Wir Sind Keine D�monen

The Wolverine caught her scent before Logan did. Innocent young girl smell, strange, mixed with travel grime and the faint traces of blood, not her own, and smoke not like that which filled the bar. The Wolverine would remember such facts without sharing them with Logan until much later. Breathing returning to normal between fights, Logan had still been focused on the distinct absence of the usual fight euphoria. These guys didn’t stand a chance, either half-drunk or just stupid, they were hardly worth the force that knocked them down. It had been driving the animal mad, unable to release his pent-up violent urges. He focused on the smells of the bar. Cloying, overwhelming and unpleasant, the scents of beer, tobacco smoke, human sweat, perfume on the loose women, aftershave or stinging aerosol deodorant on some of the men, bloodlust, regular lust, urine, grime and unwashed trucker usually repressed the Wolverine, who could not stand so much of it. Then Logan noticed the smell of flowery girl’s deodorant. It struck a discordant note in his awareness, but he did not look up. His nostrils flared and he took in a little more of the scent as she passed the cage, staring at him.



Something in her scent gave both Logan and the Wolverine pause. It was the very faintest undertone: slightly crisp, and almost electric. Then the next fighter entered the cage, and he lost his train of thought.



Rogue stepped carefully in the bar. She had been extremely careful since she was forced to leave Jack. The attack had left her scared, and she was running thin now–money getting harder and harder to stretch out, and safe-looking rides more and more scarce. She must have lost whoever was looking for her, at least. The attack was months ago, and they could have taken her at any time on the road, she seemed sure. It was one month since she had even really thought about them as an imminent threat. Now she was just careful to avoid giving out any information about what she was, and she had done well. She hadn’t touched anyone, and had been paranoid and careful enough to avoid being forced to touch anyone. Cody’s voice had returned, but the ambiguity between her thoughts and his still unsettled her. The others, save for a few odd habits, were gone. She sat at the bar craving bourbon or vodka, but ordering water because she knew her green cloak made her look young and she didn’t trust any man in the room enough to risk the slightest intoxication.



She eyed the man in the cage for a moment, but quickly looked away. Scolding herself a little, she told herself lust and trust differed in more than just spelling. Yes, the man was hot, but not only was he a strange cage-fighter, but if she did touch him she would kill him before they got up to anything fun. She watched the television over the bar, and allowed herself to enjoy being out of the cold for a while. Running out of money, and being in the middle of nowhere in bumfuck, Alberta, she was beginning to worry about the future.



A figure sat down at the bar some distance away. Looking over, Marie saw the cage fighter, a cigar in one hand. He looked back at her for a moment, and she looked down. The television caught her attention again. The news was talking about mutants. The word “dangerous” was used. Tensing throughout her body, her throat constricted and she found her glance turning to the fighter again. Again, brief eye contact. He looked…not uneasy, she decided, but almost a little challenging, and maybe a little resigned. Rogue began to wonder. Then…



Stupid man, a sore loser who wanted his money, threats, the “m” word, returned threats, her warning, the knife, the gun and the claws–she remembered it all as a flash later. He looked at her before he left, and she knew that expression. He had expected fear and hatred, so he looked half-defiant half-defeated. Rogue sat in shock for a moment, even as he left. Her mind went from zero to absurdity in under a second.



She found it perfectly understandable that he was surprised to find her in his trailer.



Logan found her distinctly strange. She smelled innocent, and had that sort of beauty in her pale face framed in dark brown hair, but her even darker eyes were haunted–and not in the broken, used way he had seen in women on the road so often. She was too young and too old, and he sensed a spitfire under her caution. She wasn’t afraid of him, but something had scared her real bad.



Her scent was odd too. That very slight anomaly, crisp like untouched snow but with an electric essence beneath it, and he couldn’t figure it out. He felt a strange ease with her, though. Considering that he had no memory of experience with teenagers, let alone strange ones like her, it was a very strange ease. He thought it might just be because she was a mutant, and she knew he was, but that wasn’t the case. He had met other mutants. He had been discovered before. He was still trying to figure out why he had let her in his truck shortly before he was flung through the windshield. Then, of course, it all went to hell.



