Disclaimer: I'm running out of different disclaimers to put here . . . and I'm certain no one reads them anyone, everyone out there already knows I don't own the X-men, so this is really just becoming redundant and irritating.

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Chapter seven, nice and early, and I'm glad so many of you found it so amusing that the chapter six cliff hanger actually took place on a cliff, it wasn't intentional, I honestly had no idea they'd be throwing themselves off when I wrote it, I'm just as shocked as the rest of you at what I've done, no cliffy this time though so enjoy!

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Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that. - Michael Leunig

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Remy heard voices long before he could understand the words, it was like eavesdropping through water.

The next sensation he became aware of was light, dim at first, but growing steadily brighter, then he opened his eyes and the pain hit him fast enough that he hissed because of its suddenness. This had to be the worst headache he'd ever had before, and he was a man who had set a couple pretty impressive records as far as hangovers went.

"Awake again my friend?"

Blinking to clear his blurred vision Remy sat up, slowly and stiffly and looked around the room, he was in the medbay. "Piotr?" He, looked at his tall Russian friend, the man looked no worse for the wear, a bandage had been wrapped firmly around his chest and caught Remy's eye, the Cajun ran his hand through his hair, trying to remember what had happened to him.

Piotr saw the look and pointed at the bandages, "Fractured ribs, courtesy of your little southern friend."

Remy straightened instantly, everything returning in a rush.

Rogue! Fight! Cliff!

Throwing his legs over the side of the bed in an attempt to jump up and rush out of there the world spun and he promptly fell to the bed again. "What happened? Is she alright?" he demanded.

Piotr nodded, "Da, she is . . . well, she is still unconscious. The man we apprehended has yet to tell us anything of significance, just that he had been assigned to apprehend Rogue and return her to his Commander."

"The fall? How'd we live?"

Piotr face broke into an uncustomary smile, "I was not awake when that happened but from what I've been told you and she took a decade off the life spans of our team mates. As it happened Kurt reached you both in time."

Remy paused, confused, "If Kurt reached us in time, why was I unconscious?"

"Well, Rogue was only wearing a tank top and you were holding her pretty tightly when Kurt pulled you both up again. You made prolonged contact with her skin."

Remy ran his hands through his hair again, "How long? How long 'ave I been out?"

Piotr thought for a moment, "Two days, I believe."

"An' she's still out?"

"Da."

"An' she's alright now?"

"Da. But if you do not mind my asking, why are you so concerned for her?"

Remy grinned at him, "Can' a man worry about an amie in trouble"

Piotr nodded, "Yes, but would you have leapt off a cliff for Pyro or myself?"

Remy's grin faltered, "I'd like ta think so."

"Get some rest Remy."

"Is Stormy okay too?"

"Yes, she is watering her gardens as we speak."

Remy sighed, and laid back against his pillows again as Piotr left the room, leaving him alone with nothing but his thoughts, which was never a good thing.

One thing he did know, was that he had to talk with Xavier.

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Logan stood in the doorway, watching her from the shadows. Despite his tough exterior he'd come to admit that he had a soft spot for the kids at the institute. But he had even more of a soft spot when it came to her. She grew up too fast, he knew this, she'd never had a chance to be a real kid, there'd never been a time when she didn't have to be careful, Mystique and Destiny saw to that.

But despite everything that had happened to her, everything that had been done to her, everything still happening to her and being done to her, she came through it all. She was strong. Stronger then he thought any of the others realized with the possible exception of Kitty.

The monitor resting next to the bed beeped quietly as it read her vitals and brain activity.

When she'd fallen from that ledge he'd felt his heart stop, and the look in her eyes had been enough to break it in two. When had she become like this? When had she given up on herself, he could see it in her before she fell and it took him by complete surprise.

Now, looking at her prone form, he felt guilty. They'd been losing her for a while now and hadn't even noticed, hadn't tried to help. He should have seen something, looking back over the past few weeks he could recall countless instances that he should have picked up on, a word here, a look there.

"Dammit Stripes." He growled, "Why couldn't you have said something?"

But he already knew, they were a lot a lot alike, he wouldn't have asked for help either. He'd have done it on his own or failed in the effort, same as she already had.

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"Ah, Mr.Lebeau, glad to see you up and about, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Remy staggered the last few feet into the professors office and fell onto the leather sofa in front of his desk, still feeling weak from his absorption. "It's about Rogue."

Xavier nodded, "I expected as much, I was actually just about to call a meeting, would you be willing to speak in front of the others?"

Remy paused at that, what he hadn't told anyone yet was that when he made contact with Rogue, before they both jumped, he'd seen more then he was probably suppose to thanks to the very nature of his empathy and how it reacted to the that girls emotions in particular. She probably wouldn't want the others to know, she didn't even know herself. But on the other hand . . . "Which others?" he asked carefully.

Xavier raised an eyebrow, "The other instructors only, if you have misgivings, the students can be debriefed later."

