Summary: The Game is over but the impact of it has only just begun. Not everyone will walk away from it unscathed, especially one poor battered thief. Epilogue to the Game. If you haven't read my Game series, you will have no clue what I am writing about, lol, so you might want to check that out before you read this. :)

Rated M for profanity, violence and some sexual content.

Disclaimer : I do not own the X-men or any of their associated villains, but the Siskans, the Dognan, Jael and the Outkasts are mine. Please do not use them without my permission. Thanks. :)

Updated 10-31-13 to add (break)s as needed and do the usual fixing.

(One)

Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, looked up with a scowl as there was a knock on his open door. "Yes, Jeffries?"

"I think you need to look at this, sir."

Fury grumbled to himself. As if he needed anymore work. The last hour had been an exercise in frustration. He was getting alerts of deviant mutant activity from all over the globe and all at once. Mutants were rare and only the tiniest fraction ever caught his notice, for this to be happening now there had to be some sort of deliberate attempt to scramble his ability to watch his small corner of the world. The scary thing was, this same thing had happened not all that long ago when North Korea was threatening use of its nuclear missiles. The screens of every watchdog agency in the world went a little nutty for about an hour and then when the smoke cleared, those nukes were gone, simply vanished into thin air. For this to be happening again meant something big was happening somewhere.

Fury sat still as Jeffries placed two reports on his desk. "This is a newscast from a local radio station near Clancey, Arizona, sir. They are reporting spontaneous thunderstorms and torrential rain. This was our satellite photo from just a few minutes ago."

Fury looked at the photo, the skies were all clear. Now he knew that while it was difficult to manipulate both the radio station and the satellite feeds that his agency was watching, it wasn't impossible. But why would someone do it so they showed the opposite thing happening? "Do we have people in the area?"

"Yes, sir. They said the clouds just came out of nowhere. It's pouring rain out there."

Fury looked at the reports, quietly stewing for a moment. "Xavier. About damn time," he mumbled to himself. He had an idea that something odd was happening today, but he hadn't expected to be handed this little golden nugget. He had been wanting to find out where the X-men had been hiding ever since the Westchester school had been demolished. All attempts to track their whereabouts had been in vain.

"Sir?" Jeffries asked, unsure what his boss was grumbling about.

"Fire up my plane and scramble a crew. I want us in the air and heading out there in five minutes."

Jeffries paused. "Are you sure? I mean, it could be anything."

"My gut tells me otherwise. Do as you're told."

"Yes, sir," Jeffries replied, saluting quickly before he left.

"Xavier..." Fury mumbled to himself. "Looks like your little weather witch just gave you away."

(break)

A great many miles away, deep inside the Arizona Complex, Henry was frantic as he tried to keep up with all of the casualties. The Game had been played outside on the X-men's front lawn as it were, and it was now falling on him to clean up the mess. Now that the bulk of the fighting was done, the walking wounded were finally making it down to his ad hoc hospital.

Henry had prepared for this fight as much as he could, but he could soon see that he hadn't prepared quite enough. The X-men had anticipated that Jael would attack them, but they hadn't counted on his ferocity. There were the usual broken bones and savage cuts, but there were also many folks coming down burned and even partially melted from Jael's use of Dognan energy guns. It was a mess.

While Beast was worried for everyone, his greatest concern was Aiden. He had grown so close to all the Siskans, it was inevitable after having them so constantly around him or detained in his Lab. Though he tried not to show it, losing any one of them would be painful to him indeed and now Aiden's mysterious condition had him on edge. Gambit had brought both Kimble and Aiden down from the fighting and while Kimble had appeared to be simply exhausted, Aiden had reportedly been hit by some kind of energy overload. It was perplexing and somewhat frightening for the big blue doctor - while humans could be medicated and sewn to repair damage, Aiden could not. Things had calmed somewhat outside, enough so that Henry risked taking Aiden down to the Lab for a quick scan.