~



Jean stared at the two subjects in the medical bay. One unconscious mutant with a healing factor, and one girl in a green cloak who the professor said was difficult to read–an intimidation if ever there was one. The girl wouldn’t let anyone touch her. She spoke little, not trusting anyone. Jean approached her carefully. Dark brown eyes met green. Jean’s brow furrowed. The girl was familiar.



“Hello, I’m Dr. Jean Grey,” Jean said gently. The girl stared wordlessly at her. Jean touched the side of her neck, but finding no stethoscope, remembered it was on the table behind her. With a thought, it floated easily into her hand. The girl’s eyes widened, and then met Jean’s again. Jean hesitated. “We’re all mutants here,” she promised.



“There have been mutants coming after me,” the girl said very quietly, her dark eyes suspicious. She spoke with a southern drawl. Jean’s brown furrowed.



“Mutants?” she asked. The girl nodded, and her hood fell back. Her dark hair was messy underneath, and she tried to smooth it with gloved fingers. She muttered something about a fire. Jean shook her head. “We don’t do violence,” she said. The girl arched a brow. Jean reconsidered. “Well, we do, but we save mutants like you, whether it be from Sabertooth, who attacked you and…” she trailed off, glancing at Logan.



“He was givin’ me a ride.”



“I see…”



“Ah’m sorry ‘bout bein’…distant. Ah couldn’t tell who was tryin’ to help…if Ah was safe.”



“I understand,” Jean said softly.



“Ah’m Rogue,” the girl said. “I guess you’re wonderin’ about my mutation and all.”



“Yes. The Professor can sense your mind, and tell you’re a mutant, but your mutation seems to make actually reading your mind rather difficult, even by his standards,” Jean admitted. Rogue told her, and though youthful her face was cold and stony as she prepared to face pity. Instead, to her surprise, Rogue found understanding. Jean rested a latex-gloved hand on her arm.



“When I first manifested, it was like my entire head just opened out and everyone’s thoughts were deafening me, and whenever I thought something it almost destroyed some people’s thoughts. It was terrible. I hardly remember anything for a while after those first few hours, and I lost myself until Professor Xavier and Erik Lensherr picked me up and brought me here,” she murmured. Rogue looked at her in awe. Jean looked back. She knew Professor Xavier understood her, but he knew everything. Scott understood her as best he could without being a telepath. Rogue was different somehow. The connection was almost immediate, and neither of them had to use their mutant power on the other to get it. Rouge held out her gloved hand, and Jean shook it. They shared a smile.





~





Jean always seemed to be busy in the med lab or with the professor of late. Rogue was left to her own devices.



There were teenagers everywhere. Rogue had never felt more out of her element. There was a cute blond boy shooting curious glances at her. There was a hyperactive Asian girl wearing an unholy amount of yellow clothing who stared at her cloak hungrily as a pyromaniac might stare at kindling, and Rogue sensed an impending attempt at a fashion makeover from her. Her ears, so attuned to picking up people whispering out of interest in her own safety, now all but burned with the constant barrage of people talking. There were so many people here, and she had to make sure none of them touched her skin at the very least. She also planned on avoiding teenage drama, getting hurt, letting her guard down and maybe getting into the swing of that “school” idea again. The scholarly aspects she found surprisingly easy to regain. The people skills lagged behind.



She found herself missing the road. When Logan regained consciousness, she sought him out. He was a little surprised, but that may have been her wardrobe. She took off her heavy cloak for a while, and wore a clingy top with billowy sleeves that ended at the elbow, showing off her long gloves. It was casual by her terms, especially with blue jeans.



Logan had escaped the masses by sitting and reading a book on a comfortable couch in the library. Rogue suddenly appeared from behind a bookcase. He looked up at her and arched a brow. She looked antsy.



“You okay, kid?” he inquired. She worried her lower lip between her teeth.



“Ah like this place, Ah really do,” she said evenly, then faced him. In her eyes he clearly read panic. “Ah’m just beginnin’ to realize Ah don’t do well in contained spaces with normal people for long periods of time, anymore.” One she finished, her lower lip quivered for dramatic effect. He laughed.



“Welcome to my world, Marie,” he chuckled. She smiled a little wryly, and sat near him on the couch. There was a little over a foot of space between them, and Logan felt oddly relieved that it wasn’t because of his personality or claws this time.



