Scott walked past the room and then retreated his steps to enter it. "Rogue?"
The dark-haired girl looked up at him from her chair. "Hi."
"What are you doing in here?" he asked.
"I just wanted some time by myself," she said.
He nodded and turned to leave.
"Why don't you like Logan?"
Her question made him turn back. "Who says I don't like him?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, I don't like the guy," Scott said. "I don't know why, really, I just--"
"Feel threatened?" Rogue said.
"I guess you can say that," Scott said.
"He knows you're the leader here," she said. "He respects you, in his own way, and I think you respect him too in your own way."
"Well, respect is something different than trust," said Scott. "I don't know if I can trust him."
"You can trust him." Rogue smiled. "I don't know if you find that credible or not, I mean, I do have amnesia, but I guess it's my intuition telling me that Logan means well in whatever he does."
"I wish I could say the same, Rogue," Scott said. He turned back to the door.
"And he knows Jean is yours too," Rogue said.
Scott paused in the doorway.
"You don't need to feel threatened," she said.
He left before she could continue.
**Logan came down the stairs and saw Rogue playing cards with Bobby and Jubilee. He watched her for a moment and left through the front door.
He "borrowed" Scott's motorcycle and drove to town and stopped at the first bar he saw. He hadn't been to one since he and Rogue came to the school. He needed a beer. Bad.
At the counter, he gulped down his long-neck and observed the smoky bar. Lots of tatoos and leather. He used to live in places like this. And then he met the kid. Maybe meeting her had turned him soft. He chuckled at the thought. Him, soft? He turned back to the bartender for another drink.
A tall brunette appeared next to him. "You look a little lonely tonight, honey."
He looked at her tight black dress and long tan legs. He took a drink of his beer. "Maybe I am."
"Well, maybe I can solve that problem." She leaned in closer to him, her breath warm against his skin. "Wanna let me try?"
He put down his drink and grabbed the woman's hand.
**She went down to the room and to her surprise, he wasn't there. She sat down on a chair and waited for him. He never came. She fell asleep and was awakened by the front door opening. She saw him stumble in.
"Logan?"
He looked up at her like a deer caught in a car's headlights. "What are you still doing up, kid?"
She noticed that he was slurring his words. He had been out drinking. She also noticed a scent--something she had picked up from him. The scent didn't belong to her or to him. A woman. A woman he had picked up. "I was waiting for you."
"What for?" he said.
Something was different. He was detached, unfeeling.
"I just--"
"Go to bed, kid." He spit out the word like it was venom.
Her face filled with hurt. She even waited a moment for him to apologize, but he just stood there silently in the dark. She ran out of the room.
**"Rogue, are you okay?" Jubilee stood over her roommate with a concerned look. "Are you awake?" She pulled down Rogue's covers and found the girl under her pillows. "What's wrong?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," Rogue said.
Jubilee grabbed the pillows off Rogue. "You've been crying."
"Leave me alone, please." Rogue threw the blanket over her head again.
"Is it this Zoey thing?" Jubilee said. "The Professor is trying to figure out how to get your memories back, you know."
"No," came the muffled response.
"Then, what is it?"
"You can zap things, right?"
"Why?"
Rogue showed her face. "Can you zap someone for me?"
**John walked into Zoey's room and saw her talking on her cell phone.
"Yes, I will," she said. "I said I will. I'll let you know when I'm ready." She hung up and let out an exasperated sigh. She turned and jumped at the sight of John. "Oh, hey, John."
"Who were you talking to?" he asked.
"Oh, no one important," she said tossing her phone on the bed. "So, have you heard anything about my brother yet?"
He shook his head. "None of students really know what's going on."
"Well, I'm going to go to find out," Zoey said.
"Before you do," John moved his hand from around his back and revealed a small globe, "I got this for you."
Zoey smiled. "You did?" She took the globe and traced the outlines of the countries. She looked at John and felt it again--that tingling in her stomach, that connection. "Thank you."
"I know how much you want to find your brother and that his globe was an important part of his life so I wanted you to have something he had," John said.
Zoey pulled him into a hug. She suddenly thought Mystique. "Don't let him make you forget why you're here." She pulled away and put the globe down on the table. "Thanks again, fire boy."
**The Professor looked up from his desk to see Zoey in his office. "Zoey, come sit down."
She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. "Have you found anything about my brother yet?"
"I'm afraid not," he said. "There's not enough information to help me track him down. I don't know anything about his powers or abilities."
Zoey leaned back against the chair with her arms crossed across her chest. "Well, then my half of the deal is off. Rogue doesn't get back her memories."
The Professor sighed. "Zoey, we both are in very frustrated situations and the only way we can get what we want is to work together."
