Upset, loud voices in the hallway woke Katja shortly after that, overlapping words making her suspect that something must have happened in Logan's room. Something she was only told by Ororo and Bobby bit by bit, and then she still didn't quite understand. It only made her realize even more how dangerous and unpredictable this guy was.
Marie of all people it was whom he'd attacked, Marie, who had only tried to help him, to wake him up from a bad nightmare ... Well, Logan had been dealt the consequences for his lack of restraint right away.
With the other students watching in shock, Marie had basically drained his life energy, briefly transferring his powers into her own body as well, which had closed the terrible wounds that Logan's adamantium claws had torn into Marie's chest. Katja was not the only one speechless about this far too young girl carrying so much destructive power. This quiet young woman, who meant no harm to anyone and yet had been given powers that indeed even mutant world had to be aware of. At least the children were now noticeably afraid of being near Marie. The incident would not exactly make it easy for the X-Men to help Marie on her way to a new life ...
That depressing realization immediately brought Katja to Marie's room once she was in the loop. Lying back down, as she had been advised, was the very last thing she felt like doing right now.
Her friend, however, had locked herself in and was not responding to anything. Only her loud sobs could be heard even from the hallway.
Katja didn't want to corner the young woman any further; she understood her far too well for that.
After all, it was because of her that the children were so worried right now; alarmed whispers still arose in the odd room. The little ones probably rarely experienced mutants hurting each other in this mansion, even if it was just an accident. Even when you were raised on the principle of acceptance and helpfulness as Xavier was trying to teach it, something like that couldn't just leave such young persons cold.
Katja was determined to help Marie even more from now on if the X-Men would agree. Maybe she could actually help explain to the students what had really happened. She didn't have a lot of experience with that kind of thing, but there should at least be an attempt to give everyone back some peace of mind.
For now, Katja preferred to join Jean and Scott at Logan's bedside in the infirmary. The two of them wanted to make sure that Logan's condition would improve soon if Katja had got that right. Maybe they also had an idea of what else could be done for Marie today.
The two of them seemed so absent-minded, however, when Katja entered the examination chamber, with Scott staring dully at Logan's so disturbing x-rays, with Jean immersed in the patient's file on her computer without her fingers moving on the keyboard, that nothing but a mumbled greeting came from Katja's lips. She obviously had once more not exactly interrupted any kind of conversation between the two lovers. It looked like they all tried to understand on their own how the events of the last few days were connected, and Katja was no exception.
It was especially confusing why someone supposedly as powerful as Magneto was himself would want to have anything to do with someone like Logan, whose instincts were basically impossible to control, as the X-Men now knew, and who was obviously fighting for no one but himself anyway.
And who seemed to become more important in this house with each passing hour anyway.
Jean must have the hardest time, dealing with that, given how close she had come to this guy in the last few days, who suddenly looked very pale and sunken under his feral beard on that narrow stretcher, who didn't even stir this time when Jean put him on an IV. She missed the vein the first time, which gave Katja an even better idea than her silence of how deeply this incident affected her friend. She actually knew few people with hands as steady as Jean's.
Because she would have felt stupid, just leaving again, she pulled a chair up to the stretcher as well. "You okay?"
Jean looked up so abruptly as if she had only now really noticed that Katja was still here. Her frown didn't look like the question was making any sense to her. Then that affectionate smile curled on her lips again, which gave Katja the relief that there would be hopefully no hard feelings between them, just because there was something off between Jean and Scott.
"Nights like this are more common at Mutant High than I'd like to admit, I'm afraid. As long as you're not necessarily a part of that yet, you better take advantage of that and save your energy."
Katja refrained from telling Jean again that she was already in the middle of all this, now even more than before. "Energy, I'm having enough of, as you know. But I'm not getting anywhere with Marie right now."
"Help is something she needs to seek herself," Jean reminded her gently. "And night warps many thoughts, Flashwind. Don't you drive yourself crazy, too. Things will look different in the morning."
She still was being asked discreetly enough to leave to ignore it. Katja just knew that if she had gone back to bed now, she would have kept the whole house awake with her damned weather tics, even if only it was her anger at her own helplessness tormenting her. "At least here I don't feel entirely useless."
Except that wasn't quite true either, especially when it became quiet again in the windowless room.
Katja's gaze kept going back and forth inconspicuously between Jean and Logan, Jean and Scott. What she saw had shivers run down her spine.