“How do ya deal with it? Ah mean…Ah feel like I just need to run the hell outta the room and like…climb up a tree and hide,” she confessed. Logan looked at her appraisingly.



“How long were you on the road?” he asked curiously. Rogue’s brow furrowed as she tried to remember what she had been told the date was. She had lost track of time quite a few times.



“Uhm…somewhere over a year,” she estimated. Logan was silent. She turned and looked at him and saw his eyes wide. Her mouth quirked a little in amusement. “Surprised, sugah?”



“Yea. You don’t look…”



“Ah don’t look like Ah suck the life out of people if they touch my skin, do I Logan? Appearances don’t mean much, on the road or otherwise,” she murmured. Logan tilted his head, giving her another appraising look.



“I guess not,” he assented.



“You answer my question now,” she reminded. Logan sighed, putting a marker in his book and setting it off to the side.



“I don’t deal with it very well. I scare people. I’m good at it. People let me be because I’m a badass motherfucker,” he said simply. Rogue pouted, and he noticed for the first time the distracting nature of her lips, then berated himself sternly.



“That doesn’t help me,” she told him.



“You want advice from the badass motherfucker with metal claws and a fucked up memory?”



“Ah hid in his damn trailer, didn’t Ah?” she countered. Logan raised one eyebrow again, but this time it was accompanied by a small amused smirk. Rogue remembered the same response when she asked him what kind of name ‘Wolverine’ was, and smiled back a little.



“Apparently. So clearly you are insane. Let people know it and they’ll leave you be,” he offered. Rogue shot him an utterly sardonic look.



“Logan, Ah’m trying t’ figure out how to handle these people on a day t’ day basis, not how to make sure they keep the hell outta my way for a while. Besides, Logan, some of them are teenage boys, they practically seek out the craziest possible women t’ hook up with,” she sighed. Logan considered this.



“Then I would suggest being sane, but that would obviously be a stretch for you,” he teased. Rogue raised both of her eyebrows at him.



“The badass motherfucker teases innocent hitchhikers about insanity?” she asked. Logan snorted. “It’s just that the words ‘badass’ and ‘tease’ are hardly put together very often…”



“Alright, you want advice?”



“Yes Oh Captain, My Captain?”



“Save that for Scooter.”



“Scooter?”



“Scott, Cyclops, One-Eye, whatever.”



“You call him ‘Scooter?’” She was amused. Logan forced himself not to smirk.



“Advice? Yes? No?”



“Suh-yes–SUH!”



“That’ll do. You forget the road.”



A long pause.



“Sir, no sir,” she said quietly. Logan sighed.



“Yah need to be a kid, live your childhood for a while,” he advised. Rogue shook her head.



“Logan, Ah lost my childhood when my parents threw me out, and Ah stopped bein’ a kid sometime between the creeps on the road tryin’ t’ touch me and the loss and gain of a second family ‘cuz of mutants like the one that attacked us,” she murmured, running a hand through her hair. “Ah can’t just pick up where Ah left off ‘cuz I’m at least one year and a hell of a lotta miles away.”



A long silence passed between them. Logan turned to face her.



“Look kid, I had my memory taken away. I woke up fifteen years ago with nothin’ but a lotta instincts, a name, and these tags,” he said, lifting the chain to show her the tag. “I don’t have a childhood, and I barely have an adulthood, and it’s shit. You shouldn’t have a big gap in your life like that,” he said seriously. Rogue stared.



“The ones who took your memory…the metal,” she murmured.



“Yeah,” he said, lowering the tags. Rogue nodded, and he saw no pity in her eyes as she absorbed the information. Sympathy and concern pulled together in her expression, but the lack of pity struck a chord. The same one she had struck that made him let her in his truck.



“Ah can try, Logan, but some gaps don’t fill.”



~



Distantly, she could feel a faint pressure. It was not something tangible like touch, but just this faint pressure. It made the room blur before her. It had been like this before when she absorbed people. She would run, she would pass out somewhere and have very strange, involved dreams where she was the person she absorbed, and their presence would remain in her mind. With Cody it had been overwhelming, and she had been unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours. She woke to hear the doctor explaining mutancy to her parents. After that she had learned to control it a little. If she needed to she could put off the dreams, keep from sinking into the new psyche in her head. With some of her lighter touches, or deliberate ones, she had not needed the dreams at all.



