Chapter 10
Remy stole another boat to make it back to Muir Island. He wanted the freedom to leave when he needed to, without warning. Xavier and MacTaggart might be friends, but the Center was not the Institute, and the people there had not yet earned his trust.
It looked like Sean and Piotr had made a lot of progress on that addition to the building: the new wing was visible from the dock. He'd been gone longer than he'd expected to be.
He jumped from the prow of the serviceable little craft and wrapped the painter line around the closest mooring on the dock. "Colossus!" he shouted across the island. "Get down here an' gimme a hand wid all dis, yeh useless Commie!" He grinned at his mental image of Piotr, wherever he was, rolling his eyes in annoyance.
The first person down to the dock to help him was not Piotr, but Betsy the violet-haired telepath. She was wearing sweatpants and a tank top, her hair was tied back in one long ponytail, and her face was glossy with sweat. "You certainly took your time," she remonstrated, jogging along the length of the dock to where Gambit was unloading his cargo. "What on earth is all this?"
"Dis," Gambit announced, hauling another box of records onto the dock, "is hope."
Betsy lifted one of the boxes onto her shoulder, without difficulty but with plenty of annoyance. "Hope certainly is heavy."
"Yeah, an' it don't climb islands by itself, so get movin'."
Betsy scoffed at him and headed up the slope at a jog. Gambit picked up a second carton and the cooler of samples and followed her.
"Guess who's back!" Betsy called as she opened the front door. "And he brought more presents than Father Christmas."
Everybody but Betsy seemed to have been hard at work painting the interior walls of the new addition; they emerged into the hallway wearing color-spattered clothes. Sean had pale yellow streaks in his flaming red hair.
"Good hunting?" Piotr asked, wiping his hands on a scrap of drop cloth.
"An'den some," Gambit confirmed. "Dey's a whole bunch left in my boat. Gimme a hand?"
"Come on, Pete," Sean ordered. "Good t'see you again, lad." He tousled Gambit's hair as he passed; Gambit reached up and found his fingers damp and sticky with yellow paint.
Moira was already disemboweling the boxes.
"Holy heavens," she muttered, leafing eagerly through the stacks of papers, pausing occasionally to pull out a folder and peruse its contents, "There's got to be fifty years' worth of research in here! And these . . ." She opened the sample cooler and stared in disbelief at the endless rows of vials, all carefully packed in ice. "This is more than twice the number of samples I've collected in my entire career. Bye the bye," she interrupted herself, glancing up at Gambit, "did you, or did you not, donate to this center a quarter of a million U.S. dollars under the name 'International Foundation for Genetic Research'?"
Gambit frowned. "Only a quarter million? Thought for sure it would've been more by now. You work on dese, an' I'll call my lawyers."
"You are going to do absolutely nothing of the sort, young man!" Moira snapped.
Gambit recoiled, eyeing her warily.
Moira sighed, shaking her head, a resigned smile sneaking onto her face. "Right now, you're going to go fetch up the rest of this lot. A quarter of a million dollars is plenty for now. With all this material to work with, I'm sure it'll take me at least a week to spend it all."
Gambit grinned. It seemed he'd brought Moira around to his own unique way of thinking . . . at least for a while.But he was going to make some calls and find out what was gumming up the works in his resource-dispersement system. As soon as he'd brought up the rest of the boxes, and maybe had some lunch . . . and washed the paint out of his hair.
Two hours later, changed, fed, and unpacked, Gambit was playing one-on-one basketball against Piotr on the dirt half-court behind the Center.
They'd played a lot of basketball as well as a lot of poker when they'd been Acolytes together—the job had involved more than its fare share of hurrying up and waiting, and they'd grasped at anything that would pass the time. Piotr hadn't known how to play basketball when Magneto recruited him; he now beat Gambit regularly. As Piotr blocked another of his shots, Gambit vowed that he would never again teach this game to anyone five inches taller than him.
"Hard time out there?" Piotr asked, shoving Remy out of the way as he charged for the half-court line.
Remy let him go. "Usual, really."
"Then why aren't you bragging?" Piotr tried to charge past him again, this time heading for the basket, but Remy darted at him and snatched the ball away. "Usually, you refuse to shut up about your breathtaking feats of thievery."