Remy thought hard, running his fingers through his hair again, a nervous habit. "No, no, I t'ink mebe, you all should know, should understan' soemthin' 'bout what happened, what's been happenin',"

The professor nodded and his eyes lost focus for a second, and Remy realized that he was contacting the others with his telepathy. "They should be here shortly."

He only nodded, not sure what else to say. The others arrived within the next ten minutes and spread out around the room, large enough to hold them all comfortably for meetings like this.

"Thank you all for hurrying," the professor started. "Logan, can you please inform what you've found out."

The Canadian mutant nodded, "The man we got locked up downstairs is named O'reily, member of some small mercenary group calls themselves STRIKE, guns-for-hire pretty much, from what he's said had the other teams been there Rogue wouldn't have stood a chance, and neither would we. He doesn't know who hired him, only his commander does, all he knows is that whoever it is they want Rogue," He glanced around at all the others, "Badly. His buddies, five in all, escaped while we were dealing with her, in some kind of helicopter like the velocity near as I can figure."

"How is Rogue?" Kitty asked, glancing at Remy, "I can see he's awake now."

Beast shook his head, "Still no change, but don't worry, the last time this happened she was out for a week before she woke up, and was two weeks in recovering."

Kitty nodded but still looked troubled.

"Remy?" Xavier said, all eyes turned to the Cajun. "There was something you wanted to say about Rogue?" Interest peaked.

"Yeah," he said confidently, hiding the fact that he was suddenly feeling very nervous. "She didn't try to commit suicide."

A couple people blinked.

"We were there Remy, We saw her, she wanted to die." Jean said after a moment or two of silence. Kitty and Kurt however were looking at Remy like he was suddenly a messiah offering them some kind of salvation.

"I know, she did, but it wasn't her, it was de psyches," he continued.

"Remy," Jean cut him off, "I'm a telepath, I was there, and I know what I saw in her mind. The psyched weren't in control of her when she let herself fall, and her thoughts were pretty clear on the issue."

"Exactly!" He exclaimed, "Yer a telepath, but I'm an empath, I felt what she felt, and I was in her mind same as you but I saw things you can't." he took a breath, "Listen mes amies, de psyches, dey little pieces of each of us right?" everyone nodded, "But it's more then that, they're emotions, get it? It's what they're made of, they're not jus' little bits of consciousness taken from our minds, they're pure unfiltered emotion."

"So you're saying they can effect Rogue's emotional state?" Scott supplied.

"Oui."

"But you heard jean," Bobby said, "They were sealed up, Rogue was in control, why does this matter anyway? The girls always been kinda dark, I mean, should we really be surprised this happened?"

Kitty, who had been standing closest to Bobby, slapped him upside the head and glared at him. "Shut up Bobby! We're her friends, now let Remy finish!"

"This is what I'm trying to say," Remy cursed his inability to explain this eloquently. "De walls, de mental shield Rogue makes to keep the psyches away, it does that, it keeps the psyches, the other consciousness's away from her own, but emotion can't be stopped, it's what ties de psyches to her, its more real den dem, it's different den dem, it's. . ." Remy paused, growling at himself as he tried to figure out what it was he was trying to say and the words he needed to say it with.

"May I?" Xavier said, grinning at the boys obvious frustration.

Remy looked confused for a second, then understood, Xavier wanted to take what it was Remy wanted to say from his mind and explain it himself. "Sure, you'd do a better job o' it den me."

Xavier closed his eyes and Remy brought what he'd learned about Rogue to the front of his mind, careful to make sure that that was all the professor got a look at. He preferred to keep his secrets right where they were.

"Ah," the professor said, "What Mr. Lebeau means to say is that all along our assumption, and Rogue's, has been that the psyches are wholly pieces of consciousness, taken from the various people she's touched, and because of this we've been treating them solely as a telepathic problem, the shield and mental techniques I've taught her, while effective, are incomplete. The psyches are not only consciousness, but they are also greatly a product of emotions, not only telepathic but empathetic as well, so while her shields can keep the psyches from taking over her mind they cannot prevent the emotive energies of the psyches from passing through, bleeding into Rogue's own emotive state."

"Fascinating," Beast said, scratching his chin casually.

"But what does this have to do with her trying to kill herself?" Jean asked, "Why now, I mean, the psyches have been a part of her for years now, if it was them that made her do it why wait for so long?"

"'Cause dey didn't want her to kill herself. They want control, but dey understan' that if she dies dey die wit' her." Remy answered. "I felt it, when she jumped, they were terrified."

"But you said it was them that made her want to!"

"Calm down, please." Xavier said, "Let me explain. What Remy meant when he said that was that, as I told you, the mental shields she's learned don't stop the empathetic presence of the psyches from affecting her, but they can't control it either, their own hatred and anger bleeds into Rogues and amplifies her own negative emotions, but somehow her mind compensated for this, found a way to divert a majority of the psyches emotions away from her own where they have been in storage, bottled up, so to speak. But Remy's brief arrival into her mindscape, through his empathetic abilities, showed him that this storage defense was ready to overflow. Gaining control again, and seeing her injured teammates," he glanced from Storm to Piotr, "pushed her past her limit. All that hatred and anger and fear overwhelmed her, and since it was all directed at herself." He let that thought hang in the air between them for a moment, "She thought that by killing herself she was protecting us from future danger."

