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Logan

How could someone so small be so damn heavy? I shifted Rogue's lifeless form in my arms, bending low to listen for her heartbeat as I walked. It was there, and she was breathing, barely, but that was the best I had right now. Her injuries stopped me from flipping her ass up and over my shoulder, but I was gettin' pretty near needin' to change positions. Had been walking forever, the blazing hot sun burnin' my brains during the days, spending the near freezin' nights shivering under a sky lit by billions of alien stars. I walked when I could, stopped when I had to.

We needed water. I would last longer than she would, but if she didn't wake up soon and absorb more of my power, she was in real trouble. I had tried walkin' towards trees, thinkin' maybe some sort of water source was feeding them. When that was a bust, I had chased the flocks of rainbow colored birds circling overhead, hoping maybe they had a clue. So far, nothin', and I was getting real fucking desperate.

I staggered and nearly dropped her. Break time. I kicked down some of the grass, laid her gently onto the ground. I shaded her the best I could from the sun, she was pale, even for her, and it worried me. She should have regained consciousness after getting a dose of my healing factor, but it had been days since she last opened her eyes. I grabbed her wrist to feel for her pulse, pressing hard into the skin to feel it even though I could already hear her dangerously slow heartbeat. The marks my fingers had left on her flesh filled back in as soon as I let go, she wasn't quite that dehydrated yet.

Angry fear ripped through me but I squashed it, gritted my teeth against the white hot panic searing my throat. She was hurt bad and I couldn't do anything about it. I hated feelin' so flamin' helpless. Other nagging things pushed into my brain despite my best effort to stay numb. Would the others even come for us? Could they? All of our friends, our family, I couldn't deal right now with the possibility we might not see them again, wouldn't let myself go there. Jesus…Ororo. We had hardly got started, darlin, and now…I stomped the feelings down, hard. I breathed deep, trying to find my center, but this crazy world churned everything inside me like a blender. Other things needed to come first, I told myself.

A noise pressed in on the very edge of my perception, so faint I hadn't caught it walking. I stilled myself and held my breath. It wasn't comin' from the direction I had been headin', off a different way. Maybe I was finally losin' it, hallucinating, running off after a mirage in a desert of grass, but it sounded like goddamn running water.

"Nap time's over, darlin'," I whispered to Rogue. I hauled her up from the ground and charged towards the sound. The louder it got, the faster I ran. If I was wrong, if I had wasted this much energy for nothin'…

I whooped out loud as I crashed through the grass. There it fucking was, a stream! A goddamn mother fucking stream! "Would you look at that?" I squeezed Rogue's unresponsive body to me and kissed her head, lying her down on a patch of dirt beneath a scrappy lookin' bush. I got as close as I could without jumping in the water and peeped over the edge of the grass that lined the shore. It was clear, shallow, rocks and sand scattered along the bed. Wasn't very wide, but it looked like it kept going, I could see it cutting a wandering path through the endless sea of grass to the horizon.

I bent over and cupped the cold water in my hands, smelled it. Rock and a hard place. If it made us sick with some weirdo bacteria or poison, we could be fucked even with my ability to heal, but we wouldn't live much longer without water.

"Cheers, darlin'," I called to Rogue and drank deeply. It tasted all right, pretty damn good actually, like water dripped over charcoal. I kept drinking. Figured I'd sit here for a couple hours and see if anything exploded out of me before I gave any to her. I rinsed the dirt from my face, wet my hands and ran them next over Rogue's face and neck, dampened her hair and pushed it back on her forehead. A little bit of hope flared in the pit of my stomach. If this beaut of a stream kept goin', maybe it'd join with something bigger. At least if we stuck by it, we'd have water, maybe food…it was the closest thing I had to a plan.

