Well, we're getting down to the end, folks… let me know what you think. Please? I didn't take a year to update this time… :) Yes, it's a shorter chapter, but again… trying to not take a year between chapters. Please R&R!

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Black is the Color

Chapter 6. Possession

Logan sighed as he trudged along the slushy road, back into the town. The sun was rising, and he was only now getting back—those miles across the moor were hard ones, even for him, made even more difficult by the constantly blowing wind and snow. Add to this the pressure of knowing he was leaving the kids alone to get help for Rogue—Rogue, who never seemed to get a break, who solved one facet of her difficult powers only to have something else go haywire… well. It made for a stressful journey all around. And Xavier had been less than helpful, sounding a bit distracted as he listened to Logan's call, replying absently for Logan to 'do what he could' to help, and otherwise wait for him, Xavier, to join them the next day. Or evening. Or night.

Add to all of this the disturbing tales of supernatural problems at the inn, tales he'd heard the locals spin out over their backgammon boards over the past week. Tales that eerily matched the report Piotr, Kitty, and Kurt had given to him about Rogue and Remy the night before… He was making the best time he could, to get back to them, but a sinking feeling told him that whatever was going on, it had been too late to stop it even the night before. And today is Halloween, ripe time for freaky stuff to happen anyway, he thought darkly, and picked up his pace down the street toward the inn.

He finally stepped in the door, and stamped ice and snow from his boots, and hung his coat up to dry. Things were quiet… Too quiet, he finished the inevitable thought suspiciously. Too quiet for a building full of nine teen—waitaminute. He shook himself. It's dawn, they're teenagers, there is no way any of them will be awake at this hour. The silence is a good thing, he reminded himself, and visibly relaxed as he made his way up the narrow stairs. He decided to poke his head in on Piotr and Remy, since Rogue was ill and out of commission, and since they were the least likely to wake everyone else in the building merely by waking up themselves. Which room were they in? Down the hall, second door on the right— He entered the room, and froze, the unmistakable smell of blood hitting his senses. I knew it was too quiet. Damn. He looked around the room; no apparent puddles, no bodies, except the solid form of Piotr in the cot by the window.

"Hey, Tin Man," he said gruffly, and was gratified to see the Russian's pale eyes open immediately.

"Da?" He said, shook his head, and more intelligibly stated, "Ah. You are back. Where is Remy?" He asked, looking around for his absent roommate.

"That's just what I was going to ask you," Logan returned grimly. "I smell blood."

"His?" He rolled out of bed as he asked.

Wolverine sniffed experimentally, and frowned. "Well… not exactly… sort of. It's the strangest blood I've ever smelled. Definitely blood, and pretty definitely the Cajun's, but… odd, somehow. There's something else there. Older? More metallic? I don't know. But I bet when we find him, we'll find out."

"Wolverine?" Piotr was bending over Remy's bed, his face still. "Find Remy soon, I think we must. He cannot have much strength left, look."

Wolverine looked, and felt a chill: The bed was soaked in blood, enough to go through two blankets, and spread a circle a foot and a half wide that spelled death. He couldn't even imagine how the Cajun had stood with that much blood loss, much less walk away, as he so obviously had. And there was no indication of a struggle, either, as though he had simply begun hemorrhaging in his sleep.

"Shit. Let's get the others to help look; there's no telling where he might be, this damn place has more nooks and crannies than an English muffin."

"Like, keep it down," Kitty said from the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Petey, who are you—oh! Mister Logan! You're back! What'd the Prof say?"

"Never mind that," Logan said. "Do you know where the Cajun is?"

"Remy? No, why—ohmigod." She caught sight of the bed. "Are those his blankets? Ohmigod, ohmigod!" She shrieked on the last word, enough to bring everyone else tumbling from their beds at a run, ready for combat as trained, Logan noted with approval.

Well, it was one way of getting everyone up in a hurry.

Quickly he outlined the mission for them—Find Remy, Damn Quick—but before they all went rushing off, Kitty flung a hand up, signaling them to wait. She gasped a breath to finish calming herself, and said, "Hold on a sec—think. What's the one thing that could possibly get Remy up and moving with a wound that—that bad?"

"Rogue," Logan said, realization dawning as he finally noticed she was the only one who hadn't shown up in response to Kitty's scream.

