Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! I feel lucky that even one person read it let alone eight of you. Questions to be answered: Rogue is about 20, sure. (I've never really focused on her age, she's young, but she's a woman. I thought I was a year younger than I actually am for about three years. Somewhere along the line I had missed a birthday, and I still turned out just fine.) As for Scott calling him Charles, pure writer error. I know, I'm not supposed to say that, let me rephrase: "creative license". As for Pyro...read on. Hope you all enjoy! Oh yes and for very true X-Men comic fans, Tarot is not the same character from Marvel. I have never read any stories involving her/him (I don't even know) from Marvel so I am really just borrowing the name. Hope I don't piss anyone off too much.
He never left her side. The bustle in the Med Lab was overwhelming but there was no way Logan was going anywhere. Hank, and two assistants who must have been the equivalent of nursing students, busied themselves around him.
Within minutes of bringing her into the Med Lab, Marie's breathing had stabilized.
"She is a very fortunate woman," Hank said. "She has suffered mostly 2 burns on her forearms, hands and calves. Her lungs have also sustained some damage due to the extreme heat of the smoke she inhaled. However, she will be just fine. She needs oxygen and rest. I will get Tarot to bandage her burns, of which she will need to keep free of infection for at least 10 days." The blue beast moved gracefully across the floor, a feat not too easily accomplished by any large man, but perfected by Hank. He grabbed Marie's chart and headed to his office.
Logan watched Tarot carefully wrap Marie's forearms and hands in white gauze. The young blond haired mutant was very pretty and struck Logan as the ideal nurse type. She had a small frame and made gentle motherly movements around her patient. Logan was not sure what her powers were but she had a very soothing bedside manner.
Logan glanced around the room and scooped up a small metal chair and placed it next to Marie's bed. No sooner than he had sat down, Scott rushed into the Med Lab. It was a dramatic entrance that received no attention from Logan. Logan couldn't tear her eyes away from Marie even as Scott approached them.
Scott felt his eyes moisten under his protective glasses. Back when Jean was around, he would have cared if Logan had sensed his weakness but now he wished he could tear away the visor and let a few tears slide down his cheeks and splash onto her skin, regardless of who saw his display of grief.
Scott pulled up a chair sat down opposite Logan beside Marie. There they waited in silence for her to wake up. Neither one would leave her side until she did.
He quietly shuffled his feet along the Oriental rug as he approached Xavier's office. He knocked on the door and received a somewhat surprised "Come in?"
As he entered the room, the smell of old books excited him. He wasn't some sort of reclusive book worm addict by any means; instead his thoughts were on how one small spark could ignite the entire place into a bonfire of glory. He pulled off his baseball cap as he moved into the light of the picture window over looking the grounds. At that moment, he may have been mistaken for a polite young man, but the metal layer on the inside of the baseball cap spoke of different intentions.
"Please, have a seat John." Xavier motioned to the large Victorian chair opposite him. "I'd like to say I've been expecting you but we both know that wasn't the case. However, we have missed you."
"This was a souvenir for me, from your pal Magneto," Pyro said turning the hat in his hands and hesitating momentary before carefully placing it back on his head. "It's kinda grown on me." He waited for Xavier to ask him to remove his hat, but the request never came. It seemed like an eternity of silence to Pyro before he finally spoke.
"Would you like to tell me what happened today in the courtyard?" Xavier asked.
"It was an accident. I was watching the kids and Rogue and Wolverine, I was flicking my zippo, I was nervous to be back and the next thing I know, stuff was on fire...I guess I'm sorry. I was just kinda on edge being back and all." Pyro waited again for a response and when he thought there wasn't go to be one he added, "I can leave, I probably shouldn't have come back anyways."
"No one wants you to leave, John," Xavier said.
Pyro was not used to the name John. His real name was Pyro, if Magneto had taught him anything, it was that. 'John' sounded like a parent scolding a child.
"You always have a home here at the mansion. You can have one of the spare rooms on the second floor. If you need anything or even just to get some things off your chest please feel free to talk to me or one of the other instructors. I think you'll find that we are very understanding people. Maybe we can even help you to avoid any future uncontrolled pyrotechnics." Xavier smiled at the young man standing in front of him. John appeared to be sincere but there was anger hiding beneath the surface, locked away in a mind Xavier was currently barred from.
