Kitty curled up in a little ball in her bed. Jubilee, Sarah and Annette weren't up yet. And of course Rogue's bed was empty. Kitty'd made it for her and fluffed the pillows up earlier. She drew a short, tight breath and held it. There was a little pool of salt water on the side of her nose, and a track of it running down from her eye. They'd had no choice. She knew that. They'd been trying to kill them, all of them. Except her. They'd tried to tranq her. And then she'd led five men straight to Logan. She'd seen the one with the spider tattoo, just as Storm had shoved him in to the pit. He'd looked much younger dead. Maybe only five years older than Kitty was. What had he been told, she wondered. Had he really understood what he was doing? Had he actually been willing to fight at all, or had he been pressed in to it?

Kitty pushed the breath out of her body and sank in to the bed, eyes closed. It was nearly completely dark down here, the soft pressure of a solid object surrounded her, ran through her, pressing gently on every inch of her body, inside and out. It was quite a nice feeling really. It was comforting. She felt safe. Nobody could reach her here. Nobody could find her. Nobody could see her.

,

"Logan." Logan turned when he heard Kurt behind him.

"What?" He just wanted to go back to bed.

"I wanted to ask if you are recovered from last night."

"You're one to talk?" Kurt was leaning heavily on a wall, one foot barely on the floor.

"You did not answer my question, Logan."

"Not a mark on me, bub, I'm fine." Logan turned to walk away. Kurt appeared right in front of him again.

"You ate next to nothing, you are breathing as though you have only just finished the fight, you will not stand straight and there is a… a tension in you. Logan, I worked for many years in a circus. I have seen many kinds of people, and many kinds of animals, try to hide it when they were in pain."

"I'm fine." Logan repeated. He swallowed. He was always fine in the end. Just right now, he felt sick, his guts were burning, he wanted Kurt to get out of his way and let him get to bed.

"No." Kurt said simply. "If you were fine, you would eat properly, stand straight and walk with a purpose. You are in pain, and it must be a great deal of pain." Logan didn't deny it fast enough. "Why have you not asked Doctor Grey to help you?"

"I'm fine."

"Why are you lying?"

That question put Logan back a pace. Why the hell was he doing this to himself? The painkillers Jean had given him before had worked, they'd just worn off. Why was he putting himself through this?

He didn't want to them to know. He didn't want them to know he'd reached the limit of his healing power. He had no idea if this had happened to him before, he had no idea if it would get better. And he was scared as hell of that. He needed to be able to fight. He needed to be able to take care of himself.

"Kurt, Logan." And there she was, striding round the corner, red hair tied back, skin glowing. Though she looked tired. Logan guessed they all did. Jean stopped beside them, looking questioningly at the two of them.

"Logan has something to say to you." Kurt said firmly.

Fine. Logan huffed. "It hasn't stopped hurting."

Jean's eyes widened slightly. "Where?"

"Guts."

Jean nodded once. "Kurt, take him down to the infirmary, we need to figure this out. I'll meet you down there."

Logan almost fell down when he landed in the infirmary. He was weak. Really weak. Why could he not throw this? Why was he not getting better? Kurt stayed with him until Jean arrived. She was only a couple of minutes.

"Kurt, you can go. Logan, get your shirt off and get on the table." Kurt disappeared in a puff of black smoke, Logan started undoing his shirt, trying not to bend his back at all as he did it. Doing that hurt. Jean was gathering stuff from around the room. By hand. She wasn't using her powers. Could she still not do it?

He'd just about got down on the table by the time she was ready. He barely dared to breathe it hurt so much. She didn't go for his guts right away, she took his pulse, pinched his fingers, but then she went for the hand scanner. She always pressed that in hard. Logan braced himself. She put the gel on his stomach. Here it came. She flinched. Logan set his jaw and looked away.

There was a tap at the door.

"Who's there?" Jean called, looking up. The door opened a crack. A dark-skinned, dark-haired head appeared round it. The rest of the girl followed tentatively.

"Doctor Grey?"

"Marcia."

"Mr Wagner said you had a patient down here for pain, I… I wondered if I could help, Ma'am." Logan scowled to himself. If Jean was training herself a nurse, all well and good, but he didn't want witnesses to this. He didn't want anyone to see him this weak.

Jean drew a breath slowly. "Do you think you can?"

The girl nodded. "My control's been pretty good the past few months."

"He's not The Professor, he can't help you shape it."

"I… I don't think I need that anymore."

Jean hesitated. "If you make him jump-"

"I won't."

Jean sighed. "Okay, if you're sure. I think he'll appreciate it."