The results were troubling. Aiden's energy readings were off the charts, he was no longer what he had been before, always something of a concern. Beast had so little data on the Siskans - he was teaching himself on their care as he went along - and so wasn't quite sure how to proceed other than making sure Aiden was as comfortable as possible. Aiden was hot and feverish, his inorganic body sweating a light sheen of gel as it attempted to bring itself under control. There was little Henry could do to assist.

Aiden had slept briefly after Henry had received him but now the Siskan was dreaming and unable to wake, thrashing a bit and moaning, in obvious mental pain if not physical. All attempts to medicate him were useless, he wouldn't sit still long enough to take anything down - not that Henry was at all sure of what to give him anyhow. At least he wasn't vomiting up that strange golden liquid anymore.

There really wasn't anything Henry could have done. Aiden's body was there and solid in the Lab, but his mind was a million miles way. He was changing, finishing a transformation that had begun the moment he absorbed Angel's golden energy. The change could be seen from the outside – his Mark had changed from a pale blue to a rich golden yellow, something new. But as much as he was changing outside, he was changing inside as well.

Aiden was lost inside his own mind. The last Earthly thing he remembered of himself, he had been out on the tarmac and in the thick of the fighting. He had seen Angel there, the one he had come all this way to save, only to next watch her die. He had stood there amazed and stunned as her body split apart, shedding its fleshly shell, and then he was diving for her, for it, the very essence of this child he had grown to love. He only dimly remembered the collision with Angel's ball of energy, he only recalled that it had swallowed him up in searing heat and light. It had vaulted him up into the air and then there had been a rush of data blurring past his eyes.

" 'Elp me!" he screamed out frantically into the storm. "Szomebody! Keemble! Pleasze! Ahhh!"

There had been no reply, only a blur of images he was barely beginning to recognize. The data stream that blinded him had been a playback of his own memories in reverse. He saw himself and Kimble making love only that morning, a quick tumble of warm glorious love, fur and wings. He then saw himself standing in the large communal gym shower with Asher, soaping down the centaur's back as Smee danced in the suds below. He saw Kimble trapped in a sphere of his own making under a tree in the Solarium. That was followed by a blurry image of Angel holding him in her arms, the first time he had met Kimble's Angel for real. The images were coming faster and faster. He saw and felt a vision of Kimble above him and inside of him as they coupled passionately on Kimble's couch, making real love for the first time. This was quickly followed by the sight of Kimble sprawled out on a bathroom floor, trembling hard from what amounted to their first real honest kiss. Aiden then saw that same Kimble walking towards him with a blanket on his shoulders - their reunion the day after Aiden had arrived at the Complex. Then poor Aiden saw Trishnar's murder in the New Orleans palace, a death that was heartbreaking and burned forever into his mind. He next saw an endless stream of clients from his time in Trishnar's harem and then a quick flash of himself leaping through the trees that fronted Trishnar's palace as he chased away a young red eyed Thieves' Guild brat who had dared to break into his Master's house.

Aiden continued to scream for rescue to no avail. He knew what was coming next and he was right. He saw Solestra in all its beauty - Asher's lovely shed barn, Trishnar's parlor, Babette's large bedroom and of course, the giving room where he had been allowed to choose his own skin. After that came Meckland's Lab, the Dognan officer that had given him the worst beating of his life. It came at him, that horrible episode that had shattered him into so many more pieces and then it was gone, followed by another seemingly endless blur of Gladiator battles filled with blood and death. There was a flash of Tillamay, but then she was gone.

Aiden had grown quieter, his panic from the sensory overload fading away into hysterical shock as the data stream wound itself down - he was back on Siska, seeing flash images of Quishnalay, something that hurt as much as he felt tiny sparks of love for his creator that even time had not been able to destroy in spite of how many times he had denied them. Then it all came to a sickening abrupt end and he was floating in a deep black empty space, his body that of a miniature, half formed human fetus, bizarrely illuminated from within, a tiny lamp out in the middle of nowhere.

