A.N. Hey, thanks for yer lovely reviews! It's cold and frosty, but X-mas is only a few days away so it's all good! Nollaig Shona Dhuit! R&R ~ Ríoghnach

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just entertainment!

Chapter 34

"Am, so, what is it?" She asked, trying to portray nothing but a complimentary air as she stared at the massive concoction presented before her.

The red sauce dripped over the edge of the massive bowl onto the centre of the kitchen table, having been laden heavily on to the horribly over-cooked, uhm, something?

"It was supposed to be a Bolognese, but then I saw that we were out of a few things so I improvised!" Jamie smiled triumphantly, spooning out a plateful of the 'spaghetti' for Kitty. Kitty's eyes darted to the stove to see what so-called improvisations lay around it. Chilli sauce... coconut milk... Lemon rind... Cocoa powder?!

"Kitty, I want you to have the first bite!" A Jamie announced, still beaming.

One Jamie handed her the enormous plate of 'food', another handed her a fork. Piotr cheekily nudged her glass of water towards her, sensing that she would be in need of it. She glared at Piotr like a traitor. Like, even Ororo wasn't stepping in to stop this - she just kept pacing. Roberto quickly got up, using 'checking up on Rahne' as his excuse to excuse himself from the table. The other boys just kept grinning at her, but she could tell Amara and Tabitha were more focussed on the not-too-distant future; they were totally trying to think of excuses for their predictably soon to occur disappearances, but not before they see Kitty's reaction.

Kitty eyed the pasta warily and saw little black flecks throughout. She made a face at it but quickly pulled it back, not wanting to offend any Jamie.

"I may have burnt it a bit, but I think I caught it just in time." Jamie told her a little less confidently, but eagerly awaited her review. She hesitantly picked up the fork to have a stab at the plate of food in front of her, her mind searching and reaching for any and every excuse to put the fork down but came up with zilch.

Bamf! Squelch!!

Kurt appeared in the middle of the table, one foot on wood, the other stuck in the middle of a big hot steaming bowl of... something... He lifted his foot out of the hot stuff and examined it in shock.

"Mann! Vhot is that!" He exclaimed incredulously at the unknown substance attacking his foot.

"That's what we were all wondering..." Tabitha told the other guys discretely.

"My Bolognese!" Jamie cried out at Kurt, reaching out to snap the bowl away from the table out under his foot.

"Yeah," Bobby said dryly to Sam, "Now it's ruined..." His voice was laced with sarcasm.

Kurt tried shaking his foot clean, but flicked sauce in every direction as his body and tail moved to balance his antics. As the others were grossed out and diving for cover, his tail flicked dangerously close to Kitty. Not one to miss a golden opportunity, she swiftly slid her plate off the wooden plain and let it shatter and splash on the hard tile floor.

"Kurt!" Kitty shouted at the fuzzy dude, pretending to be annoyed. Kurt spun to face her.

"Vhot?!" He asked her, he was confused but Kitty rarely needed a reason to yell at him, so he was no more confused than normal.

"Nevermind!" Kitty finished her fake rant quickly. Kurt almost spoke up in his own defence when Ororo reminded him why he was there in the first place.

"Kurt, has anything happened below?" Ororo enquired as Kurt cleaned off his foot.

"Ja, lots. Wolverine sent me to get you to start the jet." Kurt informed her as the others got the meaning of his words and livened up.

"Mission?!" The Jamie picking up the pieces of the shattered plate exclaimed. "When do we leave?!" The Jamie behind Ororo, removing the bowl of... whatever... to the kitchen sink asked eagerly. Ignoring the multiple Jamies, Storm spoke to Kurt directly.

"Did he tell you anything else?" She asked Kurt annoyed at the lack of information from Logan. He shook his head.

"Nine, but it sounded urgent. I can fill you in on vhat you missed while we start up the X-jet." He reached out his hand for her to take so he could teleport them to the jet - but she didn't take it.

"I'll take the stairs." She told him and turned on her heel to the door opting out of any further information, which struck Kurt as bizarre. Kurt hopped off the table and went to follow Ororo. But a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"So, where are we going?!" Jamie asked him excitedly. Kurt shook his head and Bobby took over.