This one was not in her control. She had taken too much, and taken some things that she didn’t understand. She could hear everything. People on the other side of the mansion calling her name: they were looking for her. The pressure became a little more insistent. Rogue kept walking. She felt grass under her feet. The pressure had a faint voice.



Her ability to drain memories is slightly psychic…

I think she’s sensing me…

Astral images…



It was Professor Xavier’s voice. Rogue hesitated. He could help sort out her mind, maybe? The idea of letting someone in her head to control it for her made her skin crawl, and made Logan’s semi-aware psyche in her head metaphorically convulse in fear. Curiosity made her pause, but she immediately continued walking. She needed trees. She needed solitude. As a child she had run away now and then, always careful not to catch her parents’ notice, and she would sit in the woods. Climb up a tree and listen to the quiet away from televisions and electricity. Her parents had thought she might have “psychological issues” long before she had been revealed as a mutant, which surely explained everything.



She purrs. Do normal teenagers still climb trees? The principal used the word “growl.” Rogue grinned idly to herself. She blamed them for raising her with three cats in the house. The wet grass was a sharp sensation, cool to her nervous heat. The need to fall aside and sleep seemed more and more appealing. Rogue shuddered. How much had she taken from him, she wondered. He had stabbed her, and saved her life. She hadn’t felt bad. Part of her mind had blinked a few times and said, Oh, I’m going to die, now. She had felt her pulse slow, seen the guilt and horror on Logan’s face. She had just wanted to comfort him, and maybe remind herself what another person’s skin felt like.



Now his emotions leaked into her thoughts as they had rushed over her at that touch. Guilt, pain, horror: this great tragic emotion, like watching the Mona Lisa set on fire. He felt like he had destroyed something precious, something he had wished he could understand.



Dimly, Rogue was aware that she had managed to climb a large oak and curl up in a depression from which four massive limbs spread out. She felt the pressure on her mind again. She sensed Xavier’s alarm.



Get out of my head, sir, she thought loudly, on instinct. The pressure faded. So did the world.



~



Rogue knew she was dreaming. She tried to anchor herself. It was like she had taken a mind and a half. The Wolverine was used to existing primarily in the mind and not tangibly. To her surprise, he helped her. It was only half-dreaming now. Her mind was awake, but working on instincts not her own. Rogue could feel herself standing, feel her eyes open, but knew her body was curled up in a tree. She wore jeans and a shirt, but knew her body was in a nightgown. It took several attempts to perfect it.



“Where…” she looked around. Everything was blurred. Distantly she was aware of important boundaries. She saw a dim shape in the distance. A man, standing and trying to look in. Rogue squinted. His form was crystal clear, and beside him…



“Is that Jeannie?” Logan muttered. Rogue jumped. “Yea, that’s her and Wheels.”



Rogue took a moment, her awareness loosing cohesiveness for a moment when she turned to face him and tried to speak. She wanted to say, "Wheels?" It was hard. In the end she did not speak. Logan looked at her oddly. He was a little clearer than she was, and dressed in only the drawstring pants he had been sleeping in. His hair was messy from sleep. Behind him, half in his shadow, was the same man and not the same at all. The Wolverine eyed her. For a moment, Rogue stared, seemingly about say something, then looked at the professor again.



“Hey!” she shouted. The professor seemed to perk up, looking around blindly in front of him. “He can’t see us…”



“Can’t see into your head,” said one of the other dim shapes. Rogue was used to his voice. It was Jack.



“You think?” she asked.



“It make sense to me,” he offered. Rogue nodded.



“Rogue, help me in. I can help you if-“



“Professor!” she interrupted. He stopped. “If Ah need your help, Ah’ll ask it,” she called. Xavier’s astral form seemed to hesitate, but Jean’s rested a hand on his shoulder, and they both eased away. Rogue relaxed.



“He wanted to help,” Cody protested. Rogue shrugged.