By now, Jean did no longer try to hide at all how interesting she found this guy for some inexplicable reason. The way she kept stroking his bare arm, far longer than necessary to take his pulse, and the intense looks she gave her patient, left no more questions unanswered. She didn't even seem to realize that each of these gestures was a slap in her fiancé's face. While she and Scott stood close to each other, they never once touched. The few inches of distance between them felt like a Grand Canyon abyss.
After a while, Scott also dropped down on some stool, wearily leaning forward with his arms folded on his knees, and stared silently into the semi-darkness of the exam room, the corners of his mouth twisted in aggression. His glasses made it impossible to tell, but Katja could have sworn that he was eyeing her across the stretcher, searching in vain for words.
And the last thing she felt like doing was asking, making it easier for him, whatever was going on inside him. The tension in the room grew more unbearable with each passing second. Again and again, she thought to felt Scott's gentle touch on her skin when they had danced earlier, his breath on her lips, the heat when their bodies had touched ... Right now they both couldn't have been further from such closeness, for more than one reason.
He had been toying with her on purpose, of that, Katja was convinced by now. She had no idea what he really wanted from her, but as long as he apparently didn't know that himself, she wouldn't approach him again.
But now she really did feel out of place and was glad when Ororo waved her along after paying the sickroom a short visit herself.
It didn't seem as if anyone noticed that Katja was leaving.
Her friend was nice enough to invite her for a cup of tea. For Katja, hating tea with a passion, that would mean going with hot chocolate, but as long as there would be a decent shot of rum in both drinks, the effect would be the same.
Halfway up the stairs, Katja hesitated. It felt wrong to just walk past the student floor without at least giving it another shot.
Ororo read her glance towards Marie's room right and gave a one-sided shrug, sighing. "No use tonight, I'm afraid. Charles has already tried to soothe her mind from the outside a little, to no avail. Right now she's firmly convinced that the whole world hates her and that she deserves it."
Without surprise, Katja noticed that her hand had already found the disappearing scars on her arm again, plainly visible to anyone thanks to the night's disturbance. This kind of self-destruction, she knew far too well from memory to look away. You needed to try and break this kind of vicious circle before it could fully form.
She still had no real idea if she was doing the right thing. But the same instincts that had been guiding her quite well the last few days were just kicking in again, so maybe that was a good sign. Something useful had to come from this whole mutation thing, right?
"You think you can get her to open? I'll be with you in a minute. Just need to get something."
Ororo was visibly still skeptical but agreed without objection, which only gave Katja more courage. It was easier, not to constantly doubt yourself when others didn't do that from dawn to dusk. Perhaps that was the most important thing Marie had to learn right now as well.
After the detour to the desk and the printer in her personal space, Katja was relieved to find the door to Marie's small single room indeed open upon her return.
Ororo sat by Marie's bed, with a lot of distance between them – probably not her choice – and was talking to her the same soft, slow-spoken way Katja had already come to appreciate with her friend, but Marie pressed her face firmly into her pillow and didn't even turn her way.
She was still shaking worryingly. The red stains on her nightgown made Katja nauseous.
Spontaneously, she grabbed another of those pretty long gowns from Marie's closet, that Ororo had probably got for her, and put it at the end of the bed for the time being before bending over the teenager, ignoring Ororo's warning shake of her head.
"Don't touch me!" Marie looked at Katja only long enough to glare at her with reddened eyes, visibly relieved that Katja was being careful to keep at least the last little distance between them.
"Not unless you want me to," she replied softly. "I just brought you something." She placed the small stack of documents on Marie's nightstand.
The girl wasn't giving them a second glance for the moment, but that was fine. That would have been too easy.
"What, no gun?" Marie sneered, obviously trying her best to get rid of them both right away. She obviously had never heard of the stubbornness of weather witches. "Wouldn't it be much easier if you put the dangerous beast in your house to death?"
"You are not dangerous," Ororo spoke up again, more forcefully, firmly now, ignoring Marie's snort. "Your gift is, but that's true for everyone here in one way or another. You're a mutant, just like us, and you'll learn to live with that, Rogue. We'll help you with it ..."
"Right." A hint of bitter envy distorted Marie's lips. "Don't get me wrong, Professor Munroe, but I think it's easier to live with being able to paint clouds in the sky than with killing people just by touching them."
