Note: This is what I call the 'grief' chapter. Sometimes stories just require reflective and sad parts, but I've tried to keep it from being too static.

I'm so glad people are sticking with the story even though it's getting long. I think I'm at close to the half-way point here, but I haven't written it all yet, so can't be sure. As always, hope you enjoy it (if 'enjoy' is the right word here).

Chapter Ten

The professor was dead.

The whole school had been shocked into silence, Marie included. They all sat on the couches in the downstairs lounge staring at each other, or at the walls. No one played the foosball game, or watched the televisions. No one so much as talked. Yet the words, Professor Xavier is dead, rang through the hallways. Marie didn't know if that was the silent wail of the telepaths, or just some ghost of hope crying in death.

Logan and Storm had returned an hour earlier, both distant and shaken. Neither had put in an appearance downstairs yet. So comfort was still left to the rest of the so-called team. Peter sat at the table drawing cartoons for a small knot of children, but he couldn't bring as many smiles as usual. Bobby had given up trying to be inspiring. He now slumped on the sofa opposite Marie. When lectures on the scientific probability of an afterlife failed to raise anyone's spirits, Kitty had retreated to the window seat. She perched there now, a silhouette against the sunset.

Marie wore her long gloves and a long sleeved shirt so that she could at least hug the younger children. The little boy with horns, Franklin she thought his name was, now lay curled across her lap. His weight felt foreign against her thighs, but she couldn't make herself push the unwanted burden away. Instead, she stroked his hair as he slept.

Scott hadn't returned to take charge. After Peter's arguments, after her own realizations, Marie supposed she shouldn't have expected him to show up. But, she had. The professor was dead. They needed leadership, and if Scott were anywhere around the school he would have to know that, right? If he were real, he would have appeared. The conclusions were painfully obvious. Either he wasn't real, or he didn't care about them. Either way, the person she'd thought she'd found was a lie.

She let her gaze glide over the people in the room. Some openly sobbed. Some simply stared. Marie wondered if their misery was as selfish as her own. Were they mourning the professor, or worrying that the school would close? When she looked at Bobby, she wondered if losing a mentor, or failing in his first attempt at leadership, made him scowl.

Maybe if she knew they were all feeling a personal, selfish hurt she could have let her own tears fall. But, what if they were all suffering noble grief? What if she alone was incapable of feeling anything but self-pity?

I don't want to be here, she thought. I don't want to be part of this band of would-be heroes anymore. Heroism was a lie, at least for her. She couldn't help anyone, save anyone.

Still, she couldn't make herself go upstairs alone. None of the students seemed willing to leave and she didn't want to be the only one running off. They all needed each other, now more than ever. That's why none of them had wandered off to their own rooms. They sat in misery together, though probably none of them wanted to be here, she realized. They just couldn't think where else to go.

Marie could. If it weren't for the curse of her power, she could go home.

-----

I'm going to lose them all, Ororo thought as she watched the gawky fifteen-year-old Emil pace out the area where he would grow Charles' monument. The sky overhead was gray today -- a self-indulgence to match her mood. Tomorrow she would make sure the day was bright, for Charles.

And after that? Ororo hugged herself. She didn't know what to do after the funeral. Half the students had already called parents about going home. Hank was pushing her to close the school quickly. And Logan … Logan simply prowled, restless, as if he couldn't wait to run.

He was the only other fully adult member of the team left and he was thinking about abandoning them. Ororo knew it.

"You're sure you want that obelisk thing?" Emil called. He squatted over the pile of stones he'd placed on the grass.

"Yes. It's dignified," Ororo told the boy.

He frowned but obediently stretched his hand over the pile of rock. The stones shook, then began to stretch upward to form the monument.

"It's kind of stodgy, don't you think?" Logan asked from behind her.

Ororo turned slowly, pleased she'd managed not to leap in surprise. "Dignified."

"I guess it fits the professor." Which wasn't exactly a retraction of stodgy. He wasn't smoking, but he did have a cigar in his fingers that he kept spinning. "You're not making one for Scott, I see."

"The funeral tomorrow is for Charles." Later, they'd do something small and private for Scott, she supposed. She felt a small stab of guilt at her desire to dismiss the whole idea, but shook it off. Scott had abandoned them after all, long before dying in a pointless attempt to save Jean. She had a right to be angry with him.

"So, you think he's still alive too."

"Maybe," she allowed. Honestly, she didn't know what to think about the strange communication glitch in the jet that registered Scott's identification code, or Logan's story of seeing Scott outside the hanger. Or the things the children said about Rogue seeing him in the kitchen for that matter. She didn't want to think about any of it now. There were more pressing matters to worry about.

The monument's basic shape complete, Emil concentrated on the bronze plate emerging in the granite face. The boy was such a fine artist, an example of all the Xavier school could accomplish. In his first attempt to attend a prestigious summer art program, Emil had been refused. The review committee had actually insisted art created with the mind alone was not real art. Ororo frowned at the memory.