“Ah’ve enough people in my head. The difference is that he can get back out and remember everythin’ he might have seen.” She heard the Wolverine growl in agreement and turned to look at him. For a moment she saw them all. Cody looked back, transparent and little more than a voice. Some of the others were like him. Jack was a little more established, and so was the singer she had accidentally touched. Logan and the Wolverine were sharply defined against them.



They all watched her. Rogue didn’t want to be there anymore, suddenly. And she wasn’t.



She was dreaming.



~



“I don’t understand, Charles,” Jean murmured. “You told me no one who isn’t a telepath can completely block off their mind. Why is hers so…difficult?”



Charles Xavier’s face was a mixture of reluctant awe, worry, and confusion, not quite masked by his constant air of calm. If Jean had not journeyed with him to help Rogue, she would scarcely be able to see it. Xavier sighed heavily.



“Her mutation is one of the strangest I have ever seen,” he murmured. “To take life-force I have seen before, but she also receives a flood from their minds. She is not a telepath like you or I, Jean, but she is similar. Instead of reaching into the mind of another her mutation seems to bring it directly into her own. As you or I might enter the Astral Plane directly, or more usefully through Cerebro, her mind has her own island there, bordered off from the rest by the bounds of her mind. You heard her speak to us…”



“Yes, I did,” Jean seemed to be trying to reassure herself. “I couldn’t see her…”



“Neither could I,” Xavier told her. “I could sense her mind, but not see into it.”



“Yes, I could feel it, but there was no place to enter. Most minds, it’s just the right touch and they open. Hers would take…force.”



“And she said she did not need our help. I can only hope that she is right, or that she will ask soon.”



~



Maybe a good part of it was her newest mental occupant. She had always been a runner. Most of the time she had gotten used to coming back. The first time she had neglected to do so, it was because of what she knew waited for her at home in Meridian. Then it had been her desire not to put Jack in danger anymore. Now…



She knew that he hadn’t sounded like the Bobby who put an ice rose on her desk when he told her how scared the other students all were. Then again, her dad hadn’t sounded like the same man who helped his little girl carve pumpkins their first Halloween in Meridian when he called her an abomination and lifted his hand to hit her. She knew he had only hesitated because of her skin.



So she ran. In the back of her mind Logan was cussing, and she ignored him. Cody, faded as he was in her mind now, protested fervently. Jack trusted her judgment. The Wolverine just liked running. If anyone else had opinions, they were drowned out.



She counted her money, debated, and started walking for the train station. She enjoyed her still advanced senses, despite the guilt she felt using them. However, past the pleasant smells of the Mansion’s gardens, she felt them more as an annoyance. A motorized vehicle was deafening at first, and the smell within her first hitched ride made her stomach churn. Yet, she noted with a degree of regret, they began to fade half way into the city.



By the time she reached the train station, all that lingered was heightened awareness of her own senses, which she clung to. She knew a useful habit when she saw one.



~



It had been a time of learning for Rogue. She learned that she could absorb another mutant’s powers. She learned that when taking enough to save her own life, the version of them in her head was much more versatile, independent and in-depth than her previous absorptions. Above all, she learned not to try and wake Logan from the throes of a nightmare while within the range of his claws. On a related note, she also learned what those claws felt like.



The Logan in her head was an…interesting development, although it placed unusual tension on her friendship with Jean. Rogue learned what it was like to be attracted to women. On a related note, she learned what Jean’s ass felt like and how to hopelessly disgruntle Scott. She learned that she liked it on both counts.



Scott learned that there were worse things than Logan calling him ‘Scooter’: like Rogue calling him ‘Scooter’ in class. Marginally worse, Rogue referring to Professor Xavier as "Wheels."



She also learned to hate teenagers. Mystique would learn her lesson later.



~



Watching Erik Lensherr work had been awe-inspiring despite her distinctly sullen and tear-riddled mood. It was one thing to be abruptly stabbed on accident, and quite another to be violently kidnapped, handcuffed, and quite definitely going to die–and to know it was coming. Yet, Erik Lensherr kept her attention. Mystique had been mesmerizing to watch transform, sure enough. Toad wasn’t bad conversation outside the perverse comments, and had actually offered to play cards with her. Because of her handcuffs he held her hand in his tongue so that he could not see it, and would pluck out the cards she indicated to put them in play. Sabertooth would sniff the air and glare at her until she felt like a caged mouse on the edge of a snake pit. He kept her on edge, especially with Logan in her mind now. She had growled at him the first time she saw him, and he had been taken aback. Now he just looked pissed.