What was she going to do? It suddenly struck Logan how odd this was, how much he'd normally have enjoyed this. Until the kid had turned up, he'd been alone with Jean, and he'd probably have stayed alone with her for an hour or more. He'd normally have been pushing her, testing her boundaries. Some days she was more receptive than others, never receptive enough, but still. There was a bittersweet thrill to chasing her, to seeing how far she'd let him go before she pulled back. But right now he just wanted it to stop hurting.

The girl, Marcia, laid her hands on his bare arm. She settled her weight in to her feet and closed her eyes. She drew a breath in, gave a little squeak of pain, then blew out. His skin prickled under her hands.

Then it was gone. All of it. Just… gone, like it had never even been there. And not just from his abdomen, the quiet throbbing in the backs of his hands, the dull, constant ache in his joints. All of it. For the first time he could remember, there was no pain. None. And no drugged haze, he was lucid. But there was no pain.

"Huh." He made to sit up.

"Hey, hey, hey." Jean set a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. "The reason for the pain is still there."

"What did..?"

"I'm a neuropath." Marcia said. Her eyes were still shut. "Telepaths affect thought, memory and perception, neuropaths do sensation."

"And, so far as we know," Jean said. "she's unique."

Even when Jean pressed her scanner in to him, it didn't hurt, but Jean grimaced. She pulled a needle and syringe from her tray and stuck it in to his abdomen. She drew back a syringe full of cloudy yellow fluid.

"That should not be in there." She said. "Logan, you must have been in agony all day, why didn't you say anything?"

"Didn't figure you'd be able to do much."

"Even without Marcia, I could have given you pain relief, but…" She shook her head. "Do you know why your regeneration can't handle this?"

"No." He said shortly.

"I wonder if… This is peritonitis. If there's an ongoing insult, maybe your regeneration can't keep up. Marcia?"

"In his abdomen, it's… visceral pain? The slow, vague one." Marcia said. "Then two different… I think they're both somatic pain, backs of his hands where his claws run and-"

"How long's that been there?" Jean asked him.

"It's not new."

"And his joints too." Marcia put in.

"Logan, why didn't you say anything? When did that start?"

"Don't remember."

"So fifteen years, at least."

"I guess. I didn't know you had her." He jerked his head at the girl.

"Even without Marcia, there are things I can do. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't you know?"

"Telepaths pick up acute and psychic pain much more easily than chronic pain. Marcia's much more sensitive to that than we are, and she has to touch to find it."

Jean ran a hand over her hair and sighed.

"In anyone else, I'd go straight for surgery, but…"

"Anaesthetics won't work on me." Logan said. He seemed to remember that from somewhere.

Jean shook her head. "Benzos do, opioids do. I can't see why anything else shouldn't. It's more that I don't think I'll be able to keep an incision open whatever I do to it."

"I could just stay-" Marcia started.

"No you couldn't, Marcia." Jean said. "We have no idea how long it'd be, there's no sense in keeping you up all night when medical management is an option." Jean sighed again. "There can't be an active leak causing the peritonitis." She seemed to be talking to herself. Logan glanced at Marcia, who didn't look at him. "It would have sealed, so it's an irritant in the peritoneal cavity from something that split before." Jean continued, slowly. "So it'd only be… Yeah. We can do this." She got up and walked away.

"Do what?" Logan asked Marcia. Marcia shrugged.

Jean came back with an armful of stuff (why wasn't she using her powers?) and started drawing something up. She grabbed his arm and jabbed him again.

"Pain relief." She said shortly.

"It doesn't hurt right now."

"I'm not keeping Marcia here all night, she seems to do something to NMDA receptors, this is mostly μ-opioid. Always better to have more than one going." Logan had no idea what she was on about, but hey, he trusted her. She probably knew what she was doing.

,

Whatever she'd given him made him fall half asleep. Nothing hurt still – nothing, for as long as he could remember, there had always been pain somewhere – but he knew she was doing something to his guts, something that felt a bit cold now and then. He didn't know how long it was before the girl went away, but even when she did, the pain didn't come right back. Whatever Jean had given him, it was a horse-pill. He felt like his head was full of fluff. That started to wear off eventually, but even when that did, he wasn't in much pain.

"Useful, that girl." He said.

Jean had to ask him to say it again before she replied, apparently she hadn't understood him. "Marcia?"

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah, she… She is."

"Why don't you use her?"

"Her control hasn't been good enough for long. Relieving pain isn't all she can do." There was a long pause. "For a long time, we thought she could only inflict it." After another… he had no idea. Whatever she'd given him was messing with his head. "She's one that… there are a lot of people who'd have all kinds of use for her." That rang a bell somewhere in the back of Logan's head. "She doesn't leave any marks. You'd have to be a telepath to know it had happened. She's a…" Jean cut herself off.