That same program had just written an apology last month and offered Emil a full scholarship to next year's session. Ororo sensed, Hank McCoy's hand in that, but mostly it was Charles endlessly and patiently arguing for a more reasonable view that opened their minds.

Winds change. Charles had mentioned that very fact to her only a few days ago and for the first time she'd sense he didn't mean toward hope. You had no idea how much, or how quickly, Charles, but you knew it would get bad.

She thought about that conversation. At that moment, Charles' greatest concern was replacing Scott as his successor. Now, he was dead. Right now, the art world coveted Emil's gift where last year they deplored it. The government had rushed this damn cure to the public as soon as they could. Would the next change be that Emil's beautiful talent ended on the point of a needle? Ororo couldn't let that happen. She didn't know how to stop it.

"We need to find him," Logan said.

"Who?" She'd forgotten the conversation.

His dramatic brows arched. "Scott. If he's around the school, we have to find him."

"Scott was gone before he left, Logan. He was a shell. Even the professor accepted that." Scott had dumped his responsibilities in her lap. He'd always put Jean first, just like Logan would if given half the chance.

"I still think he's trying to help now. We should find him." Logan insisted. "We also need to get Jean back from Magneto."

Ororo knew Jean would be his real focus. Just like Scott. Only she couldn't let Logan go the same way. He was the only help she had left. Hank didn't count. He might say he was coming back to the school, but he'd return to government soon enough. Logan had to stay.

"She chose Magneto, Logan! And, seeing what she did as she left here, I think the farther away she stays the better. We have bigger things to think about now. We need everyone together."

"So find Scott."

Stubborn man. "I don't have time."

"You have time to stand around while that kid sprouts grave markers. You're right, Storm. We do have bigger things to think about. So, why are you hiring florists when Magneto is out there, with Jean, and we don't know what's happened to Scott or what danger he might have been trying to warn us about?

"The students need to mourn. We all do." I'm doing what I know how to do.

"Keep your mourning. I need to figure out what the hell is going on," Logan finally lit his cigar, drew in a heavy lungful of smoke and then blew it out. "That's what you should be concentrating on too."

Ororo pressed her fingers to her forehead. Why couldn't he see past Jean? "The students need direction. This monstrous cure is tearing everything apart. How many will even be back here in the fall? Can we stay open without Charles? And we have to think about what Magneto is doing and how we'll stop him when it's only me, the kids, and you. Assuming that there's a you in that"

Logan glared at her. "Scott was trying to tell me something. You can't even consider the possibility that something is important to all those big concerns you have?"

"And he could be a figment of your imagination, or something Jean put into your head." But, Rogue saw him too. Ororo was glad she hadn't spoken that last thought aloud.

If she told Logan about Rogue's supposed encounter with Scott it would send him off to harass the girl. Rogue might be the weakest member of the team, but she was still part of it. And she was on the verge of running away already. What would a barrage of questions from the domineering Wolverine do to her? Ororo couldn't risk it. She could lose them both.

In a day or two, after the funeral, after they'd made some decisions about the school, she'd talk to both Logan and Rogue. They could clear up this confusion regarding Scott then. The most important thing now was to not lose more.

-----

Logan sliced his way through the dark woods behind the mansion, turning several shadowed saplings into firewood with each swing of his arms. "Damn it, dick-head," he snarled. "I never thought I'd be this eager to have your tight ass back in command."

Storm had had her funeral this afternoon, but she still refused to mobilize. Logan understood mourning. He missed the professor too. But what kind of honor were they doing Charles' memory by crying when they should be fighting to save what was left of his dream?

Storm wouldn't like it, but Logan had already decided if he couldn't find Scott tonight, he going to have to take over the team. They couldn't put off finding Magneto and Jean. Every moment that son of a bitch had to manipulate her the world took another step closer to annihilation.

Both he and Storm had seen what Jean's power could do. How could Storm not accept that finding Jean should be their first priority?

It was past nine and the night scents were rising. Logan paused and breathed them in, searching the new possibilities. Still nothing. This assault was getting Logan nowhere but closer to the back gate. If Scott were out here, the noise and violence wasn't catching his attention as it should. Logan sheathed his claws.

He couldn't give up. Whether apparition or reality, Scott could find Jean. Storm had told him about the link the couple shared. At the time, the warning had been Storm's way of saying, 'you never had a chance with her.'

That thought made him scowl. He rejected the stab of regret. This wasn't about love, or the loss of it. It was about fixing this mess they were all in. At least that's what he wanted to believe. He was honest with himself enough to admit saving the world might not be his only motivation.

"Doesn't matter. Doesn't change what needs doing." That link, if they still shared it, was his last, best hope. He couldn't give up searching.

