A/N: I've decided I need to write the ending out in two chapters mostly because as I wrote this one I got caught up in writing some of the scenes. This chapter may seem a tad weird at the end, but I'll bring it back together. :-) Next and hopefully last chapter should be ready tomorrow.

Thank Yous:

Scrawler & Witch-Uk, thank you both and you'll both find a bit more Kurt/Mystique/Wanda interaction in this and the final chapter. :-)

Fantasy Cat, thank you much and yep I'm almost finished. :-D

IceBlueRose, I was a TOTAL Buffy fan (mostly due to a huge crush on Spike) and in honor of my favorite vamp I did refer to Apocalypse as 'the big bad' as Spike often saw himself. ;-) I always love readers who are open minded enough to check out fics with pairings outside the norm, :-P, as I suppose ya could say Rogan is. Thank ya and glad you're liking the series.

Roguechere, hehe. Thank ya very much especially for not catching my typos and such 'cause I'm the first to admit that they get in to all my fics. Luckily they're rarely glaringly obvious and one can overlook them as you're still able to understand the gist of what was being written. :-D

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Waking Up

Kurt's nose twitched as a wonderful aroma filled his senses.

A breakfast burger gutbomb.

His yellow eyes flew open to see a grinning Wanda waving the calorie laden treat under his nose.

"Kitty told me you were addicted to these things," the girl said as she straightened and teasingly moved the food away from him.

Instantly he sat up and snatched the sandwich from her and took a large bite out of it, which he almost choked on when he heard a laugh in the room and saw that it came from Mystique.

Gladly accepting the juice his girlfriend thrust into his three fingered hand, the boy took a gulp of the liquid to wash down the food then blinked a few times.

"Vhy are you still here?" he asked his mother suspiciously after a moment.

Sadness creeped into her yellow eyes before she turned them away from him for a moment to compose herself.

"Regardless of the impression I've made upon you in the past, Kurt, I can't leave until I know you and Rogue both are ok," the woman said quietly.

Sensing a need for privacy between the pair, Wanda smiled at Kurt and whispered in his ear, "Listen to what she has to say," then left the room in search of Betsy.

His mind still focused on the mention of the girl he thought of as a sister, Kurt placed the his sandwich back in it's wrapper and gave the shapeshifter his full attention.

"How is she?"

"Stable. Her body is fine and Xavier is preparing to go to work on making sure the same can be said about her mind."

He fidgeted a bit then folded his hands together in his lap and stared at them.

"You did a good thing yesterday," he said quietly. "You made her a promise and kept it. I thank you for doing vhat you did to help my friend. All my friends."

"I owed her that and more," his mother said with equal quiet as she moved a chair next to his bed and sat down. "I'm not going to try and excuse or explain the way I am. It's just the way that I am. I do have some good qualities though and thankfully I can see that you inherited them. I'm not sure how much time we'll have together before I wear out my welcome here," she cautiously placed her blue skinned hand on his furry blue arm, "so I just want you to know that I'm proud of who you are. Your foster parents did a better job raising you than I ever could have. I always knew they would and that's the only reason I ever left you with them. I'll always regret that I'm such a villain in your life, but I think we both would regret more if I had raised you to hate humans as I have come to. You're a kind, gentle and forgiving soul and I don't want you to ever let my bitterness destroy that."

The tear that slid down her cheek was so similar to the one he had seen her shed just days ago in statue form that his eyes widened as he watched it fall.

"You did hear us zhat day in mein room, didn't you? It vas a vreal tear not just condensation like Mr. McCoy said?"

"Yes, it was. Crying is something I despise doing, but even I do do it."

For a moment they simply looked at each other then he reached up to squeeze the hand on his arm. After exchanging a smile that turned into awkward laughs when his stomach rumbled and Kurt eagerly unwrapped his sandwich to scarf down with returned hunger.

~*~*~

"Good morning," Scott smiled tenderly into Jean's just opened eyes before softly kissing her pink lips.

She shifted slightly in the hospital bed she laid upon then groaned and placed a hand against her throbbing forehead.

"Head hurts," she said, though it came out as a croak from her dry mouth.

Prepared for this her boyfriend moved to fill a big glass full of water and hand it to her along with some aspirin for her headache.

"You got hit by some debris so the head's gonna hurt for a day or so," he told her.

"The others?" she asked anxiously once she'd drunk enough water.

"Everyone's gonna be fine. Logan and Rogue are the only ones still unconscious and no one else was really injured," he fibbed a bit so as not to get her worried about the injured who'd already recovered.

"What's wrong with them?"

"From what the others have told us, Logan put himself in Rogue's path so she'd hit him instead of the floor as she fell from the sky. The momentum slammed them both through the floor, which was already weak and it dropped out under all of you. His injuries all resulted from the impact with her and then the floor, but Hank and Healer assure us his body his healing rapidly and he should awaken in a day or so. Rogue wasn't injured much by the fall thanks to shields protecting her from Betsy and Nate, but the way she absorbed Apocalypse and most everything to do with that fight with him has proven a great strain on her mentally. The Professor is about to begin probing the damage."

"Take me there," Jean ordered while sliding from the bed then leaning weakly against it in the flimsy green hospital gown she'd been dressed in the night before.