Mystique was like something shiny, so she attracted the eye. Sabertooth was a threat, so she kept track of him. Toad was a perverse asshole she felt the distinct urge to set on fire, and he was talkative, so she paid attention to him. Magneto was the leader, so he had the attention of all. Rogue found herself watching his face, reading him to the best of her ability; watching his hands move gracefully and metal react as if hypnotized under his sway; examining him every time he spoke, his followers reacting as if hypnotized under his sway; and she realized how much they believed in him. Toad asked her which card she wanted to put down. She had two left.



“Your left,” she said without looking. Toad pulled down the ace of spades. All that remained in her hand, and thus Toad’s tongue, was a Jack of clubs. Her knuckles itched and she shifted in her cuffs. She watched her killer and for the umpteenth time weighed her chances. She glanced at the Jack of clubs and wondered if Logan was awake.



~



She put it off. She had never absorbed two people in a day. She put off the inevitable dream. It had been bad enough on top of the statue with everything rushing in, and then being pulled so forcefully back out except those memories.



When the pain had gotten too bad all she could see were memories. Her own passed quickly. Faded memories from others she had absorbed. Colorful, violent and confused ones from Logan. Then Magneto, but once it was over she would never again call him that. He was Erik Lensherr. She had thought Logan’s nightmares were bad, with the smells of fear, the sounds of laughter and champagne glasses, acrid metal and flesh filling every sensory perception. She had thought Jack’s memories of loss and heartache, the deaths of wife and children, had been painful. She could smell burning flesh, feces, sweat, and despair. She could feel helplessness, loss of beloved family, the call of warping metal, the song of electromagnetic fields, the deep pangs of starvation, hopelessness. She could see the smoke billowing up to the sky and knew the hard, animal, unbearable thoughts that came to people in the camps. She knew hate so overpowering she knew it caused some of the older psyches she had absorbed to fade before it. Only pain filled her, and much of it was not her own, but she knew it had become hers.



Toward the end she knew she was dying. Everything had begun to coalesce. Claws, camps, blues, betrayal, and everything. It wasn’t pure pain anymore. It was the rest of their lives beginning to reach her. Then she knew she was not going to die, but that she was probably already dead.



When it suddenly stopped, she felt nothing and it was a relief. She was too tired to breath, and could dimly hear her own heartbeat in her ears as it slowed. Unaware of her saviors, unaware of the machine’s destruction, she could not think and was content to listen to the last tentative pulses of her life.



Only dimly did she feel herself lifted. It was being touched that begun to take her attention away from her heartbeat. Still, she was aware of it fading. Sound could not reach her, yet warm touch on her face. She felt her lungs burn, but lacked the strength to make them work. Warm skin, she could feel it on her face. She wanted to wake up.



Then the pull started.



Flood of sorrow, pleads for her life not her own, fragile hope, and then strangely relieved pain; so much relief that she was pulling strength and life from him. She felt energy flowing from him into her lifeless, drained body and it hurt and it burned like being electrocuted, but it healed with his mutation and her eyes snapped open.



Rogue winced, remembering his fall. Upon recovering from her daze a little, she had examined his wounds, put on his gloves and set about lifting him. She had one of his arms over her shoulder and had begun tenuously lifting them both when it occurred to her to try Magneto’s abilities. She reached out to the metal in his bones and carefully urged it to lift him some. Half-carrying, half-floating him, she had met the X-men halfway up to “save” her. They stared.



“Rogue?” Jean asked tentatively. She had wondered how much control Rogue might have of her own mind. Rogue arched a brow sardonically, which caused the telepath and her fiancé to exchange worried glances.



“He’s hurt,” Rogue had said in her best little girl voice, which was to say her least Logan-like voice. Scott looked at her again.



“You carried him down by yourself?” he inquired.



“Ah’ve got a little of Erik’s powers leftover…”



The leather-clad lovebirds exchanged glances again.



