*****
Jean and Rogue were led into a large, locked room, where atleast fifteen patients were keeping busy; either walking around, playing card games, or watching the small tv that was mounted high on the wall. This, they assumed, was what Mr. Cross had called, 'the common room'.
Jean looked around the room as they followed Lenny. Some of the patients seemed perfectly normal, not mentally ill at all, but looks could be deceiving. Knowing that all the patients here were mutants made Jean wonder how well they had been treated. She glanced toward an old couch in front of the tv where a patient with pale green skin was sitting, rocking back and forth and mumbling incoherrent things.
Rogue took deep breaths to calm down, feeling nervous around all the people there. She noticed that the patients where wearing various colored medical scrubs with numbers on them. The orderly, Lenny, must have noticed her looking at the patient's clothing, because he answered her unspoken question.
"All the patients are assigned diff'rent colored uniforms." he started to explain, gaining Jean's attention along with Rogue's. "The more cooperative patients are in yellow, the average, and mildly psychotic ones are in orange, an' then the dangerous ones're in blue." Lenny smirked, stopping at a table in the corner where one of the patients was sitting with his head down, shrouded in shadows. The patient was slightly twitching, and seemingly oblivious to anything around him. Lenny smacked his hand down on the table, grinning at Jean and Rogue. "Here's your boy Logan. Look alive now, y'got visitors!" he shouted, smacking at Logan's shoulder with the back of his hand.
Jean and Rogue stared at Logan, barely recognizing him. Jean furrowed her brows, glancing at Lenny who was still smirking.
"He should behave now, he's on his meds." the orderly half smiled with a nod, then waved and started to leave the common room.
Jean and Rogue both sat down tentatively, staring at Logan, each of them aware that he was wearing blue scrubs, signifying that he was considered a more dangerous patient.
"Jean...what's the matter with him?" Rogue asked in a low whisper, concern lacing her words as she stared at Logan.
Jean bit her lower lip, putting her hands to her temples for a quick and gentle mind probe. Her head snapped up, her face showing fear, concern, and resentment toward the men holding him captive.
"What is it?" Rogue noticed the change of the redhead's expression.
"He's been drugged." Jean answered the younger woman, obvious disgust in her tone. "He's very heavily medicated, as far as I can tell. Something's happened to him." she looked to Rogue, urgency in her eyes. "We need to talk to him, get him talking. It's like he's been drugged many times since being here, but hopefully he'll still remember us."
Rogue nodded, tapping at the table in front of Logan to gain his attention. "Hey, Logan?"
He looked up slowly, tilting his head to the side and placing his hands on the table. He stared hard at the two women before him with blank, red-rimmed eyes, knowing that somehow he recognized them. He just needed to place their names with the faces, see if he could remember how he knew them.
Jean looked at his hands as they rested on the table, just noticing that there were strange metal cuffs on them.
Logan stared into Rogue's eyes, then something finally clicked. He knew her, he'd saved her before...atleast twice. She meant something special to him, it was..."Rogue?" his raspy voice asked gently, hoarse from shouting.
Rogue grinned, happy beyond belief that he'd recognized her. "Yes, Rogue-I mean, I'm Rogue."
Logan turned to look at the other woman, the redhead. He definetly knew her too. There was something about her that made her special to him. It was there...who she was, he just had to think a little harder. "Jean?" he finally asked before twitching involuntarily, knowing that his healing factor was trying to fight off all the drugs he'd been given.
Jean nodded with a soft smile. "Yes, Logan, it's Jean." she saw him start to shake, his shoulders jerking, and her smile faltered. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
He grunted, gripping the edge of the table before he met Jean's gaze with bloodshot eyes. "Fightin'...meds." he mumbled lowly, his head twitching a bit again.
Rogue stared at the cuffs on his knuckles, reaching her hand out tentatively to rest on one of Logan's. "Are these...'cause of yur claws?" she asked with a frown.
Logan nodded slowly, confirming her assumption.
Jean looked to Rogue, her eyes bright and fearful, but determined. "We have to get him out of here." she whispered, glancing back as a guard and a different orderly than from before started toward them.
"Visiting time's over. You ladies need to leave now." a large man instructed, as the other one approached Logan.
"NOOOO!!!" Logan snarled, jumping quickly from his seat and crouching in a defensive position. He didn't want to be drugged again, not when he was finally remembering people and starting to think straight.
Jean's eyes widened at the display, and she telepathically sent to Rogue; ~They must've noticed that his medication was wearing off. I have a feeling the people here don't want us to know what's really going on.~
Rogue glanced from Logan to Jean as two more orderlies came into the room and tried to escort them out. ~Yeh, I think yur right Jean. What're we gonna do?~
"RAAAAARRRGH!!!" Logan roared as a guard got behind him, wrapping his massive arms tightly around Logan's chest, pinning his arms to his sides to prevent him from striking. Logan struggled, jumping back as he lifted his legs and kicked another orderly that was coming toward him with a needle.
Jean looked to Rogue again as the orderlies started to forcefully push the two of them out of the room. ~I don't know Rogue, but we can't do anything right now. It would be too suspicious.~ she told her regretably, watching with sad eyes as Logan was sedated, then strapped to a gurney and pushed out of the room. She noticed a bunch of the other patients had gotten rowdy since Logan's display, and there was loud screaming and shouting as half a dozen more orderlies and guards were sent in the common room to take care of all the patients.
*****
After being forced from the Psychiatric Hospital, Rogue and Jean went back to their rental car to sit in thought of what to do about their captive friend.
The long silence almost unbearable, Rogue finally turned to Jean, her voice full of passion. "Jean we can't leave 'im in that place." she shook her head, tears filling her eyes from frustration. "He'll die in there an' you know it."
Jean's pained green eyes met Rogue's murky-greenish ones and she gripped the steering wheel tightly. "I know." she replied lowly. "I was mentally sending the Professor our conversation with Logan and with Mr. Cross, so he'll know what we were told and what we saw."
Rogue nodded slowly, peering out the window to stare at the desolate looking building. It was so peaceful from the outside, yet wrong. It was all wrong, this was all wrong. "Well, what do we do now? We're gonna actually leave 'im here t'night?"
Jean met her gaze again sadly, tears forming in her own eyes. "We don't have a choice Rogue."
With a heavy heart, she started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot, driving away from the eerie hospital. "We'll see what Charles has to say, and then we'll go from there."
*****
