Disclaimer: The X-men are property of Twentieth Century Fox and the Marvel Entertainment Group. I am using their characters for my own un-profitable enjoyment. Anything that you do not recognise is my own.

Authors Note: Yeah I suck I know!

Chapter 10: Hair line crack

Logan growled as he saw the hunched over form of the girl hiding beneath a seat. He reached down roughly and grabbed the back of her neck lifting her out effortlessly. He ignored the other X-men as they ran up behind him.

"Lost your pen kid? Even I can think of a better excuse than that." He said still holding her off the ground.

"Would you please put me down you are hurting my gills." She said glaring at him.

"Put her down Logan." Jean said coming up behind him.

His nostrils instantly flared at the warm scent coming from the red haired woman. He obliged and lowered the blue girl down to the floor. Once he let go of her she reached up and rubbed her gill covers.

"Hannah why are you here?" Storm asked from behind Logan.

"You are going to rescue Rouge aren't you? Magneto has her, I need to find him. I can help you; I promise I won't be any trouble." She said.

"No, you are staying here. You should not even be away from the mansion." Said Jean.

Logan nodded before turning to the other side of the jet. He looked back to make sure that the other three X-men still had the girl surrounded before he went back to what he was looking for.

"You can't keep me there. I could leave whenever I want. My free will is my own and you cannot change that Birdie." She said glaring at Jean.

Storm's eyes widened for a second as she heard what Hannah called Jean, and her hand went to the pocket that she had placed the piece of paper in. It went with her everywhere, she did not trust to leave it around.

Logan returned and threw a loop of rope over the girl's neck, it settled round her chest, squashing her arms to her sides. He tied it quickly before pulling her sharply into one of the main seats. He wrapped the rope tightly around her and the chair making sure that she was completely bound. He tried to ignore the flailing punches and kicks that connected with him, as he did not want to admit that some of them hurt. The girl was stronger than she looked. When she was tied up he looked back at the other three stunned X-men.

"Let's go."

"Don't leave me here, please don't leave me here." Came Hannah's voice and they all looked at her, writhing against the strong rope bonds.

"It's for your own good; we don't want you to get hurt." Storm said approaching the girl.

Hannah's eyes darkened as she stopped writhing and stared straight at them. "My own good? You know nothing of my own good. You say you want to stop me getting hurt yet you tie me to a chair, the bonds so fight I can feel them cutting into me."

Outside storm clouds rolled in and thunder boomed ominously. The jet started rocking as the waves picked up height and battered against the side.

"Storm is that you?" Scott said looking warily at the white haired lady.

"No."

They all turned their attention back on the girl their eyes were all drawn to her collar and chains that were glowing slightly. Then as a particularly bad wave hit the side of the jet making all of them stumble they saw a small hair line crack appear in the collar around her neck.

"Come on she is fine here. We need to find Rouge." Logan said moving uncertainly towards the steps.

The rest of the X-men gave a backwards glance at the girl who was now slumped in the ropes with a dejected look on her face. The waves had stopped battering the jet and the thunder had stopped, all appeared to be quiet outside. Taking their chance they ran towards the Statue of Liberty.

OOOOOO

Hannah sat there staring out the large windshield in front of her; a snarl was etched on her usual smiling face. She watched the scene unfold in front of her and wanted to laugh at the stupidity of the X-men, running straight towards Magneto whilst inside a large copper dome. Really even she knew enough about science to tell it was a daft move.

Still her breath did catch in her throat as she saw Logan get flown up to Rouge. Well she presumed it was Logan, it was rather hard to tell through the fog that Storm had created. Obviously he had more trust in Jean and Storm's power than she did. There was no way she was going to rely on another mutants powers if her feet were off the ground!

All the X-men vanished and it was a while before she heard the hatch to the Jet open. She tried to look round to see what was happening but the angle of the chair and the tight ropes prevented her. Instead she coughed rather loudly to get their attention. When no one came she sighed.

"Oi! You going to untie me now or what? I can't feel my feet!"

A couple of seconds later and a person moved into her line of sight. She looked up at the worn figure of Rouge and smiled gently. The girl's eyes were still wide with fear and her hands trembled as she undid the knots. Hannah stayed silent as she watched Rouge gently unwind the rope from around her and the chair and coil it up neatly again.

"Thanks." Hannah said, looking at the girl carefully.

She watched as Rouge nodded and walked quickly to the back of the jet and sat down next to the prone form of Logan.

The blue girl stood gingerly up from the chair and placed her hands on the control panel in front of her to get her balance on her dead legs. Wincing she stood up slowly and sighed in relief as every vertebrate in her back clicked. She slowly straightened each arm and smiled as they clicked as well. The loud popping finally brought her to the attention of the X-men who were hastily patching up the bleeding mutant.

"You try being tied to a chair for an hour and not have stiff joints." She said as she slowly took a step forward testing the weight on her legs before lifting the other foot up. "Err; the pigs are here I think we better be going."