Rogue

"You've gotta' drink this, darlin'." Cool liquid touched my parched lips and I swallowed. It tasted so good and cold, quenched the awful ache in my belly. "Not so fast, you'll get sick." I tried to sit up but my arms and legs were stiff, heavy and painful. My head spun and Logan gently pushed me back down by my shoulders. "Take it easy, give yourself time." I swallowed thickly and his hand brushed the tickling hairs from my face. He held his palm to my cheek. "Let's try one more dose of healing factor. Doctor's orders, okay?" I tried to smile at him but my cheeks were so heavy. I leaned into his strong hand and pulled with my powers.

Since learning control of my mutant 'gift', a lot had changed for me, beyond being able to casually touch my friends and family without fearing I would swallow them whole. Now, using my own talent I could simply borrow another's powers, just their powers, no more unwanted memories, no more knocking my victims instantly unconscious. I could borrow what I wanted, how I wanted, without the messiness of someone else's personality or privacy. Problem was, even though I had control, it did require a little skill and concentration. I was hurt, I was sloppy, and my pull got me a whole dose of Wolverine's memories. My eyes snapped open and met his grim gaze, my mouth gaping like a fish out of water, I tried to speak, but didn't know what in the world to say to him. I looked around wildly, my breathing labored. Not sickbay, not my room, not Avengers' mansion, or the school. We were outside in the open, under a tree, the sounds of swirling grass filling my ears. It was dim, the landscape around us lit by the fading sunset. My muddled brain tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. Where the hell were we?

"Calm down, Rogue. Take a deep breath." I shuffled through his memories but nothing in his brain made any sense. I saw a starry sky that didn't match, a sun that wasn't our sun, trees and plants that were trees and plants but not. I saw Lila awash in a flame of her power and saw myself swallowed by the same fire. Though I was terrified of the answer, I met Logan's gaze and choked out my question anyway.

"Where are we?" He sighed and grimaced. Reliable Logan, tough, steady like a rock, the Wolverine was the best at what he did, and I had always counted on him to stand tall when I couldn't. Fear dug its cold fingers into me when I saw his mask of badassery slip for just a second, and he looked at me, scared as hell, almost ill.

"Your guess is as good as mine. What's the range on Lila's powers, a thousand light years?"

Jesus H. Christ. Tears sprung to my eyes and I covered my face with my hands to hide them. Shit. I had absorbed her powers, was she still in there? Frantic, I sat up and shoved his hands aside. I tried to stand, but fell smack on my knees onto the cold ground, scraping my hands on the gritty surface. My heart hammered so hard in my chest that I felt like I was gonna pass out again, but Logan was over me, wrapping his muscular arms around me. I was shaking to my soul. He pulled me onto his lap and held me close to his chest.

"Her power's gone, Logan," I said, absolutely defeated. He kissed the top of my head and squeezed me around the ribs.

"I figured. You've been out for a while. Whatever they did to her did a number on you, too. Wasn't sure you were gonna make it."

"I did this," I realized miserably. "This is my fault."

He grabbed my face angrily and twisted it, forcing me to look at him. "Bullshit. You made what you thought was the right move to save Cheney. Those Purifiers are the fuckers to blame." He held one side of my face and crushed me to his chest again. I listened to his steady, pounding heartbeat, inhaled along with his slow, deep breaths. We stayed like that until I stopped trembling.

"What are we gonna do?" I whispered into the growing darkness.

"Survive," he said.

Logan

It was a few days before Rogue was up and moving around. She'd been real quiet and it spooked me. Girl usually had such a big damned mouth, but she was only speaking to me when I asked her a direct question. She looked shell-shocked and just stared off with those big green eyes of hers, not paying a lick of attention to me or our surroundings. I kept making her take some of my healing factor to recover. Every time she touched me, her hands were long-fingered ice cubes. Not much to do to help her if she was cold. Our campsite was barely protected by a couple spiraling scraggly trees. It had been warm enough during the day to be thankful of the little bit of shade they provided, but we were still outside under the alien stars at night, and it got cold once the sun went down. I hadn't wanted to start a fire until we knew what to expect from this weird ass place, hated to draw attention to ourselves, but I gave up after listenin' to her chatterin' teeth the first night she was awake. I was trying not to worry like some old biddy, but it was like the fight had gone out of her already. I couldn't have that.