As a group, they all ran to Rogue's room. The door was firmly closed and locked; it didn't even rattle in the frame.

"Half-Pint," Logan said tightly, his eyes fixed on the door, "Get in there and open that door."

"But—"

"Get. In. There." He growled. "I can smell Remy's blood, and hers, with that—whatever-it-is, too. And there's a lot of it."

Kitty paled, and vanished through the door. A second later, they heard her struggling with the lock, but finally the door opened. The coppery tang of blood was strong enough that even those without superpowered senses could smell it rolling out as the door opened. A curious feeling of the air being simultaneously chillingly cold and smoldering-hot also washed through them; even Logan shuddered at the gut-twisting, strange sensation.

As though the whole thing were a horror movie, it seemed to Logan to take years to look around the newly revealed anteroom. There, beside the lone chair by the wall-to-wall window, solidly black in the morning light, were two unmistakably masculine boots, with a fancy red coat tossed hastily across the chair's arms, as though the wearer couldn't wait to get it off. A hat was dropped on the floor, as well as a gun-belt with a matched set of antique pistols. Logan found it harder to see as he moved his gaze further inward—literally harder to see; mist seemed to shift and obscure his sight, though there was clearly no mist in the room… Spilled carelessly across the doorway to the bedroom was an extremely old-fashioned man's dress shirt, with lace at the throat and wrists. At one time, it had been white, but now it was freshly soaked in blood, and had at least four bullet holes in it. It continued to take his brain a maddeningly long time to process the images his eyes were presenting to it, as his gaze traveled up the high bed to the two closely intertwined figures there—and his sight literally refused to work. He simply could not tell who was in the bed—at first glance, it was two strangers, but then a second later his eyes shifted and in his periphery it looked like Rogue and Remy—but then it wasn't again.

What stood out with unerring clarity were the bright red spots of color. The first he noticed were on the man's chest, splashes that matched the placement of those on the shirt on the floor. Lying in his arms was a young woman, wearing nothing more than a thin shift and her long hair; he could tell the garment was thin because she, too, had blood marking her body—not the man's, though. The angles were all wrong.

No, her terrible wound was indicated by a bright bloom of color between her shoulder blades, and as she shifted sleepily in the bed and turned—her hem rose alarmingly high; the bedclothes had been kicked down to her knees—he could see that it was matched by a stain on her breast that plastered the thin fabric to her body. The shift was also powder-burned on the front, indicating a gunshot fired at close range.

Neither of them seemed to notice that with wounds like those, they ought to be dead.

How can they not be dead?! Logan's mind screamed at him, the sight of two should-be-dead figures somehow more ghastly in their moving. He forced the panicked thought back, and continued to will his sight to bring him information.

From their positions, and the state of the bed, it was clear what they had been—or were—or were about to be—doing. (He devoutly hoped that, if it was Remy and Rogue lying there, it was the 'about to be' option. Otherwise, the Cajun would die. For real this time.) She lay more or less curled up against him, one arm thrown across his chest, her legs tangled in his, her face in the crook of his neck.

He had one leg across her thighs—it was the only thing keeping that hem down, and for her sake it'd better not be Rogue wearing something like that—but he had what looked like soft leather pants on. Granted, they were practically skintight, but given that they were the only piece of clothing the man had on, Logan was glad enough for them. (Especially if that did turn out to be Remy.) One of his arms curved beneath her, and its hand was resting very firmly on her rear, while the other came across her body and was buried in the bedclothes, keeping her in a cocoon of his well-muscled arms. (Logan chose to ignore Kitty's comment about not knowing Gambit was so built.)

He took a step toward the bed, and stopped in utter shock as he suddenly was faced with nearly four feet of honed steel, and glittering, dark, human eyes—in what was unmistakably an older Remy LeBeau's face, now crouched protectively over the woman, who was beginning to stir.

A bigger shock was the steely voice that issued from the man's mouth, the accent so strange coming from that familiar face that the words themselves almost didn't register. "You take a step closer to her," he hissed, "And I'll gladly run you through."

"Gambit," Logan said, lifting his hands in an 'I'm harmless' gesture, "Gambit, it's me. Logan." He started to take another step forward, but was stopped mid-step as the rapier was suddenly bending its length against his heart, pressing just hard enough to break the skin. Remy's arm was coiled with tension, clearly waiting for the chance to run him through.