OOOOOO

Jean looked up at the girl who was slowly making her way towards them. She winced as she saw the way she was walking and the deep groves in her skin where the ropes had been bound.

"Pigs?" She asked.

"The cops are coming and they are looking at us very suspiciously." She said finally making it to Logan and pacing around next to him to get the feeling back into her limbs.

"Storm, get the jet online. I'll be there in a second." Scott said as he quickly wrapped a bandage around one of Logan's arms.

Jean watched absentmindedly as Storm ran to the front of the jet, all she was interested in was stemming the large amount of bleeding coming from the man in front of her. She almost did not register Scott telling her to sit down and strap up.

"Hannah sit down!" Scott said as the jet started to move slowly.

"To hell with you if you think I'm sitting down again!" Came Hannah's reply.

Jean gripped the seat as the jet moved suddenly throwing Hannah to the floor with a thump.

"That's better." Scott said as the jet rose quickly.

Once the jet was up and cruising quickly through the air Jean turned her attention to the two younger mutants next to her. Rouge was rocking back wards and forwards with her arms wrapped around her chest.

"Rouge it'll be alright. He'll heal, like he always does." Jean said.

"There's no point trying to talk to her for a while. She's just absorbed Magneto as well as Logan; no doubt the two personalities are fighting it out in her head. Give her a couple of hours before she is coherent again." Hannah said, stretching languidly.

"How do you know this?"

"We did an experiment the last time that Rouge absorbed Logan. If she concentrates hard enough she can still use his mutation, yet not his physical ones. So she was able to heal herself when I cut her arm."

Jean's eyes widened in surprise as she looked at the blue girl. "You cut her arm and did not tell me about it!"

"Don't worry I made sure Elixir was with us encase it didn't work."

Jean shook her head and went silent. She really did wonder how they knew so little about Hannah yet she always seemed so open. She turned her head back to the girl as another question came into her head.

"Why did you want to find Magneto so badly?"

Hannah looked directly at her, her oval pupils staring out of yellow eyes. She raised her arms slightly and shook them making her chains rattle. "Why do you think? If you knew your true power Birdie you'd want to be able use it as well. My freedom has been chained and I want it back."

OOOOOO

It was not until the next day that Rouge sought out Hannah. The blue girl was not in their room, or by the pool and she was on the verge of giving up her search when she heard Kitty and Jubilee giggling about seeing Hannah and Pyro together.

"Have you two seen Hannah?" Rouge asked approaching the two girls in the kitchen.

"Yeah. She's with John in the TV room. They look very cosy together." Kitty said.

"She swears there is nothing going on; the girl's got issues if you ask me. He obviously wants her!" Jubilee said.

Rouge just nodded and walked towards the TV room set on finding the girl with gills. As she walked in, she saw why her two room mates were giggling, Hannah was curled up on the sofa with her head in Pyro's lap. He was absently stroking her hair as he flicked through the music channels.

Not really wanting to break the moment, but knowing that she had to, Rouge coughed. Two heads turned to face her slowly.

"Erm Hannah, can I speak to you?"

"Sure." She said uncoiling herself and standing up. She turned to Pyro before she walked towards Rouge. "I'll see you later."

Rouge saw Pyro nod before turning back to flick through the channels. She indicated to Hannah that they should walk; they eventually made their way back to their room not a word was spoken on the journey. Once there Rouge shut the door behind them and settled herself down onto her bed and looked around nervously.

"What did you want to talk about? I don't think you just wanted the walk." Hannah said sitting next to the girl.

"I want to know why you so desperately wanted to find Magneto, he tried to kill me!"

Hannah sighed and her hand went to the collar around her neck. "I wish I didn't have to find him. I wish that you could now use his powers and take this thing off me, but it specifically needs to be him. Whilst this thing is still on me I feel powerless, useless, and hopeless. I am strong, I know it and how would you feel if you spent the last two years clapped up in chains?"

"I would want to do everything to get rid of them as well." Rouge said looking at her hands. "I hope that the Wolverine and Magneto in my head sort it out soon. This morning I called the Professor both 'Charles' and 'Chuck' in the same conversation! It was very embarrassing."

Rouge looked up at Hannah and saw the compassion written on her face; she tensed as the blue girl reached over and grasped her gloved hand.

"Why were those chains put on you?" Rouge supposed it was a personal question yet she was curious.

Hannah sighed in resignation before balling her free hand into a fist. "Because I was deemed too powerful, too dangerous to both human and mutant kind. A bit like you I was shunned, people were afraid to come near me encase I hurt them. I promise that as soon as I get these chains off me I'll help you learn to control your mutation."

Rouge nodded before plucking up her courage to ask another question. "Why were you thought of as too powerful?"

Hannah went silent then sighed deeply before raising the hand that was not clasped in Rouge's and placed it on the Southern girl's cheek.