Aiden knew where he was now - a small tiny file that had remained inactive since the very beginning of his existence informed him that this was his birthing tube, that limbo between idea and creation where all Siskan Courtesans began. He was exhausted now and floating around in the blackness, unable to do anything.

"Aiden?" a voice called out.

Aiden couldn't move or answer, he was beyond that. It was all he could do to simply drift there and breathe. He was, however, slowly becoming aware of a small golden light that was coming towards him from the far away dim.

"There you are."

Aiden saw the light come closer , growing impossibly huge, and then he saw her, Kimble's Angel. She was glowing all golden and bright, a young woman and a girl no more. She was a giant around his embryonic body, making him seem small and insignificant. Her large fingers gently brushed his tiny infant's face. "So beautiful you are. Do you remember what I told you to do?"

"Catch you," Aiden managed to croak, his unfinished voice sounding tinny and broken in the darkness.

Angel smiled at him. "So, are you ready?" Aiden nodded and then she said, "Catch me!"

And Aiden did.

He screamed anew as the data stream ripped through his mind once more, only this time, it wasn't his own memories he saw, they were Angel's. He saw a burning building and then Kimble coming towards him through the smoke, an angel himself. Aiden witnessed a blur of images that followed all with the joy of a child who had never known anything but the purest love - he saw birthdays and toys and playgrounds and endless rides in Kimble's arms as they took flight through the Westchester grounds. He saw a church and a lovely crucifix behind the altar, Remy's hand holding hers as he whispered strange wisdom in her ears - love and truth and honesty and forgiveness and tolerance. There were flash images of Logan's own brand of tough love, self defense classes with just the gentlest brush of a well calloused hand over her head to soothe away the hurts when it was over. Molly was there, voiceless but a true mother in every sense of the word. Aiden witnessed his own first meeting with Angel, only in the reverse, reliving her sense of joy when they had embraced. Always this child had been loved.

It was all speeding up and then it came to the end, to the last day. All along Angel had known who and what she was, though the humans around her were oblivious to it all. She knew she was meant to be sacrificed and that although her physical shell would perish, her energy would not. Aiden had been there to catch her.

The data stream shut itself off and Aiden was once more in the black but this time adult and in his own skin. He was still illuminated and not alone. Angel remained with him there and was now speaking to him. "Do not be afraid. The Game is over, Jael is dead."

"But ze chile..." he slurred in protest, still grieving at his inability to save her. He was reeling from all of this. He was glowing, all the love that Angel had ever known was the light that was inside him now. She was making him glow and soothing the ache inside of him.

"She is here, in me," she replied, not wanting him to worry. "And now she is in you where she can never be destroyed. When you absorbed her energy you won the Game."

"But 'ow?"

"By keeping that energy away from Jael and his Shalayesk machine. If he had taken that energy just as he had from all the other angels, he would have become so terrible you couldn't even imagine. But you, dearest Dreamer, you stopped all that and you shall be rewarded."

"All I ever wanted wasz Keemble."

Angel brushed his face, smiling at him. "Daddy's okay, only badly frightened as you are. Do not worry, everything is going to be fine. The Game is over and the only job you have left to do is keep my Kimble happy for the rest of his life. I have given you gifts to help you do this. Cherish him always."

Aiden smiled then, whispering softly as he returned to sleep, "And 'ere I t'ought you were going to aszk me to do szomet'ing difficult..."

(break)

Three floors above where Aiden lay dreaming, and out on the smoky, dirty tarmac, Remy stood at the top of the stairs that lead under the guard shack, leaning heavily on the safety rail. He was exhausted and shaking but had managed to haul his ass up and get back on his feet. This day had been a never ending nightmare. Gambit was a sneak and a thief, not a mercenary, and in spite of his training, hadn't been able to cope easily with all the death and destruction that had gone on around him. He wasn't made for an all out war like he had just witnessed, plain and simple. Kimble had made an empath of him and his shields hadn't been enough to keep his mind from feeling scraped and raw. He had seen Angel die, a child he regarded as his own daughter. He had seen Kimble and Aiden fall from the sky in a cloud of golden glitter, his most precious of Siskans. He had seen countless fellow X-men die before his very eyes. It was more than he could properly take. He could hardly stand he was shaking so badly.

