"You look like death warmed over, you know that?" Kitty asked, or rather, told Rogue.
"Even though Ah showered and everything." Rogue nodded. "It was the falling from twenty thousand feet that did it." No amount of hot water could erase the cuts and bruises.
They—meaning Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Colossus, and the Toad, who was piloting—were flying to Arizona for the purpose of confronting Jean Grey, or whoever was wearing her body at the moment.
"So can you really touch people now, without hurting them?" was Kitty's next question.
In reply, Rogue held out her arm—her bare arm. "You brave enough? Callisto was."
She had brought a jacket with her, in case she needed it, but she had ditched the gloves, the scarves, and the long sleeves in favor of a short-sleeved crop top. Callisto had found a henna mehndi kit somewhere or other, and painted temporary tattoos on her arms and stomach—snake bracelets, a tiger on the back of one hand, a fish on the other, and a dragon on her stomach—so her little friends could speak through them, since they wouldn't fall out of her pockets and get lost.
Kitty looked at the arm Rogue offered as if the snake was liable to come to life and bite if she did. Or if Rogue wasn't telling the truth. Finally she reached out and laid her bare hand on Rogue's wrist for a moment. "Wow. Nothing. And they finally started talking to you?"
The Professor was talking to someone on the phone. "Where are you now?" he asked. The girls ignored him,
"Yes. Ah started listening, actually."
"How did you do that?"
"Ah don't know, really. The last thing Ah said before the dragon spoke to me was, 'What am Ah supposed to do?' And Ah meant it..."
"So all you had to was ask the right question?"
"Maybe…"
The Professor said, louder, "Jean—what's going on? Jean? She hung up. I believe we're close enough now that I might be able to contact her telepathically…" He refocused his mind and reached out. 'Jean?'
For several long minutes there was nothing. Finally he heard the faintest telepathic whisper. 'Professor?'
He knew immediately it was not her—it was the other one, the Firebird. 'Where is Jean?'
'Here. We are one and the same. You know that.'
'That is untrue. You invaded her as a virus does a cell, to usurp her body and use her. I did not know it then, but I know it now.'
'You are wrong. I have become her—I want what she wants, I love what she loves, hate what she hates—'
'You mean you think you do. You are a parasite that endangers its host.'
'And I know what she knows. Shall I tell you one thing she knows, which she does not admit to herself she does? You love her. You loved the child, you loved the girl, you loved the woman. And no longer chastely. You watch your old friend's happiness with his younger wife, and you envy them. I can see your mind and heart as clearly as I can see hers.'
'If I do, that is my private grief, and I am reconciled to it.'
'I could see to it you have her.'
'You cannot do that. It would not be Jean who came to me, but you. She loves Scott, she desires Logan; that she respects me is enough. You would make profane that which is sacred if you made her come to me.'
'Her affection for the first is youth, her feeling for the second simple lust. Neither shall endure. You are in her heart, and shall ever be. Do not pursue me now, call off Rogue, and I promise you she shall be yours.'
'What I find most interesting is that you speak of her as 'she'. Not as 'I', nor even as 'we'. But as 'she'. You and she are not the same. And you will destroy her, even though you claim you are her. Then you will destroy the world in its entirety. That I cannot allow.'
'You speak of allowing, little man? Allowing? I am the Phoenix!'
He had to wrench his focus outward as all around him, his companions cried out. He looked out the windscreen to see—another plane, on fire, heading directly for them? No. He knew better.
A/N: Sorry it's so brief. I've been sick this week with what turns out to be an acute sinus infection. You never want anything you have wrong with you to be 'acute'. Or 'multiple'. That's never good. I read up on sinus infections following my diagnosis. What I did not know, which is horrifying, is that it can spread to the brain in severe cases, if left untreated. But I am getting better now.
