"Is she really ok or is she telling us what she wants us to hear?" Storm asked the Professor a couple days later. Her, Scott, Logan and the Professor were in his office, discussing Rogue who seemed the same as always, though they were all now well aware that was no true barometer.
"I believe she is Ororo." Charles told them. "I'm going to require her to attend daily sessions with me but I am sure that the crisis has been averted. We will be working on her feelings of inadequacy and finding better ways for her to channel her pain but I am confident that she can safely be left alone."
Storm nodded. She had spoken to Rogue before she had left the lab and had apologized. She had been impressed by the grace the young woman had shown in forgiving her and holding no grudge. Though she felt that Rogue was hiding something from her Storm felt compelled to let the conversation lie.
"Is her mutation still gone?" Scott asked.
"Yes, but I don't know for how long. It could be that her body was forced to work so hard just to survive that her mutation was suppressed. It may come back in a few days, a few weeks or not at all."
"How do you think she'll handle it if it comes back?" Scott asked.
"She'll handle it fine." Logan growled.
"We can't know that." Scott said.
"I can." Logan told him.
"Oh really? Because her track record isn't exactly exemplary if you recall. She ran away from home, then from here and she mutilated herself for weeks before trying to suicide." Scott knew he was pissing Logan off but he hardly cared.
"She's done the best she could, she's had to deal with all of this alone." Logan defended her.
"And why is that Logan? Weren't you supposed to be her friend? You didn't even notice she was in trouble."
"Neither did you! Any of us! No one noticed." His last statement was quiet.
"We're all grieving Logan." Storm interjected before things got physical.
"That's no excuse."
"No, it isn't. And we won't let it happen again but there's no point in arguing who could have done what." She told him.
"She shouldn't be alone. No one should." Logan's eyes darted towards Scott for the briefest of moments and the room was silent. Scott and Storm were stunned but the Professor had a small smile on his face.
"Logan is right. No one should be alone here." Charles told them. The argument was officially over as they discussed the other students and the plan to have them all attend a weekly therapy session. The sessions would be designed to help them deal not just with Jean's death but with what was going on in the world and their places in it.
What the Professor hadn't told any of them was that Rogue had agreed to let him monitor her without forewarning. He would look in on her state of mind on a regular basis, just deep enough to ensure she wasn't hiding anything from him in their sessions. She understood that she'd broken their trust and that earning it back would be a long road. One she still wasn't sure she wanted to take but Charles had elicited a sincere promise to at least try.
The meeting was adjourned and Logan went to find Rogue. He found her studying in her room. "Heya kid."
"Hi Logan."
"How are you?"
"My chest is getting better. It doesn't hurt too much when I breathe anymore." She paused and bit her lower lip. "So what did you all decide?"
"Decide?"
"C'mon Logan, recent activity excluded I'm not stupid you know." Her tone was self-mocking and her face was sad, he frowned at her but answered.
"That you shouldn't be alone."
"I'm getting a roommate?" Her face showed puzzlement. He chuckled and sat on her bed.
"No. It means that your friends will be more vigilant." She smiled slightly then came to sit next to him.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Do you know where the knife is?" It was such an unexpected question he was struck speechless for a moment.
"I don't. Why do you want to know?" Her face reddened.
"I don't want to use it if that's what you're thinking."
"You'll have to ask the Professor."
"Ok." Her reply was soft. "Did everyone see? The marks I mean?" He sighed.
"Yeah they did. Why were you in your bathing suit?" The subject was uncomfortable for both of them but Logan pressed on.
"So that if someone found me they wouldn't be able to help me."
"You really wanted to die." His voice was barely above a whisper.
"I did." She whispered, her head so far forward her hair hid her face.
"I've been there." Her head jerked in his direction but his eyes were far away. "I've been to that place, that dark place inside that's never satisfied. The place that holds all of your failures and replays them over and over until that's all you can see." He blinked then looked at her. "I'm sorry you had to go there alone Marie."
"Did you ever-? I mean-" She broke off, not quite wanting to say the word.
