ooo

"Professor?" The light shined off his head, nearly blinding her the second she turned around. For some reason, whenever she saw him, the Star Trek theme song played in her head. He was sitting in a chair, in a large room. Wouldn't it have been funny if I wrote he was standing? No? Shut up.

"How are you Rogue?"

"You're a telepath." How blunt. How true. Why bother asking when you can just do that telepath thing telepaths do. "You tell me." She crossed her arms against her chest, as if that were to seal the deal. God, I'm not making any sense whatsoever.

"Let me clear your mind."

"You want to cleanse my mind?" Rogue asked, scrunching up her nose at the thought. Suddenly, the Star Trek theme music faded out and a commercial for Mister Clean faded in.

Charles cleared his throat. "Your mind is a mess, Rogue." He says peoples name a lot. Especially when they're the only two people in the room. "Trust me."

"Trust you when you say my mind is messed up?" The Southerner raised a brow. "I don't need to trust you, Prof. I believe you."

He smiled like he just won the lottery. Actually, it was one of his grandfather smiles where he looks all choked up and teary eyed. Like we don't get enough of that.

Rogue then reached up and rubbed her eyes. "Ugh, eyelash." Okay, that really ruined the sappy moment. Oh, darn.

ooo

"What the hell?"

Jean let out a loud gasp and dropped Remy. "You're up!" Ms. Captain Obvious pointed out, just in case no one noticed.

"Whoa!" Pyro jumped about ten feet into the air. Not literally, but he did grab a hold of Jean. "It's 'Night of The Living Cajun!'"

Remy just rubbed his head as Beast helped him to his feet. "Who was the idiot who let Flamethrower-boy out of his cage?"

Pyro's eyes went wide. Piotr rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming. "Remy LeBeau! You know not to mention 'er name in front of me.." The pyromaniac's eyes watered up.

He was simply ignored.

"That idiot was me." Wolverine snapped, walking forward. "Unless you want to hold Scott there, I advise you to keep walkin', Gumbo."

"Missed you too, Wolvie cher." Just for the record, Remy shut up and did as advised. He barely had enough strength to carry himself.

"You all right, mate?" Pyro asked in a low turn and a solemn face as he walked up besides the Cajun.

"Yeah, sure." He didn't sound certain.

Pyro just eyed him, and a knowing look flicked in his dark green eyes.

ooo

"He's close." Rogue's eyes closed briefly after fluttering momentarily.

"Gambit?" She nodded. "It isn't a good idea to use your telepath psyche and—"

"I'm not." Rogue cut him off sharply. "I've always been able to sense him. It's like.. ESP." She glanced down at the ground, a light brush creping up on her cheeks. "I've always felt connected to him." Then she realized who she was talking to. Okay, where was a rock she could crawl under and die? Okay, maybe not die. How about loiter? That sounds good. Maybe she'll get a fine too.

Suddenly, before Rogue could say anything else, the door flew open and the horde of mutants walked in, all talking at once.

Rogue had never seen such a happy Professor Xavier. He seemed to beam at his students, and uh, well, Storm, Wolverine and the Beast. She did bite down on her bottom lip, wondering when was a good time to tell Ororo that her nephew is dead. She debated to just get Gambit tell her. Speaking of Gambit..

The second the ragin' Cajun saw her, he pulled her into a tight hug, and whispered into her ear, "How are you feelin'?"

"I should be askin' you that." She mumbled, breaking the embrace. "That stuff you were injected with."

"Shh." He placed a gloved finger over her lips.

Amara rolled her eyes. "Can we get on with this?"

Pyro flipped back his invisible mane of hair. "Yeah, like, fo sho." In response, Amara stuck her tongue out at him.

Hank cleared his throat. "There are some things I need to explain to you guys."

"You can explain to us back at the institute." Ororo said calmly. "I think it is better if we go home."

"What are we going to do with this place?" Wolverine asked with a whiff, a grunt and whatever other noises the deranged mutant could make.

Gambit smirked. "We get rid of it." He squeezed Rogue's shoulder. "And dispose of everything in it."

Dispose? Oh la la. Our little Remy has been learning some new vocabulary words. Gulf clap, please.

Xavier and Hank just exchanged glances.

"There's something most of you don't know about." The Professor began, making a steeple with his hands. "As you recall, Magneto was found dead.."

ooo

"You mean several of us were infected with some kind of virus that kills us?" Ray asked, making an incredulous face. "That's jacked up!"

Kitty stirred from her position in Piotr's arms. "Ugh, not so loud Bobby."

Ray just raised his brows. Bobby coughed; no one dared to correct her. Not yet, at least.

"Isn't this stuff only supposed to happen in movies?" Bobby asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Pyro gladly answered that. "Well, movies, television and fanfiction."     

"Fanfiction? What's that?"

"It's a fan's fictional story for a television show." He answered in his best know-it-all voice, and for the Pyromaniac, that was a new thing. "Like, for instance, fans of the show Y-Men, write fanfiction for the show. There's this cool character named—"

Rogue cleared her throat, quite loudly. "You can tell us all about it later, Pyro."

"Really?"

"No."

"Alrighty then, Super-Absorbent girl!"

Rogue moved forward but Remy stopped her by wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her tightly against his side. "Not now. Get him when he's asleep."

The Professor ignored them. He ignored his students a lot. "Right now, our main concern is getting all of you tested. We don't know how long the virus has until it takes full effect."

"In other words, one of us can drop dead in.. two minutes?" Bobby asked, scratching the back of his head. "Doesn't sound fair. Whatever happened to 'you have six months to live.'"

Amara, on the other hand, wailed. "I'm too young and pretty to die!" She flipped her hair back.

"Hey." Ray squinted at her ears. "When did you get your ears pierced?"

ooo

"Remy, this is the place where we tracked down the others the night they were abducted." Rogue mumbled as they stepped out of the warehouse.

"How were we supposed to know there was an underground place below it?" He mumbled, placing a hand on her lower back as he walked up besides her. "Don't worry about it. Soon you'll be back at the institute and it'll be like nothin' ever happened."

Lies. His words went through one ear and out another. "How are ya feelin'?" She asked, leaning her head in towards his.

In response, he kissed the top of her head and they both remained silent as they followed the others.

ooo