The next morning, Rogue slowly dragged herself from sweet, dreamless slumber to find a new nightmare waiting for her.

Jean and Ororo were sitting next to her bed in the MedBay, which was nothing new (although they usually only came one at a time); the problem, however, was that both Hank and Logan were with them. At first glance, Rogue nearly screamed. All she had been able to see at first were shadows, and with Hank and Logan's physiques, their blurred outlines looked an awful lot like the two men who'd abducted her.

Thankfully, she had only gasped slightly before recognizing her teammates, but seeing four of them in her room for the first time since the attack wasn't at all reassuring. Nervously licking her lips, Rogue glanced to the two men standing against the wall by her feet before her eyes locked with Ororo's in an unspoken question.

With a gentle, almost sympathetic smile, the white haired woman slowly took Rogue's hand. "Rogue," she began with a deep breath, "we know that you have been through something terrible – something no one should have to endure – and the last thing we want is to cause you more pain and suffering…"

"But," Jean picked up quickly, hardly daring to look Rogue in the eyes. "We need your help."

Hank cleared his throat, removing his glasses. "We have exhausted every possible resource trying to identify and locate your attackers, but despite the combined efforts of every one of the X-Men, we've recovered precious little information."

Without a word, Rogue turned again to Ororo with a look alarm written on her face. Apparently the weather witch understood the Southerner's unspoken question.

"No, my friend," she answered with a reassuring smile. "The others are not aware of the details of what happened to you. Only the four of us here know the full extent of your injuries."

With a shaky breath, Rogue nodded. She felt a little better knowing that most of the team was still in the dark about IT, but her stomach still churned as she stole a glance at Logan. How much did he really know? How would he react to the truth? What would he think of her once he found out? Would he leave the X-Men for good?

The man in question finally spoke, slowly moving from his place against the wall as he uncrossed his arms. He could hardly meet her eyes, however, as he addressed Rogue.

"Truth is, kid, we need your help finding these bastards. We need you to tell us everything you remember, every detail of what happened so we can find 'em and make 'em pay."

Rogue and Wolverine looked up simultaneously and met each other's eyes for a moment. Logan had to hold back his anger as he looked upon the broken shell of a once fierce warrior. He took in how worn, small and frightened she appeared, and the guilt of not being able to hunt down the men himself made him turn his eyes to the floor.

In Logan's gaze, Rogue saw rage, hatred, regret and mostly, shame. She swallowed a lump in her throat and tried to keep her chin from quivering as he quickly broke eye contact with her and looked to the floor. Without saying a word, Wolverine had answered all of her questions. She couldn't tell him the truth – it would destroy him. He would leave the X-Men permanently, citing this incident as grounds for why he was too dangerous to be around the others.

She couldn't let that happen.

Rogue stared silently at the floor for a few moments and the others stayed quiet as well.

"I…" Rogue's voice was gravelly and hoarse from disuse and she coughed slightly before Jean handed her a glass of water.

Taking a sip, the Southerner smiled gratefully at the red head as she held the glass in her lap. She would have to be careful to block her thoughts so the telepath wouldn't know she was lying.

"Ah remember shoppin' at the mall with Kitty," she began quietly, never meeting their eyes as she stared down at the glass of water in her hands. "Ah was fishin' mah keys outta mah purse and we were talkin' about somethin' – shoes, ah think. Ah started t' open mah door when ah felt something sharp prick the back of mah neck. I saw a man, he was about mah height an' wearin' all black with a black ski mask, hit Kitty in the head with somethin' at the same time. Ah tried t' shout or somethin', but ah felt this FIRE runnin' through mah blood and then… everything went dark."

She took a deep breath, wincing slightly as her muscles and extremities twinged in pain. She took a moment to control the pain and simultaneously reinforced her mental blocks.

"That's…" she swallowed hard – the moment of truth – "that's all ah really remember."

The room was deathly quiet for a few moments.

Jean was the first to speak. "Are… are you SURE, that's it."

Still staring at her glass, Rogue refused to look up. She knew she was going to have to give a little more to get them to believe her story, but she didn't particularly care to open even a little bit of her mind to make it seem more realistic.

Very carefully, she allowed a small sliver of her ordeal to bleed through her mental walls – just enough to convince the telepath that she was telling the truth.

"Ah… Ah woke up once, in the middle of it all ah guess. Ah was blindfolded, so ah couldn't see anything. They never said anything either. All I could hear was the sound of them… gruntin' and … bare flesh echoin' off the walls."

Rogue had to bite down some bile that was threatening to escape. Even this small portion of the truth was agonizing to have to relive. "Ah don't remember anything more than that, really. There was … so much pain ah just wanted t' die. Ah thought ah WAS going t' die, and I just… ah passed out."

Rogue purposefully dropped her voice an octave, forcing herself to a whisper, pushing forward the feelings of shame and guilt that were already present before going quiet again.

Ororo patted the girl's arm gently. "Thank you for your help, Rogue. I know this couldn't have been easy for you. If you remember anything else…"

"You know," Jean spoke up suddenly, "sometimes when a person goes through a major trauma, the mind blocks out all of the worst memories. If you'll let me go inside your mind, I might be able to…"

"No!" Rogue shouted quickly, forcing her tone and expression into one of anger rather than terror. "Just keep y'r damn telepathy t' y'rself. I've been … violated enough without you forcin' your mind into mahne, too. Just get out – all of ya!"

