Bobby waited until Logan left before he sneaked inside Rogue's room. She was sleeping. He couldn't believe it when he heard that she had lost her memory. He had to see for himself if she was all right. He stood over her and started to reach down for her hand before stopping himself. Just because she didn't know who she was didn't mean he forgot.
"What are you doing here?" John walked in.
"I just wanted to see if she was okay," Bobby said.
"So, is it true?" John asked. "Did she really lose her memory?"
"I don't know. She was sleeping when I came in."
Just then, Rogue opened her eyes and looked at the two boys. "Hi."
Bobby and John smiled at her.
"How are you doing?" Bobby asked.
"I just took the longest nap ever," she said. "Do you go to the school too?"
Bobby lost his smile. "Yeah, I do. I'm Bobby."
Rogue looked at John.
"I'm John," he said.
"So, Bobby, John," she said. "What kind of school is this?"
"I saw a fire, Scott. There was so much pain and suffering and misery." Jean wiped away her tears. "I heard their cries, but I couldn't get to them. I tried to save them, I did, Scott."
Scott comforted Jean once again after another nightmare. He ran his hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. "It was just a dream."
"I know," she said, "but it was so real. I can still feel it."
Suddenly, Scott cried out in pain. He looked down at his stomach, shocked to see the claws.
Jean looked up at Logan as he retracted his claws. Scott fell lifelessly onto the bed.
Jean woke up with a scream. She opened her eyes and brought up her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
"Jean?" Scott touched her back. "What happened?"
She looked at him and an image of Scott with Logan's claws slicing into him flashed in her mind.
"Just hold me, Scott, just hold me," she said as she leaned against him. "And never let go."
"Any luck with the girl?" Logan walked into the Professor's office.
"I'm afraid not," he said.
"We can't just sit here and not do anything," Logan said.
"We're trying our best, Logan," said the Professor. "I suggest you do too."
"I am," Logan said, his eyes filled with anger.
"Are you?"
The Professor was probably inside his head right now. Logan sighed and left the room. He saw her sitting alone on a window sill.
"Rogue?"
She smiled at him. "Hi, Logan."
She seemed so calm--it kind of unnerved him.
"How are you doing, kid?"
"All right, I guess," she said. "I had lunch with Jubilee. She seems like a nice person."
"Have you talked to any other students?"
"Just Bobby and John," she said. "They told me about the school."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "What did they say?"
"It's a school for the gifted," she said. "It's hard to imagine myself as gifted."
But, you are, Rogue. You are.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" he asked.
"Yeah." She stared hard at him. "Help me find the truth."
Jean saw Logan and Rogue talking by the window and quickly went in the other direction. She was still thinking about the dream she had last night. It had left her with a unsettling feeling.
"Hey." Scott came up to her. "Are you okay?"
She nodded. "I was just looking for Rogue. She's talking to Logan."
"Does she look fine?"
"I guess so," she said. "She seems remarkably calm for someone who doesn't have any memory of her past."
"Unlike someone else," Scott said.
"Don't start please," Jean said.
"I'm sorry, but I can't help but wonder why Logan took Rogue out anyway," he said.
"She needed to get out of the school," she said. "There was nothing wrong with that."
Scott placed his hands on his hips. "I still don't trust him, Jean."
John lit the lighter and made a ball of fire in his hand. He watched it burn; the flames reflecting in his eyes. He had crept out of the school that night. Outside, he felt free, unrestricted; he could do anything--he could play with fire.
His thoughts wandered to Rogue. He missed her. Even though she was there in body, she wasn't the same. She wasn't the girl with the sad face, who had smiled at his dancing flames. He closed his hand and the flame went out.
Rogue watched John from her window. Logan had been telling the truth after all. They were different. She looked down at her gloved hands.
"When you touch someone, you take away their life force. When you touch another mutant, you take away their power."
She watched John play with his ball of fire and a sense of familiarity swept over her, but it quickly vanished. She went back to bed.
"Still reading that book?"
Jean looked up as Logan walked in the room. "I finished Matheson a long time ago." She showed him the cover. "It's The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde."
"And you're gonna read that entire thing?" He gestured to the book's thick binding filled with pages.
She laughed. "Of course. You don't start something without finishing it." She made herself stop laughing.
"What's wrong?" Logan asked.
"Nothing." She looked away from him.
"I told Rogue about us," he said. "About her powers, our powers."
"Logan, she wasn't ready--"
"She has a right to know," Logan said. "If people know about her past, they should tell her. It's the least I can do for her."
Jean nodded, understanding where he was coming from. The truth and the past--both things Logan was denied of.
"How did she take it?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said. "She didn't really show any reaction to it."
"That's strange."
"I don't think it is," he said.
"Why's that?"
"She has this void inside herself now," Logan said. "When you lose a part of yourself, like your past, your memories, a part of you shuts down. Sometimes it can revived and sometimes--"
"It can be lost forever," Jean said.
