Forgive the Britisms. Cruel has pointed out the more obvious ones, bless her, but I'm still hopeless.

o

o

Logan settled back onto the bike with a sigh, wondering if perhaps all this traveling was getting to him. He looked back at the gas station he'd just left, and wondered if he shouldn't spend the night. He felt exhausted, not a natural state for the Canadian, and the last few days' events had been a farce.

He'd been called out to New Jersey by someone who claimed they knew him from long ago and was curious why he didn't seem to have aged at all. Seeking questions to his mysterious past he had ridden out to the proposed meeting place without hesitation, only to find a man with a gun waiting for him. If he had been normal he wouldn't have survived the encounter. As it was he was forced to kill the man before he could get any answers from him, just to stop him doing too much damage to the surroundings and the tourists who had been curious as to the cause of all the noise. The healing had taken it out of him more thoroughly than usual, and now he was wondering if his decision to drive home straight away was the right one. The long ride north was not one he was eagerly anticipating.

His mind made up, he unbuckled his saddlebags and headed back towards the station and the attached motel. It wouldn't be five star, but at least he could get back on the road feeling a little refreshed.

Habit made him lock the door to the little motel room behind him and he wandered over to the bed and dumped his bags. He sat down on the bed, grimacing at the stiff springs as he glanced back at the door. Locked. He was back at the door before he realised he was feeling uncomfortable, his heart racing as he nearly ripped it open and took deep breaths of the petrol-tainted air.

"What the fuck…" He growled at the empty parking lot. What was that? Momentary claustrophobia? Stepping backwards into his room he went to close the door and found he couldn't bring himself to do it. Desperate panic raced through his mind, and he fought to separate it from his own consciousness, finally realising that it had to be Remy's emotions that were leaking into his mind. "What are ya doin' ta me, kid?" He asked himself, knowing that Remy had no way of picking up his thoughts, only his emotions. Leaving the door open he turned back inside and shrank down in the corner, knowing he was playing out his own reactions to the fear that was engulfing his mind and not caring.

Taking deep breaths and calming his own mind in an attempt to transfer that calm down the link, Logan tried to reason out what was going on. Remy often hid more extreme emotions behind a mask of calm - he was finding that out every day, with his mind linked to the Cajun's as it was. The sudden irrational panic could be a symptom of a simpler problem back home that Remy was reacting badly to, the claustrophobia could even have come from his own mind, fuelled by the unfamiliar panic.

A sudden hitched breath as something else hit him, previously masked by the fear and panic that he had soothed away. Pain. Tear-jerking, heart-wrenching pain. He fought to take a full breath as sobs tried to take control of his body, his hands clenching on his upper arms tight enough to bruise, his knuckles white. His claws slowly slid out of his knuckles, and he let the physical pain drain away a little of the mental. Silently, he prayed that Remy wouldn't think of trying something similar. He had no doubts now that the young man was in the right state of mind to try something stupid to relieve his pain.

What the hell was going on back there? Empathy was nothing like telepathy, the shields he had been taught to erect couldn't block this out, and he didn't want to have to drive while this party was going on in his head. He was lucky that he had been here and not driving when it had happened.

Lucky? Or had the tiredness he had been feeling all day been a part of this? He had passed out in the street as soon as the threat had been eliminated. It wasn't unusual for him to black out while he was healing extensive wounds, but he had awoken in such a state of confusion…

There was no time for this. Remy had been handling everything just fine, better than he would in the same situation, Logan was sure. There had to be some external factor. No time. Grabbing his saddlebags, Logan stormed back out to the bike and screeched hell for leather back out onto the road.

o

o

Logan hesitated in the doorway, a familiar scent catching him. Rogue was home. His emotions were immediately divided, as he wondered how he should take her back. He'd learned a lot about the southern gal in the last few weeks that he wasn't sure he ever wanted to know. And how would Remy take her return? He'd be well within his rights to demand that she left and never return after what she had done to him, but Logan knew he would never do that to her. He just wasn't strong enough to be so harsh, and he loved her too much to be angry with her, come hell or… the polar equivalent.

But the emotions he had felt… had they been in reaction to Rogue's return? Somehow panic and outright fear just didn't fit into his view of Remy and Rogue's convoluted relationship, but he'd never had the clearest view of it either. Perhaps he had missed something important. They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms.

When he stepped into the house he found everyone huddled in the rec. room, and took another moment to judge the situation. Remy was decidedly absent, but he had been keeping himself away from the others for weeks, it was no surprise that this was no different. Jean was sitting in the armchair with Scott on one side and Rogue on the other, looking white and shaken. Hank was pacing a tight line up and down the room, and Ororo looked to be trying to hide in the corner, standing straight and tall but with a decidedly absent look in her eyes. Bobby, Warren and Betsy were also missing from the gathering, but Logan knew that if Bobby wanted to stew over something like all the others were he did it whilst hidden away - anything else would spoil his ever-happy jokester status.

"What happened." He asked, finally stepping into the room. Rogue stood up as everyone else turned to look at Logan blankly.

"When Gambit saw me again he had some kinda breakdown." She told him with a wobbly bottom lip, looking quite pitiful. "He psi-blasted the whole house, poor Jean only just survived it!"

Anger rose up in Logan unbidden. He loved Jean, how could Gambit do that?

"We need tah get him outta the house. He doesn't belong here." Rogue turned to the others as she said this, as though rallying support. There was a general affirmative noise, and Logan nodded along. It had to be done. His hatred for Gambit grew. He didn't belong. Jealousy, hatred, spite… He didn't belong.