"Okay. It was a hard time," Remy admitted. He dashed back to half court, pivoted on the loose pebbles, and tried for a jump shot. The ball circled the rim and bounced out, straight back into Piotr's hands. "But it's over, an' I don't much wanna talk about it. New topic. How's life been in Scotland?"
"Quiet." Piotr took the ball out and feinted a few times, trying to throw the much-quicker Remy off balance. Finally, he just shoved Remy into the dirt and put a shot away. "The building work is nearly done." He passed the ball back and stopped for breath.
"So you gonna build 'em a real basketball court next?" Gambit gave the ball an experimental couple of bounces, then darted forward and shot. Piotr wasn't fast enough to block him: the ball rattled against the backboard and dropped through the hoop.
"I don't know what I'll do next. I like living here, but this is a research center and I am a farmer. There's not very much I can do to contribute to Moira's work."
"I don' think de good doctor's gonna throw y'out."
"She doesn't have to. I won't live on charity when I can earn my way."
Remy mopped sweat off his face with the hem of his shirt. "You ever consider the Xavier Institute? Dey's in de market for heavy-lifters. You and Sam Guthrie could take turns slammin' your heads into de basement walls."
Colossus laughed. "I had my chance there. The Wolverine offered to let me join, then called me Magneto's tool when I refused him. He would not be glad to see me again."
"Dat was just him shootin' off his mouth. What were you s'posed t'do? Metal powers and a whole family a'leverage . . . Magneto had you in a bind, an' he knew it. I ain't sayin' you had no choice but to take his orders . . . but y'had a lot less choice dan I did. And Xavier took me on anyway. If I can make it dere, you sure as blazes can, you bein' a nicer person dan me and all."
Colossus laughed at him and shot the ball at his head. Gambit caught it and shot it back. "T'ink about it while y'practice your free throws. I'm goin' inside."
It had been three hours since Moira had closed the door of her office behind her. Three hours had to be enough. Gambit knocked on the door and let himself in. "How's it comin'?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant and failing.
"Good thing you're the patient type," Moira sighed. She stood up from her microscope, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Goodness, Gambit. I barely even know what I'm looking at yet. It's going to be weeks, at least, before I have any idea of what I can do with these data."
"But d'you t'ink somet'in' here's gonna help Rogue?"
"Young man, all I can tell you is 'maybe'." Moira smiled. "But yesterday, I would have told you 'no'."
Gambit grinned. "Okay. I'll come back in a few weeks to touch base."
"Will you leave a phone number this time?"
"Non. Too dangerous. But I won't wander far. De Foundation guys'll have ways'a contactin' me if dey's an emergency."
"Sure you couldn't stay awhile? I know Piotr loves to have you here, and you know you're more than welcome."
Gambit shook his head. "I already spent all de time I could spare. Gotta hunt."
For the first time, Rogue dreamed of Carol Danvers.
She was taller than Rogue, but not by more than a couple of inches. Her face was a classic oval, but with a faint cleft in her chin that suggested a determined personality. Her hair was blonde, straight, thick, and long enough to brush the waistband of her jeans, and her clear and focused eyes were gray-blue. She and Rogue stood on the tarmac of an airfield, quietly surveying one another.
"Carol," Rogue breathed. Although the other woman was much older than she, first names didn't seem inappropriate.
Carol stared at her, and the stare was that of an intelligent and lucid person who had no idea where she was but was trying to stay calm. "I never did catch your name."
"Rogue. Ah'm Rogue."
"Rogue," Carol repeated. "Nice to meet you."
Rogue's dream-throat was so dry she wondered if she'd be able to talk at all. "Yeah, me too."
The silence was desperately awkward.
"The Professor blocked you," Rogue announced, the words bursting out of her when she couldn't stand the pressure anymore. "He thought you were too dangerous for me to handle. Thought you'd hurt me."
Carol laughed bitterly. "And you want to know if I would? Sorry to disappoint . . . I barely remember who or what I am. My body is gone. I never realized how much of me my body was. It's so hard to feel, so hard to be, when there's nothing solid around you to just be you. I don't know if I would hurt you. Maybe I would . . . if I had hands to hurt you with."
Rogue woke up, gasping.
On the other futon, Logan's eyes flew open. He was an extremely light sleeper. Rogue raised a hand, assuring him that she was okay, and held still until he slept again. Then she got up and went outside, not bothering to slip on the shoes that stood outside the door.