"Logan is fine. He's just sleeping it off. We went to see him not more than five minutes ago." Katja sat down on the edge of Marie's bed, still far enough away from her that she wouldn't feel uncomfortable. "He'll be all right soon. Which makes him a lot luckier than certain other victims of mutation accidents."
When she nodded at her little souvenir this time, Marie's eyes narrowed. Visibly reluctant she reached for the half dozen sheets of paper after all.
Somewhat blurred, printed black and white, with fuzzy photos ... But the images of a young woman with bandages and burns all over her body were clear enough to make out, as were the sensational German-language headlines regarding a mysterious, out-of-control mutant demon from the sleepy mountain village in the middle of Bavaria that Katja had quickly translated by hand on the way here.
"Who is that?" But Marie's suddenly far quieter voice sounded as if she already knew.
"The girl? Went to my school, one grade below mine. I don't know her name, but my so-called friends in Germany were in a big hurry to email me all reports and photos of this kind after I'd left. I resent the demon thing, by the way. They didn't even give me horns after my body suddenly decided to go nuts ten years or so too late."
When she could hear Marie giggle, very softly, no matter how many tears sounded through that sound, Katja put her hand on one of the girl's drawn knees, over the soiled fabric of her nightgown, very slowly only, until she could be sure that Marie would not flinch. "I'm still new here, too, but I think you'll find bodies like that in the basement of almost everyone who lives here. You're not alone, Rogue."
"So, how can you deal with that?" Marie waved the newspaper snippets around, still a bit shy, after skimming some of them with a visible shudder.
Katja would have loved to have something better to say to that than to raise her free hand helplessly, and drop it again. "Doesn't feel like I have a choice, honestly."
"You both do. We all do." Ororo's further encouragement saved the mood before it could drop again.
"None of us can fully understand your fate, Rogue, that much is true. But we have all gone through our own. We've all faced that decision to learn how to deal with it or give up. Or even to let the people out there decide what happens to us, because of something none of us can do anything about. Neither of that sounds particularly enticing, does it? I can't promise you that you won't have to fight a lot even in this house. But here, you have at least a chance to find the happiness and help you need to do it every day new."
"And if I don't want that help?" Marie asked after long seconds of silence, audibly still not quite convinced. "What if I don't want to risk hurting people? If I'd rather make my way alone?"
Ororo's weak grin was not unlike Katja's. "We've never locked up anyone in here who wanted to leave us. You'd probably have some very stubborn freaks in black leather on your heels for a few weeks, trying to change your mind, but in the end, it's your decision. Always."
That seemed to reassure Marie at least a little, but she still looked rather lost and disheveled from her night's adventure, so Katja carefully put the new nightgown into her hand and took the prints with those depressing pictures back from her. Those were her very own reminder. Marie would have her own nightmares to deal with. "Come on, get cleaned up and then try to get some sleep, will you? I'll come to get you tomorrow as soon as Logan is awake."
Marie didn't seem ready yet to face the man of all people again she'd just almost killed. But things usually did look a lot clearer after a little sleep; Jean had been right about that earlier. At least Marie wasn't crying anymore when Katja and Ororo left her alone.
And Ororo's firm, wordless hug out in the hallway healed another of those little burning wounds in Katja's heart that her very own little disaster had left there recently.
It wasn't only a single room Ororo occupied, as it turned out, but a small apartment of its own, with a balcony and a visitor's section where there was a large table and comfortable wooden chairs. Many paintings adorned the walls, reflecting the animal and religious world of Ororo's home country, as did the wood-carved figures on sideboards and windowsills. Countless plants on top of that, gold-framed mirrors, the furniture all of an impeccably clean white ... It was an elegant and at the same time lively environment; Katja felt immediately at home there.
"So?" asked Ororo at last, after they had sat in silence at the table for a while, with their noses each deep in a bulbous cup with a pyramid print. "Time for your first therapy session, too?"
"I'd rather need to be able to stop time for a few years, and a personal coach with a license in everything useful to bash someone's face in. It's happening, isn't it? What the Professor was afraid of. With Magneto."
It wasn't fear that Katja felt, exactly, not yet ... But she was well aware that her combat training so far had been limited to a few amateurish attempts to withstand Scott's attack maneuvers for more than five minutes. She wanted to at least try to help with what the members of the X-Men team had been trying to do for years; of that, she was more and more certain ever since that certain mutant down there had brought the fight with the Brotherhood all but to the Mutant High's front door. But she was in no way ready for that. Sadly, Scott was right about that.
