II: HEAT AND ICE
Her apology went well. They both apologized, actually, and they talked, and this time, they both listened. The Professor asked, this time, if she would participate in a few tests, so that he would know, too; she agreed to a few.
'But you're right, Rogue,' he conceded. 'We do have to trust you, just as you must trust us. Let us know if there's ever anything we can do to help.'
Ironically, it didn't end up being that big a deal, but she decided not to point that out.
He congratulated her and said how glad he was that she was staying on to help them for the next year. Rogue thanked him and told him how much she appreciated all he had done for her in the past. They agreed to talk again.
Crisis averted.
One of them, anyway.
Rogue and, she surmised, the rest of the school, had looked forward to these few weeks as a time to relax and unwind, but there were more tensions in the school than ever. All of the petty squabbles and dysfunctions that had been suppressed in the mad dash to the end of the semester came simmering up again. To make things worse, the students had nothing to do, and the professors quite a bit more than they wanted, what with the approaching semester only three weeks away.
AND it was the hottest summer on record, and the school—not air-conditioned. Ripe for melodrama.
The first few fights were just minor skirmishes, really, started over the posturing of adolescent boys with mutant powers. Someone begged Bobby to use his power to create a little igloo, a little icehouse in which to cool off, and Bobby, after about three day's trials, had eventually succeeded. The igloo was a bit sorry looking, to be sure, but it served its purpose, with a small entrance and enough room for about four people.
Unfortunately, Bobby's igloo caused a lot of friction, because: 1) it only fit four; 2) he built it in an unprotected area, and it was melting rapidly; 3) Bobby felt he had rights to the igloo. Naturally, the other boys resented Bobby and his igloo, even as they wanted in. And Bobby strutted around rather smugly, insufferably.
It all began with a little taunting, a little griping.
'It's my turn to get into the igloo.'
'No, it's my turn! You were in there a few hours ago.'
'Look, it's my igloo,' Bobby interjected, trying to pull rank, 'and I say who goes into the igloo next.'
'Hey, asshole, it's everyone's now. If you hadn't built it so small, we wouldn't have had this problem. Back off. I'm going in.'
'Get away from there,' Bobby warned, hand raised. 'Without me, there wouldn't be an igloo.'
'Without you, it wouldn't be melting 'cause you were stupid enough to build it right in the middle of the fucking field.'
Etc, etc. Long story short, mutant boys and their mutant powers blew up a bit of the field, wrestled (rather unprofessionally) about, and slammed into said igloo, causing it to shatter and collapse… wait, was anybody?—Kitty!—was inside it.
The fighting halted when the igloo went down, and when the teachers were alerted, the aggressors, Bobby and Sam, were still facing each other warily, huffing, but looking guilty as hell. Rogue and Jubilee, and a few of the students had hastily begun to pick over the remains of the igloo, calling Kitty's name in a plaintive chorus.
Scott and Logan were the first to arrive at the crest of the hill; Scott glanced swiftly and tore down the hill, and Logan paused, surveying the scene, before following.
'What the fuck—' Scott roared, rounding on the two boys, hauling up Bobby by the shirt and throwing him, '—do you think you were doing!' He hauled round and pushed Sam down, too, not gently. Both boys cowered ignominiously on the ground, either side of Scott, as he continued to rain invectives on their heads.
Logan, meanwhile, was tearing into the igloo, throwing away huge ice chunks so frantically that the rest of the students had backed off entirely. Scott was still yelling, when Logan spotted Kitty and gave a bit of a grunt/groan, hefting the remaining ice off of her. Kitty sputtered, and Scott whirled round towards her, as Logan gingerly lifted her out.
She was cut--a little shallowly on her arm and forehead—and she wasn't moving a lot, but she was conscious. Scott, satisfied she was being rescued, turned wrathfully to the boys once more, 'Do you see what you could have done? Have you any idea—?'
Logan cut him off, shortly, 'Scott, lay off them. We have to get her to the med lab.'
