The night air cooled his face. The stars overhead shown brightly, no clouds to disrupt his view. Logan lay on his back on one of the flat banks of the roof. He discovered the roof was the best place to get away from people. When he went running, someone eventually came looking for him. Up here, they assumed he was just thinking or sleeping or something, and no one came there randomly.
A short streak of light blinked overhead, a shooting star. He remembered one time when Rogue told him she believed in wishes made on shooting stars.
This one's for you, Rogue, he thought. I wish for you.
Funny, he never made a wish on a burning piece of space junk before, but this felt right. He closed his eyes, feeling them moisten. It would take more than a wish to bring her back. Slowly he got up and began to climb back down to his room's window.
Once inside, he shut the glass quietly. He heard the argument only after he muted the sound of the wind.
"You can't say this is for the best anymore," Jean said. She sounded totally pissed off.
"What else am I supposed to do?" Xavier asked her. "You saw what happened the last time. They cannot handle this."
"Logan's getting worse," Scott told him. "I can see it. They're both getting worse. The switches happen in the middle of the day now. Bobby's already almost slipped twice."
"Xavier, please. This isn't right." That was Jean again. The argument must have been in the library. The funny thing was, the air vent in his room lead straight to it. No one seemed to realize he could hear what was said in that otherwise very private room.
"I don't even know if I can tell them," Xavier said. "Most of my power is drained from monitoring Logan alone."
"Then let me help," Jean protested. "You take Logan. I'll help Rogue."
That set him off. In a rush he threw his bedroom door open and raced for the library.
I'll help Rogue. Present tense. She was alive, and they all knew it.
He burst in on the three of them. Scott and Jean stepped instinctively in front of their Professor as Logan stared wide-eyed at them.
"What the hell did you just say?" he snapped.
They exchanged glances.
"What are you talking about?" Jean asked finally.
"Rogue," he snapped. "She's alive? You've been keeping us apart?"
Their looks said it all. He unsheathed his claws.
"Logan, wait," Scott called, holding up his hands.
"Tell me where she is," he snapped back.
There was another tense pause as Scott and Jean glanced behind them. He could tell the three were talking psychically, and that annoyed the hell out of him. Just as he considered attacking before they finished, Jean shook her head.
"Come with me," she whispered. Carefully she moved past him and out into the hall.
He didn't retract his claws as he followed her. Couldn't. Rogue was alive, and the only people in the world he trusted made him think his failure killed her. He barely registered the path they took as his head swam with raging thoughts. That is, until Jean opened a door in the basement levels.
At first he thought it was a trick, a hallucination or something. It couldn't be real. After all, he couldn't be in a room twice. Jean walked to the side of the hospital bed and looked down at the unconscious figure lying there. She gently smoothed his ruffled black hair.
"What is this?" Logan whispered.
"It's you." Scott came in behind him. "Or at least your body."
"But I'm in my body," Logan snapped. He raised his claws as proof.
"Logan, please try to calm down," Xavier told him. "Breathe gently and look again."
He raised an unbelieving eyebrow, but the man didn't change his look. It took a while to do what he was told. When he did, his claws shifted under his sight. Like in the tree, the shining adamantium dulled, lightened in color until they reached a pale cream, the color of bone. Bone claws. His adamantium was gone, and he had bone claws. He looked up in shock to find Jean offering him a mirror.
Again he took a breath to calm himself. When he looked at his reflection, it shifted. Styled black hair turned brown with a streak of white, lengthened, and fell straight. Strong jaw softened. Green eyes darkened. Soon, Rogue was staring back at him.
"Both of you survived the crash," Xavier explained, "only you were in a comatose state, and Rogue was fighting between your two personalities, both of which wanted to be dominant. I separated your minds within her but wasn't able to subdue yours. The two of you switch dominance every time you sleep."
Logan stared at his glove-covered hands, petite things much too small for a man, hands he knew. "So I'm a copy?" he asked, his soft voice strained. "I'm just a copy of Logan's mind?"
