Chapter Twenty-Three

Making a Plan

Logan, Jean, Ororo, Magneto, and Mystique sat around the fire. They had pitched tents and concealed the Blackbird. The kids and Kurt were gathered not far away.

"What are they saying," Marie asked Kurt.

"I can't really understand," he admitted. "But I could get loser." With a soft *bamf* of compressing air Kurt disappeared. The hard part was reappearing close enough to a branch to grab onto it with out reappearing impaled by it.

"If Charles was forced to concentrate on a particular group," said Magneto. "Let's say mutants."

"Oh my God," Storm began.

"What," asked Logan.

"He could kill us all," said Jean.

"We aren't sure where Stryker is operating from, but someone here does," said Magneto.

"The professor already tried reading my mind," said Logan. "He didn't find anything."

"Once again," replied Magneto. "You think it's all about you." He glanced up at Night Crawler, hanging upside-down by his tail from a tree above.

"Oh, hello," said Kurt with a small wave. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*

"I didn't mean to snoop," Kurt said.

"It's okay," Jean said. "Just try and relax." She laid her hands on his head.

"They're at the Alkali Lake base," said Jean at length.

"I've been there," said Logan. "There's nothing left."

"There's nothing left on top," said Jean. "The base is under ground."

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Logan went to Jean who was working on the jet.

"How are we doing," he asked.

"It'll be another couple of hours before I can get it off the ground," she said.

"That's not what I meant," he said, disappointed.

"I'm worried about Scott," she admitted.

Some how amidst the love and the pain his lips met hers.

"Don't make me do this," she said.

"Do what," he asked.

'This," she repeated.

"I just thought-"

"Girls flirt with the bad guy," she said. "But we take the good guy home. Marry him."

"I could be the good guy," Logan said with an interesting head jiggle that inclined the author to crack up in theater.

***

Mystique looked on with a pang of growing envy.

"Zey say you can mimic any one," said Night Crawler from behind her. "Even zeir voice."

"Even zeir voice," she repeated a perfect imitation of Kurt's German accented tone.

"Why not stay in disguise all the time," he asked. "Be like, look like every one else?"

"Because we shouldn't have to," she replied in her usual, hollow voice.

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Logan was half awake in his sleeping bag when he began smelling Anais Anais, her perfume.

Jean entered the tent and knelt down. She straddled him as Logan worked his hand up her shirt. Presently he pulled open her blouse revealing three evenly spaced knife wounds below her left breast. Her skin was going blue again and hair getting shorter, before it was Mystique before him. He had know right from the off. There was more to Jean's smell then perfume and elements of Mystique that couldn't be hidden.

"No one's ever left a scare quite like you," she said biting his ear hard and provocative.

His claws were out and pressed to her throat.

"What do you want," he demanded.

She pushed his hand away with millimeters to spare.

"I know what I want," she said beginning the transformation to Ororo. "But what do you want?" Her skin then got lighter and hair darker except for the silver sunk stripe in front. Rogue.

He could play along, but it wouldn't be real.

"I want you out," he demanded pushing her off.

In another instant he was looking at William Stryker.

"What do you really want," she asked.

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"Logan," a soft smooth voice whispered his name in the dark. That was the way a woman's voice should be, like the gentle caress of silk. "Logan, are you awake? It's Fallon."

"Yea," Logan replied sitting up groggily in his sleeping bag. "Come on in."

She pushed the tent flap open and entered in a half-crouch. She brought her sleeping bag and the pleasant smell of fresh green apples.

Fallon? He mentally cocked an eyebrow. Not one of the Mystique sex toy settings, yet some how being with her made him feel good, enlivened.

"What's on your mind darlin'," he asked.

"I'm scared," she admitted looking around attentively. "John was making noises outside my tent. Can I stay in here with you for a while?"

"What happened to Storm and Jean and all your other friends," he asked.

"Rogue's with Bobby, Jean locked herself in the Blackbird, Ruby's helping John, Storm is talking to Kurt, and everyone else is asleep," she explained. "And I was saving Magneto and the blue lady as a last resort."

"Wise choice," he said. "Come on sit down." She laid her sleeping bag down next to his and tucked herself into it.

"Do you think we'll be able to help Professor Xavier, and Scott, and the other students," he asked.

"I don't really know," he said. "But we'll do everything we can." She nodded slightly heartbroken.

"I'm really worried about Scott," she admitted. "I really love him. He looks out for me."

"Do you and one eye have some thing going on," he asked.

"First of all his name is Scott, and his code name is Cyclops. No one goes around calling you a son of a bitch, or do they," she asked. He laughed glad that Scott hadn't the wit to have thought up that ironic statement. "And secondly, there is no 'thing' going on. We're just friends."

Logan nodded understanding the feeling.

"So," he asked. "What's it like being psychic?"

"It's okay," she replied. "What's it like having claws?"

"Not too bad I guess," he said.

"Does it hurt when they come out," she asked.

"Not so much here," he said tapping his knuckles. "But here." He pressed his index finger to his temple. "The fact that someone would experiment on me just because I'm a mutant with healing power.

"I understand," she said. He nodded for her to go on. "My step dad always took me to the race trace and casinos. He even got me a fake ID to get me in so I could help him win money. Sometimes he had me drink so much I couldn't concentrate and I kept losing and he broke my arm once hitting me with a nightstick."

"What about your real father," Logan asked.

"He was always pretty cool to me," she began. "He let me hang out with his band and taught me to play the piano. He took me to gigs and asked me to sing songs with him. He even wrote a song just for me. After my mom found out I had the mutant gene they got in a fight, because my mother thought I belonged with her and my dad wanted custody of me too. My father and mother had a divorce and I wound up with my mother."

"I guess now I know what you meant by family troubles," he said.

"Hey come check out the moon with me," she asked. "I've never seen a sky like this, and I've seen a lot of skies."

They sat just outside the tent looking up at the heavens.

"How did you get the code name Blue Moon," Logan asked.

"I was born October 31, 1988," she said. "At exactly midnight. It was a blue moon that night, and every one thought that made me pretty neat."

"I think that's cool," he said.

They talked for a few hours talking of life's little troubles and of the things they were so scared of and of and of what heaven looked like. She showed him how the moon's aura looked blue that night and they were both content until they found sleep out under the stars.