Logan had only just left him to bring Skye and Kristalay down below. Gambit was still filthy with Jason's blood and covered in soot and ash from all the destruction around him. He could figure out by the increasing silence that the Game was pretty much over, but he was uncertain if Jael was dead or alive. The battle had started with Jael's men pitted against the X-men, but then the Outkasts had unexpectedly shown up and blasted Jael's men away. Jael's army hadn't fared well - his men seemed to have been annihilated, reduced to ash in a wall of plasma and fire. Smoke lay like a heavy fog all around, obscuring everything and making things look surreal, like this had all been a really bad dream.

The battlefield had emptied out as the Outkasts had passed him by a few minutes ago, but Gambit wasn't left alone for long. He watched as two figures walked back the way the Outkasts had gone, out of a cloud of drifting smoke, like ghosts from a nightmare. Time and circumstance had placed a great deal of distance between them, but Remy would never be able to forget these two. Never.

The pair came close, stopping in mutual surprise as they saw Remy there against the rail. The larger of the pair came up close and sniffed at him. "Well, well. Look at who we have here."

Gambit swallowed heavily, trying uselessly to put on his best face. His already horrible day had suddenly grown much much worse.

He knew these two all right – Mayhem and Wipeout, two of the ugliest men he had ever seen in his life. It wasn't a matter of physical appearance, it was the fact that Remy had personally seen these two kill on a scale he could never forget.

Gambit was taken by surprise at the sight of them, but also by a frightful understanding - when Butch's crowd had come to the fore and began to fight, he had seen the spectacular show of fire and plasma, but had never thought about who it might have been to wield that power. He had never expected to see these guys again though he guessed he should have known, seeing as how Butch collected omegas such as these for his army.

Gambit couldn't help but be intimidated. For one thing he was seriously battered and bruised already and two, he was seriously outclassed. These two were not alphas as he himself was, they were omegas. Mayhem was an older man, his brown hair a bit long about the shoulders in an attempt to make himself seem younger. It didn't mean he was weak, he was a plasma producer, strong enough to make Neal Sharra look like a sparkler to the sun.

Wipeout, Mayhem's Asian brother in arms, was the master of spontaneous combustion. He looked at you and you burned, it was as simple as that. It had been something that Jael's men had felt for themselves today, but so had countless Morlocks in the past. It took but one look at the man's face to bring Gambit back there, to the tunnels and the Massacre he was personally responsible for.

Of course Remy knew these men, he had recruited them personally for Sinister all those years ago. Wipeout and Mayhem had been best buddies. As if it had only been yesterday, Remy easily recalled how the pair of them had been jovial and excited as they had been brought down to the tunnels. Remy did not know these men and his empathic powers had not been as fully developed then as they were now, but still they had filled him with unease. They had lingered at the back of the pack of Marauders, Sabertooth was leading, and they had giggled to one another like school girls, as if all of this was going to be so much fun. They would shush as Gambit glanced back at them, hiding their secrets, but it unnerved him just the same. They were sharing racial jokes, mocking the poor Morlocks and being typically cruel.

Gambit himself had had nothing against these Morlocks. The majority of them were harmless betas, just poor souls who looked too odd to pass as normal humans. They were generally harmless and unable to protect themselves, precisely why they had to hide away below ground in these disused tunnels. Remy was a lover of art, something he had gained from his time spent with his adopted father, Jean-Luc. He also respected all life, a Catholic teaching that had stuck with him. He saw betas as the work of God's hand and had always harbored a sort of loving infatuation with them, having to keep himself from staring at them at times. They had horns, they had scales, they had skin of all colors. What could be more beautiful? It was no different than his love fascination with Kimble's blended skin, the wings and the fur as soft as satin. To Gambit, betas were living works of art and should be cherished, not hidden away. If hadn't been for his obligation to Sinister and the empty promise he had been given that none of these exotic creatures would be harmed beyond the prick of a needle and little fright, he would never have been there.