"We don't know that yet. Maybe Magneto was just looking for reinforcements. We'll have to wait until we learn more about the Brotherhood's concrete plans." But Ororo didn't sound convinced. She, too, was worried about these two mutants in her house causing so much trouble.
And there was something else bothering her. Katja noticed it in the way she slightly flinched when a door outside slammed shut too loudly – while it had been the one of Scott and Jean's apartment, that had only been Scott's straightforward footsteps in the hallway. The way Ororo was shaking her head looked sad, but also a good deal resigned. "Logan's messing with some things in here that were already troubled to begin with."
"I'm afraid I'll have to share the blame in that myself," Katja admitted uneasily. What was the point of trying to hide? After all, Ororo had already caught Scott and her in an awkward situation ...
She wasn't sure if she had been expecting absolution or an admonition to stay out of an obviously battered relationship, but her friend just shrugged wearily. "I'm just going to assume you're not doing this on purpose. And Scott and Jean aren't exactly trying hard to defuse the situation. The two of them have been making things unnecessarily difficult for each other for months now. I can't help with that; I've tried many times. I just wish they would at least focus on what's important in crisis situations."
"I'm sorry, I ... I'll try to keep out of this." Katja immediately felt the urge to defend herself.
But what for, really? Because Scott had persuaded her to take dancing lessons? No, she would happily let him work that out with Jean. Katja would just stay away from him now, that was the smartest thing to do here ...
Ororo's indulgent shake of her head made her blush on the spot. This woman was simply watching her far too well and apparently had an easy time, guessing what was going on inside Katja right now.
"You have a thing for blaming yourself, don't you? Scott is a big boy, you know. He's the one who needs to decide what he wants. Don't worry your head for them. It's bad enough they do it at the worst times of the day." Ororo pushed her cup against Katja's with a friendly soft clink and downed the last sip of tea.
"Now get out. Tomorrow, the students will have a lot of questions. If you want, you can help me answer them. After all, I've just seen how good you are at that. The little ones have been curious about you ever since you arrived anyway. As we've told you, it's not often that people still mutate and move in here once they're fully grown."
"I'd love to. See you tomorrow."
Happy with the offer she'd secretly been hoping for, Katja fell into bed somewhat more reassured then, after all.
Given all the chaos in her soul, Katja had actually fallen asleep again quite quickly. And the rest had been bitterly necessary, as it turned out.
Because when Marie suddenly disappeared the next day, before Katja had even a chance to find her at school, the situation escalated for good.
The personal problems among the team members immediately were pushed into the background. Not only Katja was fearing for the young woman.
And at least on such small missions, to rescue mutants in distress, she wanted to try to give the others a hand. She could have at least stayed in the background again as a reserve ... A few more flashes certainly wouldn't have hurt in a possible crisis situation ...
But despite her urgent plea, Charles, Jean, Ororo, and Scott did not bring her on the search for Marie.
Instead, Katja had to learn from some extremely unkindly worded television reports that, as she'd already more or less feared, there had been a confrontation, in the course of which the team leader, of all people, must have lost control of his powers. Having to see the full extent of the destructive power of Scott's gift with her own eyes for the first time, even if it was only on blurred surveillance camera footage, scared Katja quite a bit. The news that miraculously, there had been no casualties when the train station roof had been badly damaged, was a relief.
Unlike the drooling reporters on the scene and, no doubt, the loudest mutant enemies speaking up in the U.S. Senate by tomorrow at the latest, Katja couldn't care less who would pay for the immense damage to the building. From how she had understood Jean, given Xavier's finances, that would be the least problem anyway.
It bothered her a lot more that she hadn't been more stubborn earlier. After all, she had noticed often enough in the last few days how important it was to Scott, to do everything he could not to endanger anyone with his mutation. Right now, despite all her good intentions to keep her distance, Katja very much felt like giving him a hug.
"Will they lock Professor Summers up now?" The lisp of a child's voice in the doorway to the living room, hard to understand at first, had Katja startle. So much for the hope that all of the students were asleep. She recognized Artie right away, the boy with the reptile tongue, who didn't seem half as bright and sassy today as when she'd arrived, but very vulnerable, in his too-small Captain America pajamas and with his hair in a mess.
"Professor Munroe always says we must never show the people out there our gift because they might arrest us if we break anything," the boy added in a trembling voice as Katja stared at him, shaken by the question that was as sober as it was fearful.