"Didn't you hear him? This is a Wolverine mission. Translation; we're not invited." Bobby explained to Jamie, patting him in consolation on the back, letting Kurt slip out after Ororo.

"Oh..." Jamie's shoulders slumped, but Kitty didn't want him to feel too bad for too long so she thought she'd try to cheer him up. She got up and walked over to the cooker.

"Sorry Jamie, but you should sit down. I'll make us something else-"

"No!" Several people yelled at once, stunning Kitty into silence. Like, was her cooking totally icksome or something?

oOo

"Saunders?" Logan asked him. Xavier nodded gravely, confirming Logan's thoughts. Logan sighed and looked back to Rogue. "Apparently, we needed a nudge in the right direction." He said to Rogue, as if she could hear him.

He stood by her, looking at her from time to time as he talked to the other man on the opposite side her hospital bed. The curtain was drawn around the three, so two of them could talk.

"Control, Chuck. She's been learnin' control." He answered Xavier's question, explaining what they had been up to for the past while. "Started to understand more about her powers, and mine, in Alberta."

Charles eyebrows flicked as he comprehended how much had been hidden from him since they had returned, but he wasn't one to judge on trust himself, so he let he face fall back to passive as Logan continued.

"She's been learnin' how to control the powers of the people stuck in her head - mine, yours, the elf's, red's..." Logan sighed as Xavier got the idea that it was a long list. "She's been training hard..." It explained a lot to him. This was why Rogue was impossible to read when she returned; she had been able to use psychic shields at her will from him and from Jean, and even from Mystique - probably. It explained how she seemed to just know things that he himself was only figuring out. It explained how she stood a chance against Jean.

"You shared a psychic link with her when you touched her skin." Logan's eye's snapped from Rogue to Xavier. Xavier nodded knowingly tapping the side of his head. "I know; I sensed it. What did she show you?" Logan sighed.

"Everything that happened in Rochester; she saw what Jean was doing and she used the powers she could control to stop her." Logan told him simply before adding how it ended. "She figured out how to use Red's powers faster in the end - that's what she used to bring her down."

"Yes," Xavier nodded, "I sensed that the battle was ongoing, on the psychic plain, when she they were brought here - that's why I didn't want you to touch her skin earlier. I was afraid it would upset a balance that she had established and give Jean the opportunity to regain her strength. And given Jean's reaction at the time, it almost did."

"But she got the control back; even halted my healing factor to do it." Logan continued the story.

"Her wounds?" Logan nodded as Xavier caught his observation. "What else did you pick up from her link?" Logan shrugged but remained tough spoken.

"Mostly fractured memories; some of hers, some of the people she absorbed..." Logan left the end of his sentence hang mid-air, looking at him, indicating that Xavier was included in that snippet. Clearly Logan had seen something in Rogue/Xavier's memories to cause anger and even disappointment in the Professor. But Xavier knew that that was a conversation he needed to have with Jean and Rogue; not Logan.

However, at least Xavier now knew of how Logan learned of Jean's powers damaging Cerebro. Rogue was there. And given that he touched her skin accidentally that day, it cemented the chance that most of the fractured memories were his.

The silence carried until Logan could see that Xavier wasn't going to say any more. He sighed.

"Where you able to do anything to help her?" Logan asked in a low tone.

"I was able to psychically separate Jean from Duncan and Rogue from Laura." Xavier told the Wolverine, while looking a little defeated. "However, given how Jean and Rogue are intertwined; it will take more time." Logan was confused; Xavier felt the need to elaborate. "Rogue is using a great power that did not belong to her. She is using it very well, mind, but it is taking all that she has to keep Jean from taking a hold of her own power."

"And we don't want that to happen?" Logan asked to make sure they were both on the same page here.

"No. Not yet. Jean's mental state, I'm afraid to say, cannot handle the power." Xavier looked up at the man, again wondering how much Rogue had shown him. Logan had his poker face on again, letting Xavier tell him only how much he wanted to tell him; and for this, Charles was grateful. Xavier very much wanted to change the topic.

"Just now, Logan, you were shown what I was shown?" Xavier needed confirmation from Wolverine to establish just how serious this could be. Tactically, Xavier wasn't willing to risk any more bad decisions.