Really, Remy should have known how bad it was going to be. Just in the few minutes that it had taken him to get the pack of Marauders into the first deserted alley where he would later lead them down into the tunnel via a sewer hole, God had given him his first warning. An alley cat had squirted out from behind a bag of trash, alerted by their noise, and Wipeout had laughed and incinerated it. Just like that. With a thought, with a blink of an eye. There was a horrible aborted screech and then it was a smoking pile of ash. No care or regard had been given about its pain or the fact that it was a living breathing creature. It had meant nothing to the man who so thoughtlessly destroyed it and so it had been used for his simple pleasure. Gambit, a long time lover of all animals, shuddered with revulsion and hid his disgust behind a sharply hissed warning for silence. They were trying to sneak in here after all. He turned his eyes away from the pile of ash and descended, leading them down.

It hadn't taken long for things to go from bad to worse. Once he had unlocked the final hidden door to where the small band of Morlocks had made their tiny town, the real monsters had rushed past him and the bloodletting began. Smoke and fire and ash and blood. So much blood.

Now, thirteen years later, Remy found himself standing once more covered in ash and blood, his mind struggling with the duality of horror from today and one from so long ago. Two of those murderous monsters from that day stood before him now, unharmed and unpunished for their crimes, not an ounce of remorse in their eyes. No, that old mischief was still there, just as it had been then.

Remy had gathered his bo staff from the ground earlier and he now raised it in front of him defensively. These guys were no better than Jael and there was no way he was going to allow them downstairs. They might have helped to push Jael's men back, but these men would never be friends or allies as far as he was concerned. His body and mind was one huge agony, but he would stand his ground, he could do no less.

Mayhem just guffawed and advanced, moving easily past Remy's swinging staff. The thief was so wasted, he was moving in slow motion without an ounce of his usual grace. Mayhem shoved past the staff and delivered a hard open handed slap to Remy's face just for the insult of it, and then gave the man a shove with a grunt of distaste. He had seen the sorry state of affairs in the X-man in front of him, there was no real threat. What a joke.

Gambit fell back on his ass hard, gasping for breath, his staff rolling away from him as though he had never had a grip on it. He was white as ash, and already he could feel the panic rising again. Just as it did when he had his nightmares, so now his chest constricted and he couldn't breathe. It was ice cold out here in the Arizona heat and it was getting a little grey and fuzzy around the edges.

Mayhem spat on him with a grin and loomed over him. "What's that? You gonna waste me? Pah, what a joke. Good thing we were around today. You were a pathetic little pussy back in the tunnels, freak, and guess what? You still are now. See you around, Cajun." He laughed and he and his friend went down the stairs to the Complex below, slamming the door with a shout of triumph.

Remy sat on his ass, Mayhem's spittle dripping down his chin, and it came down on him hard, what Mayhem had said. It was true, he reasoned. It had to be. He had been a worthless scrap of mutant trash that day in the tunnels and all pretense of having become anything different in the meantime had vanished in his spectacular worthlessness today. It had been his responsibility to watch the stairs, he had failed. It had been his responsibility to keep Angel and his Siskans alive, it looked like he had failed there, too. Come to think of it, had he done one thing right today? For all he knew, his wife was dead down below. Not that he deserved her. He shivered in violent self revulsion and burst into angry tears.

As if in response to his own agony, the sky darkened to its fullest and then with a loud crack of thunder, the rain that had threatened since this began finally fell in a torrent. Gambit was instantly drenched, blood and grime from this day's ugly battle pouring off of him as he was soaked through. Too little, too late, Remy couldn't help but think. As if this could ever wash him clean.