'God damn it,' Scott raged, stalking off a few paces, breathing hard. The circle of students made room for him. He hauled Sam up, held the petrified boy up to his eyes and growled, 'You won't want to live if she's hurt.'
'Christ, would you stop fucking fighting?' Logan grated, cradling the badly-shaken Kitty in his arms, and starting up the hill.
'Me?' Scott asked, swinging Sam away from him to confront Logan.
'Get the fuck up here,' Logan called over his shoulder contemptuously. 'We don't have TIME for this now.'
Scott, steaming now, stalked after Logan, and a few of the students trailed in confusion after them, not really sure if they wanted to know what would happen next. Rogue hurried up the hill after them.
They were met, about 500 yards outside the school, by Storm. She took in the situation at a glance, must have seen Logan's contemptuous glower and, not far behind, Scott's rigid rage. 'Logan,' she stopped him. 'Give Kitty to me.' And after a brief hesitation, he did so.
Storm paused then, adjusting Kitty up in her arms and looking nervously from Scott to Logan, and Rogue wondered what she thought she could really avert. She saw Logan give a small nod to Storm, and then Storm stood taller and said in her best teacher's shout, 'Everyone in. NOW.'
The students were well-trained. They came in, jogging even, with a glare from Storm. Rogue glanced back once to see Scott and Logan face off, taut and waiting. When the last student passed her, Storm turned, too, walking as quickly as she could with Kitty in her arms. Rogue sprinted, puffing like the rest, into the trapped heat of the building and followed the others, where they began clustering around the front windows facing the field, wide-eyed, partly scared, partly entertained.
Storm labored in, shot the students a dark glance, decided she couldn't deal with it; she departed for the med lab. And Rogue shot a last worried look out the window and followed, Jubilee, and the foot-dragging Bobby and Sam in their wake.
Kitty, it turned out, was alright. No internal bleeding, which was the real scare. She did have a slight concussion and two superficial lacerations, but otherwise, she was fine. And the boys apologized to her in guilty mumbles, and she accepted their apology a little tiredly.
Rogue only learned later what happened between Scott and Logan: they had fought, and it had been dirty. Scott had attacked Logan first, it seemed, and Logan had defended himself for awhile, getting in a few solid punches. But then Logan said something to Scott, and Scott had surged up angrily and hurled himself at Logan. Scott had been easily rebuffed, but, rolling to his feet ten feet away, he'd stood and glared at Logan for a few heated seconds. And then he'd had raised a hand to his glasses, and smiled. At the last moment, the aim was to Logan's thigh instead of his torso, but Logan howled and cursed fluently, words that could be heard all the way back at the school.
Then it had been a really dirty fight, and Logan had used every trick in the book, and Scott, when he had the opportunity, had punched and kicked Logan where he'd lasered him, and they'd ended it with Scott on the ground, painfully getting to his feet, and Logan weaving and breathing hard and giving him space but still guarding him belligerently.
They'd eyed each other one more time, and then parted in different directions.
As one student said, 'It was the most awesome real fight he had ever seen.'
After the incident with Kitty, the students were put to work, either morning or afternoon, for several hours every day. They were given chain gang-type projects, like clearing a field, painting a hallway. It was boring, it was tiring: it was the point.
And when they weren't working, the students learned not to be in the way, not to be hovering. But that didn't mean that they didn't hear things.
Scott was hardly in a position to fight Logan again. Even a week later, he was still sporting impressive-looking bruises, and those were just the ones that could be seen. But that didn't stop the two from arguing. Scott's raised yell could be heard several times a day, and it was usually followed by Logan's growl, slightly below the register of Scott's fuller, throatier voice.
These clashes were often school related. The faculty was busy making decisions, about this year's curriculum and schedule. This textbook was out-of-date, this class needed to be reassigned.
Scott's behavior was the most erratic, certainly. He was sarcastic and rude in the face of apologies, excuses. He harangued people for wasting time…for upwards of thirty minutes. He complained that nothing got done unless he did it himself, and then he would claim that he couldn't be expected to do everything. Scott was usually right; but he was more obnoxious.
