the weather, but Logan knew Mali was too practical to be checking to see whether it would be twenty or thirty degrees below freezing. Not caring why it was on the channel it was, he changed it to an English one and watched the highlights from the hockey games.

Dinner was eaten in a comfortable silence broken only by the sounds of the television in the other room. Afterwards, Logan got up and went looking for the toolbox. As Mali did the dishes, he fiddled with the showerhead in the bathroom. Occasionally he'd wash dishes, but Mali never asked him to and never smelled angry when he didn't.

She was wiping off her hands with a dishtowel when she came by to check on his progress. "It needs a new washer?"

"Yeah. I'll get one tomorrow. It's still good, but it's still gonna leak."

"You get what you pay for," she shrugged and went back towards the kitchen.

Logan could hear Mali brushing her teeth as he washed his hands, so he did the same in the bathroom with the toothbrush she had left for him months back. Mali was in the bedroom changing when he entered. She didn't change her pace or hide from his gaze - you've seen everything already, haven't you - once she saw him.

He turned off the light as he passed it by, knowing that Mali's familiarity with the terrain and his own night vision made this merely a time saving gesture. He saw Mali climb into bed and he stripped off his sweatpants and did the same. Lying back, he inhaled deeply. Mali was content as she was, but not very sleepy. He rolled over to face her back and put his hand on her arm, gauging her interest. She turned towards him, thereby answering the question.

The sex was very good, the relationship utterly uncluttered by demands, their feelings were never on display so they were never hurt. But the real reason Logan waited at the bar most nights, the real reason he had not moved on to the next dive in the next town, the real reason his arm was casually thrown over Mali's flat stomach as he snored quietly was that the first night he had stayed with Mali was the first night he had slept without nightmares. And as long as he was in Mali's bed, they had not returned. So for as long as Mali would put up with him, as long as she was content to have him warm only her bed and not her heart, he would stay.

Chapter 2

Present Day

Washington DC

"You're avoiding the question I posed to you at the beginning of the hearing, Ms. Grey. Three words: Are mutants dangerous?" The man waves his folder of papers to the beat of his words.

"I am avoiding a question that is decidedly loaded, Senator," the speaker responds. "The wrong person behind the wheel of a car can be dangerous."

In the gallery above the proceedings, a man sighs and turns away, pushing through the crowd, a woman in tow, he exits the gallery.

The couple is halfway down the corridor when the man pauses, exchanges a glance with the woman, and then calls out without turning around. "What are you looking for, Charles?"

"Hope," responds the man in the wheelchair following behind the couple.

They finally turn around. The wheelchair-bound man tilts his head towards the woman. "Ms. Gratton," he smiles.

She returns his smile. "Professor Xavier. Your protégée speaks well. It is a shame she is wasting her talents before closed minds."

"It is rare that a mind is closed forever, Ms. Gratton. One must be ever vigilant in the search for cracks which may help to break down those walls."

"You waste your time, Charles," the other man speaks. "The walls have been sealed for a long time now."

"Erik," Xavier sighs. "Do not forsake them. They have strayed, but they are not lost."

He is about to respond when the gallery doors burst open behind them. Reporters run down the hall to file their reports as the spectators begin to fill the corridor, everyone chatting about the confrontation between the advocate for mutants, Jean Grey, and Senator Kelly.

Momentarily overwhelmed by the sudden 'voices' filling his head, Xavier closes his eyes. When he opens them, Erik and his companion are gone. Xavier wheels himself back towards the gallery.

"Professor?" A man calls to him from behind.

"Yes, Scott?"

"Jean would like us to come rescue her from the reporters," Scott Summers looks distracted for a moment. "She says she would have asked you directly, but you were busy."

Xavier smiles, then looks back one last time to where he confronted the couple. Turning back to Scott, he nods. "Let's go be knights in shining armor."

Chapter 3

"Victor, move your legs, please?"

Sabretooth opened one eye. He had been dozing and his long legs blocked the narrow aisle of the small airplane they had. borrowed. He leered at the woman standing waiting. "What's in it for me?"

"I leave your legs attached?" she smiled brightly.

Checking to make sure that she was not wearing her holster, Victor Creed snorted gently. "You terrify me," he closed his eye and dipped his chin back to his chest to go back to sleep. But not before he moved his legs out of the way.

The woman entered the cockpit. She had never asked where Mortimer learned to fly aircraft. She thought it highly unlikely he had enrolled in something so pedestrian as flight school and the idea of the hunched man with the long tongue and disgusting eating habits being a military veteran was frankly absurd. But Toad could fly the plane as well as he could the helicopters they had used. Now if only he wasn't such a terror with the group's Toyota minivan.

"There's an airport south of Vermillion," she told him as she sat down in the unoccupied co-pilot's seat. "Do you want me to find it on the map for you?"

"Who are you?" Toad looked closely at her. Long black hair streaked through with violet, black-on-violet eyes (not yellow), black tank top, arm-length black fingerless gloves, and a long black skirt slit high on both sides revealing black (natch) thigh boots. And not a blue scale in sight.

"Remnant," she stared back. "Who else would I be? And stop undressing me with your eyes."

"Mystique?"

"Why on earth would Mystique pretend to be me?" Remnant shook her head in wonderment as she took out the map and compass. "She's passed out in her seat."

"She could pretend to be you so that she could find out my secrets," Toad suggested.

"As if you tell me anything dark and dangerous."

"I could, you know."

"I'd rather you didn't. I get enough by having to listen to what runs through your very dirty mind. Besides, she already knows you have a crush on her."

"Oh."

"Here," she handed him the map she had marked up. "We should be another half-hour in the air." She got up to leave.

"Do I really?"

"Really what?"

"Have a very dirty mind."

Remnant paused. "When compared to, say, Victor's, no, you don't really. Compared to the average human - or mutant - out on the street, yes, you do."

"Good," he nodded. "I'd hate to think all those years had gone to waste."

"I'm glad to reaffirm your life's purpose," she shook her head in either disgust or amusement and went back to her seat, careful not to disturb the man sleeping next to her.

"How much longer?"

"Oh. I didn't mean to wake you, Erik," she ran her fingers along his cheek. He took her hand and kissed where the glove allowed contact with skin. "Another half-hour, I think. We have a very fancy and fuel efficient vehicle here."

"Mystique steals only the best for us," he smiled, still holding her hand while looking across the aisle to the sleeping shape-shifter. "I think she spoils us."

Remnant rested her head on Erik's shoulder. "She does at that."

Both dozed, still holding hands, until the plane landed in northern Alberta.

Chapter 4

Outside of Laughlin City, Alberta

Logan watches the girl inhale the chocolate bar he had had lying on the dash (not like it was going to melt within spitting distance of the Arctic Circle). She spoke with a drawl and he couldn't imagine what a teenager from the southern United States was doing in northern Alberta, but he didn't necessarily care. But she had tried to help him and it was obvious that she was a runaway far outside of her element.

No more than I would do for a wounded animal, he thought to himself.

Eventually, he had bothered to find out her name, Marie, and he had given his own. Marie, once she was less ill at ease, grew more talkative and was discussing the relative safety merits of seatbelts when a tree suddenly came down on the road in front of them. The collision was unavoidable and Logan found himself sailing through the windshield. His first thoughts were not about his own condition - he'd heal almost as soon as he got up off the ground - but whether the truck would still be serviceable. Driving without a windshield in the dead of winter was not fun, but walking through the dead of winter was even less so.

Logan stood up in the snow and looked back at the truck. The girl was moving, so she was probably not seriously hurt. He asked anyway.

"I'm stuck," she called back.

As he took his first steps towards the tree and the truck, he paused. An animal? It sounded to heavy to be anything other than a bear, but it smelled nothing like a bear. The smell was one of rage, glee, and really bad body odor.

A second smell, one that was also human but this one tantalizingly familiar, caught Logan's attention, but before he could connect it to a past experience, a blur out of the corner of his eye signaled an attack.

*SNIKT!* The claws came out, almost too late to protect his face from the onrushing attacker. A man almost twice his size landed on top of him, throwing Logan around like the toy he felt like he was. In the background, he could hear Marie's screams, but all of a sudden, they stopped. Another pass by his opponent prevented Logan from further considering the matter.

Yards away, Rogue cried out in fear as the fire approached from the rear and the mangled seatbelt showed no signs of budging.

Suddenly, the door of the truck opened and a woman stood there.

"Move your hands out of the way," she told Rogue, a faint accent coloring her speech.

Rogue watched in fascination and terror as the woman pulled off her mittens, revealing fingerless gloves that looked very similar to Rogue 's own, and reached for the metal buckle. She felt the buckle hum and then come apart.

The woman put her hand out to Rogue. "Let's get out of here before this thing blows." Rogue took the hand for balance and pulled her legs out from the crumpled dash.

"My truck is just behind that hill," the woman gestured towards the road they had just traveled.

The pair had gotten only a few yards from the burning truck when a bizarre looking pair confronted them. A white-haired black woman and a man with an oversized visor stood in their path.

"A friend of yours, Remnant?" Storm asked.

"Sorry, Weather-girl," Rogue's rescuer smiled frostily. "But I'm not much in the mood for games tonight. It's too damned cold." She reached into her unbuttoned duster to her holster and pulled out a gun, squeezing off a shot before Cyclops could blast the weapon from her hand. Storm cried out and fell to the ground as Remnant grabbed Rogue' s arm and dragged the screaming girl away.

Sending a mental call for help to Jean, who waited by the Blackbird, Cyclops knelt down to check Storm's wound.

"A tranquilizer dart?" He mused, perplexed, as he pulled it from her shoulder. Rogue's scream, however, brought him back to the task at hand.

Aiming for a spot he knew would be protected by body armor, Cyclops fired a blast at Remnant, felling her with a cry. Rogue stood mutely next to the fallen woman, not moving or crying out.

Jean arrived carrying a medical bag and immediately knelt by Storm, mentally urging her to come to. When Ororo stirred, Jean looked up at Cyclops, who was keeping an eye on the still-motionless Rogue as well as the fight between Sabretooth and the man they had learned about as Wolverine.

Jean reached out psychically to the girl. "Remnant must have dulled her mind. She's in shock, more or less."

"Can you do anything?"

"Yes, but I think Remnant may have been operating on a wise idea - I think we should wait until we get her back home."

"Speaking of, what do we do Remnant?" The thought of leaving the woman lying in the snow was not unappealing, but this could be a prime opportunity to get information about Magneto's plans. If Remnant could be made to talk about her lover.

Now there was a May-December romance if there ever was one, Scott mused. But they seemed to care for each other, not merely judged by the fact that Magneto had always made sure that Remnant was never left behind. At least not before this.

Xavier was convinced that both Remnant and Magneto could be made to see the error of their ways, but Scott remained unconvinced. Remnant in particular seemed completely apathetic towards others' lives in general, human or mutant, a fact that did not jibe with what they knew about her life before Magneto. So any pain caused Remnant on her transport back to Westchester would not weigh heavily on his mind.

"Who the fuck are you people?" Logan gasped for air behind them, barely standing on wobbling legs. "And what happened to Rogue?"

"It's a long story, but we'll tell you the whole thing once we get everyone back safely," Cyclops told the man.

"Take the kid, she needs your help. I don't."

Jean watched the man sway in the breeze, barely able to stay upright. "You really do need medical care, sir."

"I'm fine. I don't need help from anybody," Logan sneered, then promptly passed out.

"Sure you don't, Sport," Cyclops smirked. Sighing, he surveyed the situation. "If Storm can handle herself, that leaves us only one catatonic and two unconscious to deal with."

"I'm fine," Storm responded weakly. "I can guide.Rogue? Is that what he called her?"

Jean stood up. "I'll go truss up our pal and float her back to the Blackbird."

"That leaves me with the charming little furball, doesn't it."

Chapter 5

She did not turn at the sound of the door opening. "An elegant prison, Professor."

"This is not a prison, Ms. Gratton," Xavier wheeled himself into the room, closing the door behind me. "You are not being held here."

"Somehow, I doubt that phoning Erik to retrieve me is an option."

Xavier did not comment.

"This is a very beautiful home you have, Professor," she said after a moment, looking out the window. "Erik's memories do not do it justice."

So she's a telepath as well, Xavier mused, careful to keep his shields in place. "He has not been here since I opened the school. It is the children that bring it life."

She nodded and then turned back to the window. "Am I a guest here until I come around to your way of thinking, or until you come up with a good reason for why we were all traipsing around northern Alberta the other night?"

"I would hope for both, but I would be pleased with either. I am not here to take. I am here to hope that you will give."

"I envy your relentless optimism, Professor, I really do. And I respect your work on behalf of these children," she nodded towards the window, on the other side of which, in the distance, a soccer game was being played. "But I cannot share your hope. I've seen a little too much hatred to have any faith in a world where we can all co-exist in perfect harmony. Or even just slightly out of tune. So while you go your way, I will go mine, and that includes not undermining Erik."

"There is a middle road, Ms. Gratton, somewhere between my 'relentless optimism' as you like to call it, and Erik's apocalyptic vision."

"Is there? And if it is, is it any more practical?"

"Bloodshed is not the answer. It rarely is."

"It depends on the question, Professor. It depends on the question," she looked at her coat hanging from a hook behind the door. "I am not being held here, correct?"

"Correct."

"Then I think it's time I left." She walked over to the door. "I know better than to ask for the return of my holster and its contents."

"One thing before you leave, Ms. Gratton?"

She paused.

"Why do you carry one pistol loaded with tranquilizer darts and one with bullets?"

"Primum, non nocere," she smiled bitterly. Letting down her shields for a moment, she aimed a memory at Xavier, who looked surprised. "The problem with oaths is that you have to live up to them. The tranqs are often enough and it's so much easier than shooting to disable."

"First, do no harm," Xavier nodded. "You could have been a brilliant physician, Ms. Gratton. Your empathetic abilities, your medical training. You could have devoted your life to saving others."

"But I have, Professor. That's what you don't understand. We have the same goal, you and I. To save mutants from the grabbing hands of those who cannot understand us."

"And if you succeed, do the ends justify the means?"

"If we fail, does it matter?" With that, she took her coat and left the room, borrowing the thoughts of a passing student to find the way to the front door.

Chapter 6

He awoke with a start. He felt electrodes and the smooth coolness of a lab table, heard the beeping of medical monitors, smelled the antiseptic scent of a lab. Still groggy, all Logan could think about was how his nightmare had come to life... or had the last fifteen years been the dream?

