When There's No One To Catch You
Standard disclaimers apply. Don't own 'em. Wouldn't want to. Just like to mess with 'em, really. ^^
Note: okay, here's the part where I apologize profusely to all those who actually read this story for taking so damn long to update. I don't even remember how long ago I updated, and I had to read through the previous chapters just catch up on my own story. SOOOOO sorry bout that. I really am. No excuse worthwhile, really. Just been busy, had a really shitty year, very little creative thinking going on, and I really don't want my first story here to suck because I don't think about what I'm writing. Basically yada yada yada, right? Hehe. Hmm, well, that's enough whining on my part. Haha. ^^;; here's the next chapter at any rate. What number are we up to? 6? 7? I dunno. Well, here it is anyways, hope it doesn't disappoint.
Chapter 7
Kurt stayed by the side of Rogue's bed, clutching her hand, until Kitty clamored her way back into the darkened room with a pile of blankets so tall she couldn't see over the top. Just as the young girl was about to fall unceremoniously onto the floor, she caught her balance and dropped the blankets onto her own bed. After straightening herself up at the slightly bemused look of Kurt, she grabbed two of the blankets that she had pilfered from some of the younger students and spread them across the shivering form of her roommate. Soon, all that was visible of Rogue from under the covers was her face and the hand that Kurt held grasped in his own. An uncomfortable silence filled the room as Kitty pulled up another spare chair and sit on the other side of Rogues bed. Kurt sat staring helplessly into the trembling face of Rogue as he periodically squeezed her hand to make sure she was awake. As Rogue's glazed green eyes fluttered open to look at Kurt, the young blue mutant whispered quietly to her.
"You must stay with uz, Rogue," she said gently to her. "I've never known you to be much of a sleeper, and now iz definitely not the time to adopt Kitty's habits," he continued with a slight worried grin; earning him a reproachful, but almost amused glare from Kitty from across the bed. A small, ghost of a chuckle was heard from under the covers, to which Kurt and Kitty exchanged faintly relieved smiles. If Rogue was well enough to laugh at Kurt's poorly-placed jokes, then she couldn't be doing too badly. "But seriously, Rogue, when you are feeling better, you must tell me vhy you stayed outside running. You should have come inside," Kurt said with a sigh. The only response that he got from the mass of blankets on the bed was a slight squeeze of the hand and a shuffle, signaling the girl's change of positions.
"Yeah, Rogue, just stay awake, alright? I need you to be healthy, cuz I'm SO teaming up with you for Logan's next danger room mission. I've never seen anyone run like that! We'll be unstoppable," babbled Kitty in effort to hold Rogue's attention. Seeing that Rogue was still shaking from underneath the blankets piled on top of her, the younger girl reached onto her own bed and spread yet another blanket over Rogue.
"Th…thanks, Kit," came a raspy, whispered reply from Rogue.
"No problem. Hey, you know I think I'ma, like, go find Mr. Logan and see if he found the professor yet, or at least found Scott and Jean," Kitty said with a slight wink. With a last nervous glance at Rogue and a meaningful look at Kurt, the young girl left the two siblings alone. Kurt watched Kitty quietly make her way out of the room and ease the giant oak door shut behind her. When he was once again alone with Rogue, he turned his attention back to the ill girl and began rambling about any topic that came to mind, with only one focus; keep her awake. Soon, the only sounds in the room were the quiet jabbering of the blue mutant and the endless drumming of rain from outside.
Kitty found that she actually didn't have to go far to find Wolverine, and consequently she discovered that he had found Jean and Scott. Moving quickly to stand by Logan's side, Kitty found Scott and Jean wearing almost identical looks of dismay while Wolverine retracted his claws with a resounding *shlink*. The situation was quite comical, actually, and Kitty would have laughed if not for the hardened scowl on Logan's face as he stared down the two teenagers that he had just scared out of their wits. Instead of doubling over in laughter at the sight of the professor's most treasured students in trouble, Kitty instead nudged Logan in the side to get his attention. With a slight snarl, the older instructor of the institute turned and allowed his expression to soften as he waited for the shadowcat to start.
Kitty leaned towards Logan's ear and said softly, "Like, Rogue's doing okay, I think, but she's still, like, shivering and stuff. Kurt's in there trying to keep her awake, and even had her laughing a little."