But Logan didn't make things any easier. He rolled his eyes at Scott's high-handedness. Supposedly, he parodied Scott's roll-call—for all of six teachers. He questioned Scott's authority whenever possible and publicly informed Scott to 'shut it' when he got into one of his rants—which never ended them more quickly.
Logan was contemptuous of Scott's tradition, of the 'old way', saying it was the 'New Way Here Now'. He interjected that so many times at such a volume that some grads yelled the phrase after him as he huffed down the hall.
And Logan raged to anyone that would listen that Scott wouldn't let him do anything, when Scott needed things doing 'so badly'. Logan had only half the workload of the other teachers, and Scott dressed him down whenever Logan tried to help them out. The others were mildly sympathetic, but he provoked Scott too often, made their lives too miserable.
Rogue couldn't believe that no one was doing anything about it. Storm could have done something, but she, it seemed, had been given the heaviest course load, and was dealing with it by ducking her head and plowing through, rather than interfering.
And the Professor really should have done something, but Rogue didn't know what he was doing. He had bowed out of the meetings and cut his own lectures down to twice a week. His withdrawal had been even more pronounced since her little meeting with him.
Somebody had to do something. Or this year was looking to be worse off than last.
A week before classes, and the freshmen were coming in a few days, and Bobby and the grads without fellowships had packed up and gone. ('I'm outta here,' Bobby had breathed fervently, and with a 'Glad it's You, Not Me' chuckle, he'd offered a thumbs-up. 'Good Luck!') Rogue and Kitty wandered round the halls looking for odd jobs to do, belatedly realizing that they were actually being paid. Sometimes someone found them work.
Scott was looking harried as he'd never looked before. When he walked down the hall, he'd notice things like not-quite-matching trim on the bulletin board, and he'd freak out about it, insisting someone find the trim and bring it out to him: no one could do anything right! There was an element of hysterics in his haranguing.
The only time he ever looked like the old Scott was when he was yelling at Logan. Logan, for his part, was gritting his teeth and mostly taking the abuse, especially as the infractions grew increasingly ridiculous. Occasionally, his eyes would roll, and Rogue would hold her breath. It was only a matter of time before he blew up. Or Scott, or both did.
Rogue didn't see the Professor at all, and she half-considered making an appointment with him, to tell him what was going on. Although, how could he not be aware?
So really! If no one was going to do anything about it, well, then…she'd do what she could.
So she sought out the one person over whom she had a smidgen of influence.
Rogue didn't really have to search too hard. She knew his habits. Actually, everyone in the school knew his habits by now, if only so as to avoid him. But he was outside, brooding in the dark heat, a cigar clamped between his teeth. He was actually smoking it tonight, and that didn't look too good.
Well, she'd see how it went. She approached quietly, not wanting to break the moment.
'What do you want?' he snarled at her when she halted to stand, not beside him, but a few feet away.
She shrugged and stared out at the night and waited to see if he would accept her presence. He took a long puff on his cigar and blew it out energetically in front of him, but after a few sharp glances in her direction, he settled down. She clasped a loose hand round her middle and listened to the sounds of the night.
He smoked more indolently, the cigar smoke curling around him. They enjoyed the stars companionably for a long, still moment.
She scuffed a toe in the soft earth. 'Scott needs to leave.'
Logan chuffed out a laugh, and his voice was dry, 'I ain't gonna disagree with ya, kid.'
She paused then and regarded her feet. 'You need to tell him.'
Logan jerked an arm and returned impatiently, 'Kid, I'm the last person that Scott would—'
'No,' Rogue interrupted, looking at him now, 'That's why it has to be you.' Logan shook his head, and she could see he was about to give her one of those you-just-don't-understand-kid lectures, so she plowed on, 'He has a problem with you being here. That's why you have to convince him it's ok to leave.'
Logan shook his head, stamped out his cigar, kicked the stub away. 'It's…complicated, kid. I can't—' His lip curled, and he planted his hands on his hips, stymied and angry about it.