Logan entered the house and started over in the lower corridors. Maintenance had cleared the shattered infirmary door, but not begun construction on a new one. The air here smelled, as it always did, of too much processing. Storm had been down today, but otherwise, Logan only sensed the workmen. At the end of the hall, the door to Cerebro remained open a sliver. It hadn't closed right since the attack on the school over a year before. The staleness inside the old, vacant hollow leaked out through the crack.

Would have been nice if he could use that device to search for Scott, or Jean. But, the machine had yet to be repaired after Stryker's invasion. With the professor gone, it probably never would be.

Upstairs, the scents became almost too confused for him to follow until he reached the level where he and the other staff slept. Outside Scott's door Logan caught his first clue. He pushed the door open and prowled inside.

Though her lingering presence was submerged, he still recognized Jean, and for a moment, she was all he could focus on. So many unfulfilled wishes lingered here, so many disappointed dreams. Then, he forced himself sort the other odors in the room. Scott had been here not two days before, and it was his scent that had pulled Logan into the room. If he'd needed proof, it was here. He hadn't been imagining things when he saw Scott outside the hanger.

Rogue had been here too, at roughly the same time. No, later. Her scent was slightly stronger than Scott's. Peter's too. There was the vague trace of two females Logan associated more with cleaning solutions than faces. Maids, he supposed. And behind all that hid a musky hint of sexual desire.

Logan backed out of the room. Whatever had happened here was days old, and he really didn't need the distraction of why Rogue would be sneaking off to a supposedly vacant room with a boy, and not the one everyone would suspect. Love triangles were not Logan's concern. Not those he'd been involved in, nor those he wasn't.

He tried to follow Scott's trail, but lost it in the corridor. Frustrated, Logan headed back down to the main floor and started the search again, in the lounge. He couldn't give up, especially now that he knew he was right. The man had to be somewhere. Besides, Logan didn't have another idea for finding Jean.

Storm had sent the kids to their rooms hours ago, so he could search in silence now. But, the quiet wasn't helping the way it should. Nothing made sense to him. Evidence appeared and then vanished, as if his quarry could evaporate. Logan was moving rapidly from frustrated to angry. Come on, you bastard. You were damn eager to talk before. Why won't you do it now?

Footsteps outside snagged his attention. Not Scott, the sound was too light. He stepped out in time to catch Rogue, satchel in hand, heading for the door. Once he saw her expression, he knew couldn't very ignore her. "You need a lift, Kid?"

"No."

If he hadn't known what she was doing before, he did as soon as he heard that curt reply. Damn. He really didn't need this tonight. "Where you going?"

She stopped and studied him. Despite the season, she wore a long coat, gloves, a scarf around her neck -- her protective gear. And Logan regretted being so busy over the past week. He should have known this cure thing would get to her. He should have been there to talk to her before this. They were supposed to be friends. He felt responsible for her.

"You don't know what it's like to be afraid of your powers, to be afraid to get close to anyone."

He thought about Jean and wanting to be close to her, and of the fear he had of his own nightmares. "Yeah, I do."

She looked so sad, so alone. What had happened with Peter up in that room? Or with Bobby? He had a sudden desire to squeeze the neck of whoever had hurt her. But, that wouldn't fix things for Rogue.

"I want to be able to touch people, Logan. A hug. A handshake." She paused before getting to what he suspected was the real point. "A kiss."

"I hope you aren't doing this for some boy."

-----

For some boy?

Marie thought about that. Logan must have assumed she meant Bobby when she mentioned kissing, but she didn't. Bobby wasn't her concern anymore. She'd seen him out on the fountain skating with Kitty and her heart has just sort of let him go. It was relief, really. Not joy. Certainly not pain. Just relief.

She doubted she could explain that to Logan.

"Look, you want to go, then go," he continued.

That surprised her, maybe disappointed her a bit. She knew she'd made the right decision. Staying here would be unbearable. Every creak in the old mansion, every voice in the hallways, reminded her of dreams and promises. Still, it would have been nice to have someone argue with her about going.

"Shouldn't you be telling me to stay? To go upstairs and unpack?"

"I'm not your father. I'm your friend." Logan sounded gruff, maybe even a little eager to be rid of her so he could get back to whatever he was doing.

That dismissal only solidified her resolve. If even Logan didn't want her to stay, she had to be right to leave. Her last doubts drained away.

"Think about what I said, Rogue," he added as he turned away.

"Marie," she corrected. She would be Marie for good now, ordinary, unimportant Marie.

"Marie." His voice sounded softer. Then he walked away, leaving her standing alone with her decision and her satchel. It's not for a boy, she thought. It's for me. It's so I can be me.

Marie closed the door behind her. She walked down the long run of stone steps to the drive, then out to the street to meet the cab she'd called. She never expected to see Xavier's mansion again.

Note: I know everyone is still waiting to hear about what's happened to Scott. I haven't forgotten him. I promise.