He remembers almost nothing from before then. Even those first few years are hazy. Wandering around the Canadian Rockies, no-name town to no-name town, holding down any job that didn't require a resume, a background check, or a reference, moving on as soon as someone got suspicious about the wound that had healed in record time, the lack of injury after an accident, or the lack of history that always spelled bad news in small towns where everyone knew everyone else.

And then there were the nightmares... or were they memories? Logan had been cage-fighting for years, had battled everything from bears in the woods to overturned trucks after one too many drinks, but the nightmares still woke him up bathed in sweat.

They all started the same, with him walking in the snow through the woods. But then he's laying on a table with doctors all around, the tang of blood in the air and the unforgettable smell of cooking flesh as molten metal met bone. And then drowning, pulling on the cords that ran from the electrodes to the monitors, feeling the water fill his lungs... Until he woke up screaming.

So in that split second after he realized his surroundings and before he realized that this was a different lab, Logan felt true panic. What if this is reality? What if the past that I have been looking for has found me instead? What happens if I was wrong that the truth couldn't be worse than punching drunk bastards in seedy bars? What if I can't do anything about it?

He opened his eyes and jumped off the table all at once, grabbing the scared woman standing nearby. Knuckles to her forehead, he could smell that she knew exactly what he was threatening. The door, the door, he saw it and ran through it, tossing the woman aside like a rag doll, like the drunks in Laughlin City and a thousand other places just like it. And then he ran.

Antiseptic hallways, clean in a military fashion, not in a hospital one, added to Logan's sense of alarm as his dogtags rattled around his neck. But the voices... where were they coming from and how did he know whether to run towards them or away from them? Stumbling across a stash of clothes, workout uniforms from the looks of them, he hid behind crevices as the voices echoed. But the walls were metallic and the echoes weren't those of sounds bouncing off of metal. He leaned against one to ponder strategy when suddenly it shifted behind him... and he found himself in a mahogany wonderland. Teenagers wandered too and fro, the voices still ringing in his ears (but they aren't those of the kids?) urging him to come this way.

Logan hadn't survived fifteen years by putting blind faith in anyone, so he ran in the opposite direction and ducked into the nearest open room to catch his breath and his bearings... and landed right in the midst of a lecture? "Welcome, Logan," the voice in his head no longer echoed.

Chapter 7

"They call her Remnant," Scott Summers explained as the picture came on the overhead screen. Rogue sat next to Logan, guests at this meeting of the X-Men. Rogue was curious about why she was included in this seemingly adults-only conversation, but if it meant getting out of Mathematics for a day... and getting to spend some time with Logan, who clearly was not either used to or very receptive to being hunted down on a friendly social level.

The photograph was of Remnant not as she had first appeared to Rogue at the side of the crashed truck, but as she had become as soon as Cyclops and Storm had approached, all black clothes and those terrifying black-on-violet eyes.

"We aren't really sure what her actual mutation is," Scott smirked ruefully. "Apart from the fact that she is empathetic, a very strong one from what we can gather, and possibly a telepath. In contact with human and most mutants, all that means is that she knows what you're feeling. With some mutants, however, that empathy allows her to tap into their powers."

"Like me?" Rogue sat up straight.

"Yes and no," Professor Xavier smiled. "Remnant does not necessarily need physical contact to 'borrow' someone's mutation, but from what we can tell, proximity is an important factor in how strong and how long her borrowing lasts. Since her association with Magneto, she seems to have picked up a little of his mutation permanently, a remnant of it, so to speak. That is what makes her so unpredictable - we don't know what other remnants are floating around inside her."

"Does she... do what Ah do?" Rogue whispered.

"Contact or not, she doesn't seem to draw anything from the giver, essence-wise," Jean Grey shook her head, feeling her heartstrings tug as she watched Rogue's eyes fall. "Nor does she absorb memories or feelings."

"So she's like a leech, but without the blood loss," Logan mused. "How dangerous is she?"

"Her danger lies not in her powers, whatever they may be," Storm spoke quietly, "but in her utter willingness to use them to further her aims, or the aims of her companions. She's ruthless and will stop at nothing to get what she needs."

"So how come she only knocked ya out instead of killin' ya when she tried to grab me?" Rogue knew it sounded petulant, but she was genuinely curious.

"Remnant has a strange compassionate streak," Cyclops explained with a shrug. "She doesn't hesitate to kill, but she doesn't kill unless she has to."

"She's an assassin with a conscience."

"She's a doctor gone astray," Xavier said quietly. "All the more reason we should seek her support, not her destruction."

Cyclops murmured something under his breath, Jean Grey and Storm looked impassive. "Ms. Gratton let down her psi shields for a moment this morning," Xavier explained to his dubious students. "And I've been doing a little research based on what she let me see."

There was a murmur around the table. "Remnant's real name is Amalie Gervais, born Amalie Gratton," Xavier explained, indicating that Scott should move the slide on the projector. "She is the wife of Pascal Gervais, now a powerful member of the Canadian Parliament representing Quebec. Amalie was in her second year of a pediatrics residency at Montreal General when she was attacked by mysterious assailants."

The slide showed a newspaper headline and clipping: Amalie Gervais Killed Protecting Infant Son From Assailants.

"So she's a ghost?"

"Not hardly. Her husband is a very outspoken anti-mutant advocate, Canada's answer to our own Senator Kelly. He tried to have her killed when he discovered her mutancy, but she anticipated the attack and survived. She has spent the time since then plotting a way to retrieve her son."

"So tell me how a guy can marry a girl and not notice those eyes," Logan asked incredulously.

"Apparently, her current... striking appearance is a result of the attempt on her life. As we have seen, she does have the ability to switch between this version and one that is less... remarkable.

" The projector whirred once more. A smiling photo of a young mother and child was now on the screen.

"Holy Fuck!" Logan spit out. "Mali."

Chapter 8

Rogue awoke for no reason, the way you do in the middle of the night only when you really need to sleep. Deciding to get a drink of water, she wandered down the hall to the bathroom. Passing by Logan's room, she paused.

Was that a whimper?

Feeling a little foolish standing stock-still, ear cocked towards Logan's bedroom (as if there was going to be anyone awake to watch her), she waited. And just when she had convinced herself that she was hearing things (the old house does creak), a moan from the other side of the door proved her otherwise.

"Please, no more."

It was the words themselves, more than the gasp that carried them, that scared Rogue enough to open the door to Logan's bedroom. She did not know him well, but she knew that it was better than anyone else here did, probably anyone else at all. And one thing Logan did not do, no matter what the situation, was beg.

With everyone, Logan was brusque - okay, to Scott he was usually rude - but with her, it was almost (not quite) evened out by a sort of crude consideration. He did not ask how your day was, but Rogue was sure that he wanted to know if something was seriously amiss. He did not want to know if she had caught Bobby Drake staring at Kitty, but if someone had threatened her, Logan would be expect to be told. And so Rogue crossed the threshold of his bedroom with the same principles in mind - this was no ordinary moment.

He was turning his head back and forth, trying to deny his dream, Rogue imagined as she walked towards the bed. The hands that were usually deadly weapons were instead clutching bedsheets until those otherwise frightening knuckles were white with the effort.

He's not going to want me here, Rogue realized as she sat on the edge of the bed. He's not going to want me to see him as weak, as scared, as anything other than invulnerable. Because nobody wants to have to keep an eye on their bodyguard, and that is really what he thinks himself to be to me. Not a friend, Logan doesn't have friends, not a kindred spirit, I am his charge. At least until Professor Xavier has proved himself as a worthy caretaker, until he knows that these are people I can be left with (he doesn't want that burden himself).

Rogue pondered whether to leave Logan, better to let his sleep go disturbed than to wound his pride, when he moaned again.

"No."

Can people cry in their sleep? Rogue wondered. Is that a tear?

She leaned over him and reached for the sheet, a part that Logan didn' t have wrapped around his clenched fists, and through it touched his arm. "Logan?"

He didn't still, instead another tear slid down his cheek as he thrashed quietly.

"Logan!" Louder, poking his arm harder. Still nothing.

Rogue pondered her next move. There wasn't enough sheet available to do more than poke at his forearm, which obviously wasn't going to get the job done. She couldn't call any louder or she'd wake up half the floor in addition to Logan, thus making any potential embarrassment even worse.. Of course. The old pillow snatch. Her cousin Katie used to do that to her when they'd have sleepovers at their grandparents', pulling the pillow out from underneath her head and waking her up for no good reason.

Rogue moved further onto the bed, far enough to reach across Logan and reach the pillow - he was too close to the near end to be able to grab on. She was balancing herself to lean over when Logan cried out and sat up.

*Snikt*

Oh god in heaven, that hurt. Rogue kept her eyes closed. She didn't need to look down and see claws in her torso, not when she could feel one grind painfully against a rib.

She opened them finally when she heard Logan gasp. She saw his eyes wide, not with terror from his nightmare, but horror at what he had done. They stared into each others eyes for what seemed like eternity, but couldn't have been. Before she closed her eyes again from the pain, she could have sworn he mouthed "I'm sorry" to her.

She felt rather than heard the claws retract, adamantium sliding against bone, and the force pulled her forward, towards Logan. She fell towards him, her hands landing on his clothed shoulders. He put his hands on her sides to steady her, grief making them shake.

Rogue opened her eyes again, determined to look him in the face, determined to let Logan know that this wasn't his fault. One look in his eyes assured her that he'd never believe her.

She reached up, suddenly wanting to touch him. I want to feel another person once more before I die. Then I won't be alone. I'm probably too weak to do harm.

Rogue placed her hand gently on his cheek, trying to comfort Logan. His eyes went wide, surprised at the gentleness, but then suddenly in shock. Rogue felt the charge as soon as it started. The same way she felt it when she kissed Cody, when she accidentally killed the neighbor's cat (at least she hadn't gotten any feline memories from *that* experience), when one last doctor had tried to examine her.

She saw Logan's eyes close in pain and then open in agony. She wanted to let go, but she knew what was happening, she felt the throb of the wounds lessen, felt the lightheadedness from the blood loss fade. You wanted to save me Logan, she thought, well, you just did.

Rogue let go when she heard Logan gasp for air, a catch in his breath that belied his attempt to suffer in silence. Her hand dropped and Logan fell back to the bed and Rogue knelt there like she was in a trance.

All of a sudden, memories flashed before her eyes. Bar brawls, feeling nothing but blackness, late nights on the Trans-Canada highway, lone forays into snowy forests, pain - unbelievable pain - mixed with the unmistakable odor of burning flesh. Mine? Logan's!. more dark roads, a lumberjack camp, making love (oh, my!) to a woman who looked just like the one who had tried to kidnap her, sitting at the bar in Laughlin City, finding Marie. (me!) crouched next to the bike, a vicious fight with a bear-man, running back to the truck to find Marie (me!) standing dumb with a body lying at her feet.

"Rogue? Rogue!"

A hand shook her arm and Rogue turned in surprise to see Jean (so beautiful!) looking at her with fear on her face.

Turning back to Logan, she saw Ororo feeling for a pulse. Oh god, what did I do?

Jean and Scott helped her off the bed. Professor Xavier was behind them and most of the students whose rooms were on this wing were behind him.

When asked later, the next thing Rogue remembers is waking up on her bed, Ororo sitting nearby. Wondering why Storm would be in her room, wondering why her claws didn't come out like they usually did when she was awakened by surprise, then realizing what had happened and bursting into tears all over again, only stopping after Ororo repeated for the umpteenth time that Logan would be fine with a little rest.

Down the hall, Xavier sat with Logan, watching him sleep, amazed that even in his weakened state, his mental shields were still in place, making it impossible for Xavier to either aid or pry. Not that he would do the latter.

Rogue tried to visit Logan's bedside, but he was always asleep when she came. She strongly suspected he wasn't really asleep - "Ah know you now, Logan," she had chided gently - but hadn't done anything about it. When he was finally up and about, he avoided her at all costs, his heightened senses making him harder to catch than her own newly heightened (but already starting to fade) ones could match.

Finally, she cornered him out on the grounds of the estate, far from the basketball court and play grounds. He was fishing in the brook and she knew there was no way for him to pack up his things or abandon the rod without looking completely obvious.

They had sat in silence for a while, each afraid to start the discussion they both knew they had to have.

"Ah'm glad ya're startin' to stop prancin' through mah head," she had said by way of introduction. "Ah don't think Ah've eaten this much meat in mah life as Ah have the past few weeks."

He had been forced to smile at that. "At least you won't have to eat moose for yourself to know how bad it is."

They discussed, indirectly, the memories that she had seen. Logan had not objected to her going to the Professor to get them sorted out and filed away - "Ah like ya a lot, Logan, but ya're startin' to make me a little nuts" - in the hope that maybe Xavier could see something in them that might provide a clue to his past. If the Professor had, he hadn't said anything to either Logan or Rogue.

When Rogue left Logan to his fish, she had been smiling. They had ended on a positive note, he thought, as Marie didn't seem to hate him for nearly killing her. So he was very surprised to find the house in a flummox when he got back from his fishing.

"Rogue is missing," Ororo explained.

Chapter 9

"Are you ready?" Remnant asked Mystique as they stood outside the doors of Senator Kelly's suite of offices. She had counted minds - there were four, but one was the one that they needed.

Mystique, cloaked in the disguise of a pretty blonde, nodded.

Remnant opened the door to the suite and the two women walked to the receptionist.

"Hi, we're here to see Mr. Guyrick about Senator Kelly coming to our county fair," Remnant, looking like Amalie but sounding exactly like a native of one of Kelly's constituent towns, smiled brightly. "He's expecting us."

"Of course," the receptionist nodded after checking her book. After a moment on the phone, they were sent through.

Guyrick was very proud of his role as the senator's senior aide. He could unerringly weed out those whom Kelly didn't want to see and deal with them without causing any negative feelings. And while these two babes were most certainly easy on the eyes, the Mutant Registration Act was occupying all of his boss' time. And so while agreeing to the appearance at the fair was all but a given, that didn't mean that they 'd get to see the Senator before then.

They chatted for a while about the fair, about Washington, about the Mutant Registration Act (Guyrick was surprised the women knew what it was, let alone that they were experts on it), and everything short of the weather when the blonde nodded to the brunette and Guyrick could have sworn the room dimmed for a moment.