"Alright, half-pint, the professor's gonna be home with McCoy in the morning. Until then it's up to us to take care of Stripes. So why don't you help me start a fire in that fireplace of yours. It should help for now," he answered.
Kitty quirked a thin little eyebrow at the Wolverine and asked, genuinely confused, "But, like, Mr. Logan. We don't have a fireplace in our room…"
Logan turned to her slightly exasperated, "Yea, you do. You probably know it better as your personal makeup shelf. So take down that curtain and all your junk, and I'll get the wood," he answered while rolling his eyes.
"Oooh! Duh!" Kitty said to herself while walking back towards hers and Rogue's room, "He could have just, like, SAID it was that ugly hole under my drape. I had that covered up a long time ago, clashed with my room's décor…." Her high-pitched voice faded away as she drew further away from the others in the hallway.
Logan, meanwhile, fixed a final glare on the two frightened teens before him and growled in a low, dangerous voice, "We'll be havin' that talk about endangering the life of a teammate tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning. During your extra danger room session with me." He paused at the visible wince the two gave him. "Now go," he said, leaving no room for argument.
Stepping in the opposite direction down the hallway, Jean bitterly whispered to Scott, "It's not like that rogue's a real teammate, anyway," earning an uncomfortable shrug from Cyclops and a feral growl from Logan, who had heard the whisper from down the hall.
"Make that two extra danger room sessions, Red. One more comment from you about Rogue or any other kid in this house and you'll find yourself in a whole lot more trouble," he yelled back at the retreating kids. He clenched his fists as he reached the door leading outside to the woodshed while muttering, "Damn kids."
A few moments later, he arrived at Rogue and Kitty's room. The room was just as dark as he had left it, not half an hour ago. The only source of light, aside from the moon, was a small lamp that glowed a soft yellow beside the fallen Rogue's bed. However, Wolverine was somewhat relieved to realize that above the steady pounding of the rain on the roof and windows floated the light sound of careful banter between the three teens in the room, though fairly, the conversation was mainly composed of two voices. Kitty stood on a small wooden chair that she had dragged from her desk and was carefully extracting her beauty products from the mantel of the hidden fireplace. Tossing each item into a nearby basket, she threw little comments to Kurt, who sat beside Rogue's bed, about how he could be helping her out. The blue-furred mutant grinned a toothy smile at each of these barbs (probably for the benefit of Rogue, Logan mused) and made a grand show of almost getting up to help, before plopping back down into his seat and throwing a wink to the Rogue. Looking over to the occupied bed, Logan saw only the pale face of Rogue as she huddled and shivered beneath a mountain of blankets, and even her face was mostly masked by her disheveled striped hair that hung limply around her eyes. Every once in a while, a tiny, strained chuckle escaped the confines of the covers and joined the laughs of the other two kids.
Logan deposited his armload of dry firewood next to the fireplace and threw Kitty a bemused warning that clearly said Hurry it up, squirt. He picked his way through items that had missed Kitty's basket to kneel beside Rogue's bed and get a good look at his young charge. "Y'all right there, Stripes?" he asked softly, and even Kurt turned a shocked eye on Logan's out-of-character display of kindness. Rogue looked up through whispy strands of white to give Logan a glassy, half-lidded glace.
"Ah'm alright, Wolvie," Rogue whispered, earning a barely restrained chuckle from Kitty and an all out laugh from Kurt as he mouthed through his grin, Wolvie? Logan chose to ignore the silly nickname and the giggles and kept his attention focused on the sick mutant before him. Tugging the top layer closer around Rogue, he was alarmed to feel the heat radiating off of the feverish girl, even through all her blankets. Pulling on a glove, Logan pressed his hand to the forehead of the girl and pulled back with a frown at the startling heat. The fever had come early. Sighing to himself, Logan said a silent thanks that they at least wouldn't have to worry about her developing hypothermia. "How do you really feel, darlin'?" her asked again quietly, earning a noncommittal "Hmm…" in response.
Standing up slowly, Logan built a small fire in the cleared off fireplace, excused himself from the room, and returned minutes later with a cloth and a basin of cool water. Dipping the cloth in and then wringing it out, he pressed it to the burning forehead of the Rogue. Shaking even more, Rogue burrowed deeper into her blankets with a quiet noise of protest. "It'll get that temp down, Kiddo. You're gonna need to keep this one for a bit," he said to the girl. Kitty came and sat in Logan's place.