"I'll do it. I'll get rid of him for ya."

o

Filled with the deepest contempt for the man who only hours before he had held much respect for, Wolverine stormed towards the labs where he had been told Gambit was being held. His claws were already extended, and he could sense a beginning of bloodlust, stirred by the hatred that was filling his heart.

Shoving the door so hard that the lock broke, Logan shouldered into the Medilab and came face to face with the object of his hatred. Somehow the scene wasn't quite what he was expecting, and it was that moment of confusion and surprise that brought him back to his senses.

Instead of being tied down or sedated, Remy was knelt on the ground just inside the door to Hank's office, his head dropped to the ground in front of him as though he were praying. His fists were clasped to his forehead, white knuckled as though trying to hold something in and Logan could see that he was shaking.

The room felt strangely silent - empty - and it wasn't anything to do with the antiseptic smell and recycled air. Slowly Logan realised that it wasn't noise he was missing but the empathic presence that had been there in his mind for the last few weeks whenever he was near Remy. That reassuring presence.

He slumped to his knees beside the man, all fight gone out of him. A moment ago he had been out for Remy's blood, and now he was feeling lonely and empty without his presence in his mind. What was this?

He searched for that hatred, that contempt that had filled him only moments ago and found nothing. With a growl he whirled back towards the door. He was being manipulated, and he knew it wasn't Remy doing it.

The softest brush on his mind drew Logan back to the crumpled form on the floor, and he gently pulled Remy up and into his lap, his body limp and unresponsive. Chocolate brown eyes were fixed on the ceiling and blinking slowly. With this new view, Logan could see the open cuts and burns that littered Remy's skin, all left untreated and some still bleeding sluggishly. A quick glance around the lab showed the signs of Remy's power raging out of control. Shattered pots and glassware. A nearby metal tray mangled as one part of it tried to explode away from the others, scattering its contents. There was no way he could have touched everything, he had to have had his spatial sense wide open when whatever this was had hit.

At the call of his name, Remy's head tipped slowly towards Logan, and he whimpered softly, a frown falling into place. Logan sought the connection he was missing, and smiled as it slowly solidified in his mind. The smile faltered as the emotions being channeled into his mind solidified along with it.

Pain, guilt, sorrow. Guilt… Guilt… The thoughts darkened, like a heart gone black with loneliness. Pain. Sorrow. Guilt.

"What happened, Gambit?" A flare of hurt. Was it his or Remy's? How could he tell anymore? "What did you do?" He pressed, beginning to worry that Rogue had been telling the truth.

Indignation, heavy and hurt for a moment, then sorrow and guilt returned. Perhaps Rogue had absorbed him to stop whatever he was doing? The earlier manipulation could have been accidental. Rogue rarely did know how to control another person's power in that short time she possessed it.

Fear rose up, thick and cloying in his mind. Was it his own? Was it Remy's? What did it mean? Logan was very quickly remembering why he hated having other people in his head. With a heaviness borne of weighted limbs, Remy looked away from Logan and a deep emptiness opened up in his mind where the empath had been.

"Don't look away. Talk to me."

"He can't." He turned to look at Rogue in the doorway.

"Why not?" An angry demand for the truth. No more mind games. He needed words and facts.

"When he lost control… he did something to himself. We don't know…"

"Hank looked at him yet? He's all scraped up."

"Why should we, if you're going to kill him?" The hatred rose up in him again, in the space that Remy's pain had inhabited only moment before, but he knew it wasn't Remy's emotion, and it certainly wasn't his. Very slowly – like a hand reaching into his mind and pushing the other emotion out, Remy re-emerged and Rogue's interference was thrown from his mind. Rogue staggered back for a minute, the action had obviously been rougher on her end.

"Yah little…" Rogue took a step closer to Remy, face filled with anger.

"Get out." It was a soft growl, but Rogue looked up at Wolverine as though he had hit her.

"What do yah…"

"I said get out. Get out of my head, get out of this room, and get the fuck out of this mansion."

"Now see here."

SKINT

"Get out…" He wasn't even shouting yet. "Of my sight. Or else." With Logan you knew that wasn't an idle threat. Rogue ran.

o

"Remy? Gambit, d'ya hear me?" It hadn't taken much to move the limp Cajun onto one of the medical beds – one that had only lost a pillow in the explosions, one of the others had lost a supporting bar and would be out of use for a while. Now he was searching desperately for some response. He wasn't even responding to his voice now, and once Rogue had left he had found his mind strangely empty once more. "God damnit, talk to me, fuck with my head, I don't care. Just…" Logan looked up as Hank stepped into the room cautiously. "About time. Where the hell have ya been, Blue?"

"I was… what is going on? I thought you were going to get rid of this foul heathen before he did any further damage."

"He didn't damage anythin' but himself, Hank. It's Rogue who's screwin' ya all over. She's got Remy's empathy and she's using it on everyone. Makin' ya think what she wants ya to."

"But…"

"But nothin'. You've never approved of killin', Hank, even when someone deserves it. What's so different now?" Hank looked away for a moment, thinking this over. Logan almost felt guilty as the doctor sank into a chair numbly.

"I… my god… Rogue has…"

"Every single damn one of ya."

"I would have happily murdered him with my own hands…"

"I think she screwed Remy over too." For the first time Hank looked past Logan at Remy.

"Goodness. Let me get my bag."