With that, Rogue crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from her friends, trying to keep her shaking body under control as the four slowly and silently left the room.

She could still hear them down the hall, however, as they whispered amongst themselves.

"What now, Logan?" Beast's heavy, deep voice floated under the automatic glass doors.

The Canadian answered quietly, his rough, gravelly tones both comforting and harrowing to Rogue's ears. She could imagine the short, stout man running a troubled hand through his hair and flexing his fingers as he tried to decide on a course of action.

"Not sure, Hank," he replied at last. "Rogue's account was our last real hope of catchin' these bastards and undoin' that neurotoxin. Without a decent description of these guys, we got nothin'." The leader was quiet for a moment.

"So we start back at the beginning, then," Ororo said with finality. "We retrace every step."

Rogue heard Logan grunt, whether in agreement or disapproval she couldn't tell.

"Jean, keep trying t' reach the Professor. He's bound t' check in with us soon – it's been too long already. Ororo, head back t' the mall with Kitty – use her computer to try and pinpoint where that van came from and which way it went. I'm bettin' Kitty can navigate every possible route they may have taken. Take Iceman, too. He can map out all the camera locations for Kitty to check later. Keep an eye out for any banks, pawn shops, jewelry stores or any high-end places that might have security cameras outside, too."

Wolverine paused another moment, possibly pondering his next command.

"Hank, get back on the line with Moira McTaggert on Muir Island. I'm hopin' she's found out something on that neurotoxin. If not, brainstorm other possibilities. Maybe it's not a drug – maybe it's from, I don't know, maybe a chemical from a mutant? I'm gonna start at the mall, then head to the docks – see what else I can pick up from around the area."

He stopped for another moment, sighing. "I'll take Summers with me. He can talk to the workers in the area, see if any of 'em noticed men matchin' the guys' description or the van in the area before. They obviously knew it was the perfect spot t' overpower my sense of smell. I might be gone a few days – Storm, you're in charge 'til I get back."

It was quiet again and Rogue held her breath, afraid they had finally realized she was eavesdropping. Or maybe they knew she was eavesdropping. Perhaps Logan wanted her to know they weren't going to give up the search. Either way, the thought of Logan taking off and leaving her… er, the X-Men… again brought a flood of conflicting emotions.

On one hand, she was glad to see him go. She wouldn't have to pretend NOT to see him lurking outside her door at night when he thought she was asleep – wouldn't feel that brief torrent of utter hatred toward him for inadvertently and unwittingly causing all of this hell for her.

She wouldn't have to deal with the guilt of keeping exactly that information for which the X-Men were all so desperately searching. Rogue could end all this craziness – all this endless, frantic, hopeless hunting – by simply telling her teammates the names of the two men. God only knew their names, along with their faces, were permanently engrained in her brain like a perfectly sculpted slab of marble. She doubted even Jean's advanced telepathy could ever completely erase their presence from her mind.

But, if she told the others the names of the men, she would ultimately have to deal with their message as well. Whether she told Logan outright or not, he would likely know this whole debacle was his fault as soon as she uttered their codenames.

And he would leave – forever.

Swallowing back tears, Rogue took what passed as a deep breath. She couldn't let that happen. The Professor needed Logan to lead the X-Men. Without Wolverine, the future would be doomed. Of this she was sure. But, she was at a crossroads. If she didn't say anything, Logan would be consumed by this mission to bring her justice by finding the men. On the other hand, if she did tell him, he would be so consumed by guilt that he would leave…

"And if we do not discover anything?" Storm's voice cut through Rogue's thoughts.

"We go back and look again." Wolverine spoke with finality, but a faint crackle of electricity in the air seemed to outweigh his resolution.

"Logan, be reasonable," Storm began gently although a sharpened edge to her voice told Rogue that the weather witch was less than thrilled with Logan's decisions. "We cannot spend all of our time chasing after these men. We have other responsibilities, other missions and other villains. I wish to bring Rogue's attackers to justice as much as you do my friend, but at some point, the pursuit must end – at least until such a time as we have more to go on."

"It ends when I SAY it ends 'Ro. We deal with the other stuff as it comes up; 'til then finding these bastards is our top priority."

Rogue listened as he stomped away down the hall, presumably to the X-Jet and then to the docks. He had made the decision easy for her.

She wouldn't be the reason for everything they'd tried to prevent to come undone. They had worked too hard and come too far for the Professor's visions of the terrible future to come true now.

So even if it meant she would deal with this horror on her own; even if she would never again be useful to the X-Men; even if she never regained her powers, she knew what she had to do.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So just wanted to say sorry for not being as up with this as I was presuming I would be. Even now I am shirking responsibilities of correcting papers, cleaning my house, and playing with my little ones to polish this chapter and load it…

I would really like to thank those who recently favorite or followed this story for reminding me to update it. After about two or three new followers in the recent weeks, I finally decided that someone still cares about it and I should keep going.

So, thanks!

Love and light,

Wiccamage