"I'll take care of that, Mr. Logan," she said seriously, momentarily dropping her valley girl accent. "I have to feel useful somehow right now," she added mostly to herself. Logan nodded and stood a few feet back from the girl's bed. With the situation mostly under control, or, as "under control" as it could get at the moment, Logan left the ill mutant girl in the care of Kurt and Kitty to "I'ma make sure the other rats don't get into any trouble before the professor gets back," promising to return to check up on Rogue soon.
And so the night continued in this fashion, with Kurt, Kitty, and the Wolverine keeping a bedside vigil over the newest member of the team during the onslaught of the storm. By one in the morning, Logan sent Kurt to his room to sleep and Kitty to her own bed, and sat in the chair by Rogue's bed himself, watching over the fretfully sleeping girl.
A few short hours later, Ororo returned home from visiting her sister in the city, and discovered a note roughly scrawled in Wolverine's handwriting, directing her to the room shared by Rogue and Kitty. Concerned over the note and the disturbing quiet of the mansion, Storm swiftly and gracefully made her way to the second floor of the institute, mildly curious as to why she couldn't hear the woeful wails of children undergoing Logan's early morning danger room sessions. With a light tap upon the girls' door, she silently slipped in and found a scene that was simultaneously amusing and concerning. The storm had broken, allowing early rays of sunshine to filter through the windows through the shear curtains, but despite this, Ororo noticed that a lamp between the girls' beds had not been turned off. The fireplace also held onto the last bits of a fire, obviously started that night.
Looking to her right, she found Kitty soundly asleep in the middle of her bed, clutching a stuffed bear that Storm recognized as the one Kitty kept hidden in her closet. Allowing her gaze to drift to the other side of the room towards the window, Storm furrowed her brow at the sight of a massive lump of blankets on Rogue's bed, and the large chair from the corner of the room pulled up to it, with its back to the weather witch. Moving closer, the older woman discovered a curious and heart wrenching scene. Rogue lay tossing slightly in her sleep beneath the blankets that had been piled on top of her, her hand clutching a much larger, gloved hand coming from the chair beside the bed. Moving to the side, she found Logan slumped in the chair, asleep and covered in a blanket of his own.
Sensing movement in the room, Logan's eyes snapped opened and came to focus on the wry smile of Ororo as she leaned over to him. Pulling a few strands of snow white hair behind her ear, Storm whispered nearly silently to Wolverine, "And what have I missed since I've been away, Logan? I see the children have been keeping you on your toes," she said with a concerned glance over at the sleeping figure of Rogue, who still loosely clutched the hand of Wolverine. Noticing Storm's bemused twitch of the eyebrow, he carefully pulled his hand out of the young girl's hand and stood, beckoning Storm to follow him into the hallway so he could fill her in.
In the slightly sunny hallway, Logan began to lead Storm down the stairs and towards the kitchen, desperately craving a large cup of coffee. Following silently beside the flustered man, Storm smiled inwardly at the almost adorable scene she had seen upstairs. Somehow she knew that rogue child was a good addition to the team. Her affect on the stone-cold Wolverine was proof enough that they had made the right decision in taking her in that rainy night. In the kitchen, Storm took a seat at the table while Logan filled her in on the previous day's activities and poured them both a cup of coffee. Storm stood after Logan's recapping of the night's adventures, patting the Wolverine's shoulder as she passed by him on her way to the stairs.
"I shall check on the child, Logan," she said serenely. "Why don't you try to rest for a while. I'll look after her till Hank gets home this morning." Logan shifted a tired and still quite worried look up at Storm as she walked to the door.
"I shouldn't have left her out there alone…" he said gruffly. Storm simply smiled her mysterious smile at the curt man at the table.
"You're more of a blessing to that child than you know. Nothing about yesterday was your fault," and with that, she swept out of the room and back upstairs. Logan sat gulping his black coffee thinking angrily to himself, Ya, it's those two brown-nosers' fault. I'll get started on them soon enough. With a satisfied smirk on his face, he downed the rest of his coffee and headed out to wake up his newest victims.
Three hours and several respective punishments later found a group of more than slightly weary teenagers on-route to school. Scott and Jean sat in the very last seats in the van, slouching exhaustedly and miserably against the windows. Jean squirmed and tried unsuccessfully to stretch some of the aches out of her muscles; a result of a very vigorous workout that morning. At six am. With Logan. Scott suffered similar injuries as he leaned back in his seat, nearly asleep in his exhaustion. An hour of ropes courses followed by an hour of nonstop combat against a very miffed Wolverine was just about the worst idea in the world, as far as Scott was concerned. He hadn't seen Rogue since before the incident on the track, but he was pretty sure it must be pretty damn bad, considering the way Wolverine was making him contemplate every meaning of the word pain.