Black clouds were billowing across the sky, silently extinguishing the stars. A storm was coming. She could feel the drop in barometric pressure: it made her feel unnervingly weightless, as though she were underwater and struggling to keep her feet on the bottom of the pool. The wind was warm, but fierce, dragging bits of grass and dirt across the mountain in its wake. Her hair . . . had it really been so long yesterday? . . . tangled and twisted around her face and into her mouth and eyes.
A big summer tempest. The kind that had everyone in the mansion lying awake in their beds, wondering and worrying, until Ororo came to their doors to murmur her gentle assurances. No wind or rain could hurt them while Storm watched over their house.
Rogue cast herself back into her mind and let herself drop into her memories of Storm's absorbed personality. Storm wasn't afraid of rain, or lightning, or wind . . . not because she was brave, but because she understood them. The elements yielded to her will, because she could speak their language. In Kenya, her people had called her a goddess. Of course she wasn't . . . she was just a mortal, human mutant, like the rest of them . . . but somehow she was, all the same. She drew the living energy of the elements to her, accepting and guiding, with all the gentle wisdom of a beneficent deity.
Imagine you are a goddess . . .
Rogue imagined. She imagined that the energy of living people flowed to her like lightning flowed to Storm, freely and innocently, because it loved her and knew she would accept it. But goddesses didn't take . . . they gave back, they blessed things, always offering more than they had received from their supplicants. They didn't turn away worshippers, destroying their faith with protests of their own mortality . . . they just accepted, and did what good they could with the powers and the love bestowed upon them.
Let the storm flow into you, and savor it, and give it back.
Rogue found herself at the door of the room she shared with Logan. She didn't dare to let her feet touch the ground . . . didn't dare to connect herself to anything, physical or abstract. She felt open and clean and light as air . . . partly from her own focus and meditation, partly from Storm's memories . . . but it was anyone's guess how long she could hold herself like this.
She slipped inside and knelt in the air next to Logan's bed. He slept on.
She thought of how much she loved Logan, and how much he loved her, and reached out her hand to rest her ring and middle fingers against the skin of his forehead.
His essence rushed into her, burning, but she didn't try to fight the pain of it. She just became more still, more calm, letting it hurt if it wanted to, not letting herself tense or resist. The energy wanted to come to her; she had to let it come.
Then she gave it back.
It was like exhaling air, but it wasn't a physical movement at all. She just took the energy that was welling up inside her and poured it back to where it had come from, redirecting and guiding. She couldn't stop it from rushing to her, but she could keep it going in the right direction, through her and back into Logan. The energy made a bright, flowing loop up her arm, around her heart, and down through her arm again. Gradually, she pushed it away until it just swirled through her hand: up the middle finger, once around the palm, and down the ring finger again. She couldn't hear his memories.
The whole experience had taken less than a second. Logan never stirred.
As soon as the words Oh, mah gosh, Ah think Ah did it flickered through Rogue's mind, her concentration cracked. The neat spiral of energy exploded through her body, filling her head with the first memory that flickered through Logan's mind. Unfortunately, it was a memory of being hit in the head with something. Rogue recoiled from the remembered impact, hit the far wall, and fell in a heap on her mattress.
Logan shot awake with a snarl and a ringing of extended claws. "Azami?"
"Ah'm okay," Rogue insisted, untangling herself from the knot her limbs had made. "Did Ah hurt you?"
"Wouldn't have minded you waiting until morning," Logan grumbled, retracting the shining blades and rubbing the spot on his forehead where she'd touched him. "What were you doing . . . sleepwalking?"
"Ah had a dream," Rogue admitted. "And Ah went outside to think, and it all sort of . . . clicked. Ah touched you, Logan, and you didn't even wake up. It was just for a second, but Ah did it. Ah did it."
Logan stared at her, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "You're kidding."
"Ah'm not."
"Sure you weren't dreaming?"
"Positive."
Logan started to smile. Then he started to laugh. "You did it! You did it, kid!"
Rogue wanted to hug him, but couldn't see how to manage it with her gloveless and him shirtless, so she lifted into the air and did a backwards somersault to let off some of her excitement. "Ah can't believe it!"
"Nobody's gonna believe it. Just wait until we tell 'em about this at the Institute."
Rogue laughed. "Ah think Ah've got a lot of work to do before we make that phone call." But her mind filled with images nonetheless . . . hugging Kurt, touching Scott's face, wearing ordinary tank tops and t-shirts to school, joining in with the splash wars when the team played in the pool, Remy Remy Remy . . .