The brunette stood up and walked around the desk to stand right in front of Guyrick. He turned in his seat to face her.

"Can I tell you a secret, Mr. Guyrick?" she asked, unbuttoning the top button of her blouse. He nodded, absently wondering why he didn't feel like moving.

The brunette leaned forward and Guyrick got an eyeful as she whispered in his ear. "I think you are a most attractive man."

Guyrick, his heart not the only thing suddenly throbbing, felt very uncomfortable sitting as he was and moved his legs apart slowly as to be imperceptible. The brunette smiled.

"I think we can take care of that," she whispered as she ran her finger along his cheekbone and smiled again when he shuddered. She leaned over and kissed him deeply, a kiss he more than enthusiastically returned.. Until he felt something stuck into his neck. A needle, he could tell by the fluid being pushed through it. But the brunette wouldn't let him break away, holding his head in place with one hand as she emptied the hypodermic needle with the other. His last thoughts before the world faded to black were that he didn't understand why he hadn't noticed her eyes were black-on-violet before this.

"Well, that took long enough," Mystique sighed as she stood up from her seat, the blonde disguise melting into her natural blue scales.

"Tell me about it," Remnant popped a couple of white Tic-Tacs into her mouth. "You should have enough of his speech patterns and general views to carry this out for a month."

"Now explain to me again why you had to do it that way?" Mystique asked as she stared at Guyrick's limp body, slowly morphing into his exact double.

"The drug works faster if his heart is pumping blood faster," Remnant explained. "And I needed to get the needle into his neck. And I needed to be prepared in case he screamed."

"You're just going to wipe them clean anyway," Mystique/Guyrick shrugged, gesturing towards the other room with the three secretaries.

"But there could be other people in earshot. It's the best way considering we don't want to be cleaning blood or excrement."

"He's not going to wake up, is he?"

"Nah, he'll be dead within the hour. Speaking of, let's get him out of here."

Guyrick/Mystique went to the purse she had brought in and took out a folded-up body bag. They placed Guyrick's body inside - with help from the telekinesis that Remnant had absorbed from Jean Grey during her check-up at the Xavier estate - and placed the purse inside the bag before zippering it up.

Remnant closed her eyes in concentration for a moment and then nodded to Guyrick/Mystique. As they walked out of the office dragging the body bag, neither the receptionist nor the two secretaries seemed to care.

"Will you be back in time for your three o'clock meeting?" The receptionist called to them as they were almost out the door.

"Yes, I'll be back in a moment," Guyrick/Mystique answered. Remnant may be moody at times, Mystique thought to herself, but boy, it can be funny as hell hanging out with a telepath.

"Thanks," Remnant smirked. "What? All you have to do is not broadcast."

They dragged the body to the elevator, which Remnant could tell was empty before the doors opened, and took it down to the basement, where Toad waited with the minivan. With the body in the back, Remnant telepathically gave Mystique some of what she had picked out of Guyrick's brain. Mystique thanked her with a deep kiss and then ran off.

Toad was staring at Remnant when she got into the passenger seat.

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'What?'" Toad scowled. "She just kissed you."

"I just downloaded Guyrick's last thoughts into her head and they were horny ones," Remnant shrugged, not choosing to tell poor Mortimer that the real reason was a lot closer to the reason Raven spent so much time away from Magneto's lair with her friend Destiny.

"Does Victor want a new toy or can we get rid of Guyrick right away?" She asked after she let Toad stew for a few moments.

Chapter 10

Gotta thank Summers for that bike, Logan mused as he parked the motorcycle in the lot. It was hard to smell Marie's presence in the busy station, but a quick check of the departure board gave him an idea and her scent picked up as he headed for the platform for the next Manhattan-bound departure.

He paused at the entrance to the car she was in. He felt a shot of something - sympathy? - as he watched her watch a mother and child sitting in the bulkhead across the aisle. His radar picked up something, though, and sensing danger, he broke the moment and headed to her. By the time he reached Rogue, however, whatever had alerted him had passed and he sensed nothing out of the ordinary.

They sat together and talked, Logan holding her like the little sister she had become to him, whether he'd like to admit it or not. And Rogue tried not to sound like a child as she explained that she had run away because one of the boys at school had told her a story. She rested her cowled head in Logan's lap and she could feel his fingers against her covered hair. She looked up and caught glances with the mother and the look back, one of profound understanding, startled her. When she looked again, the woman was looking away.

The train screeched to a halt and Rogue felt Logan's arm come around her to protect her from falling forward. Rogue looked up again and saw the mother doing the same for her own child. The child looked over at Rogue and smiled, her curious yellow eyes twinkling. A mutant? Some mothers, Rogue thought bitterly to herself, embrace their children no matter what they turn out to be.

There was a commotion by the car entrance and before Rogue could see if the conductor had anyone with him, she heard Logan curse. Sitting up, she saw someone she only knew through pictures. Magneto, the one who was after Logan.

Rogue sat up as Logan moved to get up.

*Snikt*

Everyone on the train screamed as the claws came out. Everyone except the mother and child across from Rogue, who instead looked impassive.

Magneto wasn't impressed either. Adamantium was stronger than any other metal, but metal it was and he wasn't called the Master of Magnetism for nothing. He owned everything on that side of the periodic chart and while Wolverine's bravado was quite amusing, it was not part of his (and Amalie's) efficient plan. She had known the girl would run away as soon as Mystique planted the seeds of distrust within her. Amalie had also known that Wolverine would follow and would be there ahead of the X-Men.

A quick flick of the wrists and Wolverine was in crucifixion pose, arms outstretched over the cowering passengers. With a smile, Magneto drove Wolverine against the back wall, acceding to Amalie's telepathic wishes that he elevate his projectile so that the claws not clip any of the humans en route. While he didn't care about collateral damage, especially when it was of the homo sapien variety, Amalie did. I expect gratuitous violence from Victor, not from you, she spoke in his mind in that tone of voice that suggested someone was going to be sleeping in the spare bedroom if they didn't comply.

Rogue looked around. Logan was spitting mad pressed against the wall like a magnet on the fridge, frustration almost tangible even if you weren't empathetic. Everyone else on the car seemed to be ducking down, all except for the mother and child across the aisle. She thought it odd until the child sat up, away from the mother, and smiled quaintly.

"What's the matter, Rogue," the child asked, standing up and stretching. into the blue-scaled Mystique. With the loss of physical contact, the mother returned to her natural state as well, and Remnant stood tall in her black finery.

"No!" Rogue screamed, but then fainted as she felt Remnant's surprisingly soothing touch on her mind.

Logan aimed his most vicious thoughts at Remnant, who obviously felt them and turned, violet eyes glowing with either contempt or rage. He braced himself for the psychic blast he expected her to return with, but none came. Instead, he saw the mental image of a toddler, black hair and blue eyes which he knew to be Mali's and a bright laugh. He didn't know if that was hers as well - it was the laugh of the innocent and carefree and the Mali he had known was neither of those.

Toad appeared at behind Magneto and he and Mystique loaded Rogue into a burlap sack as Remnant looked on. Logan noticed that all of the passengers were fast asleep, no doubt at her (he didn't know he could think of her as 'Mali' anymore, but 'Remnant' was still an abstract concept) doing.

There was a pounding on the outside of the car and through the window, Logan could see Sabretooth.

"Can you float her out?" Magneto asked Remnant, wiggling his fingers the way people did when they were describing telekinesis.

"I used it up when we dealt with Guyrick," Remnant explained as she shook her head. "I've got a touch of Storm left, but I'm just as likely to make it hail as I am to blow her outside on a gentle breeze."

Mystique waved to Sabretooth, who ducked inside the too-low doorway and smiled cruelly at Wolverine before picking up the sack containing Rogue. He didn't seem to know or care which end was up and Mystique had to make sure he didn't crash Rogue's head against the doorframe.

Magneto and Toad followed behind, and Remnant took one last look behind her as she, too, made her exit.

Logan tried to move after Magneto left the car, but found himself still stuck against the wall. Magneto magnetized the damned car itself, he fumed.

By the time the Brotherhood had made its way to the front entrance of the station - Remnant having 'convinced' everyone inside that the troupe was absolutely unworthy of special notice - the police were out front in force.

Magneto didn't realize Xavier was there until Mystique suddenly transformed herself into an infant (who was promptly scooped up by Remnant) and Toad started speaking to him about letting the girl go. As Sabretooth started to walk towards the police carrying Rogue, Magneto sighed. The policemen's guns were turned on them and the click of their safeties being undone was audible in the suddenly silent lot.

As Magneto and Xavier staged their battle, Remnant allowed her mind to wander. Not too far, just enough to be amused by the scene back at the rail car. Cyclops was reluctantly, very reluctantly, cutting the car away from Logan. She could hear Cyclops' mental grumbling about others ' concern that he not aim the blasts too close to Logan's body and she could feel the mixture of reluctant gratitude and irritation that Logan was giving off at having to be rescued - yet again - by a man he didn't like.

"Did you hear me, Amalie?"

"Pardon? No, Erik, I did not." Remnant shook her head of the cobwebs.

"Are you ready to go? Charles will sacrifice the girl on behalf of all of these. humans. We are free to leave," Magneto looked a little disappointed. "And can you convince Mystique to revert to a less cumbersome form?"

"She's not very heavy," Remnant shrugged, looking over the infant in her arms. "I'd rather wait until we are clear of Xavier. I don't think I have the strength to maintain my psi shields and deal with Raven at the same time and I don't want Xavier butting in when I can't defend myself."

"Are you all right?" Magneto looked at her critically. "You look a little pale."

"It's been a long day. Maintaining my disguise on the train, plus tampering with the minds of the station full of people. I'm just very tired."

"Let me take the child, then," he held his hands out and Remnant handed over Mystique. "You can rest for the balance of the day once we get back."

They walked to the helicopter Toad had stolen and piled in. It was cramped enough with Rogue, so Remnant didn't undo Xavier's handiwork until they had landed back at their headquarters. She was tempted to call Destiny and have her come and pick up her dear friend as-is, but decided against it.

Mystique, once again an adult, was rather amused by her day spent imitating children. She was making arrangements to be flown by Toad back to Washington to return to her existence as Guyrick when Remnant went up to the quarters she shared and fell asleep on the bed after having only taking off her boots.

After having secured Rogue in one of the cells, Magneto worked on his device for a while before, too, feeling the effects of the long day. Sabretooth having gone off with Toad to return Mystique to Washington (he strongly suspected the two would find entertainment there), the quarters were quiet except for Rogue's crying and screams.

Realizing that Rogue couldn't be heard from the living quarters, he retired there, checking in on Amalie to find her sprawled on their bed still in her work clothes. He didn't want to wake her, but he knew she 'd want to change and there was no access to his side of the bed unless she moved.

His own uniform was not silently removed, so it was no surprised when a voice came from the bed, muffled by a pillow.

"What time is it, Erik?"

"Eight. Would you like to shower first?"

Amalie answered him with a groan, but rolled over and sat up on the bed. "I'll go. You know where to find me," she smiled drowsily and padded off, grabbing her robe on the way.

Erik smiled after her. He might follow, he might not. There were times when he wondered what he was doing taking up with a woman half his age and felt quite the fool, no time more acutely than in the shower, or any other brightly lit place where he could see the ravages time has wrought to his own body and most certainly not to Amalie's.

You're being unnecessarily self-conscious, Amalie's voice chided gently in his mind.

And you're being unnecessarily nosy, he thought back.

I can feel the waves of self-doubt from here, she returned. And it doesn't suit you at all. Now come help me wash my back.

Chapter 11

The War Room was dark, which was probably appropriate. Rogue's disappearance and Logan's seething anger over it made the school itself a somber place. But now, the team looked over computer projections and data, hoping to find Rogue and the Brotherhood before they acted upon whatever evil intentions they surely possessed.

Xavier spoke quietly as he explained the situation. Remnant had shielded the Brotherhood from Xavier and Cerebro until they were quite obviously dispersed. Some of the group had appeared in the Washington area, then Baltimore, then a few other locations, but Magneto and Remnant herself were completely hidden. Unfortunately, so was Rogue. Xavier suspected that Erik had built his headquarters with the express purpose of circumventing Cerebro, thus making the job more difficult.

Making things even more difficult was Logan. Wolverine wanted little to do with the X-Men, whom Xavier suspected he did not trust, but was at a loss for alternatives as his preferred one - to work solo - had so recently proved inadequate. Xavier knew the man was wracked with guilt for letting Rogue be taken, even though there was very little - if anything - he could have done to stop it.

The briefing finished and the X-Men went off to contact more mundane sources of information - the police, informants, and the like. Logan stayed behind a moment.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Logan?"

"How did Mali. Remnant and Mystique sit right across from me without me being able to pick them up?"

"I suspect she 'convinced' you that nothing was wrong."

"But I should have smelled her. Even if I couldn't smell their disguises."

"Remnant knows you well," Xavier explained carefully, trying not to tread on unwelcome or unsteady ground with the other man. "She has undoubtedly used her telepathy and empathy on you before, so it was easier for her to slip through your defenses. Another telepath would not have been able to. I couldn't have."

"So I got Rogue taken? She wouldn't have been able to pull that with you, though, right?"

Xavier sighed. "No one of us is responsible for Rogue's disappearance. That is a group error, one that we will soon correct. I don't know the level of Remnant's telepathic abilities, so whom she may or may not have been able to affect is pure speculation. I do know that she would not have felt the need to bother at all had it been anyone else but you. She fears neither the X-Men nor me."

Logan nodded and then left the War Room, still unsatisfied but needing to sort things through. Xavier could sense his desire to blame the X-Men for Rogue's disappearance, but it was coupled with Logan's own guilt and the two warred in his psyche, as did the continued presence of Remnant.

Xavier couldn't afford to dwell on the brooding man for long. The investigation into what had caused Rogue to go missing in the first place had led to suspicion of a security breach, one that Cyclops was loath to admit but eager to track down.

Bobby Drake had been spotted in too many places at once for even the smooth teenager to have handled, although Logan had needed some strong convincing not to take out his frustrations on the boy. Now that it was known that the 'good Bobby' had been innocent, the boy who would be Iceman was as eager as everyone else to return Rogue to the school. Storm had apparently had to talk to Drake about returning Jean's ophthalmoscope and not examining fellow students' eyes in case they were being impersonated by Mystique.