Rogue felt like she had awoke from a hazy dream. This time however she was not surrounded by the comforts of her room but by the stark white linens and beeping machinery of the Med Lab. Both Logan and Scott asked her several questions regarding how she was feeling, what she needed, if they could do anything for her. In all honesty she just wanted out of there. Her burns were a little sore and her throat was scratchy but beyond that it was time to get back to life as usual, as usual as possible for a heroine-mutant.
Scott had several questions for both her and Logan regarding the incident and the proper incident reports needed to be completed. Rogue returned to her room to remove her current clothes as both the sleeves of her shirt and the legs from the knees down had been cut off by the Med Lad staff. She met Logan and Scott in one of the offices down in the underground wing of the mansion for the debriefing. After hearing both of their stories, Scott provided them with some new information.
"I think you both should know that the fire was an accident. More importantly I think you should know that Pyro is back."
"John's back?" Marie asked. "For good?"
"Well that's up to him really," Scott said. "Anyways he was nervous about returning and I guess that made him loose control over his powers and now the courtyard is a little singed."
"Interesting!" Logan practically spat out. "Marie, I think maybe you should get some rest, Scott and I have some things to discuss."
Tired, burned, and just plain pissed off, Marie snapped. "If you think that I am going to leave the room just so the men can have a chauvinistic discussion about the vulnerabilities of the women, you're wrong!"
"Marie..." Scott tried to interrupt the rant he knew was coming to bite Logan in the ass. It was a good thing he didn't however because it was going to be worth hearing.
"I have the right to hear your opinions since they are about me. If you would like to talk about me behind closed doors, then do it later, over a couple of beers, and let it be about my sex appeal or something, not about what should be done to protect me! Stop being a baby Logan and speak your mind in front of me or I'll start calling you 'Kid'." Marie finally took a breath. Unfortunately, the sudden intake of air scratched her throat causing her to have a sudden coughing fit. It was an unfortunate ending to an otherwise well executed lecture.
"Fine! You wanna know what I think? I think Pyro was up to no good. And I think that Scooter - you're wrong." Scott wondered how this had suddenly turned on him as Logan continued; "Pyro has extreme control over his abilities and that was clear at Bobby Drakes House with the unmentionable incident with the police. There was no way he accidentally tried to kill Marie. I don't care how well Xavier can read minds, that kid, - oh look I'm calling someone else a kid, sue me - is trouble."
"Well actually," Scott really didn't want to tell Logan this one, but he was pretty much a major player in the X-Men team and had a right to know, "Xavier hasn't been able to read him at all, he is really attached to wearing a baseball cap built much the same way Magneto's telepathy-blocking helmet was."
"I'll bet he is! Doesn't tell you how dangerous he is? What is wrong with you people!?!" Logan was practically shouting now.
"If we assume he is dangerous, then we are no better than everyone who unjustly fears us" Scott's voice slowly got softer as he continued. "All it tells us he is that he is hiding something. People hide all sorts of things from others. They hide their anger, yes, but they also hide their fear...their pain...their desires...their love."
Marie watched Scott very carefully. He was a man with such passion but his sorrow was often overwhelming. She wondered how often he told others that assumptions make us act irrationally, like the people who fear mutants and assume they are dangerous. She wondered if maybe he repeated the speech so many times that it was slowly becoming meaningless to him. On the other hand, maybe it just made him sad to think that most of humanity, including Logan seemed to be stuck in an unbreakable cycle. Fear was always initiating a cycle of rejection, abuse and neglect towards the unknown, until the unknown becomes known, understood and then finally accepted. Why couldn't humanity simply skip right to the accepting part?
Marie also observed Logan with awareness of his inner turmoil. He was a man who was ready to fight the world. He desired many things, but fear of loss held him like a deer caught in the headlights. He wanted to trust others as easily as the other X-Men but his instincts were strong and binding. Marie also knew that this man might have been more understanding if the situation had not involved harm to her.
Not much else could be said; neither Logan nor Scott were speaking to each other anymore. Clearly, the debriefing was over. Marie returned to her room for the evening Getting some rest, as many times as it was suggested, was actually sounding like a very inviting idea. Both Scott and Logan walked her to her room in silence. Once her door closed, both men went their separate ways, Scott to his room across from Marie, and Logan settled in a spare room down the hall. It would be the first time Logan had stayed at the mansion since Jean had passed away.
The grandfather clock from downstairs echoed softly throughout the upstairs hallways of the mansion. The creaks of the hardwood floor under John's feet blended right in with the steady metronome. He carefully padded his way down the hall and stopped at her door. Slowly, he opened the door to Marie's room, and stepped inside.