"That's what we thought at first," Xavier said, "but I've been trying to access your mind, your real mind. It is simply not there."
"Brain dead?"
"Actually, I believe your mind was completely transferred into Rogue's body instead of copied as usually happens when she touched someone. Logan, I don't know how to put you back."
"Why keep this from me?" he asked.
"We kept it from both of you," Xavier replied. "We had to. Whenever you were aware of each other, your minds began to break. The strain was too much."
Slowly Logan walked up to his body. "You're going to make me forget again, aren't you?" he whispered. "Before I feel her mind." It was already starting, a tingle at the back of his head like someone waking.
"I'm sorry," Xavier returned. "I have to."
"This isn't right," he said. "This isn't living."
He didn't know why he did it, but he touched the unconscious Logan's cheek. It was a simple move, probably just to confirm it's existence, but instantly he tensed. Through his glove, he felt a surge of heat, a transfer. Against his will, he pulled something into himself, something missing. His vision went black.
**
He stood in a completely white space. It stretched on forever. No shadow traveled away from his feet, yet the room shone with more light here than he ever saw before. No break divided the infinite white, stretching above and below him to meet at the horizon. That is, except for one solitary figure.
"Logan!"
She was the greatest thing he'd ever seen. Rogue rushed up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he lifted her into the air, laughing.
"You're alive! You're alive!" she cried, over and over again as he held her tightly. She was overcome with excitement, with relief. She never wanted to let go.
He agreed on that, tightening his grip, then suddenly realized he'd agreed with something she hadn't said. She caught the thought and slowly released her hold on his neck.
You can hear my thoughts?
It was as clear as if she had spoken. He nodded.
"Our thoughts," he told her. "I think we're in your mind."
"How did you get inside my mind?" she asked. She knew he was real, not some dream her mind created to soothe her. She knew it with all her heart.
At this he paused. How could he tell her they were both trapped in the same body? Kept apart by the people they loved? He didn't have to. She knew it the second the thought entered his mind. Her bone claws extended.
"I'll kill him," she shrieked, now trying to break Logan's hold. "I'll kil him. I'll kill him. I'll kill him."
"Rogue, shut up," Logan snapped.
"But he made me think I killed you," she cried as he finally released her.
"Xavier was protecting our minds the only way he knew how," Logan told her. "Besides, my body's basically dead. No mind to go with it."
Suddenly the space around them shifted. Endless white gave way to restricting metal walls. Objects rose around them until they stood in the infirmary where Logan's body rested. Slowly Rogue walked up to it.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
"I just thought of it," he returned, just as shocked as she was. Everything looked exactly as Logan remembered, every instrument, every floor tile, even the smells and temperature felt perfect.
"You look so peaceful," she muttered, examining the prone figure.
"I guess so," Logan ceded.
"Not like in my dreams," she said.
Instantly the scene jumped away from them. An even more confining space replaced it, and they stood in the X-wing. Silent alarms blazed, and a frozen image of each of them appeared, Logan in the pilot seat, Rogue clutching a seat back just behind him. Oddly, the setup had a double quality to it, compounding both of their perceptions. What their memory agreed on stayed constant, but where they remembered things slightly differently, the object would shift, trying to appease both at once.
"Rogue," he snapped. He couldn't believe she'd brought him to his nightmare.
"I didn't do it on purpose," she returned, adding silently, You have the nightmare too? He couldn't ignore the sadness in that thought.
He walked up to her and gently wrapped her in his arms. "It's all right, darlin," he whispered. For some reason he knew she couldn't hurt him here. He set his cheek on her forehead, holding her tighter.
With all her heart, she wanted the nightmare to leave. Logan was alive, wasn't he? This wasn't the scene of his death anymore. But the image burned in her mind, so Logan took control.
Thinking of the most calming place he'd ever been, he forced the nightmare back. Sand spilled out beneath their feet, giving way to lush grass at their right, gentle saltwater waves to their left. Sun and palm trees created a mixture of shade and warmth. A soft breeze brought sounds of shifting leaves and crashing waves to their ears. Adding some imagination, he twisted the island scene until the temperature, the light, the feel of the sand, was exactly what Rogue wanted. Everything done, he let her go. Shocked, she simply stood there, staring at it all.
