A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! I appreciate both kinds of criticism, bad ones because of which I can improve, and good ones because then I know you guys like what I do... so, thanks again.

Chapter 4 - About her, Without her

Scott Summers was leaning on the wall just outside the Med Lab, trying to differentiate between slight nuances of pink and red, colors of which his world seemed to consist through the shades of his glasses, whether there was any improvement in Rogue's condition. It was three days since Logan carried her down the hallway to the lab, three days since she lay there, twisting in pain, phasing from one absorbed personality to another, sometimes displaying their powers in quick succession, sometimes staying in the form of Magneto or Storm for hours at the time, too weak to try and return to her normal self, but also too weak to use the powers of the others. Professor Xavier was also there, ever trying to reach her from the depths in which she now walked, but without any success. Hank performed all the tests he knew, thus all the tests known to man, trying to find the cause of these phases, and consequently the cure. He and the Professor would spend hours discussing why Professor's methods did not hold on longer, why the personalities weren't cleansed out that fatal night, but only seemed to be pushed below the surface, waiting for the right time. And why the right time came so soon, too soon, as it seemed? For Logan, the only one who could answer that, besides the one who now lay dying, did not speak.

Scott stood there long enough, passing unnoticed and unobserved, to know that the only time Rogue ever seemed to return, for a few seconds or less, to the highest step on the ladder of unconsciousness, the one closest to the alert mind, was when there was no one in the lab, no one except Logan. He would take her hand, ever so gently, brushing his gloved fingers against her skin, and he would call her. Although his voice was drowned by the heaviness that was engulfing all of them by the time it reached Scott, he knew the words Logan's lips whispered. How could he not, when he was calling her himself, deep in his soul?

"Scott?" gentle voice came from behind him, and he turned around, almost embarrassed at those thoughts fleeing through his head. Tall, redhead smiled. He pulled her towards himself, his arms finding their sure way around her shoulders, as he kissed her forehead. He sighed deeply, looking down at Jean, and then, again, towards the lab.

"You did nothing for which you should ask forgiveness, Scott," she said, diverting his eyes back towards her face. Calm seriousness radiated from her, frightening and comforting in the same time. "You are not to blame for what is happening to her. She... she is fighting her battles alone, Scott, she always has. And she will win this one too, I know it, I know she will," Jean's voice took on a pleading note, as if asking The Almighty to make her words come true. Scott smiled weakly, running his fingers through her hair, but he could not find the strength to say the words that have been choking him for three days.

"You know... " he started, but his voice died down to heavy sigh, as his attention suddenly seemed to be focused on what was going on in the lab. Logan was speaking again. 'Talking to the empty room, because she can't hear him,' Scott thought sadly, but when he looked at Jean, she was smiling, looking happier than he had seen her in days.

"He can feel her too, Scott," she said quietly, as if afraid that any louder sound might distract Logan, thought in fact, nothing but the loud scream could penetrate thick glass of the Med Lab. On seeing lost look in his eyes, she tried to explain. "I can feel her, or at least, I think I can. Her presence is so weak, so frail, that I feel I might lose her, if only I spoke a bit louder," her voice went down to a whisper, frighteningly, terrifyingly death-like whisper. "She can't find her way back, Scott. It is dark and cold there, and she wants to return, but she can't... Her fears and her mistakes are holding her there, shutting out the light, closing all the doors... WE are holding her there. She became the prisoner of our fears, our mistakes and our pain, and she doesn't know. She doesn't realize..."

Scott shivered with cold of which Jean spoke. He didn't even want to ask how she knew all that... he felt that simply asking would take him too to that place where Rogue was now... But then, Jean's voice took on a new note, much more hopeful one. "Logan, he knows... no, he feels it too. He feels the horror of that place, and he knows that no one can't help her, but she herself. Do you know what he says to her each night before...?" suddenly she stopped and waived her head, as if waiving 'no' to someone else, whom Scott couldn't see. She looked up, smiled and slightly raising on her toes, kissed him on the cheek. In a moment, she was gone, and he was left standing, quite dumbfounded. Yet, he felt there was a reason behind her actions, behind that smile that lit up her face... and he knew that things have suddenly turned for good. God, he loved that girl!