She threw up her hands. "Alright."
"Good," the Professor said. "If you don't mind, Jean would like to speak to you."
"About what?"
"She may have found a way to retrieve Rogue's memories," he said.
**Logan sat alone in the dining room with his feet propped up on the table and a beer in his hand. He didn't remember much from last night. Lots of drinking, then that brunette, then what? He closed his eyes and suddenly remembered. Rogue. A sense of guilt swept over his body. Damn. He didn't know what had come over him. It was too messy to try to explain. Sure, he liked the kid, but it was the kid that was holding him back. Here he was getting so caught up with trying to help her find out about her past that he had forgotten about his own mission to find out about his own. But he couldn't just leave her. She needed a friend. Then again, she was making friends here at the school, friends her own age. He smirked at the thought. He finished his beer and crushed the can in his hand.
"You think you're some Mr. Big Shot, huh?"
He looked up to see Jubilee. She was chewing her bubble gum loudly, smacking it in between her lips and teeth as she talked.
"Rogue is up in her room crying her eyes out and here you are drinking beer," she said.
"Listen--"
"No, you listen, you're like her best friend, man," Jubilee said, "and you go and act like some total jerk to her."
Logan started to laugh. He couldn't help it. He felt like he was in some bad teenage movie.
"What are you laughing at?" Jubilee asked.
He kept on laughing.
Jubilee rolled her eyes. "I should zap you." She left the room.
**Zoey followed Jean into a room and looked around. "What is this place?"
"It's called the Danger Room," Jean said. "The Professor built it so we can practice our powers here."
"Oh, cool."
"We should be able to work privately here," Jean said.
"I don't think we should," Zoey said nervously. "I mean, are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Jean nodded. "Now we just have to test my theory."
"And that would be?"
"The Professor couldn't find you because you had other memories, other presences inside you, but somehow you and I managed to connect," Jean said, "so I'm going to try to get inside you telepathically and try to find how to recover Rogue's memories."
"Maybe you shouldn't," said Zoey.
"Why not?"
"I don't know how I feel about you getting inside my head," she said.
"This coming from the girl who steals peoples' memories," Jean said.
"Fine." Zoey sat down in a chair. "Lets get this over with."
Jean sat down across from her and looked into her blue eyes. "Just concentrate with me, Zoey. Open your mind. Let me inside you."
Jean felt the world around her expanding. Suddenly, she could hear thoughts, voices, and feel emotions--none of them belonged to her, they didn't belong to Zoey either. She searched for Rogue. A picture of Logan flashed in her mind and then she found Rogue. A intense pain hit her and then the images were disappearing. She was beginning to lose touch with Rogue. She struggled with the pain to find her way back to Rogue, but something was holding her back, making her look somewhere else. She saw a bright red flame and followed it into a darkness where a voice was hiding. Something that did not want to be found.
An image flashed before Jean.
"I'll help you if you will let me see my brother." Zoey was talking to someone.
"Your brother will not be harmed as long as you follow my directions," the other voice, a man, said.
"I'll go to them," Zoey said. "I'll go to them and pretend that I want to help."
"And then what?" the man said.
"Then, I'll kill them," she said.
Jean looked up at who Zoey was talking to and gasped.
Magneto.
"Charles and his school won't know what hit them," he said.
The red flame grew brighter as the image of Mageneto vanished. Jean heard screaming and wondered where it was coming from before realizing that she was the one screaming. She found herself back in Danger Room with Zoey.
Zoey had her hands on Jean's head. A bright white light appeared and Zoey closed her eyes. When she opened them back up, she was up in the guest room. Her hands were shaking, her entire body was shaking. She hadn't planned on starting this soon, but she had no choice. Jean had tapped inside her memories, something that no one had ever done before, and she had found out about her plan with Magneto.
After years of looking for Alex, Zoey met Magneto who had claimed that her brother was alive and that only he could show her where Alex was, but first she had to do something for him.
"I heard you took away one of Charles's student's memories," Magneto said.
"I didn't mean anything by it," she said.
"Of course, you didn't," he said. "They love the cute and innocent act over at that school." He made a face. "You will meet them, plea for their help on finding your brother, gain their trust, then kill them."
"Kill them?"
"That's the fun part," he said.
"I can just get the information myself," she said. "I can grab your head right now and teleport right to him."
Magneto smiled. "Go ahead, but your brother won't be alive. I can have him killed in an instant if you touch me."
"You're lying," she said.
"Am I?" He was still smiling.
Zoey made herself calm down before calling a number on her cell phone. "It's me. I'm doing it tonight. Right now." She hung up and waited for them to come find her.