Bobby approached Rogue in the TV room. She sat in the corner, her eyes towards the window.
"Hi, Bobby," she said looking at him. "Wanna sit down?"
He took a seat next to her. "Any luck with the memories?"
"Nothing."
"I'm sure the Professor is doing his best to help you," Bobby said.
"I know," she said. "Everyone's been really helpful."
"I wish there was more we could do--"
"Don't do that," she said.
"Do what?"
"Feel guilty." She sighed. "I can feel it in everyone here. I appreciate all the concern, but when it comes down to it, I'm the only one who can help myself."
Bobby nodded.
"Can we just talk, Bobby?" she said. "Forget about my problem. Forget about feeling sorry for me. Lets just talk, alright?"
"We can do that," he said.
Rogue smiled. "Good. So let me tell you this story. Jubilee and I were…"
The Professor awoke suddenly in the middle of the night. There she was. Her voice was coming in loud and clear now. She was scared. She was alone. She was--gone. He laid back down in bed and wondered about the mysterious girl.
He stopped by her room to find her studying at a desk. "Hey, kid, you busy?"
She smiled at him. "For you? Never." She closed her book. "It's amazing that I have no idea who I am, but I can still remember how to do algebra."
"You still have to do homework?" he said.
"I want to," she said. "I don't want my life, whatever that may be, to just stop because of this."
"Rogue, you lost your memory," he said.
She laughed. "I know, but that doesn't mean anything."
"Doesn't mean anything?" He thought about his own amnesia. His main goal was to find out what had happened to him, find out the cause of his nightmares. "Don't you want to remember? You had a life before, and now it's been taken away from you."
A sad smile appeared on her face. "Of course, I do, Logan. I do want to remember. I do want that life back, but I'm still living. I still have a life to live."
He reached over and placed a hand over her black glove.
Her eyes went wide with surprise at his touch. "Aren't you afraid?" she asked.
"I'm not afraid," he said softly.
"Come on, Drake!" John watched the ball as it dribbled in front of him. "You can't get past me."
Bobby eyed the basket and faked to his right before shooting the basketball towards the net.
They watched as the ball bounced off the rim and back onto the concrete.
"I win," John said with a grin.
"Good game," Bobby said. He went to the sidelines to grab a drink from his water bottle.
"You're not mad I beat you?" asked John.
"I said good game." Bobby turned his back towards him.
"Admit it, you can't stand losing," John said, "especially not to me. In basketball, classes, girls--"
Bobby turned back suddenly to face him. His blue eyes were ice cold. "That's enough, John."
John glanced down at Bobby's hand and shook his head.
Bobby looked down to see that the water in the bottle had frozen.
"You better watch it, Bobby," John said. "Someone could get hurt." He left the court with a smile.
Jean glanced at Scott as they got ready for bed. She climbed under the covers and curled herself into a ball. Scott turned off the lights and got into bed with her, placing his arms around her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing's wrong."
"I can feel it, Jean," he said.
She turned to face him. "I don't want to fall asleep." She watched her reflection in his glasses. This was what Scott was seeing--her fear, her uncertainty. "The dreams…they're becoming too much of a reality."
Scott traced her face with a finger. "I'm right here. You don't have be afraid of anything."
Jean closed her eyes slowly, comforted at his words.
She woke up and came out into the hallway. She didn't know why, or where she was going, but she climbed down the stairs to find him in a room staring outside a window.
"I couldn't sleep," he said without looking at her.
"Why?" She moved to him.
"I have these dreams, and--" He looked at her. He thought about their conversation. The one they had before she lost her memory. "I just want to forget them."
She nodded. She looked up at the moon and smiled. "I love that story you told me, about how we first met."
He smiled also. "You owe me some gas money by the way."
"Those stories aren't stories though." Her smile slowly faded. "They're real. They're my life, and I can't remember anything from it."
His eyes filled with sadness for her. For so long, he had been consumed with his need to figure out his past that he had forgotten the pain, the loss of control, the absence of answers.
"Let me help you," he said.
She looked at him questionably.
"Touch me." He looked into her eyes and she saw that he was serious about this. "Take off your gloves and touch me."
"I can't, Logan, I can hurt you," she said.
"Maybe you can get some of my memories, some of your memories," he said. "Then, you can remember, you can remember everything, the day we met, the day we came here, you can remember."
She stood there in shock. He was willing to risk his life for her to remember? Her eyes filled with tears as she contemplated the decision.
"I don't know anything about my power," she said. "What if I hold on for too long? What if I kill you? I can't. I can't do it."
"I want you too." He reached for her hand. "Just try." He softened his voice. "Try."
She slowly took off her gloves and stared at her hands and then at him. "I can't."
"Marie…"
Her eyes filled with more tears. Marie. Rogue. Marie. Rogue. Marie. Rogue. She had two names, yet she didn't know anything about them. She hesitantly reached for his face. He closed his eyes as she placed her hands on his head. Her soft hands over his rough skin, his stubble, and she waited.