"I do not know of your 'Gambit,' sir," he said stiffly, "But continue closer at your peril."

"Roarke?" Came Rogue's voice, sleepily—Rogue's voice without her trademark Southern twang. "Roarke, what—Dear God in heaven, who's that?" She scrambled for covers and froze as Roarke's free hand pressed her flat to the bed, hand splayed across one breast. A growl escaped Logan before he could stop it.

Roarke began to answer, then paled, and looked down at where his hand rested on her chest, covered in blood. "Not a dream…" he whispered, dropping the rapier and frantically pawing at her front, searching for the wound; she was equally panicked, catching sight of the blood that liberally painted his chest. She ran her hands worriedly across his chest, smearing the blood to try to see the wounds which weren't there, before he crushed her to his chest to look at the stain of blood on her back. He tore the neck of her gown to bare the place, and heaved a sigh of relief when he found blood-covered, but smooth skin.

They clung to each other for a moment, then parted. Confusion was in both of their eyes as they looked around the room; it seemed to Logan that Remy was looking closer to his actual age, and it was easier to see them, as though the sunlight pouring through the window were burning away the mist/not mist obscuring his vision. "Did it really happen?" Rogue asked Remy, and her voice had a more neutral accent. He shook his head in response, and when he next looked around again, there was more of 'Remy' in his eyes.

"I-I don't know," he replied shakily, continuing to hold her close. He closed his eyes. "No… no, I don't want to know…"

She hiccupped a sob against his chest, and moaned, "I don't want to remember… I don't want to… It was… Oh God!" She paled, looking like she was going to be ill, and sank against him in a half-faint; he collapsed around her, folding her in his arms.

The ensuing moment of silence seemed to ease the tension in the room. It was broken by Kitty, who tentatively reached out and touched Rogue's shoulder. "Rogue?" She said softly, and was rewarded by teary eyes turned toward her. "A-are you—you? Who are you?"

Rogue swallowed. "I—I think I'm back. Oh God… Rem? Remy?" She reached up and touched his face. "You there?"

Flickering red eyes opened, and blinked tiredly at her. "'lo, chere," he drawled. "Anyone figure out what de hell is going on?"

They both turned haunted eyes toward Logan, who growled in frustration.

"Damnit," he said, "What're you all looking at me for? I don't know anything about ghosts…" he paused, and his eyes narrowed, "But I know who does. You, you, and you," he pointed at Bobby, Amara, and Piotr. "You three go into the village and find Old Robert. He's the one who got us into this mess, and maybe with his help we can figure something out 'til the Professor gets here."

He turned to the pair in the bed. "You—" this aimed at Remy, "get the hell out of her bed. And you—"

"Yeah? Neither of us asked for this, you know," Rogue snapped, cheeks flaming.

"—Get some clothes on, kid, that dress is too short." He half-smiled at her; she rolled her eyes.

"Fine, fine," she groused, poking at Remy. "You heard the man, Cajun, out o' my bed. And the rest o' you, out. I'll see you downstairs in ten minutes."

"Five." Wolverine flatly contradicted her. "And if you're not down, I'm coming in. That door stays unlocked. Got me?"

Rogue swallowed. "Gotcha."

They all filed out of the room, Remy turning to give her a last lost look, which she answered with a helpless shrug.She didn't know what was going on, either, but she was beginning to get really scared about it. Each time she slid into this past person's life, it was a little harder to come back to herself; how long before she couldn't come back at all?

She rubbed her breastbone distractedly, still feeling the incredible heat from the shot. Then, shuddering, she rose to find clothes and scour the blood from her skin. She was feeling woozy—from blood loss incurred in her mind, she supposed. I really hope I stay me, she thought. I don't know if I'll survive another slip. I just wish I knew what she wanted… Bess? Just tell me what you want and I'll do it! Just don't kill me to get it!

There was no answer, only a faint sigh that could easily have been Rogue, it sounded so tired.

But she'd been holding her breath, hoping for an answer, and couldn't have sighed.

She scrambled for her clothes, suddenly eager to get downstairs.

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Please please review… I'd like to know how this chapter read, especially since I didn't go over it numerous times… only twice for minor tuning up. Let me know if I rushed anything or if anything read weird to you… Like as not I'll rewrite and repost this later, but the bones of the plotline are here :)