"But professor, if that was true then those emotions must have had her at the breaking point for some time now, wouldn't you or I have sensed something?" Jean asked.

"How could you?" Kitty answered for him, her voice gloomy, "You're not empaths."

"And Rogue wasn't aware of this?" Scott asked.

Remy shook his head, "It was a subconscious defense mechanism, 'ow could she?"

"Why tell us though?"

Remy sighed, "Cause she would 'ave hated it," he began, slowly, quietly, seriously. "Ta have all o' you treatin' her like there was somethin' wrong, or sendin' her away for 'help', there ain't nothing wrong wit' the girl, that's somethin' all o' you don't seem to understan', somethin' ya should have understood from the beginnin'" his eyes burned as he scanned across the room, meeting every pair of eyes.

He could still feel her, the instant he had reached her, freefalling from the cliff face, for that one instant before oblivion came he knew her, he felt everything she felt, everything she went through for them. "She use ta be normal too." He continued, "Did ya ever think mebe it was yer psyches in her head that made her the way she is now, that it was soemthin' she got from you that made her like this?"

The silence that met his statement was the only answer he needed.

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The automatic doors slid open with a soft woosh sound, allowing Kitty into the medbay, her feet knew the way by heart to Rogue's room, the room that her friend was always put in whenever she was in medbay, it was sad that she was there often enough for it.

Just like last time, nothing changed, Rogue lay on the bed, serene and peaceful.

Tears burned at the corner of Kitties eyes. "Rogue," she whispered, stepping up to the bed. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, I should have noticed, I should have tried-" sobs choked off the rest of what she was going to say.

She use to be normal too . . .

Did you ever think it was something she got from you that made her like this?

But she had known, and she hadn't done anything. She'd seen Rogue tossing and crying in the middle of the night, trapped in someone else's nightmare. She'd been there on one or two occasions when the girl had broken down, the rare times when she was willing to talk about it.

She knew things about Rogue that no one else knew because they were friends, but even then she didn't know much at all.

She had known there was something wrong, but she'd been so caught up in everything else she had done nothing about it, sure she'd gone to the professor once or twice, but she never pushed for him to help, she never confronted Rogue about anything either.

And then she had stood there, on the cliff, and met Rogue's eyes, that was an image that would haunt her for some time to come.

"Katya? Are you alright?"

Kitty spun to the doorway to see Piotr there, he'd been sentences to bed rest in the medbay for a week because of his ribs.

Kitty managed to pull herself under a small amount of control, taking a deep breath while tears still fell from her eyes, she'd always been an emotional girl. "I'm fine," she squeaked.

Piotr looked increasingly uncomfortable, like most males, in the presence of her tears, but the concern in his eyes was unmistakable. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked, unsure.

Kitty looked from him to Rogue and back again and tried to muster up a smile, "Can I have a hug?" she asked, only half joking.

Piotr took the two steps to her side and wrapped his arms around her in response.

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Remy watched the two hug, surprised that Piotr had done it, since he was usually so held back and timid around women, the hug itself was very short but it seemed to have the effect it was meant to, and Kitty's tears stopped though she was blushing slightly. He watched from the shadows, out of their line of sight, they talked for a few moments then left, he thought he caught he words 'coffee' and 'snack' as they left the medbay, headed for the elevator that would take them to the higher levels of the institute.

When he heard the automatic doors open and close again he moved into the brightness offered by the fluorescent lighting above his head and walked casually into her room, where the light had been shut off completely.

He could still feel her, in the back of his mind, though her emotions were much quieter and subdued then they were when she was awake. The sensation wasn't altogether unpleasant, but it worried him greatly. He'd spent a lot of time working on his own mental shields to keep himself from feeling anyone else around him, usually this could be accomplished with very little effort or concentration, his empathetic ability being secondary to his main mutation and not strong enough for him to really both ever using it other then to assess situations with. But he'd put a lot of concentration and energy into his walls, making them stronger then he ever had before and he could still feel her. He couldn't block her out.

He was tempted to go to the professor about it, see if he could make Xavier block her out, but he really preferred that no one knew about it. He was having trouble enough dealing with the subtle implications this created, he didn't want the others jumping to conclusions or anything else.

Absently he reached out and with a gloved finger brushed a stray strand of white away from her eyes and looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time.

With a sigh he sat down in the chair next to the bed, and continued to watch her sleep, he had a lot to think about.

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Shift here, well there ya go, chapter seven and everybody lived! I hope that whole scene in Xaviers office wasn't too bad or confusing, it didn't come across the way I wanted it to.

Wow, I got this one out quickly, told ya I wouldn't leave you hanging for long.

Anyway, here's a nice little break in the action, a little bit of ROMY for you, not much but still there ;) as well as a moment for Kitty and Piotr, no shout outs today, mostly because I'm tired and have a lot of stuff to do before I call it a day, you know the drill.

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