“Will ya help meh already?” Rogue snarled. They jumped a little and moved to help me so Storm could pick us up in the jet. Jean kept asking Rogue if she was okay.



Logan? Rogue thought.



Yes? inquired his psyche’s voice in her head.



Ah know ya like Jean. Ah even understand why, but really, she worries too much. Nags too much. Find somebody else.



She heard him laugh a little and calmed. Unfortunately calm made her tired and she felt the dreams press harder. Rogue ignored it. She was still shaking from adrenaline, so sleep would not easily overcome her.



“Ah’m alright, Jean. Ah…Ah’ll need some time t’ myself that’s all,” Rogue managed. Jean put a hand over hers and looked her in the eye. Rogue looked back, half-buzzed on endorphins, adrenaline and nerves, but still even-headed.



“You got a large dose of two strong psyches today. If you need help…”



“I know. Thanks Jean,” Rogue said quietly, and meant it. “Ah just…Ah don’t want anyone in my head that doesn’t hafta be, especially if they can get back out after they’ve gotten a look around.” She shook her head and went to run her fingers through her hair, stopping at the last second as she smelled the blood on her borrowed gloves. Glancing at where they almost touched her hair, she finally realized something. Rogue yelped.



“M-my hair!” she choked. Jean blinked.



“You…hadn’t noticed?”



“Ah was kinda understandably distracted,” she growled. “Between worryin’ about Logan, calmin’ myself down and justly kickin’ Erik in the ribs a couple times, I didn’t take the time to notice Ah had undergone a change in hairstyle.” She glared at Jean a little. Blinking a few times in rapid succession, the telepath stared for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Rogue laughed too. Scott and Orroro looked over their shoulders at them from the cockpit in confusion, but they kept laughing. Some of it was a little hysterical, but it felt good. It was a little healing. They needed it.



~



Rogue had never had problems like this before. Erik was too ambitious, there was too much of him, and he was too strong. It had started with little slips of his presence. A droll comment here or there, which Rogue actually found amusing and could ignore, and an increased tendency to speak German without noticing, which she could not though it did remain slightly amusing. When she found herself tempted to go chat with professor Xavier, she would wonder what they would “chat” about. When she found herself drawing out plans for escape from a plastic prison, she realized she had a definite problem on her hands.



Reluctantly, she sought out Xavier. Unfortunately, this only made it worse.



“Hello, Charles,” she drawled. Xavier looked mildly disturbed. Rogue pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Sorry, Charles–Chuck–er…Ah’m just sorry,” she managed.



“Rogue are you alright?” he asked, very worried. Rogue’s vision blurred and for a moment he seemed to stand and step toward her, then he was in his chair again. He steered it around his desk.



“Nein, Herr Xavier,” she mumbled. Idly, she fell into an empty seat on the other side of his desk. “Er…it was bad earlier today but with you here–he’s been trying to get me to come talk to you all day I think. Damn it!” Rogue felt a faint pain in the back of her head. One or two ambitious psyches, perverts from the road, had tried to hurt her before. The sharp pains had been the same. The slipping had not been.



“She thought she could control me, Charles. A little overconfident, but only a little. She’s a dangerous girl you’ve got here, Charles. I could not have begun to imagine had I not been in here,” he said, and Rogue felt her lips move and her voice deepen. She tried to struggle but it was less physical than it had been. She could sense something else building somewhere else, though.



“Rogue, Rogue!” Xavier called. He had been stunned by the sudden change, but her expression changed again, her eyes inward. She was projecting. She had never projected before…



It was all very obscene, but if curses helped vent her anger...



Some of the anger wasn’t hers.



A growl rattled from deep in her chest. Xavier’s eyes widened. Rogue relaxed a little.



“That was fuckin’ weird,” she murmured, massaging her temples.



“What happened?” Xavier asked, still slightly in awe.



“Erik’s been messing with me all day in little ways. I suppose it was building up to get me to do something to bring him out. Seeing you must have done it,” she murmured. Her accent had toned down remarkably, and seemed to be now as clear as Erik’s but with a rough edge like Logan’s. “Wolverine kinda pulled him down,” she said incredulously. She looked up at Xavier firmly. “I want you to help me contain Erik, but that’s all. No other part of my mind is to be touched, or even glanced at.”