For a moment, he was struck by the terrible unfairness of it all. He had never wanted to hurt a soul in his life, yet it had happened all the same. He had made one stupid mistake after another, never doing anything right, never measuring up. He felt a terrible surge of jealousy, thinking of all of his teammates, the ones who had never screwed up a day in their lives. They could walk in the sun, they never had to hide their secrets or make excuses. They never had to carry this terrible burden. Why? Why had he been so terribly bad? It was so unfair!

Wolverine had no sooner gone back up the stairs and back out onto the tarmac when he saw what had just happened to Remy. He hadn't been far, yet wasn't close enough to stop the assault on his teammate. He broke into a run but halted momentarily when the downpour hit him, a sudden rain like that playing havoc with his senses. The rain was cold and instantly steaming up the hot pavement all around, turning the area into a sort of sauna. It didn't do much for the stink of war, the ground had been covered in too much blood. At least now some of the fires would be doused out.

He resumed his run and came up to where Remy was sitting, the rain not preventing him from hearing the oddest combination of sounds coming from the kid. He was obviously crying, but was choking on it like he couldn't breathe. Logan toed him with his boot, hoping to snap him out of it. "You okay?"

Logan of course did not immediately recognize the two that had proceeded him or their relationship to the poor stricken thief though he had an idea they were members of the Outkasts. Judging by the violent end to today's confrontation with Jael, it was easy guess that most of Butch's guys were hardened criminals and punks, ones who could easily pick out the weakest link and exploit it. It probably wasn't going to be last show of sparks between the two teams.

Wolverine hadn't heard the conversation but wasn't really surprised by the brief scuffle, only that Remy hadn't held his own. It was the first time he had seen the boy go down so easily but he figured it was just the effects of the day. Remy hadn't been combat effective at all - a first - and he was hopelessly trashed, his face bruised and scuffed.

Gambit raised his eyes at the sound of Logan's voice, seeking relief, but all he saw was horror. Logan was covered in gore, he had been in the thick of the fighting and most of it was still on his clothes. The heavy rain made it pour from Logan's shoulders in bloody red rivulets. It was too much. Gambit bolted without an ounce of grace, nearly falling down the rain soaked stairs like a drunkard in his haste.

He burst through the downstairs door and into the hall, only to see Mayhem and Wipeout talking with Cyclops, the three men at ease, a telling sign that Scott clearly had no idea who he was really talking with. The pair of Outkasts were cordially introducing themselves to Xavier's Second as though they hadn't just assaulted his teammate moments ago. It didn't stop them from noticing Remy now.

Wipeout snickered harshly at the sight of Gambit still so trashed and the thief jerked away, unable to speak. He should be warning Cyclops, he knew it, but all Remy could feel was a sickening lead weight in his guts. He was going to heave, he knew it, but didn't want to do it on front of them.

He staggered down the hall and away, leaving a trail of bloodied rain and water, and found the nearest, smallest space - a Men's Room at the base of the stairs. He flung himself into the nearest stall from the door, vomiting what little was left inside of him through his tears.

He never heard the bathroom door open, but he soon sensed he wasn't alone. At least it wasn't an enemy, Logan had followed him from outside.

Wolverine was calm and quiet, listening in on his teammate but being patient and careful. He knew this day had been bad for his empathic friend. Kimble and Aiden had been transformed into God knows what, Angel was gone. Gambit was not experienced in full scale combat situations, he was a sneak. Today's big bloody battle had been an eyeopener for most of the folks here, the ones that survived anyway.

To pass the time while Remy regained his composure, Logan stripped off his black leather uniform jacket, it had kept most of him dry. He removed his blood soaked T-shirt and started to wash in the sink, cleaning off as much of the blood from his body as he could. It was a bit of waste of time, there was plenty of gore still on him in spite of Storm's cleansing rain. He heard Gambit stop throwing up after a moment and flush the toilet. Then all that remained was the asthmatic, raspy wheeze of the panicked thief's breathing.

