Scott had no clear idea where he was going, he was just following the tyre tracks through the woods. None of the vehicles that had made it in sight of the school were still intact. It didn't look like the few men who'd escaped from Jean had fled in a vehicle, they might yet catch them, in spite of his lapse, his delay.

After a few minutes, Kitty called out

"Mr Summers! Logan!"

Scott and Logan ran towards her, she was crouched on the dark ground beside a pair of long white gloves. Logan snatched one up and sniffed it.

"Rogue." He confirmed. He swore softly. "We're too late. Look. Ground's all churned up. They made a stand here." Just Bobby and Rogue, neither of them had ever fought for real before, they'd fought and lost here, alone, with no backup. If they'd been faster-

Scott stopped himself. "Come on. We might still catch them on the road."

They kept running. Logan and Peter were stumbling, they'd been fighting hand-to-hand for a while as well. But if there was any chance of getting Bobby and Rogue back alive, they had to take it. When they reached the cut fence, beside the road, they stopped.

"Logan, can you track-"

"No." Logan said flatly, panting. He gave a shout of anger and drove his claws in to a tree. They'd messed up. The worst part was how long it had taken them to realize Bobby and Rogue were missing. He'd thought of it too, when he'd first taken up position on the third floor, where Rogue was meant to join him, he'd wondered where she was. He should have made The Professor chase it up. If they'd realized faster, they could have got Storm out to them, possibly Logan as well, and sent Kurt to pull them back. And if they'd had Bobby and Rogue, they'd have been able to bring more to bear at each chokepoint, they'd have thinned them faster, Jean might not have… Whatever the hell she'd done.

"We go back then." Scott said. "Our best hope for finding them is Cerebro now."

This had gone horrifically, start to finish. They were three down, two at the start, one at the end, Kurt was wounded and The Professor had gone quiet. Scott couldn't imagine he'd have done that by choice.

"Kurt." He said. Kurt had followed them more by teleporting than walking. He was limping. Peter was supporting him now, but he looked up. "Get to The Professor. We meet – everyone who's still standing – outside Cerebro as soon as we can." They needed to regroup, to figure out what on earth they were going to do next.

,

Storm crouched under the stairs, listening to the silence. It was a still night, now she'd let the storm go. Jean's pulse was steady under her fingers. Her breathing was shallow, but rhythmic and controlled. Jean might have tested her responses, had their places been reversed, but Storm didn't quite dare. After what she'd just seen Jean do, she didn't want to risk startling her.

It was eerily quiet. It was unusual for there to be any quiet anywhere in this place, with a hundred teenagers in residence. But they were all hiding below ground. Any birds that might have been singing had been scared off by Scott and her earlier. It was far too quiet.

Jean sat up and gasped.

"Jean. Jean?"

Jean shook her head and looked at her. "Storm?" She said weakly.

"Yeah, it's me. It's okay." Please say she knew who and where she was. Please say she was still… Jean.

"Storm?" Her voice wasn't quite right. Jean reached out for Storm's arm, but did it… Storm had seen Scott with no visor or glasses a few times, that was how he moved then.

"Jean, are you… Are you blind?"

Jean's breath caught. She shook her head and looked around. "Not completely, but… is it really dark in here or..?"

"It is quite dark." Storm conceded. There was a silence.

"But you can see." Jean said thinly.

"Yeah."

Jean released her breath slowly. "Okay, find a flashlight or something, with a narrow beam." Storm went to get up, Jean caught her by the arm. "Actually, help me up. I'm going to be sick."

Storm managed to get Jean to a toilet about half a minute before she proved herself right. Her hair was already tied up, so there wasn't that to do. Storm just knelt on the floor next to her, hand on her shoulder, ready to catch her if she fainted. She was still very pale.

So what was going on? Jean, the Jean Storm knew, wasn't capable of doing the sort of stuff Storm had just seen her do, not normally, anyway. And she hadn't been behaving like Jean really, she'd been far too dismissive of Scott, she hadn't talked to them about what she was doing, what she was about to do. But now? Now she was acting more like Jean, little things like the way she moved, the way she held her face. And the way she'd reacted to realizing she was partly blind, she'd reacted like a doctor. The light was to differentiate central and peripheral blindness, Storm knew that much.

When Jean got up, she was steadier on her feet. She reached for the sink and started washing her face and mouth without having to be told where it was.

"I think my sight's coming back." Jean said quietly, turning the taps off. "Can you hold up some fingers for me?" Storm held up four. Jean stared at them for a second before she answered, but she did answer right.

"Do you… know what happened?" Storm asked.

Jean shook her head. "Could be a focal seizure of some sort, could be brain hypoxia, aberrant ICP… I don't know. I wasn't walking right a second ago, was I?"

"No." Storm answered truthfully.

"Well we're too late for indirect PLRs-"

"I kind of meant… the bit before. When you were… I don't know what you were doing."

Jean frowned. "Come to that, how did I get up here?"

"What, to first floor?"

"Yeah."

"In the lift."

Jean frowned. "I… Last thing I remember before is being at the stand in the Danger Room and… then nothing."

"You…" Storm stared. "You were amazing. If you'd been like that the whole way through, you could have won that fight on your own." And that was what scared Storm. It wasn't just that she'd been so powerful and hadn't really seemed like herself. The most powerful mutants very often self-destructed.

The same thought seemed to have occurred to Jean. She shook her head. "I'm… I'm not feeling strong now. I can barely even feel you."

Storm sighed. "I was going to ask you to tell Scott you're okay."

"Oh God, where's-"

"He took everyone else to try to find Bobby and Rogue."

"They are alive." Jean said.

"How do you-"

"I don't know. I just know they didn't kill them."

Storm sighed. "Well I guess… I guess that's something."

It was about ten minutes before the rest came back, limping and stumbling, and minus Kurt. Jean and Storm both stood up when they saw them coming. Scott looked up sharply when he saw Jean. So did Logan. Scott sighed heavily and nodded at her. He wasn't one for public displays.

"You okay?" He asked as he came nearer.

"Think so." Jean said. "Burned my power out though. I don't think I could do anything with it right now."

"Maybe that's a good sign."

"Maybe."

Maybe it kept Jean at a level four. Maybe it improved her odds of surviving.

"We're gathering down by Cerebro. Come on."

"Can I just…" Logan stopped, legs set wide, head forward.

Jean started towards him. "Logan?"

He was breathing hard. "Don't always stop hurting right when it heals."

"Where?"

"Few places."

"Okay, lie down." This was Jean. She helped Logan to the floor, he wasn't moving right. "However you're in least pain. Scott, can you send Kurt for us?"

"Sure."