"It's…beautiful," she whispered. Then she touched the scarf around her neck. "But now I'm too confined." Obediently, her clothes shifted, shrinking until settling as a two-piece swimsuit.
Logan smirked as she glanced at him. "You too," she told him, indicating his gloves and long sleeves. For a second, his clothes twitched, trying to obey her call, but they gave up and fell back around him.
"Guess I have to do it," he said, and imagined a modest swimsuit for himself.
She smirked in turn. "Modest now, are we?" she asked as he settled on the sand.
He shrugged, careful to keep his mind blank of any embarrassing thoughts. She caught it anyway and gave a small laugh. After a moment's hesitation, she laid at his side. He wrapped his arm around her, and they watched cotton clouds drift overhead.
The warmth was strange to her. She hadn't felt skin on skin contact in years, at least, not without side effects. She felt like she was fifteen again, her powers still dormant. Only she wasn't. She was a grown woman now, and she knew very distinctly what Logan was thinking.
"Don't go on like that," he told her. A small thought made one cloud morph into a rose. "I'm just glad you're here, alive."
She nodded, making the cloud next to his rose into a bird with wings extended. She agreed. Nothing made her happier just then than his mere presence, that he was alive.
They played with the clouds for a while, a long while, though the sun stayed frozen in its position. Everything as perfect, and if it wasn't, one of them quickly made it so. Finally he glanced over. She knew the thought before he even finished it.
I love you.
His lips met hers, and they both held the contact as long as possible.
Annoyingly, it was at that moment that Xavier appeared. He was tired, they both saw it instantly, and he was very shocked to find himself on a beach.
Logan and Rogue shared a scowl and forcefully made it so they couldn't feel his mind. That was something they wanted for just the two of them. When they barred him, he jerked a step back. His image blurred slightly, but he finally regained his stance. They felt him lace a mental anchor in their mind. He wasn't going anywhere.
"You both look well," he said, his voice forcefully calm.
"We are," Logan told him. He and Rogue sat up.
"Why are you here?" she asked. The sand on her shoulder itched. Logan brushed it away.
"When one of my students collapses into a coma for no reason, I tend to get a little concerned," he said. "Logan, when you touched your real body, you fell unconscious. It's been twelve hours. I don't know why your combined minds make such a strong resistance to my powers, but I have a fair headache and would really appreciate it if you'd both show me a little courtesy."
Instantly a beach chair appeared. Their Professor settled onto it exhaustedly. "Thank you," he muttered.
As he rested, Rogue and Logan glanced at each other. The thought was mutual:
I don't want to go back.
Xavier didn't catch it. "I believe I can transfer your mind back into your body now, Logan," he said. "I think with both of you conscious of the other's presence, I can untangle your minds."
"What if I don't want to go back?" Logan asked. Rogue nodded, gripping his hand.
"You can't stay here, dreaming your lives away," Xavier told them. "Your bodies are comatose, unable to defend themselves. You have to return to the real world."
"I won't leave her," Logan snapped. Rogue started to shiver from nerves. He increased the air temperature.
"You won't be leaving her," Xavier told him. "You'll be letting her live a full life again."
"I won't let him go," she snapped. Her anger made the beach chair vanish, and Xavier dropped to the sand with a soft thud.
"You have to," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
"If you leave his body without a mind for long enough, you will kill him," he said.
That chilled her to the core, and she dropped Logan's hand instantly. He knew nothing he could think or say would allow him to stay now. He pulled her towards himself. She stopped resisting the second she felt his thought. They kissed again, holding on to each other as tight as they could. Their tears blended together. Finally, Logan let go.
"Do it," he whispered, releasing everything.
Pain shot through his entire body, a thousand cutting knives, burning with uncontrollable fire. They sliced through his mind, through his limbs, through his heart, and all he could do was scream.