"Try to kill myself? Yeah, I did, but I couldn't do it. Physically I mean. I would always wake up. But then I got a real taste of death and I lost my stomach for it. I hope that you lost yours. Because that's a bad place Marie, a real bad place."
He looked down as she twined her fingers in his. "I did Logan, lose my stomach for it I mean. When I did it, it was all I wanted. I thought things would be better if I was dead. Better for you all and better for me." She was going to continue but he gripped her hand and lifted her face to look at him.
"You were wrong."
"I know that now."
"You better." She smiled at his big brother tone and was glad he didn't ask her why. The conversation she'd had with…the presence in her mind had been more than just intellectual, it had been emotional as well. She spoke to the Professor about it since he'd had contact with it too, but she wasn't ready to tell anyone else about it. Especially Logan, they hadn't spoken for a long time and she wasn't yet comfortable with him again to tell him all of what had happened.
"I do." She replied and he let her face go but not her hand. They sat in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.
"It was you Marie, you that showed me death. And the reasons for not craving it."
"Me?" Her voice and face were both stricken and she tried to pull her hand away but he wouldn't let her.
"The Professor told me I was moments from death that first time you touched me. But I knew, I actually felt it. I felt death coming for me and that's when I lost my stomach for it." He looked at her face and realized he'd said the wrong thing. There was a look of horror written in her eyes and he knew the only reason she wasn't running from him was that he had a hold of her hand.
"Oh my God."
"Marie-"
"Oh my God, Logan." The anguish in her voice matched her eyes.
"Marie-"
"Oh my God." He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake. She stopped talking and just stared at him. He suddenly felt ashamed, she was still recovering from the last couple months and he'd gone and laid this at her feet without explanation.
"Fuck." He let his hands drop and he ran them through his hair. "You have to understand." He tried to explain, "I'd never had a reason to live before, except for revenge. And I didn't even know who it was I was looking for. I've been mortally wounded dozens of times, sometimes by accident, sometimes not, but it was always like getting knocked out, I'd just wake up and be back to normal in minutes. I was living a life without consequence." Logan took a breath, wondering if he'd ever spoken this much to anyone, ever. Her face was looking less stunned but no less horrified.
"Do you remember me yelling for help after I stabbed you?" She nodded. "I wasn't afraid of you I was afraid for you. Then you touched me and I felt real fear for myself. When I woke up the Professor told me that you could have killed me had you held on much longer. It felt different, and it wasn't something I wanted to ever feel again."
"Then how-?"
"Liberty Island?" He guessed correctly.
"How could you?"
"I found something worth dying for." She shook her head. "I didn't want death but I was willing to trade my life for yours."
"Like Jean did." The horror was slipping slowly from her features. "Maybe you should have let me go." It was almost a question.
"Not a chance."
"I'm not a very useful part of the team."
"You're more important here than I think you know."
"But I don't have a useful mutation, and now that it's gone…"
"It's not our mutations that make us valuable."
"But how could I help? I'm not a computer wiz, or a good fighter, I can't phase, I'm not a telepath and the only way I was ever able to help was to nearly kill the person I touched." She didn't add then having them inside her where she had to constantly work to suppress their thoughts and memories, something she had gotten better at over time. Even if no one blamed her for Jean's death, and though she was coming to accept that it really hadn't been her fault, she still felt useless.
Logan shook his head. He didn't know how to get through to her but he couldn't stop trying. "You can learn to fight, you could learn to fly." He winced as her face tightened and he knew she was fighting back tears. "But even if you don't you're still ours and you belong here."
Tears were threatening to fall and Logan thought she looked almost angelic with the shine in her eyes. He hated it when women cried but instinct told him that leaving would be a big mistake. Instead he put his arm around her shoulders and felt her body heave with the first sob. He pulled her closer as she cried and wished he could be of more help.
He rocked as he stroked her hair and rubbed her back. She clung to him and slowly her sobs turned into less violent grief. He plucked her a Kleenex from her night table. She was silent for so long he thought she might have fallen asleep but he noticed her breathing was shallow, not deep. He pushed her carefully away from him and he saw her hands were on her chest and she was very pale.