"Saunders? Yeah. Rogue's been using her new powers on our new 'guest'. Found some pretty damning evidence too." Xavier nodded. Separating Laura and Duncan from the mix took enough strain off Rogue so that she could bring their attention to Saunders. Through her not-so-subtle barrage of images, they had both seen glimpses of things that were already in motion from Saunders' mind. They needed to act fast.

"And you want to take Laura with you?" Xavier asked, slightly questioning the other man's sanity.

"If this LDX production is even half as big as Saunders thinks it is - then we've got a big problem on our hands. We need to put an end to it, and Laura and me are the only ones who can handle it if things go bad." He concluded, Xavier reluctantly agreeing that their healing factors gave them an advantage above anyone else on the team.

Laura was listening from just outside the curtain where Logan ordered her to wait until the jet was ready. Nearby in the corner behind her, Gambit leaned casually flicking cards from one hand to the other - waiting for her to make a move that could be considered threatening. She rolled her eyes; like he could really stop her...

oOo

She watched them leave and run away from her. Or, rather foolishly, she watched them leave instead of fleeing herself. She turned back to the direction she was supposed to be going; well, at least the direction she thought she should have been going...

She ran at top speed but a minute in, she realised she was going the wrong way. She couldn't see the jet anywhere. She tried to sniff it out but that wasn't good enough. She was becoming so frazzled she couldn't concentrate of any scent. She morphed to her canine form, but still she couldn't catch even a wee trace. Normally, when calm and in control of herself, she could handle a situation like this - but she had started to freak herself out and began darting around in random sprints and circles like a wild animal experiencing a rare mixture of claustrophobia and agoraphobia.

She finally gave up and stopped in a clearing. She morphed back to her human form, now completely lost and panting. She reached to her belt for her com device to radio the others. She wasn't quick enough to react to the rustling in the bushes behind her...

She woke with a start, momentarily forgetting where she was until her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw that she was in her own room back at the Institute. She shook her head to rid herself of the bad dream/memory. The sound of steady, light breathing alerted her to the presence of someone else in the room. She looked around and saw Jubilee curled up asleep in a chair.

Rahne rubbed the sleep from her eyes and felt the collection of Steri-Strips on her cheeks and forehead, and across her neck - how badly was she hurt? She got up quietly from her bed not wanting to disturb Jubilee, and flinched when she remembered her more serious injury. She bit her lip uncertainly, but decided to quickly and swiftly sneak out the door of her room in her pale pink pyjama shorts and tee to the bathroom down the hall.

She silently crept along the empty hallway suddenly having a dim recollection of the Beast's instructions that she should remain in bed and should not be left alone. To her, that all seemed more like recommendations rather than explicit medical advice from a trained professional - but if she really believed that then why would she be worried about getting caught?

She flicked the switch for the bathroom light and went straight to the mirror. She leaned on the sink to look closely at her face and neck. Series of fine red lines tracked by little train-track strips marked her forehead, her cheek and her neck diagonally from high on her left and across. She wasn't normally a vain person, but in this instance she was hypnotised by them, hoping they wouldn't scar. She raised her hand to trace the lines and began thinking about how she got them...

A sharp blow to the back of her head was the first indication that things weren't going well. She nearly fell forward to her knees but a swift kick to her side knocked her in the direction of a tree. She felt the com device crushing between her hip and the hard ground as she hit the dirt. The dry and rocky ground scraped her skin as her body lost momentum, arresting at the base of the Elder.

As she came to a stop, she let instinct take over and quickly transformed to Wolfsbane - springing back from the fall by kicking her hind legs off from the tree to launch herself at her victim. She could see the fear in his eyes.

She flew through the air but upon landing, he managed to throw her weight off centre causing them to crumple up together. She growled furiously as she tried to get a few swipes and bites in as they fell, but she hit the ground first. She tried to roll them advantageously, giving her the necessary position for a strong push from the ground. She pushed the man in a shoulder tackle into the tree using her full wolf body weight to knock him out with force.

His head hit the tree with a clunk, but at the same time she felt a searing pain in her side and yelped loudly. She peeled herself back from him letting him fall to the ground unconscious, but she couldn't breathe; the pain in her side prevented it. She stood on her hind legs and bent her neck forward and down just able to make out the injection pen buried deep into her side before things started to go fuzzy...