He leaned forward in his seat and tapped a very sleepy Kurt on the shoulder, startling him from a half-sleep trance that he had fallen into. Kurt angrily pulled his shoulder away from Scott and turned to glare at the self-proclaimed leader of the x-men. "Vhat?" he asked harshly as he glared daggers at the brunette. See if he ever let THIS guy forget about leaving his dear friend out there in the rain any time soon.
Scott nervously ran a hand through his hair under the glare of the agitated teleporter. "Well, uh, actually, I was wondering how Rogue was doing when you saw her…" he began, but was cut off by Kitty who whipped around and wrinkled her nose at the sight of the Cyclops.
"Oh, so NOW you wonder, huh? I don't recall you like, rushing to help us take care of her last night, SCOTT," she snapped temperamentally. "Like, seriously, Scott. There's no use trying to act like you care now. None of us are gonna believe you." And with that, she turned around, whipping Scott in the face with her ponytail in the process. Jean looked at him with a Nice going, genius, look on her face before turning her attention back to the window.
Meanwhile, Jamie sat in the passenger seat of the van, idly bouncing up and down in his seat as they approached his middle school; their first stop. "Bye, guys," he called, oblivious to the sullen mood of his friends, and dashed off as the van once again pulled into the road heading for Bayville High. Evan, who was the only senior member of the X-Men who had gotten any semblance of sleep last night (due mainly to Scott and Jean directing Mr. Logan's attention away from his little detention mishap), drove quickly to the school's parking lot and bounded out of the van, eager to break free of the tension within the vehicle. With a last withering glare at Scott and Jean, Kurt promptly "bamphed" out of the van and directly into school with Kitty attached to his arm.
Upon arrival in the mostly empty hallway of the high school, Kurt and Kitty were deposited directly before the slightly distressed face of Pietro. In front of the two mutants, Pietro stood tall, dressed in his customary blacks and grays, and wore his trademark I'm better than you expression. Not in the mood for any brotherhood attitude, Kitty huffed, rolled her eyes, and phased right through the silver haired boy on her way to homeroom. Kurt remained where he was, catching something in the other boys eyes that stayed him. When the two were alone, Pietro's tough façade all but vanished as his eyes seemed to leak emotion.
"What's happened to Rogue," he asked bluntly, if not a little desperately. He subconsciously reached out and gripped Kurt's sleeve, which only further puzzled the blue-furred mutant.
Shaking his arm from Pietro's grasp, Kurt looked at his adversary strangely. "Vhy do you ask?" he asked cautiously. Pietro's expression turned dangerous when he didn't get an immediate response, and every bit of sense that Kurt had was telling him to step back from the barely contained…. something…. in Pietro's face. However, Kurt something about the way the other brotherhood members protected Rogue, and even just the way Rogue spoke of this "Petey" kept him rooted where he stood.
Again, Pietro asked, more urgently, "Where is she?" and Kurt instantly found himself answering, "Something's happened. She iz sick," he responded carefully, watching the storm of emotions flutter through the icy blue eyes of Quicksilver. More confidently, he asked his own question; "How did you know there vas somezing wrong with her." And for a moment, they just stood staring at each other, both burning with questions and neither venturing to ask them.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, and more students had begun filing into the hallway, Pietro answered, almost inaudibly, "I… just knew.." And, in looking in the pale face of his enemy, Kurt understood, and somehow just accepted the silver boy's explanation.
"Ve must talk," Nightcrawler simply said, and headed towards the nearest empty classroom, knowing without a doubt, that Pietro, no, Rogue's best friend, would follow.
Pietro followed a few steps behind, and whispered to himself, "You have no idea."
TBC……
Okay okay, so I suck. This chapter is even too boring for ME to read over again, so I apologize. The next one will hopefully get me closer to where I want this to go. I'm try, guys. Thank you all for your reviews. Really, you're the only reason I still write this thing. More brotherhood stuff next…. Pietro and Kurt reach an understanding… and yeah, whatever else I can come up with. I take suggestions readily. ^^ sorry again. Hope you enjoy….