A flash of lightning made the room glare bright as day, and the following thunder shook the building so fiercely Rogue wondered if it was going to jolt right off the foundations. Even in the air, she could feel the impact. The rain hit in a rush of sound, the droplets roaring against the roof tiles.
Logan lay back down on his mattress. "Go to sleep, darlin'. We'll tackle it in the morning, after the storm's passed. And you don't have to tell anybody until you're ready. Your secrets are as safe with me as mine are with you."
Rogue dropped onto her bed, wrapped herself in her blanket, and fell asleep like a teenage girl for the first time in her life: her head filled with hope and excitement and daydreams of the boy she loved.
Remy was back at Muir Island three weeks to the day after he'd left. He'd tried to talk himself into staying away longer, but it was no use. He had to know what was going on.
"We've been watching your work in Edinburgh," Moira told him as he pulled up a lab stool and sat down. "At least, Piotr assures me it's yours."
"He knows my style," Remy allowed. Trying, unsuccessfully, to sound casual, he asked, "And how's your work coming?"
Moira smiled. "Do you want to know all of it, or just the parts that might affect Rogue?"
"All of it." Remy had never been as proud of anything in his life as he was of the resources he'd given to the Center. Any good that came of this, he had the right to take some credit for, even if it was just in his own mind. But being a hero sure felt good sometimes.
Moira's smile turned to a grin. It seemed she'd just been itching to show all this off. "Well, then." She reached across him to her refrigerator of samples and pulled the door open. "This one," she began, pulling out one of the all-but-identical vials and handing it proudly to Gambit, "is a manifestation accelerant. Injected into a child of at least one mutant parent, it triggers a premature cascade of the hormones that cause powers to emerge." She set it down and picked up another. "This one is a base power-copier. Take a blood sample from a mutant patient, treat it with the right chemicals, mix it with this, inject it into someone else . . . that person will have the donor's abilities for about half an hour."
Gambit nodded. "I seen both'a dese work. It's incredible."
"Well, this one you won't have seen before." She pulled out a new vial. "This is what Sinister was spending most of his time on. It's another copier, but this one is based on Rogue's blood, so the copy is permanent. Human, mutant . . . it doesn't matter. You could mass manufacture mutants with this stuff. Whole armies."
Gambit handed it delicately back. "Let's keep that one just between us."
"My thoughts exactly," Moira agreed. "I don't think Sinister was intending to exploit its military applications . . . at least not yet. He just wanted to be a leech himself. He made up as much of this as he could, charged it with Rogue's copying ability, and ran clinical trials with it."
"Probably when he started schemin' to get her back," Gambit offered. His mind swung briefly back to New Orleans. "But did de trials work?"
"Oh, yes. They worked. He made two Rogue copies, then made them absorb everything he could think of. One killed herself after absorbing an all-but-catatonic mental health patient; the other tried to escape, and Sinister murdered him. He was intending to run a few more of the tests, but he never got the chance." She pulled out another vial, its contents dark, blood-crimson, and studied it speculatively. "He had the drug made up for himself and everything. He died just in the nick of time."
"Well, you kin thank Mystique for dat, not me." He handed back the vial she'd given him, and Moira put them both away.
"This one's good." She pulled out a vial whose contents were pale green instead of just clear. "It's still in a testing phase, but it's very promising. This is the one Sinister was talking about in the paper you showed me: the cure for sickle cell anemia. With some hard work and a bit of luck, we can have it on the market in five years." She placed it in his hand and curved his fingers around it. "Since you were instrumental in obtaining it, you'd be entitled to a share of profits from the patent."
"Do we have t'patent it?" Gambit asked, thinking of the absolutely indecent amounts of money waiting for him in Switzerland. "Can't we just make de stuff?"
Moira grinned. "I always did want to pull a Jonas Salk." She took the vial back and replaced it in the cooler.
The question that he'd been determined not to ask finally squeezed out. "And what about Rogue's suppressant? Is dat in here?"
Moira sighed, and the sudden somber expression that crossed her face was all the answer he needed. "Not in there, no." She closed the refrigerator and handed over a massive stack of loose papers. "In there."
"It does exist?"
"There's no reason why it couldn't. The theory's all there, all the math. It's just a question of making it work. Developing the drug. Running tests. Running trials."