~*~*~

Charles positioned his wheelchair to left of Rogue's pale unconscious body near the head of her hospital bed and checked her heart monitor before beginning his journey into her mind.

Outside in the hallway Bobby, Evan, Hank, Jean, Kitty, Kurt, Mystique, Ororo, Scott and Wanda step closer to the clear surface that kept them out of the room their friends were in. Amara, Betsy, Brian, Jamie, Nate, Piotr, Ray, Remy, Roberto, Sam, Tabitha, and Warren were watching things with interest as well, but stayed back to let the senior team members get the best view. The Morlocks were absent from the gathering after having left the mansion to return to the sewers below Bayville with the extreme thanks of all the X-Men.

Ignoring their attention on him he took a deep breath and raised his hands to hover a mere fraction of an inch above Rogue's bare forehead as he focused on her.

His dark eyes closed and his brow furrowed in deep concentration as he made his way into the girl's mind.

Surprise flickered through him at the lack of chaos he found. Always before when he probed her subconscious it was a stressful journey for them both. She was almost always struggling with those she'd absorbed and the inner issues her mutation had created.

This time it was clear and he found himself wandering through a peaceful white haze.

Without knowing it he frowned at that discovery, causing the team members watching his every action so closely to tense apprehensively outside the room.

Quickly he worked past his surprise to search for a sign of Rogue in the mists.

Just as he was about to call out to her, the mist parted and she came striding toward him wearing her purple shirt and black pants but no gloves.

~~ Ah know, Ah know. Ah'm supposed ta be all weak and slippin' inta a coma. ~~

The image of her smiled wryly before shrugging a bit and continuing.

~~ Surprise. ~~

~~ What's going on here, Rogue? ~~

~~ Nothin' ta worry about. Ya've taught me well and Ah've got it undah control. ~~

~~ Got what under control? ~~

With another slight smile she waved a hand and cleared away the mists to reveal a variety of personalities, including her own, standing there as if frozen in place.

~~ Ah know how ta control them now. ~~

~~ How? ~~

Another wave of her hand and her subconscious image of Apocalypse opened his dark eyes, raised his head then strode over to her.

~~ He's shown me. ~~

~~ Rogue, you can't trust - ~~

~~ He was lahke me Prof. His skin absorbed othah's too and he learned ta control it so that he only absorbed what he needed ta keep his othah powers strong. When Ah absorbed him, Ah absorbed that. Now Ah'm just cleanin' up in here before Ah wake up and prove all this to ya. ~~

~~ This is highly unusual. ~~

She waved En Sabah Nuhr back into his unmoving state with the other personalities while laughing at Charles' words.

~~ And that suhprises ya? Nothin' about our lives makes us models of normalcy. ~~

Studying her carefully rather than answer, Xavier come to quite a few realizations.

The most obvious one was that she was in no danger of being overwhelmed by Apocalypse's presence in her mind.

Next came the confidence, relief and serenity that surrounded her. No matter what the reality proved to be, in her mind she believed she had learned from the ancient mutant a way to control her mutation and the knowledge had given her a new lease on life.

Finally he came to the conclusion that there was nothing that he could do at this time for her.

~~ I really am fine, Professor X. I just need a little more time in here before I wake up and explain everything I've learned. ~~

Surprised again, this time by the complete absence of her accent, Charles was slow to digest her words.

~~ You're being very vague, Rogue. What have you learned? ~~

With a resigned sigh she turned and walked back into the returning haze.

"Ah knew Ah shoulda just kept mah mouth shut and just startled tha hell outta y'all by doin' this."

It took a few minutes and the loud arrival of Hank, Kurt and Mystique for Charles to realize that she'd said those last words aloud.

In shock he allowed himself to be pushed aside by McCoy, who was eager to check on his startlingly awake patient.

"Don't ya dare shahne that thing in mah eyes again," Rogue was saying with a glare at the penlight Beast had removed from his shirt pocket.

"Vrogue, are you ok?" Kurt demanded as he moved to her other side.

"Ah'm fahne," she smiled reassuringly at him and then just smiled at the obvious relief her words brought to his expression and the way he reached out a gloved hand to take hold of her bare one.

"How is it that you're awake?" Hank asked disbelievingly.

"It was that or argue 'round and 'round in circles with tha Prof. in mah head," Rogue answered before noticing how Mystique stood quietly at the foot of the bed as the rest of the stunned team began piling into the room.

"Thank you," she said to the woman with a grateful smile for all her adoptive mother had done the past few days before turning to face the Professor and begin her explanations.

Upon seeing Logan laying so still just behind the other man the girl forgot what she'd planned to saw. Focused on the Wolverine, she carefully removed her IV before Hank could even think to stop her then slid from her bed and wrapped the sheet covering her around her body before stumbling over to his side.

"Could somebody get me some actual clothes?" she asked as the sheet slipped to reveal how the hospital gown gaped in the back.

Stunned by her actions, no one moved or responded to her question until with a sigh she turned and growled that she was fine and would like to get dressed.

With a shrug Kurt quickly teleported from the room then returned a few minutes later with a change of clothes for her.

Thank him gently, the girl shuffled into the bathroom to get dressed.

"Can somevone tell me vhat zhe heck is going on here?"

"I have no idea," Charles said while rubbing at his temples.