Chapter 12

"Mortimer, hand me the needle-nose pliers, please?" Remnant asked from her work-bench.

She heard his tongue slip out and around and was soon presented with a slime-covered pair of pliers. Turning around, she could see Toad had not budged from his spot on the windowsill.

Looking down at the now-hardened slime, which rendered the tool unusable, she picked it up and dropped it again, the attracting Toad's attention.

"Do you mind?" She glared at him. "You can do that without gumming things up." He shrugged indifferently and in a fit of pique, Remnant gave him a blast of vertigo. Toad wobbled in the open windowsill before falling to the floor.

"What?"

"How am I supposed to use this now?"

"I'll bring another when I go pick up Mystique," he replied as he got up off the floor.

"And what am I supposed to work with in the meantime?"

"Pots and pans. It's lunchtime," Toad supplied helpfully. "What are we having?"

"Frogs legs," she glared.

"I taste like chicken," he shrugged. Pissing off Remnant was a pleasant sport, so long as you could put up with the aftereffects. Magneto ensured that she never let them last too long.

"Actually, you probably taste closer to pork," she replied after taking a deep breath. "We'll have to ask Victor. Maybe we'll give him a taste test."

"Where *is* our oversized compatriot?" Magneto walked into the workspace, intentionally ignoring the waves of irritation Amalie was projecting.

"On holiday," Toad answered. "He's gone walkabout in New Jersey. I pick him up at midnight."

"Your retrieval of Mystique and our newest guest is still on schedule?"

"She hasn't called to change anything. Three at the west heliport."

"Good," Magneto nodded and then turned to leave.

After lunch, Remnant took a tray down to the prison. Rogue had taken off her gloves and reached out for Remnant's wrist as she knelt to deliver the food.

"Try it and I'll kill you before you can suck the first memory out of me," Remnant cautioned. "You are a convenience, not a necessity."

Rogue responded with a scream of frustration and picked up the covered bowl in order to throw it. Remnant used the magnetic forces her constant proximity to Erik had seemingly made permanent and floated the projectile back down to the tray without a drop of soup escaping.

"Don't do that. I'm not bringing another and you are starving. Not eating out of spite is also pointless, in addition to being quite personally uncomfortable. Convenience or no, we spent a great deal of effort on keeping you alive and we will ensure that you remain that way."

Rogue sat down, the smells of the food overcoming her anger at least for the moment. She had flung her breakfast tray at Toad that morning and the frogman had made no attempt to rescue the food.

"Ah don't see what Logan ever saw in you," Rogue said after she had slurped down the soup. "He's usually a good judge of character."

"Logan *is* a character," Remnant shrugged. "And he's very judgmental. He's also spectacularly lazy when it comes to leaving well enough alone. I didn't bother him, that's what he saw in me."

"Why are you doing this?" Rogue asked, nibbling on the bread she had been provided. Logan didn't rattle around in her head much anymore, although there were times like this where she really could have used his berserker's rage. His confusion over Mali... Remnant... this *individual*, however, was still clear to her. Logan thought of Mali as vaguely compassionate, if impersonal. Remnant was nothing short of a heartless bitch. That the two were the same person was the subject of much more thought than Logan would probably have liked to admit to anyone.

"Is there an answer that I could give you that would make you happy?" Remnant almost sighed.

"Ah suppose not," Rogue allowed. Rogue was expecting a verbal lashing. She didn't expect the sadness in her captor's eyes. A plan... "Logan loves you, you know."

Remnant laughed gently. "Nice try, kid. Logan doesn't love. He likes you a lot, but he loves no one. Least of all me. And second-least himself. You don't need to be empathetic to get that one. You should know - you've seen his heart. Now finish eating." With that, she left Rogue to her milk and her apple.

When Remnant returned upstairs, Toad had returned with Mystique and Senator Kelly.

"Bienvenue, Senator Kelly," Remnant smiled at the chained politician. He cursed at her in return, but she ignored him. There was a minor scuffle as Mystique and Toad brought him down to the prison, far away from Rogue, but nothing that required assistance.

Remnant instead went to go find Magneto, who was tinkering with his device.

"Far be it for me to criticize your thus flawless plan, Erik," she began as she glided up to the console of the device. Until she could be near someone who could fly, using magnetic forces to levitate up the sides of metal structures was as close as it go, and Remnant enjoyed every second of it.

"But..." he did not look up as he tinkered. She did not sound terribly concerned, so he did not sound angry in return.

"But have you given thought to what we do with Rogue should the test not work out as planned? We have, for all intents and purposes, purchased the battery without knowing if the toy even works."

"Do you doubt me, my darling Amalie?" His voice was gently mocking.

"Doubt you? Not at all, Erik, but I've done enough medical experiments... things don't always turn out optimally the first time, no?"

"You sell your own work short, my love," Magneto now looked up. "You spent months working on the rats and dogs. The gene mutation was complete and the test subjects survived. Why the sudden cold feet? Are you developing feelings for our little... battery?"

"Not hardly," Remnant scoffed. "She's got that lost-puppy look and I hate dogs."

"But..."

"But if - and I mean if, not when - we are going to have to find an alternative arrangement for her disposal, I'd rather it be constructive, that's all."

"We will send her off in spectacular fashion, Amalie, I can assure you. This one is just too useful to be another chew-toy for Victor."

"Good, that's all I wanted to know."

"So you weren't coming up here for positive reinforcement? Confirmation that we are doing the right thing?"

"I don't doubt that we are doing the right thing, Erik. You cannot teach tolerance. Turning the oppressors into the oppressed is about as close as we can get to mutual understanding," she smiled ruefully. "Besides, I really, *really* want to see Pascal's face once he realizes that not only is he a mutie freak like his late, unlamented wife, but that his late, unlamented wife isn't so late after all."

Magneto smiled vaguely. Amalie did not often speak of her life before they met and she never spoke in terms of past debts due. Remnant did not leave behind debtors.

"Don't worry, Erik, I don't see a reconciliation in the cards," she smiled. "In fact, once I get Stephane back, I don't see Pascal surviving all that long at all."

With that, Remnant kissed him on the cheek and stepped away to glide down to the walkway.

Dinner was eaten quickly - so much to do! - and once Toad returned with a visibly relaxed Sabretooth, the group set to work. Kelly was brought out to just before the device and Magneto raised himself up to the control. The metal rings started circling and soon the entire unit was awash in a radioactive glow. The beautiful white light spread out, bathing both Kelly and the group, before finally dying off.

Toad and Mystique dragged a shaken Kelly back to his cell while Remnant and Sabretooth went up to Magneto, who knelt in exhaustion by the console.

"I'm fine, my love," he whispered with a smile as she eyed him critically.

Remnant frowned. "I'll be the judge of that. Victor, please help me bring him to our room." Once there, she examined him quickly, bullying the imperious Magneto with such efficiency that Sabretooth had to hide a smile. He fell asleep as soon as she left him alone.

"He looked the same to me," Toad was telling Mystique as Remnant and Sabretooth joined them in one of the workrooms. "Didn't turn blue or green or anything."

"It's too soon," Mystique shrugged. And why is turning blue so much more a sign of freakdom than a twelve-foot tongue?

"Tomorrow morning should answer some questions, although his mutation may not be anything so dramatic," Remnant caught Mystique's expectant look, "or so aesthetically pleasing as blue or green skin."

"I just hope he's not a telepath or anything," Toad frowned. "One of you is bad enough."

Chapter 13

The muffled sound of twigs breaking under leaves and plants was all he heard. And that was enough.

Victor Creed, as long as he had known who he was, knew that he was not, as Remnant might call him, a people person. Mystique was a people person. Literally. Toad... Toad was fascinated by people, if not necessarily equipped to run among them. Magneto, as evidenced by his closeness to both Remnant and Xavier, was much more socially inclined than he would have others believe. Remnant tended to ignore others.

But Sabretooth was not a social butterfly. His association with the Brotherhood, as with his previous working relationships, was one of convenience. A necessity. Wreaking havoc was not a one-man job anymore. At least not in any major metropolitan area, which were now the only places where it was worthwhile to play.

Another necessity was time away from people. Even those who understood him, as well as he could be understood. And so Toad had dropped him off on the edge of the Pine Barrens on his way back from depositing Mystique in Washington. Meet back here in two days at midnight, Toad had told him, knowing that Sabretooth wore no watch and knowing that he would be prompt regardless.

Peace and solitude were precious to him and, if anybody had ever bothered to keep track, most of Sabretooth's body count came from those who tried to take either of those from him. It could be a random hiker in the woods, tin pot clanking against his designer camping gear. It could be the hooker who didn't understand just how literally he meant "Leave now!". It could be the whimpering hostage who wouldn't keep quiet. Silence is golden.

Of course, that wasn't the only time he killed. Human, mutant, animal, it did not matter to him. He did not kill for principles, he did not kill for fun (even though it was fun); he just killed because it was necessary. Bloodlust must be fed. Survival of the fittest included elimination of the less fit. That needed to be understood. If you could not kill, you were not most fit to survive.

He had started to doubt Magneto, a man filled with hatred and rage and seemingly content to sit on his island and stew in it. Until they brought back the girl. Any plan worth undertaking must be worth risking a life for. That life didn't have to be your own, but the plan had to be, as Mystique had said, to die for.

A deer paused several meters away, staring at the massive man who moved as silently as it did. Right now, Victor decided, I plan on having venison.

***

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The lids were closed, of course. Although frying the file folder to a crisp with a laser blast was one way of solving the current problem.

But hardly the most efficient, Jean commented. Eyes still closed, Scott could almost see her smirk.

Her telepathy wasn't very strong just yet, but connecting with Scott had been pleasantly easy. The first time had been humorous. At least for Jean. She had had Scott 's ears ringing for a week because all she could do was shout telepathically. It was like the psi version of typing in all capital letters, which sort of fit as Jean had been a telepathic newbie.

But now, more than a year later, Jean could do more than shout. A lot more. She could whisper, the way she did during faculty meetings when Xavier was retelling an old story. She could laugh, the way she did when her need to be considerate of others prevented her from giggling out loud at someone. She could purr, the way she did when he rubbed her back after too many hours in the lab. And she could crack wise, the way she did at times like this, when Scott was frustrated and debating the merits of putting up a mental 'knock before entering' sign.

I never barge in, Jean harrumphed. Indignance was another new note her mental voice could sing.

Her more 'practical' telepathic skills were still developing at a slow and steady pace, but Jean's psychic rapport with Scott was at a totally new level. The first time she had let him into her mind while they made love... it still sent shivers down Scott's back. Of course, they both strongly suspected that the Professor had 'heard' them as well - they didn't find out until later that Jean projected - but he was too discreet to say anything.

Right now, however, making love was not on Scott's mind. Or at least not at the top of it. Tonight, as it had been for every night the past week, the matter of returning Rogue to her rightful place within the Xavier estate was atop the agenda. Cerebro was proving no help in finding the girl, not unless Magneto was hiding her in plain sight. The police had been unable to track the flight of the helicopter the Brotherhood had used to escape from the train station, so all that was left to do was hope for a miraculous accident that would lead them to Rogue.

Right now, Scott sat with a collection of papers, all possible leads depending on what particular theory you subscribed to as the reason Rogue was taken in the first place. Was she bait to attract Logan - the man in question certainly seems to think so (Stop that, Scott, Jean chided in his head). Was she being used for her own powers - did Magneto hope to turn Rogue against the X-Men? Was she just convenient - could it have just as easily been Kitty or Bobby or Jubilation or any of the other angst-ridden teens running around the Xavier estate? Was she even still alive?

Of course she is, Jean interrupted. We can't let ourselves even consider the alternative. We'll find her and bring her home, safe and sound.

I hope you're right.

I know I am, she answered. And then you and Logan can go do some male bonding, or whatever it is two alpha dogs do, and stop barking at each other.

Male bonding? Scott chuckled as he put his glasses back on. Me? Logan? I don't see that in the forecast, honey.

Just as long as you two stop sniffing each other's behinds. It's tiresome, you know.

He starts it.

And you finish it, Jean didn't hide the chuckle in her mental voice.

It's about you, you know.

Flattery will get you nowhere. That it involves me just proves how juvenile you two are being. As if I am a prize to be won by the dog that barks loudest. It's funny - I'm the telepath, but you two keep pretending that I don't have enough of a mind to be able to make up with regards to whom I want to be with.

That's not true.

'Stay away from my girl'?

It's an expression... A guy thing...

You're a dog making a mark on a fire hydrant.

Why are you so insistent upon using canine metaphors this evening?

I spent all day teaching the kids about Pavlov's experiments.

I already know what I'm trained to salivate over, Scott tried to make his mental voice sound sultry. He didn't think he succeeded.

Uh-huh. Why don't you quit while you're only a little behind?

Yes, dear.

Ah, my two favorite words, Jean smiled. She got up off the bed where she was reading and went over to Scott, sitting at the desk by the window. Kissing him on the forehead, she grabbed her robe and headed for the bathroom.

"We'll find her, Scott. Safe and sound."

Chapter 14

Mystique could never figure out why they'd never changed the locks. It was one thing for the students at the Xavier school to come and go as they pleased, but really, the same open-door policy should not hold true for arch-enemies.

But then again, she smiled to herself as she found herself wandering the halls of the school, we are not technically enemies. Merely ideological opponents fighting for the same side.

"Hey, Jubes," a boy walked by. "You see Kitty anywhere?"

Mystique rolled her eyes the way she had seen the actual Jubilation Lee do and shrugged. She dared not open her mouth for fear of getting the voice and speech wrong.

"Yeah, I figured as much," the boy smirked. "See you in bio!"

Jubilation/Mystique nodded and wandered off. Checking that the coast was clear, she went down the hall and around the corner, finding the secret panel that Magneto had told her to activate. Sliding across to the metallic walls of the underground tunnels, she headed towards the round door at the end of the hall.

"Retinal scan complete," the computer announced. The door slid open and Cerebro waited, unprotected.

It was all too easy. Xavier himself was off with Jean Grey at a conference at the United Nations, so the chances of being interrupted were minimal. Cerebro had not been significantly altered since Magneto had put it together, so adding in the cartridge Remnant had supplied her with took Mystique only a moment. Getting off the grounds of the Xavier estate and into the waiting van took only a few moments more.