Wolverine did not know the exact cause of this particular episode, but he could make an educated guess. There wasn't much difference between the carnage today and that of the Morlock Massacre. It wasn't so shocking a conclusion for Logan to make, this wasn't the first time he had heard Gambit breathe like that. The first time had been shortly after the thief's unexpected return from his exile in Antarctica. A loner like Wolverine, Remy quickly isolated himself from the primary dorming rooms of most of the X-men regulars and the two men shared separate small rooms on the same distant third floor. The first night Remy had returned, Logan had been awakened by the distress of his newly recovered teammate, a nightmare that had left the young man rasping and wheezing just like this. Making sounds he had never made once before he had been left behind in Antarctica. Logan had knocked on the door, but there was no response. Remy wasn't ready to accept the aid from anyone he felt he had betrayed.

The nightmares continued over the years along with all of Remy's attempts at repentance. Of course Wolverine poked around Remy's doings the moment the boy unpacked, the thief's secrecy almost demanded it. He soon learned that Gambit still pulled odd thieving jobs, but always taking from the rich and corrupt. The bulk of his take was donated to local orphanages and churches, something that still continued to this day, though the thief had enough of his own money invested that he no longer had to steal to provide for his donations. Those first years, the ones before Kimble came, Gambit often broke into churches late at night, laying himself flat in front of the ornate crucifixes of the stricken Christ, begging for a forgiveness that would never come because he simply could not forgive himself.

It had been these signs of remorse and personal agony that made Wolverine back Remy's plays, made him keep the others off of his back. It showed that the kid was human, not like the ones who had actually done the killing that day. Wolverine doubted that Gambit's actual kills could be measured out on one hand, but he carried the burden of all that had been taken down in the Massacre. Each and every one.

Some of that burden had been lifted when Kimble came. Not at first, not while Kimble had been gone after their return from Cerise. Gambit had been trashed then, he'd had his empathy boosted and hadn't been dealing with it well. Shemusk, Aiden had called it, as good a name as any. When Kimble returned and was restored, the change in the thief had been profound. The quad had been built and the pilot and thief had shared their brief time together. Not once during that time did Wolverine hear the thief dream like he had. No startled shouts followed by this hysterical, "I'm being slowly choked to death", freight train wheezing. Logan had thought he would never hear it again. Looked like he had just been proven wrong.

Wolverine moved from the sinks and gently pushed open the door to the stall Remy had chosen. He peeked in and saw the boy crumpled against the wall, his head back, his body sitting in a brown puddle of water, blood and soot. He held one hand clenched against his chest as he desperately tried to calm himself. He was better, the breaths were deeper now, not so rapid.

"You all right?" Logan growled, unhappy. Remy was white, the whitest he had ever seen him. His lips were pale, the only color the deep bruising on his cheeks from where he had been abused by Jael's troops.

The thief nodded, the slightest dip of his chin. "You... you got a smoke?"

Wolverine snorted. "You really think that's a good idea? You sound like shit."

"S'il.. s'il vous plait..."

Logan shrugged and returned to his coat, rummaging out a fresh pack of smokes. He shook one out and lit it, handing it over.

Gambit took it, but didn't otherwise move. He took a hit, coughed, but held it in. Another deep drag and he noticeably calmed. "Merci."

"Thank me when ya get cancer."

Remy coughed rough laughter. "Not for dat. For watching over me."

"Anytime, kid. You gonna be okay now?"

"Oui."

Logan nodded and withdrew. He found his radio and sent out a call to Max. Max was a powerful telekinetic, a member of his security staff, and Wolverine had every hope that the kid had survived. He was in luck, Max answered right back from just down the hall and the Lab. "Yeah, I'm still here. I'm okay."

"That's good to hear," Logan replied honestly. With the number of casualties they'd had this day, finding out that anyone was still alive was good news. Max was a personal favorite of his so he was quite pleased. "Is Molly with you by any chance?"

"Yeah, she's here in the Lab and more than a little pissed off. She said something about being knocked out."

Logan grumbled to himself in irritation, having an idea that one of the Siskans was probably responsible. "All right. Keep her there. I'll get Gambit down there in a minute."