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Time to find out who the mysterious person at the door was. But first…
Grace dropped down to her feet and stepped back, staring at Logan who, in turn, looked just as surprised as she was. Grace slowly lifted her hand to touch her lips before she turned around, her back to Logan, so that he couldn't see just how shocked and somewhat worried she was.
"Grace…I…I didn't mean…" Logan said. Grace suddenly gasped and Logan saw her arms move, her upper arms squeezing her body. "Grace?" She fell to her knees, groaning. Logan frowned and knelt behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. His eyes trailed down her arm to her hands…
And then he froze at what he saw. Grace's hands were held out in front of her and her wrists seemed to be stuck together as if she was handcuffed. What really made Logan freeze was the glowing bands encircling her wrists. Grace whimpered and the glowing seemed to increase as her head dropped so that her chin hit her chest. Logan had seen quite a few things but this wasn't one of them. This, he wasn't prepared for.
"Storm? What is it?" Rogue asked when Ororo stayed frozen for a while.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" The man in the doorway asked. Rogue's eyes widened at the familiar voice. Ororo stepped to the side and the person walked inside. Everyone stared at him.
"Scott?" Ororo said, finally.
"Yeah." Scott said, looking at her. Next second Ororo had thrown her arms around him and hugged him.
"We thought you were dead." Rogue said.
"Dead?" Scott said.
"We thought Jean had killed you." Ororo said.
"I…I don't know what happened." Scott said. "All I know is that…" There was a yell and everyone's heads turned to the room that Logan and Grace had gone into.
"Blue boy get in here!!" Logan yelled. Kurt disappeared from the crowd. He popped up a few feet from Logan and Grace and gasped. There was no lights turned on in that room but he could see both of them from the glow created by the red bands.
"It wasn't this bad before…" Kurt said, then trailed off.
"This has happened before?" Logan asked, just as Grace started whimpering again. The rest of the group ran into the room and Ororo flicked on the lights.
"Oh my god, what's happening to her?" Rogue asked.
"I don't know." Logan said. At that moment the bands seemed to glow more and Grace groaned and twisted as if trying to get away from something.
"Can you stop it?" Rogue asked, looking at Kurt.
"I've only seen this once." Kurt said. "I couldn't do anything, she wouldn't let me touch her." He looked at Logan's hands which seemed to be firmly placed on Grace's shoulders but moved a bit as if trying to give her some sort of comfort.
"This must be how she got the scars." Hank said.
"Grace…" Kurt said, crouching in front of her. Grace looked up at him. "You have to relax…everything will be alright."
"No, no, no, no…" Grace whined. "It won't…it can't…they're coming."
"Who?" Ororo asked. "Who's coming?"
"Logan…" Grace said, turning her head to look at him. He looked down at her. She looked at her wrists when she picked up the understanding on his face. "It's never…been this bad."
"We gotta put her out." Ororo said, looking at Hank. "This is too much."
"There's no time to get down to the med lab…" Hank said. Rogue cut him off by moving towards Grace, taking off her glove and touching the girl's face. Both of them winced and Grace fell unconscious within a few seconds. Rogue groaned and put her hands on her head.
"Dear god no wonder she's going though all of this." She said. "If I had this in my head I'd be that way too."
"What?" Scott asked for the first time. Logan stared at him, pretty much having just noticed him there.
"Mutant-mutant hunters." He said, finding his voice quickly. The bands around Grace's wrists began to fade until they were barely visible but still seemed to linger.
"Huh?" Bobby, Rogue, Kitty and Peter all said.
"They're mutants…but they hate other mutants so they hunt them." Logan said, sounding very disgusted.
"They're the ones we saw at McDonald's." Rogue said, dropping her hands from her head and putting her glove back on. Logan shifted Grace so that she was across his legs and he had one arm around both shoulders. The other arm unconsciously went across her waist as her arms finally fell apart and one slid down to hit the floor.
"Why would they put this much effort into chasing down just one mutant?" Ororo asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" Logan said.
"She killed one of them." Rogue said.
"What?" Everyone asked.
"Grace…she's…she's elemental." Rogue said. "She's kinda like you, Storm. Cept she's more…earthy. Which explains why she makes flowers grow. But she can like, make the ground shake, manipulate water and air…"
"That explains the little tornado kind of thing she did before I brought her here." Kurt said.
"Mmhmm…" Rogue said, nodding. "Since she has power over air…she can stop it from entering a person's body…"
"Suffocating them without even touching them." Hank said.
"Seems like." Rogue said. "God this stuffs gonna be in my head for hours." She rubbed at her temples.
"If you all know this…then why is she still here?" Scott asked. Everyone looked at him. "She's putting every one of us and all the students at risk. If there are people after her then they're after us as well for as long as she stays here."
"They already know me, Rogue and Ice boy are mutants so they might just be tracking us down as well." Logan said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he observed Scott, especially the glasses. He knew that the man had a couple of pairs but the majority were at the institute and the only pair that really wasn't, Jean destroyed when Logan tried to get her to talk to him. So how did he get his glasses back? Grace shifted slightly and he looked down at her.
"Maybe…you could run some more tests, Hank?" Ororo asked, slowly taking her eyes off of Logan and returning them to Hank.
"I've run enough tests on her to make her feel like a lab rat." Hank said.
"There's gotta be something we can do…while they're still glowing." Ororo said, looking down at Grace's wrists.
"I don't know of anything we can try." Hank said.
"We should probably put her to bed then." Logan said. He stood up with Grace in his arms. He left the room with Kurt.
"Who is she?" Scott asked.
"She's Grace…" Ororo said, not able to come up with a better answer.
"How long will she be unconscious?" Kurt asked.
"I don't know." Logan said, putting Grace on her bed. "Rogue didn't hold on too long but the pain could keep her out for longer."
"Will you watch her for me?" Kurt asked. Logan looked at him. "I think I might know of something that can help." Logan stared at him for a while.
"Don't be long then." He said. Kurt nodded and disappeared. Logan sat on the bed and looked around the room. There was a knock on the door and Rogue came in.
"Is she gonna be ok?" She asked.
"I think so." Logan said.
"Where'd Kurt go?" Rogue asked. Logan shrugged. "Logan…do you like Grace?"
"What?" Logan asked.
"Well Scott says that you like her…a lot." Rogue said.
"I…Rogue, I can't like her." Logan said.
"If you like someone then you like them." Rogue said. "You can't pick and choose, Logan. That's not how these things work."
"Well maybe that's how they should work." Logan said.
"It's ok to have feelings for her Logan." Rogue said. She walked over to him and, carefully, hugged him. "Forget a bunch of stuff and do what your heart tells you, as corny as that sounds."
"Maybe you should follow that same advice." Logan said, grinning. Rogue rolled her eyes and walked out of the room. Logan looked at Grace. The glowing around her wrists had faded finally. He couldn't figure out why they flared up so strongly once the whole X-men bunch came into the room. Everyone that came in was with her when they talked with Magneto and nothing happened then, so why now?
He froze as he suddenly realized something. Not everyone…Scott wasn't with them. Was there something about him that did it? Logan couldn't figure it out. He had thought Scott was dead but…thinking a bit logically…it might have been possible that he wasn't. Afterall, when Logan and Ororo went looking, they stopped once they found Jean and didn't really look very far.
"What are we gonna do?" Logan muttered. He looked at Grace and brushed hair off her face. Either way, he was going to keep one eye on her and one on Scott, Magneto and Pyro as much as possible.