"How do they expect to fight a battle when they can't even remember to lock their front door?" she asked Toad once they were a few miles away. He only shrugged and giggled in return.

They returned to find an irate Magneto. "Kelly's gone," he fumed. Sabretooth and Remnant were nowhere in sight and Toad wondered whether they had gone off to look for him. A familiar roar from the prison level suggested that perhaps only Remnant had gone out.

That evening, Remnant returned empty-handed. She had waited at the beach all day to see if he washed up along the more secluded spots, but he had not. She used her minor magnetic powers to free Sabretooth from the cell Magneto had put him in earlier and found out from Mystique that Toad had gone to scout the Xavier school. Magneto had a suspicion that Kelly would turn to Jean Grey for guidance.

The only thing left to do was proceed with the plan as normal.

Chapter 15

"You have to help me... please.." Kelly's wide-eyed plea had met with a variety of reactions. Jean Grey stifled a smug rejoinder before it could overwhelm her professional veneer. Scott had hidden his loathing behind the impenetrable façade of his sunglass-obscured face. Storm had been courteous, if cool. Xavier did not bother to hide his eagerness for information. All of them, however, were unified in their relief that Logan was off on one of his walks around the grounds.

The Senator had been rushed down to the medlab, Storm noticing a trail of water even though it hadn't been raining for days. Xavier, with permission of course, probed his mind to see what had happened to him.

Through Kelly's eyes, Xavier saw the commandeered helicopter ride, got dragged along by Toad and Mystique and mocked by Remnant, heard a girl 's voice screaming in the background (Rogue?), got dragged out to the cove and then strapped into a chair, listened to Magneto discourse on god's grace and fear, felt the unbelievable pain vibrate through his very core as the radioactive light coursed over his skin, and then "Welcome, brother."

Erik plans to turn anti-mutant leaders into mutants, Xavier considered as he watched the events squirrel around Kelly's agitated mind. It is much easier to preach to the converted - in this case literally so - and Erik is going to force acceptance of homo superior through such drastic means. But how are you going to effect this genetic rebaptism, Erik? And why do you need a sixteen year old girl to do it?

Most of what was floating around Kelly's head was distasteful to Xavier. Fear of mutants had turned into a hatred that now warred with the knowledge that Kelly was now that which he despised. The newly born self-loathing was coated in the stickiness of self-pity. Do you blame yourself for anything, Senator? Xavier asked himself, careful to keep his thoughts from traveling back down the telepathic bridge to the other man. It was not for him to judge, as much as he dearly wanted to do just that. The moment you rise to take the bait is the moment you abandon the high moral ground. Keep repeating that, Charles.

The escape was less interesting - Kelly had little memory for aquatic detail - except for the beginning, where Xavier had been able to pick out a few details that might, with Cerebro's help, provide a clue where Erik was holed up. Ororo had drawn circles on the map detailing where Erik's various underlings disappeared from the astral plane. While some of the circles were pointless - Remnant, presumably knowing from Erik how Cerebro worked, would present mental pictures of herself in faraway places such as Bombay and Argentina before winking out - the rest had given them a vague idea of the headquarters' location. And now, because the newly mutated Senator Kelly had stepped on a sea urchin while under water, they had a better idea.

Logan having returned from his time in the estate's woods, the team met in the War Room. Xavier explained what he had seen and what he hoped to get from Cerebro.

"And you're going to take care of the guy?" Logan asked is frank disbelief. He hadn't survived fifteen years on his own by nursing his enemies back to health.

"Why not, he's certainly not a supporter of the Mutant Registration Act anymore," Scott shrugged. "An ally in government is just what we need."

"He's going to tell people about your little setup," Logan waved his arms to indicate the subterranean headquarters. "And then it will all be over."

"You'd kill him just to keep him quiet?"

"You want to get a real job, Summers, instead of teaching a couple of kids history and pretending you're a superhero?"

"Gentlemen," Xavier raised his hand. "Not that this is a matter worth discussing," and here he glanced at Logan, "but let us at least assure the Senator's survival of Magneto's manipulation before we debate the merits of secrecy."

Scott was about to say something when the door slid open and Ororo rushed in. "He's dead."

"Was it his heart?" Jean asked, jumping up. They did have the paddles for emergency shock...

"He... melted," Ororo shook her head. "He turned to water before my eyes."

"Where's Bobby when you need him," Scott mused and then winced from the withering look Jean shot him. No telepathy required.

"Can't say he'll be missed," Logan drawled. "Need help wiping him up?"

"Let me go," Jean stood. "You two obviously don't need me to contribute anything to the debate. Besides, I want to test what's left of him." She smirked at the coldness of her clinical nature emerging. She turned to Ororo, still looking awed by the door. "It's your turn with Heckle and Jeckyl."

With that, the door swished open and closed and Logan and Scott were left to look at each other. Even with Scott's glasses, Logan could detect a quirk in his pursed lips that indicated that the two men *could* find a common ground, even if it was in irritating the girl they both wanted.

Xavier cleared his throat and the moment passed. Ororo sat down and the three men proceeded to update her on their tentative plans. Jean returned a half-hour later, baffled.

"Water," she shrugged. "He turned to water. Not a single trace of genetic material there. Some traces of the Long Island Sound, but nothing human... or mutant."

She handed the printouts to Xavier, who looked them over briefly - he was not medical or biological expert, technology was his thing - and then passed them on. After a few more minutes of generally productive conversation, he left them then, Scott drawing up battle plans that only needed a destination for completeness.

Xavier wheeled himself outside the room and to the left, waiting for the retinal scan to be complete as the door to the War Room closed behind him, drowning out another brewing argument between Logan and the rest.

Fortunately, Jean understood why it was so good that the Canadian was around, even if it meant she was placed at the apex of an uncomfortable triangle. Logan's claws drew away any semblance of complacency that might have set in. Logan did not like to theorize, Scott had never had the chance to do anything but. With luck, one would learn the powers of preparation and the other would fully develop the leadership-in-battle skills that were so plainly waiting to be used.

If we are not so lucky, Xavier mused as the door to Cerebro slid open, Jean is going to be broadcasting a headache for a very long time.

Cerebro's crown came down as it always did. Only Erik knew just how much using Cerebro hurt. Not physical pain, but mental anguish. Surfing the astral plane, touching all of the minds of the species homo superior, was a banquet of fear, self-loathing, terror, angst, and pure pain.

Most mutants were in hiding the way Remnant and Logan had been before their involvement in this most unholy war - keeping their dirty secret from those whom they loved as well as those they feared. Afraid for their own safety, afraid even more of themselves. And so physical signs of mutation were mangled or removed, be it in the form of a tail being amputated or a pair of eyes being put out. But it was the attempt to cut down mental manifestations that caused the much deeper wounds.

This was the real impetus behind the school - to end this fear and teach mutants to love themselves for who they were. If they could not do that, if they could not accept themselves, how could they expect that of anyone else? Rogue, wherever she was, embodied this dichotomy so clearly - a lovely, charming young woman, she hid her inner beauty under a shell of self-hatred as effectively as she covered her skin in her cowl. It was Xavier's job to convince her to be proud to display both.

But in order to do that, Rogue must be returned home. And so Xavier pulled the crown down over his head and muttered the same incantation he had used since Erik had built the machine in order to get his brain waves syncopated with Cerebro's controls.

The astral plane appeared, but it was foggy. Concentrating on making it clear up, Xavier saw it instead go black. And then the world faded away..

***

Jean stood up suddenly, effectively stopping the shouting match between Logan and Scott. If I had known that this would shut them up, I would have done this a half-hour ago, Jean thought absently to herself before concentrating back on what had caused her to rise in the first place.

"Jean? Jean!" Scott was calling to her.

"Something's happened to the professor," she whispered, holding her head. "He disappeared."

"Disappeared how?" Logan asked, eyebrow cocked. "Isn't he with Cerebro?"

"He keeps a link with all of us," Jean tried to explain. "You don't feel it because you're not a telepath. But... the line just went dead."

The group got up and ran next door, Jean the only one able to submit for the retinal scan. Xavier lay on the floor next to his chair. Logan could hear Scott and Ororo praying to their chosen deities, too softly for the other to hear. Jean knelt by the fallen professor, searching for vital signs.

"He's breathing," she looked up. "Barely."

Logan crouched down and scooped up the unconscious man. "Let's go," he said simply.

The lab was clean when they got there, all traces of the late Senator Kelly had been erased by the mop still standing in the corner.

Later on, when Xavier had been stabilized, Jean went to Cerebro. Looking over the console, she found nothing. Opening up the various doors that lead to the intricate machinery, she saw the offending item. A cylinder filled with a brown liquid that had obviously leaked into Cerebro's fluid-based system.

She took it back to the lab to analyze, pausing outside the door as she 'heard' Scott talking to the professor, promising him that he would not only make sure that the dream went on, but that he'd be there to see it. When he paused, she opened the door and walked in.

Ororo's entrance surprised Jean. Looking around, she saw Scott was no longer in the room.

"I brought you dinner," Ororo smiled, nodding at the tray. "Scott cooked, so you should take it for what it's worth."

"What time is it?" Jean looked at her watch. "When did it get so late?"

"While you were busy with the poison. Did you find out what it is?"

"As far as I can tell, it's a combination of drugs designed to let all the consciousnesses that Cerebro can find in at once," Jean ran her fingers over her hair, smiling bitterly when Ororo's confused look did not clear up. "It's kind of like a lubricant - grease the skids so that the thoughts of every mutant Cerebro can find all hit Xavier at once. It overloaded him."

"Can you undo the damage?"

"I don't know. Were I a stronger telepath, I might be able to, but medically? All I can do is keep him sedated heavily enough that he won 't hear the voices until we can figure out what to do."

"How long can he hold out?"

"I really don't know."

Chapter 16

"I was watching that," Mystique growled as Remnant turned off the television.

"Pascal Gervais is honored to be part of the entourage representing Canada at this international conference," Remnant smiled a saccharine grin. "And he is most looking forward to meeting Senator Kelly at the conclusion of the conference."

Mystique giggled.

"You'll have fun with him, Raven," Remnant's eyes grew dark. "He has such a low tolerance for pain."

"Remnant!" Toad called from the doorway leading to the prison cells. "Want to come help us out with the girl? She's got her gloves off and is putting up a fight."

She went down the stairs. Sabretooth and Toad were waiting.

"Why do you have to be difficult," Toad asked Rogue. "It hurts less when you don't fight."

"Ah don't care. If Ah'm gonna die anyway, Ah might as well take you with me."

"Well, *that* attitude is going to get us nowhere," Remnant frowned. "Rogue, please put on your gloves."

The girl refused to budge, instead crossing her bare arms in front of her in defiance. Sabretooth growled menacingly.

"Relax, Victor," Remnant sighed. She closed her eyes and concentrated. "Now, Rogue, please put on your gloves and stop fighting."

"No!," Rogue wailed as she felt the tough of the other woman in her mind. "Stay outta my head!"

"Now, Rogue, please?"

Rogue, visibly trying to fight off the mental push, slowly bent down and picked up her gloves. Sweat beaded on her forehead as the strain mounted.

Xavier never taught those kids about shields, Remnant mentally frowned. I can have her doing the lead number of Riverdance and she won't be able to stop me.

Rogue, stop fighting me and I'll stop fighting you, Remnant spoke gently into the girl's mind. You can't win. You can only make things hurt less.

Finally, she nodded and nearly collapsed when Remnant dropped the mental link. Gloves now on, she didn't dare remove them.

"Victor, treat her gently until she tries something," Remnant cautioned, heading back upstairs. "But the moment she pulls something, do whatever you want so long as she's still alive. We don't need her cooperation and we don't need her conscious. Just alive."

The last remark was spoken looking directly at Rogue, and for her 'ears' only, Remnant added an extra caveat. Don't try anything, child. I can read your thoughts and if I catch you... Sabretooth is very creative. Especially when all he has to do is make sure you still breathe when he's done.

Back upstairs, Magneto and Mystique were almost packed. Toad came up with Sabretooth and a shackled Rogue.

"We all ready?" Toad asked Mystique. "We'll hop over and get things ready before we come back for everyone, right?"

Mystique nodded. A night full of shifting disguises. Quite apart from the anticipated results of the evening, this would be fun. Gyrick was no challenge and apart from that, she'd only been a ditsy blonde and a few children.

Toad and Mystique went off and returned an hour later, dressed in the garb of the harbor patrol.

"Ahoy, matey," Toad greeted Sabretooth, who just snarled in return. Sabretooth hated boats.

The group loaded the gear that hadn't already been transported - it had taken too many surreptitious trips in the middle of the night to get the device installed where it would be most useful.

Magneto tried to be sympathetic to Rogue's plight as he explained why she had to die. For the greater good and all, you know. Charles, for all of his liberal beliefs, does not teach about self-sacrifice, he mused as Rogue again tried to fight her way free. Sabretooth had swatted the girl hard across the head, knocking her out, before Remnant could calm the girl telepathically. Six one way, half dozen the other - whatever worked.

Getting onto Liberty Island was too easy, Mystique mused. As had been the Xavier school. Is everyone getting complacent, or am I getting too good?

"Station yourselves around the base," Magneto told Mystique and Toad. "Make sure we have no visitors. I'll need Remnant and Sabretooth to help me and the girl."

"I can take the girl," Sabretooth replied.

"I need you to take care of me," Magneto shook his head. "Let Remnant deal with the child, especially after we transfer the power."

The quartet headed for the stairs as Toad went back outside. Mystique looked around the souvenir shop for a good place to wait... ah. perfect. Her skin started to turn the color of polished copper even before she reached the side of the room where the miniature Statues of Liberty were lined up. Picking up one of the hand-sized pieces, she felt the crown grow out of her forehead and the cloth swirl around her ankles and then freeze.

"Walk or he carries you," Magneto told Rogue once they reached the bottom of the stairs, nodding back towards Sabretooth. "A word of caution, though. He's most unconcerned about whether you hit your head. Or anything else for that matter."

Rogue, eying Remnant standing behind Sabretooth, was about to say something when she felt just a nudge against her mind. Instead, she decided to walk.

Chapter 17

"What secrets do you hold, Cerebro?" Jean Grey asked as she stood by the console, not really expecting an answer.