"Ow." She said weakly. He picked her up and she felt tiny and insubstantial in his arms, though she was nearly as tall as he was. She had her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder, she wasn't protesting in any way so he knew she must be in considerable pain. He took her straight to the med lab.
It took only a few minutes to get there but by the time he kicked open the door Rogue was slipping in and out of consciousness. "What happened?" The doctor asked Logan as he laid her down on the bed.
"She was crying pretty hard, I think she hurt her chest." The doctor nodded briefly, over his initial shock of his door crashing open without warning. He looked in Rogue's eyes and slipped a monitor onto her finger, the room was filled with a quick beeping. Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps and she was moaning though her glassy eyes indicated she wasn't fully with them.
"What's wrong with her?" Logan demanded.
"Could be a lot of things, let me check her." He listened to her chest, looked in her eyes and studied the monitors he was hooking up to her. He slipped an IV quickly into her left hand and started fluids. It had been five minutes or less but Logan was losing patience.
"What's wrong with her?"
"I can't be sure until I do some further checks, but I think she's having a heart attack."
"A heart attack? But she's only eighteen!"
"Her suicide attempt put a lot of strain on her heart, I assure you it's possible." The doctor was gathering other instruments, "If you could get me Ms. Munro and Professor Xavier." There was an order in his tone and Logan suppressed his natural disinclination to accept orders and was halfway upstairs when he remembered he didn't need to physically find them.
'Professor?' Logan sent out his thought.
'Yes Logan?'
'It's Rogue, the doctor needs you, and Storm.'
'We're on our way.'
Logan returned to the lab where Rogue was now hooked up to a variety of machines, all beeping away, he wasn't sure if he should be hoping for the beeps to sow down or speed up. Storm was there in moments. "Ms. Munro, if you could assist me."
Storm nodded and quickly washed her hands before putting on a pair of gloves. "Logan, you should leave." She told him.
"No way."
"I'm going to undress her."
"Oh." Logan stood just outside the door, his back to the room, but his ears picked up every comment made by either the doctor or Storm, he heard nothing from Rogue. The Professor arrived a couple of minutes later, Logan told him what little he knew and followed him into the med lab.
"Logan. I don't think you should be here." Storm told him.
"I'm not leaving her alone."
"She's not alone Logan, but if she pulls through-"
"When." He growled.
"When she pulls through she'll be embarrassed if she knew you were watching." Logan wanted to argue but he knew she was right.
"You'll call me with any news." His voice was quiet but it was unmistakably an order, to anyone and everyone who was listening.
"We will." Charles replied.
'If her mutation resurfaces…This is different than before.' Logan left the rest of his thought for the Professor to pick up on his own.
'I'll let you know Logan, it's all right.' Charles assured him. Logan left, first he headed outside to have a smoke but realized he was way too wound up so he went to the Danger Room. He started a scenario and tried to lose himself in the violence. He was sweating, and roaring as he destroyed enemy after enemy and still he wasn't sated. The smell of the fake blood wasn't satisfying so when he heard the Professor in his head he was ready for something else.
He took a very quick shower and was back in the med lab within seven minutes. "What?"
"It was a heart attack." Charles told him.
"So what now? What's the treatment?" Logan asked.
"She's had the treatment, her heart is weak, there's not much more that can be done at this time. She'll either have more infarctions until her body can't take it anymore, or she'll get better."
Logan ignored the possibility of an eighteen year old dying of a heart attack and spoke, "She might get better?"
"It's possible but unlikely." The doctor said. The room was silent for a few minutes.
"We should let her rest." The Professor said, dismissing them, "I'll stay with her."
Storm and Logan left the lab, he stalked towards the elevator and she followed. "It looks like she may get her wish after all." Storm's voice was sad.
"She's over suicide."
"That doesn't mean she wouldn't welcome death." His eyes met hers and the cold truth sat in the elevator with them, only dissipating with the opening of the doors. They parted ways, Logan heading who knew where and Storm going onto the terrace. The sky darkened somewhat but rain didn't fall, mirroring her tears.