It was complicated, but it wasn't. She looked up to the sky, squinting a bit to focus, picking her words carefully. 'He had two things before you got here.' He swiveled curiously to study her profile. 'He had Jean, and he had the school.' She turned to meet his sharply critical gaze. 'Now he doesn't feel like he has either. He's fighting with you over them.'
Logan's eyes were blazing now, his anger transferred from himself to her in the space of a heartbeat. He took a menacing step forward, 'I'm not fighting over anything.'
She turned back to the night, maintained her detached manner. 'Doesn't matter,' she returned and felt him back off a little, though he was still upset, dragging in breaths. 'You two are a lot alike in many ways,' she observed in a musing tone. 'I can imagine you acting that way, if your positions were reversed.'
Logan stiffened, but he seemed to be considering that. She continued softly, 'He can't take it anymore, and he can't win while you're here…And he'd leave, but he can't leave you …with all there is left.'
Logan's stance was the same, but all the emotion and energy seemed to drain out of him, and he blinked unseeing out at the night.
'If you go to him and you tell him that he loved her and he mourns her and that he can do that somewhere else, if that's what he needs. And then offer to take care of his school while he's gone, have it ready for him when he comes back. If you tell him that…' she trailed off, a little helplessly.
She didn't know if Scott would accept such a proposal, and she wasn't sure Logan could actually say those things. But she thought it was their best chance.
She sighed softly into the night and looked down to the dark grass, rubbed her neck tiredly. She'd leave it at that. She darted a glance at Logan's profile, shuffled a bit, and left. He'd have to decide what to do from there.
Rogue was busy for the next few days, helping Storm put together her lectures and syllabus. So she didn't hear the news first, and she didn't know what went down. But Scott left. He left, as far as she knew, without much of a word to anybody.
There wasn't even a faculty meeting about how his classes were being divided up. The shuffle happened surreptitiously, within two hours, in terse phone conversations and whispered hall meetings. Logan got fully 2/3 of the classes, all the gym classes and the early math classes, freshman English. The rest were distributed amongst the other teachers: Storm, she knew, had given away two of her history classes to take on two of Scott's math classes.
So on the morning that Scott left, Rogue had a lot more work and no time.
That was all she knew, and she admitted to a morbid curiosity as she entered the cafeteria at lunch that day. She got in line, grabbed a tray, spied her friends already at their seats…found herself just behind Logan. She darted a few glances up to him, but he seemed oblivious to her, scooping a few splats of mashed potatoes on his plate, and easily making his way to head table.
She began to wonder whether he'd really been behind Scott's leaving.
The students were abuzz, and the cafeteria hummed with theories and 'true stories' and unbelievable gossip.
'I heard that the Professor sent Scott away on a mission,' one boy offered, with a furtive glance. 'The government!' he hissed.
'No, I think Scott destroyed the danger room. That's why the Prof sent him away,' one student asserted, nodding in superiority. 'They won't let us in there, you know?' followed, with a knowing look.
'No way,' Jubes scoffed. 'If he had a breakdown, we'd know about it.' She sucked her soda noisily through her straw. 'He'd make a lot of noise, for one thing.'
'No, no. Scott ran away after Logan beat him up again. He didn't show his face to anybody before he left,' the kid leaned forward, then with satisfaction, 'Beat to a pulp.'
The group turned suddenly to consider Logan, eating sedately and unmarked at the head table. 'No way!' broke the spell, followed by a chorus of 'How fast does he heal?', 'Who wants to bet? Come on, how much?' and 'How come we didn't get to see!', and Rogue glanced over for a longer look at Logan, whose expression was almost bland today.
Had Scott just left?
She tuned out the clamor of her classmates as she meditatively eyed him. He must have sensed her regard, for his eyes zeroed in on hers, and their eyes locked. After a long moment, Logan nodded to her, just a slight tilt of his head. She let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and gave a tiny nod back. He turned away when Storm said something to him.
She smiled, turning back to her rubbery chicken: so, it had worked. She listened to the other theories over the rest of lunch, entertained and amused in spite of herself. This year might just be ok.