Technically, she really didn't need to be here. She knew what and why Xavier had been wounded, and since she wasn't skilled enough yet to try to use it herself... Charles was supposed to teach her. He had hinted that her telepathic powers were in fact much greater than she had thought they were, but that they had been tamped back down as a preservation mechanism - she just couldn't handle it when her mutancy developed.

Jean remembered those days with a shiver. It was like having Cerebro on, she imagined, all those voices, all those thoughts... she had been going crazy when Xavier had found her, the constant cacophony having reduced her to a hysterical bundle of nerves, unable to sleep (she would periodically pass out from sheer exhaustion), to eat (her mother would try and feed her like a baby), let alone to think.

Her parents, understanding and supportive the way most mutants' parents weren't, had called Xavier and he had stopped the noise. He had turned off her telepathy, for all intents and purposes. Anything to make the noise stop. The silence... it had been the remittance of pain.

It was that pain - at least the memories of it - that had kept Jean from asking Xavier to restore her telepathy for years. As she had grown, some had just started to leak through the wall he had built - she'd catch a snippet of a thought here, a fragment there. And then, once Scott had entered the picture, she had actively worked on building a telepathic relationship with him.

In fact, that's how she had ended up with Scott. He had been so bashful, so distant around her that she would have never figured him for having a crush on her. But then she 'overheard' him chastising himself for acting like a moron in front of the girl he loved. And then she started looking for real, not with her mind (even were she able to, she'd never pry), but with old fashioned girl-sense.

The problem was that girl-sense relied so heavily on the eyes - a look here, a glance there - that she had never thought to use it with Scott. But by then, she knew Scott well enough to read his moods around his glasses. The way his eyebrows shot up in surprise, furrowed in anger and frustration, that one-eyebrow thing he did when he was trying to be funny, his earlobes turning red with embarrassment.. And then it became obvious how Scott felt. And after a little consideration, it became just as obvious as she felt herself.

Now, years later, it only took a little concentration to find Scott's presence in her mind. He was right next door, in the War Room, staring at maps and trying to figure out where Magneto was.

How's it going?

Need you ask? He gave a mental sigh. I don't know how much better off we are doing this than running up and down the damned Eastern Seaboard with the Blackbird.

Should we try that?

The thought has crossed my mind, but Magneto probably has the technology to find us before we find him. If the Professor hadn't been injured using Cerebro... he was close. We knew it.

We'll find Rogue.

I hope so.

The frustration in Scott's thoughts was tinged with sadness and a little resignation. He wasn't sure, Jean knew, but he'd never say anything.

But we do have Cerebro now, Jean thought, careful to shield from Scott. And even though I might not have the experience that the Professor has, I have the power necessary. And we can't let Rogue - or Logan - down.

Swallowing deeply, hoping to keep her own nerves as well as the memories of her youthful telepathic trauma at bay, Jean reached for Cerebro's crown. Putting it on, she concentrated carefully. Finding herself at the high wall Xavier had constructed for her on the astral plane, the wall that kept everyone's thoughts out, she could feel the rush of consciousnesses on the other side. It was like standing in front of Macy's at Christmastime, an endless stream of voices fading in and out of range, all in mid-conversation.

Jean (or the image of herself) reached up and took the top brick off of the wall. Then a second, then a third. She put the bricks at her feet, trying to make herself tall enough to see over the wall. A few more bricks off of the top and then under her feet, Jean could see heads. A few more, there were faces. They rushed by at too fast a speed to catch... Until she saw Rogue.

Jean called to Rogue, and the image of the girl turned. Rogue was crying, reaching out for Jean with gloved arms. Jean called to Rogue, asking her where she was, but in the rush of people, Jean couldn't hear the answer. There was only one solution - climb over the wall.

The wind of the rushing consciousnesses grew stronger and louder as more bricks came down. Jean was careful enough to take only enough bricks to climb over, leaving the wall mostly intact - there was going to be no one to rescue her from the cacophony this time.

Hopping over the wall, Jean landed on the other side and ran towards Rogue, pushing past the rushing people the way the commuters did at the train station in the morning. Rogue grabbed her arm, near-hysterical with fear. Jean wasn't sure if she could touch the skin of even the psychic version of Rogue, so she settled for stroking her hair.

Rogue took a deep breath, but couldn't stop herself from crying. Jean asked her again where she was and Rogue choked out the words between gasps and cries. Jean tried to assure her that they'd be there to get her as soon as possible, but Rogue wasn't comforted and wouldn't let go of Jean's arm. She begged Jean to stay, to help, and Jean tried again and again to convince the girl that she could only help by going away.

Finally, Rogue let go and Jean, momentarily surprised, was caught in the undertow of the waves of consciousnesses. She could see the wall in the ever-growing distance, the way a drowning person can see the lifeguard's stand. Jean fought as hard as she could against the tide of souls, but she was tiring fast and making little headway.

Fighting back the fear - fear of getting stuck here, fear of returning to the hell that Xavier had dragged her out of all those years before - she closed her eyes and stood still. Taking a deep breath, Jean opened her eyes. When she opened them, she could see Xavier. But he couldn't see her. His eyes were wide open, but they were unseeing, wild and unfocused. Jean called to him and he turned. For a moment, he looked almost lucid and she could tell he saw her, but then another wave of consciousnesses came and he disappeared.

It seemed the harder Jean tried, the further away the wall appeared. She was almost out of energy, too tired to do more than deflect the passing consciousnesses around her. Oh, god, don't let me stay here. Kill me before you desert me here...

Jean? Jean!

She opened her eyes. In the distance, she could see the wall. Standing at the top of the wall was Scott. He had his arm outstretched towards her, but he was far too far way to help. With a renewed sense of purpose, Jean tried to move towards him, making a little headway. As she got closer, the noise and wind grew louder.

When she was almost close enough to reach Scott's hand, she was knocked over by an especially strong wave. As she struggled to her feet, Jean could see a path clear, a path bathed in red light. Standing up, she could see Scott had taken off his visor. But his eyes did not emit fatal blasts here on the astral plane. Instead it was plain red light. But the consciousnesses seemed to avoid it anyway and Jean stumbled towards it until she felt Scott's hand grab her arm and hoist her over the wall. She fell in a heap into his arms on the other side, exhausted.

"Jean?" She heard Scott's voice whisper, raw with emotion. His fingers trembled slightly as they brushed her hair away from her face.

Opening her eyes, Jean could see they were back on the deck of Cerebro 's console. Scott looked down at her, worry evident despite the sunglasses.

"I know where Rogue is," she breathed.

Chapter 18

Primum non nocere. First, do no harm. A simple phrase to summarize a part of Hippocrates' text, probably Galen's only pithy comment in the entire damned opus. The man was more verbose than Toad after too much caffeine, Remnant thought as she watched Sabretooth hold Rogue down as she was strapped into the machine.

The problem is that sometimes the cure hurts.

In medical school, they had made the students sit through regular courses in ethics. The topics had been as predictable as they were contentious - abortion, euthanasia, experimentation - and Amalie the young doctor-in-training had been dutifully conscientious and thoughtful as she considered them.

But the lesson Amalie the anti-heroine, now Remnant the villain (face it, Mali, you aren't even the good guy to the people you are helping), carried with her from those days at McGill is that nothing is ever simple. Not even when Galen does the unthinkable and finishes a thought in record time. And so while the heart may be heavy, it knows the head is correct, and that's why I do nothing but watch as Rogue struggles.

I could make her pliable, dull her mind until she no longer fought, but she deserves better. She is angry now, and she has a right to be. No one wants to draw the short straw. Especially when you weren't around to pick one in the first place. When she starts to panic, when she is no longer angry and just terrified, then I will step in.

Primum non nocere. Galen didn't realize he was being funny. How could you caution against doing damage when your cure rate averaged somewhere around that of a coin flip? But it was the theory that counted. The theory that put everything in its proper place in the universe.

What would you have thought, you old Greek, about homo superior. What would you have done when you found not only an exception to the neat little classification system, but a whole species of them? What would you have done when you saw abominations that the gods couldn't have come up with on their most inventive days? Homer on LSD couldn't have imagined the four people currently standing right here.

What I don't ask you, Galen, is what you would have thought of me. I took an oath to do good. I swore to do everything in my power to preserve life. And yet I have killed. Repeatedly. Without hesitation. Without remorse. And I will do so again here tonight. One guaranteed death for the hope of future lives saved. Are those odds any better than your own? Or does that matter. If you doubt you are doing the right thing, you probably aren't, they told us back in school.

But exactly whom do I call for the second opinion?

***

Do you mind?

Logan shook his head, unused to having a voice other than his own rattle around inside of it. He smiled weakly at Jean, at whom he had been staring.

Black leather suits you, he thought back, shrugging physically as he wasn't sure how to do it mentally. She gave him a flat stare.

"Are we ready?" Cyclops walked by, fastening his left glove. Jean nodded and Logan shrugged.

Logan hated the outfit. He didn't see the reason why he had to put it on - his healing factor compensated for wounds much more thoroughly than the leather could protect against them. And while it may have been warmer to wear up in northern Alberta, this was New York in June and all it did was make him itch and sweat. It's not bad enough that we have to *match*, but we also have to match looking like Devo's backup dancers.

Jean's stifled chuckle from the other seat assured him that he had sufficiently projected that thought.

It takes time getting used to being near a telepath, Logan mused. Or at least one that you knew was a telepath. He wondered how many of his thoughts Mali... Remnant... Mali (for she was Mali then) had been able to read. She certainly hadn't seemed interested in what he had thought, but maybe that was because she already knew.

He heard Storm muttering to herself, or to her goddess, to be more precise. The tiny aircraft was aggravating her claustrophobia and she was trying to distract herself.

The trip down to Manhattan took only a few moments - beating the Cross Bronx and the Major Deegan by eons - and Logan tried to hide his amazement at the technological advances of the plane. Cyclops could fly this thing well, although Logan was sure that the cops all over Westchester County had to have been plagued by people calling with UFO sightings while he was learning.

"You call that a landing?" He barked out as the plane bumped down. No need for One-Eye to be getting too proud of his flight skills.

"Remember, everyone, put your mental shields up like you've been trained," Jean warned. "We don't want Remnant sneaking up on us."

They ran, under cover of trees and shadows, to the base of the Statue.

Let the action begin, Logan mumbled to himself as Cyclops blasted open the lock.

Chapter 18

As the X-Men ran along the ground towards the base of the Statue, Sabretooth watched from his vantage point hundreds of feet above. In specific, he watched Wolverine.

It's a shame he doesn't remember. We used to have such *fun*.

He looks so stupid in that get-up. Does he really think that by matching outfits he's going to *fit in*? Logan, Logan, Logan... you should know better.

That's what I don't understand. You probably *do* know better.

So why the uniform, hmm? You're not the mercenary type, so you aren't doing this for money. It's not for the company. I'm sure you get along with Cyclops just about as well as I do... except you're not the type to gut him in front of his girl. You were always weak like that.

Are you doing this for fun? Nah... if you were doing this for fun, you 'd be downstairs waiting with Mystique and Toad. We are the action. Xavier and his minions are the reaction. And while you do many things, Logan, one thing you do not do is let others make the first move.

Boy, must this whole thing piss you off. On the defensive from the first move of the game. You haven't been this far behind since, well, since *then*. But you don't remember that yet, do you?

So what is your reason? Remnant? We all know about the two of you, more than she'd like us to know. Don't know what you saw in her, though. Don't see what Magneto sees in her. Beautiful, sure, but too fucking cold. No passion. I don't need love. Fear works just as well, terror is even better. But dear little Amalie is a wealth of ice-coated nothingness.

But I don't think it's Remnant. You've never come back for a chick before, no matter how good the lay.

And even if you knew what's about to happen, you wouldn't be here trying to stop it. You'd probably think we were right. And even if you didn't, you still wouldn't come here trying to stop us. You don't care enough about the rest of the world. You just take what you need and then you'll go. You only stop to repay debts that you can't avoid. No heroics, no dragon-slaying, no rescuing damsels in distress...

The girl? You're here for the girl.

She hasn't done anything for you, so you owe her nothing. You aren't doing her. Not even with your healing factor. And especially not with your rather misplaced sense of propriety.

Of course.

Emotional attachment is bad in this business. Especially attachment to the weak. You don't remember an awful lot, Logan, but you always remembered that. Until now.

You're getting soft on me.

"Victor?" Remnant called from the other side of the parapet.

Very soon, Logan, you're going to have to pay for this newfound compassion.

With your life.

***

"This is too easy. Where are they?" Cyclops looked around the lobby outside the gift shop. A minor (very minor) perq of his mutancy was excellent night vision, aided by his visor, but he could see nothing.

"The gate is down," Storm spoke quietly. "We'll have to go up the back, through the gift shop."

"It's probably a trap," Cyclops frowned.

"Well, unless you're gonna sprout wings, we're out of alternatives," Wolverine snapped.

"Everyone be on alert," Jean whispered as they moved to the shop entrance.

The door was unlocked, adding to Cyclops' concern. We're on an island with no residents, he mused, locking up is probably not a priority. They quickly moved into the room.

Suddenly the metal detector went off. Wolverine had shredded it before Cyclops could turn around.

Moron, Wolverine cursed at himself, you know you set these things off unless the claws are fully retracted. He looked up to see Cyclops frowning at him. One adamantium bird flipped forth.

They made their way to the stairs.

How many steps did the little sign say there were, Jean frowned. The elevator was not an option, of course. So now it's time to see what all those Danger Room sessions have done for our cardiovascular systems.

They had gone two flights, only up to the photo gallery level, when suddenly Wolverine froze.

We're not alone.

Before he could vocalize that realization, he heard Storm scream. Toad had wrapped his tongue around her the way a boa constrictor encircled its meals, and was dragging her towards him. Cyclops turned and fired his laser at Toad, knocking him backwards and forcing him to release Storm.

The battle was engaged in full then. It should have been easy enough, but Wolverine quickly realized that his companions were fighting not to kill, but merely to advance. Toad, and very quickly he was joined by Mystique, were not so benevolently minded and their directness of attack was enough to balance out the numbers difference.

Wolverine and Storm were the first to break free from the melee and head back to the stairwell. The element of surprise gone, the elevator was now an option and Storm pressed the call button.

"Jean!" they could hear Cyclops cry out.

"Go, we'll catch up to you," Wolverine sighed told Storm. He then ran back towards the gallery.