"Time frame?"
"Twenty years."
Gambit stared at her. The words resonated in his head like echoes in an empty Danger Room. "What?"
"These things take time. And money. And work. This research has put us forward by decades, but there's still a lot to be done. Even the possibility of a treatment for Rogue is a miracle."
"Twenty years? Sinister hinted he already had dis, or that he could put it together fast. He wouldn't bargain with what he didn'have. He didn't need to."
"Well, with his research methods and nearly superhuman natural genius, he probably could have finished it within months. But I refuse to hunt down my test subjects and lock them in cages. If you want that kind of research, you'll have to find another lab."
Gambit shook his head. "I'd be offended enough t'hit you if I didn't know you were bein' sarcastic."
Moira sat back, her body posture expressing apology much more than words could. "I'm sorry, Gambit. That's as much as I can give you. I am going to start developing this drug, because people need it, and when it's ready Rogue will be the first person I offer it to. But it won't be for a long time, and that's just the way things are."
Gambit nodded. Twenty years.
He didn't quite know how he managed to leave the lab, but one way or another he got himself outside on a hill overlooking the Center before he let himself break down. The sun had set, and the darkness was beginning to deepen towards night.
Twenty years.
His hopes had been too high . . . he'd known it, but allowed himself to get carried away nevertheless. It was just such an intoxicating dream . . . returning home with a treasure that would put all the precious stones on earth to shame. He'd wanted to see Rogue embrace Kurt as a sister should, without fear . . . wanted to see her kiss Scott's cheek just for the sake of being silly, to make him blush and Jean sulk . . . wanted to see her push back when some jock came after her, willing and able to defend herself without seriously hurting both herself and her opponent. And of course, of course, Remy wanted to be able to touch her himself. That was risky territory, he knew—it would be far too easy for Logan, Scott, or the Professor to conclude that Remy had done all this just to get some action, the ultimate romantic conquest. But Rogue would know better. Rogue knew him. She knew that what he wanted most in the world was to make her smile, and to know that the smile was his doing and in some way belonged to him. If he could taste that smile for himself, so much the better.
He wanted her, yes. But more than that, he wanted to give her the whole world, and toss in every star in the sky.
But it was all twenty years away. And time was one of the few things he couldn't steal.
He heard shoes scraping across the rocky ground, and looked up. Betsy was climbing up the hill towards him, confidently finding firm stepping-places among the boulders and crevices. "Moira's sorry the bad news hit you so hard," she offered, her long legs carrying her easily over the last obstacles until she stood on the flat, relatively smooth hilltop.
"Thought psychics weren't supposed to hand out info like dat," Gambit deadpanned. "Stalker/victim confidentiality or somethin'."
"You're funny when you're depressed," Betsy deadpanned back. "She told me. With her voice. And she asked if I would come check on you, to make sure you weren't doing something drastic."
Remy hmphed. As though he could do anything drastic enough to make this frustrating problem any easier to bear.
"You've trained with Wolverine?" she asked, reaching one arm across her chest and wrapping the other around it to stretch out her shoulder and back.
"All de X-Men train wid him."
Betsy switched arms. "Wolverine's one of the few people in this world I have trouble beating in hand-to-hand. He acts too much on instinct . . . there's hardly any conscious thought to follow, so it's hard to predict what he's going to do. It's the closest I've ever had to come to fighting fair."
Gambit glanced up at her with one eyebrow raised. "Was dat a boast, a threat, a challenge, or just a suggestion?"
"Whichever one gets you to spar with me. I'd love the practice, and you need to blow off some steam."
She waited a minute, but when he didn't answer, she cut straight to the chase and swung her foot at his head.
It was a fast kick, and she was certainly strong enough to rattle his brains if she connected. Gambit dropped and rolled, the movement more instinct than planning. He was on his feet in another fraction of a second, just in time to dodge a high spin kick. This girl knew how to use those long legs of hers. He snapped his quarterstaff open and attacked, in no mood to be pushed . . . even if it probably was a good idea to focus on something other than disappointment right now.
Her boast had been well-founded; she was very, very good. Better than anyone at the Institute, except perhaps Logan, and with a very different style. She could move like someone out of a kung fu movie. Remy, by contrast, hadn't really sparred all summer. But his work had forced him to become stronger and more flexible, and to think his moves through more carefully. He could see the surprise in her eyes the second he pushed her past where she'd expected him to quit. Rather than back off to re-analyze, she pushed harder, and Remy found himself resorting to his cards to keep her off balance.