She stood, looking at herself in the mirror, tracing her fingers along the red lines from her scrum with the man. Her fingers ran over the strips but it didn't hurt. She frowned and still felt no pain from tension on her forehead. She was confused. Gently, she peeled off the first strip from the cut on her forehead, and then the second - soon she had the whole line undone and started inspecting the skin underneath. She rubbed at the red line of dried blood and it easily flaked off. Now she was even more confused as the skin underneath was perfect.

Quickly she peeled off the rest of her collection of paper stitches from her face and neck and from her left shoulder and arm while the hot water was running and filling in the sink. The steam fogged up the mirror and the room. She was amazed as she cleaned off her skin with a hot damp cloth and looked closely for imperfections or any sign of her struggle - there were none. Rahne couldn't believe it; did she have a healing factor?

She recalled her more serious injury and turned and twisted to look at her side - lifting the hem of her pyjama top, she expected to see nothing but perfectly healed skin. She stretched and it didn't hurt, but it didn't look right either. Her skin had healed completely, but extending outwards from the point of impact of the injection pen, radial angry red lines grew. She ran her fingers over the mark. It didn't hurt but it did feel a little tender. It was an odd reaction; if she was supposed to have a healing factor then why was the mark still there? Upon examination, she decided it looked more like an infection or blood poisoning that her body/healing factor was fighting.

She didn't feel like challenging her healing factor so soon only just after discovering it so she fixed her top to go and find the Beast for some antibiotics and a consultation. Just as she walked to the door, the thought occurred to her that he might be too busy to be bothered by her; maybe her healing factor will take care of it. She shrugged, either way she had to find him.

"Rahne?" Jubilee called out, footsteps coming closer and closer to the doorway of the bathroom. She opened the door to the girl. "Not to sound smothering or anything, but you should have woken me up if nature call-your face!" Jubilee shouted, catching a view immediately of Rahne's uninjured face.

"Aye. Aye got'ah really good facial." She told her friend, jokingly before responding to Jubilee's shocked face. "Seems that Aye may have acquired ah healing factor." Jubilee went from shocked to disbelief.

"Omigod! You're kidding me?! How did that happen?!" Jubilee asked randomly and quickly. Rahne was very calm about it.

"Evolution?" Rahne shrugged her response. She lifted her shirt enough for Jubilee to see the other injury. Jubilee saw it and sucked in air.

"Ouch..." She said slowly; Rahne nodded.

"Aye should find Mr. McCoy." She told her, to which Jubilee nodded.

"I'm guessing he'll be in the Medical Bay, but he could be anywhere in the mansion." Jubilee supplied.

"That's okay; Aye'll just sniff 'im out." Rahne decided, she stretched and felt no pain so figured she was alright to transform. Jubilee stepped back. Rahne sniffed the air; half transformed to Wolfsbane and sniffed the air again. Before she had fully transformed she got a twinge in her side, and yelped as she completed the rest of the transformation. She collapsed.

Jubilee rushed forwards to the distressed red Wolf lying on the hallway floor, stretched out before her. As she reached down to touch her, Rahne snapped at her causing Jubilee to quickly retract her hand and go on the defensive. The sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs caused Rahne to stumble to her feet like a drugged dog. Roberto appeared around the corner at the top of the stairs having heard her yelp.

"Rahne!" He shouted rushing forward, but Jubilee pulled him back.

"No, she's not thinking straight!" She informed him quickly, but he pushed away from her to get to Rahne - not even hesitating when he heard the low growl.

"Rahne, what's wrong-" She snapped at him, her growl becoming louder and fiercer. He jumped back towards Jubilee, now knowing that Rahne meant business. Rahne took slow steps towards them, before leaping powerfully for them...

End of Chapter 34

A.N. Ooh... what's going on with Rahne? Why didn't Ororo take Kurt's hand? Who is the worst cook - Jamie or Kitty? What memories did Rogue share with Logan about Xavier? Where are Laura and Logan going? Can Jamie come too?! All this and more will be answered... eventually! Hope some previous questions were answered in this chapter! But until the next one: Review, review, review! c",) ~ Rí