Storm turned back to the elevator as the doors opened and had almost put her foot in when she realized that there was no elevator there. Turning back, she could dimly make out the shadow of the black-clad Remnant in the corner. A little borrowed magnetic power had forced opened the doors.

"Careful," Remnant warned, waggling her index finger at Storm. "You don't want to fall."

Storm was about to summon a bolt of lightning when all of a sudden, the room began to spin.

"Vertigo's a bitch, ain't it?" she could hear Remnant call out as she fell down the shaft.

Storm collected herself after she landed in just enough time to create a tornado to keep the free-falling elevator from falling on her. When she was back to the gallery, Wolverine, Mystique, and Toad were nowhere in sight and Cyclops was standing over a prone Jean.

"Don't move," Cyclops told his lover as he adjusted the visor to the lowest setting and aimed it at the hardened green slime over her mouth.

Once Jean had caught her breath, they went for the stairs.

"The elevator's out of service," Storm explained with a smirk, nodding at the returning Wolverine, blood visible on his extended claws.

Chapter 19

Rogue was still screaming and crying and testing her bonds, but her voice sounded strained now and she was visibly losing energy.

"Stop fighting," Magneto told her for the fourth time. "You'll be too tired to power the generator."

Rogue started kicking and screaming with renewed energy. Of course, Magneto wasn't going to tell her that tiring herself out in fact made their job that much more easy.

If only Toad and Sabretooth were as receptive to reverse psychology. As it stood, they were receptive to much more base instincts. Of course, that's why it was good to have Amalie and Mystique around.

From the lights and noise, he could see where the battle was taking place. He knew his own soldiers were outnumbered, but he did not fear for them. Charles had rescued his group before they had really had to learn to fend for themselves. Even the Cyclops. As a result, they were inherently soft. Unwilling to do the hard thing, the mean thing, unwilling to let go of their childish liberal ideas that people were good and just needed another chance to prove it. Just like Charles.

As such, he was sure Amalie would let him know if there was a problem. In the meantime, he babysat the child.

Rogue didn't understand, but how could he expect her to? She was a child, after all. How do you explain to someone who has not yet begun to live that their life is required for the advancement of many more?

And, of course, do it while not sounding like the doctors in the camps (first Sachsenhausen and then to Mengele's lab in Auschwitz), who used to say all sorts of things before they injected him with who-knows what.

He didn't even know why he felt the need to explain. No, he did know. Because she deserved it. Because she was a sacrifice - an item of value destroyed in service of a higher calling - and not an inanimate spare part. Because making this distinction was how he distinguished himself from Mengele and his cronies. Rogue will be a martyr and not a tool.

I know I am hurting you and it hurts me, too, child. If I could do this myself and live, I would. But someone has to lead after it's over. And Charles would only undo all that I will have accomplished. All that *we* will have accomplished. Because you are a part of our team now, Rogue. Not a 'battery' as Amalie is wont to call you. (She doesn't mean it personally, dear. It's her way of avoiding hurting for you, too.) You are among the Brotherhood now. And we will mourn your passing.

But yours is a necessary sacrifice. One life to save thousands, millions more. For this is the last chance for peace. If this fails, and we cannot even consider that idea, then the only alternative is full-scale combat. A fight to the finish of either humans or mutants. Co-existence is no longer an option.

"If you're so intah killin'," Rogue had asked him earlier, "why dontcha just kill off Senator Kelly and the others like him." Instead of her, it was left unspoken.

The solution is not that simple, he had explained to her. The kernel of mutant hatred was not in Kelly's head, nor in Pascal Gervais', nor in any other individual's. It was far, far too widespread.

To kill everyone who hated mutants enough to do harm to them would require more manpower than Magneto could even imagine to muster, more blood would flow than even Sabretooth could dream about... it was impossible. There wouldn't be enough people left on the earth.

Contrary to Charles' naïve hope, prejudice is inherent in humans, not acceptance. Anyone who had lived through the Holocaust could tell you that. When your neighbors suddenly wouldn't talk to you, when the grocer suddenly wouldn't sell you apples, when your school mates would spit on you because all of a sudden, it was now not only socially acceptable, but also encouraged to display your true feelings... then you understood. Everyone hates.

How else to explain the guards at Sachsenhausen who *knew* that they were escorting people to their deaths? The Jews didn't suddenly become non-people to them, they always had been, but up until now, it had been covered in the thin veneer of social conformity.

You cannot teach acceptance, my child, he had explained to her. You cannot teach people not to hate. You must instead appeal to man's most base, most easily understood notion.

Self-preservation.

And so Rogue would be sacrificed in order to re-introduce the world's leaders to fear. To re-acquaint them with their fight-or-flight instinct, and by doing so, make the world safer for those without power.

Almost seventy years ago, the Jews were not able to save themselves. We didn't have enough power to stop them, but we didn't run. We were unwilling to believe that man could turn upon itself like that. We were wrong.

But those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. And I have learned. There will be no new Kristalnacht.

Erik? He could hear Amalie's voice in his head. We're in position. I can take care of them, but...

But you know how much I'll enjoy it, he finished the thought for her. He knew that wasn't what she meant to say, nor did he think that it was the truth.. Well, he'd enjoy it a little.

Chapter 20

"Get. Out." Wolverine hissed as they reached the little room in the stairwell.

"Why?"

"I can't move," he gritted out.

All of a sudden, metal scraps flew everywhere, seemingly at random, but in fact with precision and skill as Magneto lashed the four X-Men to the copper walls.

"Effective, but no style," Magneto mused at his handiwork. A wave of the hands brought Wolverine's clawed fingers perilously close to his face and the de-visored Cyclops' head even closer to that of Jean Grey.

"Better," Sabretooth agreed.

"Your plan is doomed to failure," Jean Grey broke the silence.

"Isn't that what the good guys always say to the bad guys?" Magneto asked.

"Senator Kelly's dead," Storm cried out, shuddering from the memory of his passing.

"Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?"

"The mutation doesn't hold," Jean persisted. "The body rejects it, the way it would an organ transplant."

"You're lying," Remnant shrugged. "It worked on all the other test subjects." She smirked at the stare she received from the other woman. "What? You don't think we'd try such a drastic plan without a test run, did you?"

"Who else did you kill?"

"Nobody. The animal rights activists will be happy to know that not a rat nor a cat nor a cockroach was harmed during the making of this little drama." Remnant smiled.

"And if we are to get the next act underway," Magneto gestured.

Jean could feel Scott under tremendous mental strain. Remnant was trying to get him to open his eyes and he was fighting her. Jean sent her energy to Scott, soothing his fear that he would kill her while strengthening his mental wall against the invasion. How Remnant had gotten through in the first place...

"No games now," Magneto turned to Remnant, who broke off the connection. Cyclops gasped.

"This won't solve anything," Storm tried. "Even if this did work, even if you weren't about to commit mass murder, you wouldn't do any good."

"Why not?" Magneto smiled.

"You'd never get away with it," Storm reasoned. "You'd be hunted down."

"Whatever made you think that I expected to get away with anything, my dear Storm," Magneto asked. "I know what will probably happen to me. It is a small price to pay. *If* they catch me."

"There are other ways to achieve tolerance," Storm replied.

"Tolerance," Remnant laughed bitterly. "Tolerance is a funny word, isn 't it? It means to endure, to 'deal with' something otherwise unpleasant. You tolerate a pet's misbehavior until it is housebroken. You tolerate your neighbor playing loud music at his party because it' s Saturday night. I don't want to be *tolerated*."

"And you think you're going to get anything better through genocide?" Logan spit out angrily. He had kept silent until then, watching both sides. He did not like the attitude of Xavier's group, an attitude embodied by Cyclops. They were satisfied by the idea that they meant to do well, but if you're going to be a superhero, meaning to do well isn't enough.

Logan himself, on the other hand, knew he was too unwilling to sacrifice himself for others in order to save the world, so he made no pretenses. But Magneto's looped logic, probably no more dented than Xavier's, was not backed up by self-congratulatory softies. He had the soldiers to accomplish his aims. And that is why there was no more choosing sides.

"What's the matter, Logan?" Remnant turned to him and smiled. "Since when does the possibility of a little bloodshed disturb you?"

"So do I. So will I." Remnant smiled. "And I will for your survival as well, Logan."

"You're not going to get your child back after this, you know that," Cyclops said after a moment. "No court in their right mind would grant custody to a homicidal maniac.""I'm neither homicidal nor a maniac," Remnant replied conversationally. "But that's neither here nor there. I'm not planning on letting any court near this. I'm going to take my son and move on."

"If you're just going to kidnap him, why kill all of the world's leaders first? Why kill your husband first?"

"I'm not going to kill him. He's going to be... modified the same way everyone else is. And then we will be on equal footing. I don't want my son raised by a hate-monger and I don't want him scarred further by the memory of a kidnapping. He's been through enough."

"But being raised by his father's murderer is all right?" Jean Grey blurted out.

"He's currently being raised by his mother's killer," Remnant gave her a flat stare. "And I don't want to think about what might happen to him at his father's hand should he prove to have inherited my... gifts."

Jean's eyes fell for a moment. It was harder to stage a pitched battle when your opponent was proving all too similar to yourself.

"You're still here?" Toad entered the room.

"Not for long," Magneto replied. "Stay here and watch them." He then took off into the air, riding the magnetic waves. Holding his hand to increase her power, Remnant followed. Sabretooth took the stairs.

Jean looked around for some means of escape. She spotted Scott's visor lying on the ground behind Toad. Her telekinesis could carry it to her, but she'd have to get it past their guard.

They needed a distraction to move Toad. Wolverine was across the room, but she had to figure out a way to reach him. Her telepathy was much stronger in its receptive ability than in its projective, except with Scott, so a mental shout ran the risk of being heard by everyone. But...

Logan, she aimed a thought at him. He turned to her. Fortunately, no one else did.

I need you to occupy Toad so that I can pick up Scott's visor.

Wolverine looked at the visor, at Toad, then back to Jean. And then he nodded.

"Hey, frog boy," he called to Toad. "How come you always get stuck with the crappy jobs, huh? Magneto not trust you not to fuck everything else up?"

Toad took a step towards Wolverine and sneered.

"I mean, think about it," Wolverine continued. "When Magneto kidnapped Rogue, all you got to do was watch. And here you are stuck babysitting four people welded to the walls."

As Toad took another step towards his taunter, Jean focused on the visor, gently elevating it off the ground and moving it slowly towards her.

"Face it, froggie, you're the chauffeur, nothing more. Sabretooth gets the jobs that need his strength. Mystique was always useful. I killed her, by the way..."

With a cry of anguish, Toad extended his tongue and lashed out, knocking Wolverine's head against the copper wall. As he did so, Jean sped up the visor and brought it into her hand, strategically placed between her head and Scott's.

"Scott, when I tell you to, open your eyes."

"No!" he whispered back fiercely.

"Trust me," she begged. She tried to twist the visor around so that the optic blast would reflect through it and to Wolverine's manacles. His claws could then free the rest of them... Except Toad moved in the way of the intended trajectory.

"Oh, Toad," Storm cooed, seeing what Jean was up to behind Toad's back. "Come here for a moment."

As soon as he took a step forwards, Jean whispered "Now!" to Cyclops, who opened his eyes and the lasers, reflected, cut through the cuffs as intended.

Wolverine cut his legs loose before Toad could reach him and reached out for the green man, claws-first. A gash now spreading blood across Toad's stomach, the man jumped out of the hole in the roof to nurse his wounds and get reinforcements. Wolverine cut his companions loose and they made their way towards the torch.

Chapter 20

Rogue screamed as Magneto grabbed her hand. The power surge, so familiar, was bad enough, but she was already starting to feel the emotions of her 'victim' and the rush of elation mixed with pain and determination was too much.

Literally drained, Magneto fell to his knees before Rogue, who in turn was too stunned to attempt to kick at him. Sabretooth picked him up with ease and deposited him none-too-gently near the parapet. Remnant checked him over and then, after deciding he was fine under the circumstances, went back to the machine's console.

She was still fiddling with the dials when her head jerked up suddenly. "They've escaped," Remnant told Sabretooth. "I can guard Erik, you go take care of them."

The tall man growled and nodded, then disappeared down the stairs.

"I hate complications," Remnant muttered. "Don't you, dear?" She asked Rogue.

The girl didn't answer, didn't even acknowledge that she had been spoken to. Remnant picked up the girl's face with the back of her gloved hand (careful to avoid contact with her exposed fingers) and chuckled at the dazed eyes.

"You're too much for her, Erik." Remnant chuckled, noticing that Rogue 's eyes followed her voice to the seated Magneto.

Who's that verbrennter... So that's what I look like... that's what *he* looks like, Marie. Get a hold of yourself... get a hold of him... A steamer trunk.. A koffer... Just like the Professor told you... find a box to put him away in. We can label it 'Erik'... put it right next to Cody and on the other side of Logan... Charles always did have a neatness fetish. He could be such a parech at times when it came to that... Get into the box, Erik... No! No more boxes. No more guterwagen. Never again... Get in, damnit!..

Rogue screamed in agony and Remnant, sensing the cause of the crisis, shut her down. Rogue went from reliving that first entry into Sachsenhausen to rolling green hills and fluffy clouds and then to nothing.

Magneto stood up carefully as Remnant checked to make sure that the slumping Rogue hadn't lessened her effectiveness as the device's power source.

"If you're up to it, I'm going to go down and help Victor," she said. "Toad has been hurt and I can't sense Mystique."

"They couldn't have killed her," Magneto shook his head, his voice still weak.

"Logan might have, but I don't know. There's a lot of background noise, so to speak. She could merely be unconscious."

"Be careful."

"I will."

As Remnant glided down the torch arm, she could see Wolverine and Sabretooth in pitched battle on the museum rooftop. Opening up her mind to the astral plane, she found Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm. The last was engaged with the weakened Toad, leaving the other two to make their way towards the torch.

They had not gotten very far. Toad had gummed up the doors to the Statue itself - either she or Magneto could melt the door to get back out, but otherwise it was effectively sealed. Remnant found the pair by the door, Cyclops trying to burn a hole through the copper.

"You're going to be there a while, One-Eye," she chuckled as she landed behind them. "That's reinforced copper sealed with super-strength Toad goo."

Cyclops spun around. He didn't want to blast her directly - Xavier had been adamant in his teachings about not killing - so instead looked for something above Remnant to zap instead. Xavier had never said anything about not braining opponents.