The match, in the end, was hers. She managed to force him onto the uneven footing on the side of the hill, where the pebbles slipped under his boot and dropped him onto one knee. Betsy was in his face with a killing punch before he'd even hit the ground, but she froze her fist a quarter-inch from his nose.
"Good match," Gambit allowed, his eyes crossing as he tried to focus on her knuckles.
"You, too." Betsy relaxed her stance and offered him a hand. He took it, still struggling to get his breath back. "You're better than I expected. Logan did well by you."
Gambit bent backwards to stretch out, taking note of all the places where he was going to be bruised tomorrow. "It's de Cyclops who keeps me on my game, really. An' Rogue. Dat girl's got quite de side thrust kick."
Betsy laughed. "It's really beautiful the way you're so attached to her," she observed, tipping her head sideways as she studied him. "And that's not me being psychic. It's all over your face."
Gambit shrugged. "Some things you go through wid a person, an' y'cain't help bein' attached afterwards." Like New Orleans, he added silently, regret catching up to him again. Like givin' a girl her first real kiss standin' in de sky above de sunrise, swirlin' into one person in two bodies . . . I'd give anythin' t'get dat moment back.
"You know," Betsy observed casually, "she might be back at the Institute by now. The school year must be starting soon."
For the first time in a long time, Remy checked the date on his wristwatch. September third. September? Could it possibly be September already? Bayville High would be back in session starting tomorrow. And fall semester at UNYB couldn't be far behind. Surely Logan wouldn't let her miss starting college . . .
Betsy was grinning now. He must have let a lot of that train of thought show. He was going to have to work on his poker face.
"There's a phone in the den," Betsy offered. "And considering how much money you've been throwing at the Center, I think no one will begrudge you one international call."
Rogue and Logan sat cross-legged, facing one another, their hands touching, palm to palm. Rogue could feel his energy swirling up as far as her wrists, but as long as she was perfectly, absolutely still, right down to her very soul, she could hold it back.
Six one thousand, seven one thousand . . .
Ah kin make it to ten. Ah can.
But if I'm wrong, I'll zap Logan again.
Eight one thousand, nine one thousand . . .
Gotta keep pushing, or this is never gonna get any easier.
Ten one thousand . . .
She pulled her hands back a split second before her concentration cracked. She felt as though she'd just run suicides on the driveway for half an hour, but the rush of triumph and satisfaction was completely worth it. "Did yeh feel anything?" she gasped, struggling to recover her breath.
"A little dizziness towards the end, but that was it." Logan was grinning at her with pride written all over his rough, careworn face. "Was that a new record?"
Rogue nodded. "New personal best. Ah feel like Ah should tell Scott, so he can update my file in that stupid PDA. He's always really excited about that kind of thing."
She saw a flicker of discomfort cross his face at the mention of Scott's name, but she didn't comment. That was Logan's training. He had to work through his problems, too.
"Might as well," he decided finally. "I've been meaning to call home anyway."
"How come?" Rogue couldn't think of any reason to call home, except a drastic need for backup. "Somethin' wrong?"
"Nah. But school's starting up again, and I probably owe Professor Xavier at least an apology for not bein' there. And for makin' you miss your freshman orientation."
"School?" Rogue demanded. She looked down at her wrist, but saw only the stripe of pale skin that her wristwatch had left before she'd stopped bothering to wear the thing. "It can't really be time for school already!"
"Today's the third of September."
"Oh, mah gosh. Classes start tomorrow morning!"
"Well, it's morning over there, so they've got about half a day more than we do, but yeah. Everybody will be moving back in today."
Rogue thought of the mansion, that big, empty house that was hers to wander during the summer. She'd always liked move-in day. It was always so great to see everybody again after months of quiet and boredom, to have the jabber of yells and crashes and explosions resume around her like nobody had ever left. Would Kitty wake up late next morning because Rogue wasn't there to shake her out of bed?
"We can go down the hill tomorrow morning," Logan offered. "Call from town. We don't have to tell them where we are or what's been goin' on, but we probably owe it to them to tell 'em you're all right."
Author's Notes:
Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine. He refused to patent it, which is why polio is now eradicated.
Hm. This whole chapter seems to be in English. I must be slipping.