"They have no right to do that, Artie. Not because of accidents." That didn't make it any better that it was happening anyway, as Katja knew best thanks to her own situation, but especially after the incidents of the last few days, the students shouldn't have to live with even more fear. She hurried to turn off the TV.
"Besides, the others are with him. They'll take care of him. By the time you wake up tomorrow, they'll all be back."
Artie shook his head violently and backed away as if he was afraid that Katja was about to drag him into his room against his will. "What if they don't come back? Then the police will come for us. They'll put us all in foster homes. Can't sleep now. Don't want to ..."
Seeing how the little guy could hardly keep his eyes open even as he stood there, a rather bold statement, but anything Katja could have thought of saying in response would have been rather hypocritical, given her own restless state.
So she rather held out her hand to Artie and nodded down to the sofa, while quickly retrieving one of the many woolen blankets from one of the closets, presumably meant for such nights exactly. "Come on, let's wait together, what do you say? Then you'll see with your own eyes that everyone is alright."
Artie's eyes instantly lit up so brightly, that it made sacrificing sleep again all the more worthwhile. Without even asking, he snuggled up to Katja once she'd sat back down, very happy to be tucked in, and closed his eyes trustingly after she still put her arm around him a little awkwardly.
"Professor Munroe said you do lightning too, like her."
"Not half as well as her, I'm afraid. But then, I'm still learning. They take good care of us here, Artie, don't worry. I've messed up some things with my lightning too, but the Professor is protecting me. And he does that for everyone here. Nothing will happen to you." Katja stroked the little boy's hair and was about to breathe a quick kiss on it, smiling sheepishly when he lifted his head just then and she met his forehead instead.
"Promise me?" So much groundless fear, so much helplessness, and so much resignation for such a young person were in that one word that it wanted to bring tears to Katja's eyes.
If she hadn't been entirely sure until now whether she wanted to help the students here with their difficult fate, this decision would have been set in stone now at the latest.
However, that also included not lying to them. "I think the Professor should be the one doing that. But I believe him, and so far he hasn't let me down."
That seemed to be good enough for Artie for the moment. Just a few seconds later, he was dozing off.
It took longer than she'd hoped before Katja had a reason to wake him again. She did indeed only see the X-Men again once her arm had gone numb under Artie's weight and she was starting to struggle with heavy eyelids herself.
Nevertheless, she was instantly wide awake when she realized that the others had returned from an unsuccessful trip, without Marie, but with a once again rather battered-looking Logan in their midst, who had probably paid the price for going off on his own to help Marie without permission.
Ororo's smile when she spotted Katja and Artie sitting there like that looked tense, but she immediately stopped while Jean and Scott both supported Logan on his way to the stairs, presumably to get him to his room.
"Look he's found someone to wrap around his little finger again. Time for bed, Artie."
Artie jumped up in a flash and threw himself into her arms, visibly relieved, squinting at the others with a relieved sigh. "Will you tell me a story before, Professor Munroe? Please!"
"Another time. Come on, hurry, or you'll fall asleep during biology class again tomorrow. How are we supposed to present your paper to the others then?" Miraculously, Ororo managed to get the little one to retreat to the student floor within half a minute.
When she dropped down on the sofa next to Katja, the put-on cheerfulness had finally slipped from her lips. This time, Katja didn't even have to ask to be told what had happened, and she had some funny feeling that didn't just happen out of kindness.
Now all doubts about how dangerous the situation with Magneto was were finally gone. Instead, the ones promptly tried to come back, about what Charles actually thought he could do with someone like Katja in such a situation.
If a walking weapon like Logan could be defeated so easily already, from what Ororo said concerning a very painful fight with Magneto ... Having as much adamantium as Logan in his body, you should probably not approach a mutant who could manipulate metal ...
But what else this brief trip had revealed was so much worse: that for some reason, Magneto had wanted Marie all along, not Logan. That this conflict would only get worse, that, they had all kind of expected by now. But not plans of the magnitude that this zealotic terrorist actually seemed to have come up with.
And not how much Magneto was apparently ready to sacrifice for it, either.
Katja realized that suddenly, she had no objection at all to withdrawing for the rest of the night with as little resistance as Artie. What would have to happen now, had to be decided by people who were actually responsible for it, as much as she would have liked to be able to help Marie somehow.
If they actually needed her for that in any way, this time, hopefully, they would let her know in advance and with more preparation than in Canada.