"Too slow, too slow," Remnant scolded. Cyclops suddenly froze in place.

"What did you do to me? To us?"

"Think warm thoughts, One-Eye, and maybe you'll thaw. I've convinced your subconscious that you're an icicle." She smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't try and venture into his head just now, Jean. It could prove a mite unfriendly."

The other woman tried and then closed her eyes in pain.

"I warned you." Remnant shrugged. "Now, what would you like to be for Halloween boys and girls? A dog? A chicken? Santa Claus?"

"Don't you see what you're doing, Doctor," Jean asked, emphasizing the title. "You're going to commit mass murder. The diplomats on Ellis Island, most of Staten Island, New Jersey, Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn... millions of people are going to die tonight."

As if on cue, a dim whirring noise could be heard in the distance. The generator was starting. Remnant knew that soon Rogue's absorbed powers would be added, making the machine almost unstoppable.

"Only figuratively, Doctor," Remnant emphasized the last word mockingly. "Most, such as my husband, will only die of embarrassment and self-loathing."

"Kelly did die," Jean shook her head. "He dissolved into a puddle of water. Let me show you Storm's memory," Jean persisted. "You can see for yourself."

"And let you into my head?" Remnant laughed. "Surely you can come up with a better plan of escape than that."

"Then I'll let you into mine. I'll let down my shields and show you," Jean suggested.

"No!" Cyclops yelled. "She'll hurt you."

"She's going to hurt a lot more than just me if we don't stop Magneto," Jean tried to explain. "Do it. I've already got Storm's memory of it happening."

Remnant closed her eyes and entered the astral plane. She saw a figure of Jean and went over to her. All of a sudden, they were on the front drive of the Xavier mansion and were watching the damp Kelly ring the doorbell and ask for help. Then they were in the medlab running tests, all of which showed the Senator rejecting his mutation. Then they switched to Storm's memory of Kelly's death and then finally to Jean's tests on his watery remains.

Remnant opened her eyes with alarm. "It could have just been him."

"Can you run that risk?" Jean asked.

Any response Remnant had was cut off when Wolverine, having jumped down from the nearby rooftop, landed on her back and rammed her head against the ground. Healing factor or not, his fight with Sabretooth had left him bloody and bruised. But not without enough energy to rear back one suddenly clawed hand and bring it down for a death blow to Remnant's neck, exposed by yanking her hair back with his other fist.

But the blow did not land. Instead, Wolverine saw his adamantium claws curl away from the prone woman as she focused her magnetic energy on deflecting the blow. He pulled his hand away and the claws returned to their normal shape. Remnant took his moment of confusion to push him off of her and roll away.

"Logan, no!" Jean cried out. "She's our only chance to stop Magneto."

In the background, the whirring noise was getting louder.

Wolverine ignored her plea. Instead, he grabbed a thick wooden pole lying nearby and brought it down on the head of Remnant, still on her hands and knees recovering from the initial attack. The mutant lay unconscious on the ground.

"Now how do we get up there," Cyclops asked, still not able to move.

Storm flew in just then, looking slightly worse for wear. "What has happened?"

Jean concentrated for a moment and then both she and Cyclops regained control of their bodies. "Remnant was playing mind games."

An oscillating noise added to the whirring and looking up, the four X-Men could see the torch start to glow with radioactive energy.

"Can you blast it from here?" Wolverine asked Cyclops, who frowned.

"Not without hurting Rogue." A pause. "Storm, can you get us up there with a gust of wind?"

"It's too hard to control for such precision," the woman explained. "I 'd end up shooting us over the top."

As they spoke and watched, the white light was starting to spread down the torch arm.

"We're running out of time," Logan gritted out. "We'll have to take that risk. Is it easier if it's only one of us?"

Storm nodded.

"I can use my telekinesis to steady you a little," Jean mused aloud. "But you're still going to have to make a pretty delicate landing."

"Do you have any other ideas?"

Nobody moved.

"Then let's go."

Cyclops watched as Jean and Storm focused on the ever-shrinking spot that was Wolverine flying. Finally, he landed and the three sighed with relief that was cut short when they realized that the radioactive cloud was now almost down to ground level.

"What do we do with Remnant?" Jean asked as she turned towards the prone body... that was no longer there.

"Where'd she go?"

Chapter 21

Landing was the easy part, Logan mused. Now to figure out how to shut off the damned thing. The rotating rings made getting to Rogue impossible and she didn't look like she was conscious and able to help him out. Then he spotted the console.

Had he seen the test version, he would have known that the console had been inside the rings on that one, the better for Magneto to control the device. But with Rogue inside the rings, the console was alongside the machine, both to facilitate control as well as keep her hands away from it.

Not seeing an on/off switch, Logan did what he always did when he was frustrated by incomprehensible machinery.

*SNIKT*

The console and its wires shredded, the rings slowed down almost imperceptibly, then a little more, then more quickly. Finally they stopped and Logan jumped inside the device and slashed away the manacles holding Rogue to the contact points. Untethered, she fell at his feet.

Kneeling down, Logan gathered the girl into his arms. He heard no breath, felt no pulse. Quashing his despair (now where did that come from, Logan old boy?), he took off his glove, took a deep breath to steel himself, and then cupped her face with his hand.

Nothing. No buzz, no searing burn, none of the nerve-jangling sensations that had accompanied their last transfer.

Logan sat there numb. Too late. They had been too late. He tried to calm the bloodlust that was beginning to boil through his veins, the berserker rage that would only be sated when Magneto, Remnant, Toad, and Sabretooth joined Mystique in Hell. He brushed the newly-whitened locks of hair away from Rogue's face and tried to calm himself with the notion that she'd finally get to stop running. It wasn't working.

Suddenly, he looked up.

"Get away from here, Mali. Get far, far away from here. You don't deserve a head start, but you got one. Now get the fuck away from here because the next time I see you, I'm going to kill you."

***

She knew by the time she landed on the far side of the parapet that it was almost too late. Rogue's presence on the astral plane was fading fast, almost completely gone.

When the machine was stopped, Rogue was almost dead. By the time Logan had reached her, she had died. There was one brief hope to save her, but Amalie didn't even have to 'urge' Logan to take that step.

She knew he couldn't sense it, but his touch had given Rogue an extra few moments. Her astral presence flickered brighter, but still so weak as to be transparent.

His next touch will save her, but it will kill him. Amalie knew this for certain. Had he not been so gravely wounded fighting Sabretooth, Logan's own energy would have been enough for them both. But he had spent so much of his reserves on his healing factor that he'd die before Rogue was sated.

"Get away from here, Mali. Get far, far away from here. You don't deserve a head start, but you got one. Now get the fuck away from here because the next time I see you, I'm going to kill you."

"I just might save you the trouble, Logan."

She knelt before him then, looking down into the face of the child she had been willing to kill in her quest for her own child. The girl that was so dear to Logan that he was shedding a tear (only one) for her. As a sister, as a daughter, Amalie couldn't tell, but her empathetic powers were receiving waves of grief from Logan, tempered only by surges of rage. Directed at me the way my own are directed at Pascal. You are no better to him right now than Pascal is to you. Thief of that which we hold most dear.

Pascal had won his war - after this night, mutants would be persecuted at ever-greater levels. She had no reasonable hope of getting Stephane back now. Killing Pascal would sentence both her and her son to a lifetime of running. It would also make her no better than the man who had concentrated on destroying her the moment he realized that she was not human.

"It's a little late for repentance," he ground out.

"It's never too late," she whispered. Pascal had won his war... but there was no reason that Logan would have to lose his as she had her own. Thankful that her fingerless gloves would make the task too quick for Logan to stop her, she reached out to Rogue's limp hand. "I'm sorry, Logan. I am so sorry."

She had a vague idea of what it would feel like, having been present when Rogue absorbed Magneto. But to have it happen personally... the pain was exquisite. And then it was gone.

Epilogue

"Logan?"

"Hey, kiddo," he put down the newspaper he was reading in the kitchen. Just because he was willing to hang around the Xavier school for a while didn't mean that he was going to hang out in the common dining room with everyone else. Few dared approach him, but Rogue had no fears.

"I kinda got a question about Mali," Rogue began haltingly. In the time since they had returned, Rogue had been mostly able to 'pack away ' her absorbed memories of both Erik and Amalie (when they rattle around in your head, it's hard to be on anything but a first name basis), but every once in a while, something would come up.

Occasionally, it would be mortally embarrassing - she was just too young to have the memories of both Amalie and two of her lovers - and occasionally it would prove useful (Amalie's medical training had been key in Rogue passing her physiology exam). But once in a while, it would reduce her to tears and a deep depression so burdensome that Jubilation had offered to let Rogue absorb a little of her so that she 'd finally have somebody relatively happy bouncing around.

Professor Xavier, now that he was recovered, would help her where he could. He had turned off the telepathy she had inherited from Amalie and after a very embarrassing moment at Blockbuster Video, she had gotten a quick lesson in how to control the residue of magnetic energy she still possessed.

To answer her questions, Xavier directed her to the library. She had read enough about the Holocaust to write a book, for instance, and she knew more than the average Westchester resident did about the Bloc Quebecois, but books couldn't solve some of the mysteries.

Logan raised an eyebrow. "I don't know that much about her, darlin', and I'm not sure you should be knowing too much of what I do know."

"This is rated PG, Logan," Rogue blushed. He shrugged, so she continued. "I keep getting this dream where you're walking along in a snowy forest..."

"Didn't Xavier get all of my crap outta your head by now?" Logan frowned. That was the start of his most frequent nightmare.

"But it's not your memory. It's Amalie's."

"How can you tell?"

"Because every time I have the dream, I'm not the one walking along, like I was after..."

"After our little accident," Logan snorted. How else do you refer to *that* incident?

"Now, I'm watching you. And I keep getting this urge to put a woolen hat on you..." Rogue trailed off, her confusion apparent.

Logan thought for a moment, then sighed. "I know what it is."

***

One of the strange things she had realized once she knew she was empathetic was that different emotions had different colors. Some were predictable - red for anger, blue for envy, green for illness, black for hatred - and some were less intuitive. Purple was pain, for example. After the attempt on her life, when her eyes changed, she couldn't help but laugh. Black on violet they were now, instead of their former brown. Black on violet - a spot of hatred in a sea of pain. How appropriate.

Her world had been purple for so long now, she was used to it. It was almost a comfort. The shades varied - on good days, it would be as pale as the dawn sky, on bad ones, it would match her dark eyes.

It took a while, then, for her to notice the flashes of purple that began to appear on the edges of her consciousness. A surge and then it would recede. She knew that the surges were each the same, but her awareness of them grew greater, so they seemed louder.

Finally, though, she could not only see the flashes of purple, but she could begin to come into contact with her surroundings. She felt her heart beating, for instance, and could smell the antiseptic smell of a hospital. And then she heard the noise accompanying those purple flashes.

*SNIKT*

Logan, stop, she begged mentally. Her mental voice was so weak, she didn't know if he could hear her.

"It's for your own good, Mali," he said simply. "Jean figured out that me extending the claws was the only way you were gonna start leeching my healing factor."

*SNIKT*

But she doesn't know they hurt. And I do. All I see is that pain.

"But it beats you lying here missing out on the world. Come on, it's almost hockey season already. Dontcha wanna see your precious Habs?"

*SNIKT*

*Please* stop. I'm better. I'm getting better.

"Then how come you don't wake up?"

Why are you doing this, Logan?

"I already told you. It's the fastest way for you to get better. You were doing a crappy job on your own."

*SNIKT*

Last I remember, you were about to kill me.

"You saved Rogue. You got her into that mess in the first place, and I 'm not ready to sweep that under the rug. But you knew what would have happened had I tried to save her and you risked your own life for mine and the kid's."

She's all right?

"Most of the time she is. Of course, you've got her completely freaked about child birth."

*SNIKT*

Eighteen hours of labor wasn't fun for me, either. But why are you doing this *now*? I've been floating for a while...

"Toques."

Huh?

"Rogue asked me about why you remembered me walking through the forest wearing a woolen toque. I hadn't figured out that it was a sign you were messing with my dreams until she asked. I hate hats, you know."

I know. You kept taking them off in your dream. But it was the only way I could think of to signify that it wasn't going to turn into a nightmare.

"Why'd you bother in the first place?"

The first time, it was to get some sleep. Your nightmares... I couldn' t sleep with all the emotion you were radiating. After that, it was just nice to see your aura pink.

"Pink?"

Contentment.

"For girls and boys?"

*SNIKT*

For everyone... A question, Logan.

"Shoot."

Does anyone really want me to wake up?

"You think I'd be sitting here with the paper flexing my claws if the answer was no?"

You do what you want, you always have. But Xavier, the others...

"They're all fuzzy-wuzzy around here, Mali. They'll take in anyone. You'll be on a real short leash for a while, but..."

Then go tell them I'm awake, more or less. And stop with the claws for a while. I want to sleep.

"You've been sleeping all summer, sweetheart." He rose. "But I'll take the hint and leave ya alone for a while."

***

It was bitter cold at dawn. Logan pondered making a cup of coffee before he left, but that would wake the house and that would mean having to say goodbye to everyone.

Don't leave without saying goodbye to Rogue, he heard a familiar voice in his head. Sleepy, as if she had woken up just for this.

I'm not goin' anywhere, he replied. He hadn't explicitly told Mali that he was leaving, although he knew she knew he was planning to do so.

Have you not sufficient experience in the futility of lying to telepaths?

He pictured a rather rude gesture in his mind's eye and heard her chuckle.

Just make sure you say something to Rogue. She's going to be very upset if you don't.

I don't want to wait around until everyone's up.

You don't have to..

"You runnin' again?"

Logan turned and saw Rogue standing there in her nightgown and robe.

"Got some things to do."

She nodded, understanding and at the same time not.

"What are you doing up at this hour anyway?"

"Nightmares," she shrugged. Excluding the three resident telepaths, Logan probably knew more about her nightly battles than anyone. "Will I ever see you again?"

He nodded. And then he thought of something.

"I gotta come back for these," he said, taking off his dog tags and handing them to her.

Rogue smiled shyly.

He didn't stop until well after nightfall - gotta build up a sufficient head start in case One-Eye wants his bike back - and it was only then that he realized that there was one item in his bag that he hadn't put there.

One brand-new woolen toque.

The End