“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Xavier assured her. Rogue nodded a little.



“I know, for the most part. I got some of that from Erik.”



~



Reluctantly, Marie let the Professor into her mind and he locked up Erik. Rogue sensed his mixed emotions, his faint regret, and some of the guilt he felt that he could not remove Magneto. He offered to contain Logan.



“I need to be contained?” Logan had asked. Marie looked at him, then the professor.



“Ah think he’s fine,” she told the professor, and he left. He had not learned her real name, and Marie felt that it was somehow important.



“You really okay with me in here, Marie?”



“Yes, Logan,” she looked at him a smiled. “Ah’m sure you can find ways to be helpful.”



“You want me to be like your conscience?”



“Better than Cody.”



“Hey,” Cody complained.



“Shut up, Cody,” Marie and Logan said in unison. He shut up.



“Yes, well, first boyfriend or not, Marie, the guy’s a pansy.”



“I know. And he’s been in here for over a year.”



“My sympathy, darlin’.”



“I’m not that bad!” Cody insisted.



“Shut up, Cody,” they said again.



“Yes, you’re far better off than I am anyway,” Erik drawled.



“Didn’t Wheels lock him up?”



“If I feel like letting him comment, he can.”



“And you want him to?” Logan sounded incredulous.



“He actually has a good sick sense of humor,” Marie shrugged. Logan gaped. “I still hate him. Just not his sense of humor, most of the time.”



“Or my refined tastes,” Erik added. Marie arched a brow.



“Some of them. You’re still a weird terrorist freeloading in my mind.”



“That’s a girl,” Logan encouraged.



“Thanks, sugah.”



When Rogue woke up, she felt more mentally stable than she had in her life. Then she ran into Bobby again and growled at him before anyone could explain Mystique’s trick. She was intrigued when he still liked her. The Logan in her head continued to growl.



~



When Logan actually got up, and began thinking again, he began to contemplate.



I’m in her head.



We’re in her head, Wolverine corrected. Logan flinched, feeling a trickle of guilt at having corrupted her. Wolverine scoffed.



She’s…like us.



She’s a teenage girl.



She’s like us, the Wolverine insisted. Logan shook his head as he dressed, buckling his belt, but in a strange way he knew what the beast meant. Once clothed, his feet began to move as he thought.



He wanted out of this place. Pansy-ass he may be, but Scooter was leader here and it was his turf. Professor X didn’t count. He was the sort that hovered above bestial rulings half of Logan seemed to obey. Wolverine wanted to move on, Logan wanted to disentangle himself from this superhero shit. Yet…



He caught a glimpse of brown and white, and looked up. Out on the grounds, her back to the mansion, Rogue was stretching. Her posture gave off an air of restless energy Logan was familiar with. She got to her feet and popped her neck not as Logan did by merely twisting his head, but by placing a hand on the top of her head and one on her chin and gently urging her head’s movements until her neck popped with surprising volume. Then she shook out her arms and took up a martial arts stance. Logan tilted his head.



He had seen martial arts done, and it had always struck odd, familiar chords in the back of his mind. Watching Rogue move, he found fewer of those chords struck. Her movements were graceful, but alive and strong. Her eyes were closed. The name came to him after several minutes: Tai Chi, the ballet martial art.



Her movements were fluid, but Logan could sense the restlessness, the aggression. He knew it was not his, despite what Jean had said about her having taken on some his traits. Maybe some of them hadn’t been his traits and they were just…similar. Logan turned and walked back into the mansion.



He began packing idly, only pausing really once.



You made a promise, said both halves of his mind simultaneously.



A stack of shirts stopped, not quite making it into the bag just yet. Logan considered.



We’ll come back, the man assured, surprising himself. The beast accepted easily, surprising the man further. Logan packed his shirts, but sat down for a moment before he finished packing.



He had never planned to return to a place just because of a person.



He had never made a promise like this.



He had never let anyone in his truck.



Shaking his head, Logan finished packing and hefted his bag over his shoulder.



Chuck had said he had info.



He would hunt for his past as he had always done. Even if he foudn all he needed and did not require further info from Chuck, he would return anyway. He'd made a promise.