I debated long and hard on what we should do, whether we should stay put or move. I was making myself crazy, spinning my head around in circles. If we stayed where we were, we were close enough to the original teleport destination that if any of our people came looking for us right away, we'd be easy to find. From scouting around our general area there had been a little water in the form of the small stream, some rodent-like animals, berries and other plants that I could test to make sure we could eat. We were sort of exposed which made me uncomfortable, but I could probably cobble together a makeshift shelter for a more long-term situation.

But, if we stayed, we could maybe be a hundred miles from a humanoid civilization and not even flamin' know it. Maybe one that had a goddamned wormhole transporter or interstellar cellphone. But, if we moved, who knew what could be waitin' for us over the horizon. It'd be rough and it'd be risky, and maybe we didn't want to find whatever civilization was on this planet. They might be the most dangerous thing here. Besides that, we had jack shit for supplies. We came with just the clothes on our backs, which were already pretty ripped up, and the junk that was in our pockets. It was pathetic. Thank fucking god she had changed her boots. The weather could be a huge problem, we had no idea what the temperature was going to be or stay. Right now, it was like Earth in late summer, warm during the day, cool nights. Hadn't rained yet, but it would, the native trees and grass were lush, we clearly weren't in a desert. What if we were here for a while? What happened if this planet had a winter like ours? It was something I didn't want to think about right now, but the idea ate at the back of my brain.

Best thing we had going for us was our powers and my adamantium claws, but we needed something to carry water and food if we were on foot in unknown terrain. Somehow, Rogue had managed to hold onto her purse, some little leather bag with the strap going across her body that had a plastic water bottle shoved in it, but that wouldn't hold enough for one person to drink travelling heavy, let alone two.

Something was bothering me about this planet, more than the crazy fucking smells and the colors that were just short of a cartoon. I wasn't a damned scientist or astronomer or whatever, but seemed I remember Reed Richards or Hank McCoy, somebody with a bunch of letters behind their name, talking about how there were only so many inhabitable worlds in the universe, was one of the reason Galactus got everybody's panties in such a twist. Planet like this couldn't be empty of humanoids or something higher up on the food chain. If we were here long enough, we were gonna run smack into it. Good or bad, I guessed we'd find out.

After a few days, I decided that we had to move. I couldn't have her just sitting here, waiting for a rescue that probably wasn't gonna come. We were gonna have to rescue ourselves, figure out a way to survive here. It may be a fight out there, but I'd rather see her fighting instead of seeing the kicked puppy look she kept giving me. God dammit, this girl survived by herself, no powers, in the Savage Land for Christ's sake! She didn't lay down and give up, and I wouldn't let her.

The fire burned low and smoky in the middle of our camp. I checked the pathetic chunks of game, some pink feathery little guinea pig looking thing I had caught and tested with my stomach, cleaned and rigged above the fire to smoke. Figured we'd wrap the pieces in some leaves from one of the bigger plants and shove them in our pockets for the road. Didn't really have a concrete plan, but thought about following the stream I'd been getting us water from, see where it lead us. At least then we'd have water and could probably fish or something for food. Maybe the stream would empty into a river. Most humanoid species needed water to survive, odds would go up of finding whoever lived on this planet if we found our way to a larger body of water. Fuck, I still didn't know if that was even a good idea, maybe we needed to stay the hell away from whoever lived here. I just didn't know, but I had to do something and made my decision.

"We'll move out at dawn," I growled over my shoulder, getting absolutely no response. I looked towards Rogue, irritated. She was sitting away from the fire, leaning against one of the trees ringing the camp, her face lit by the glow from her cell phone. I shook my head, temper flaring, but tried my damndest to clamp it down. Apparently, cell phones survived intergalactic teleportation, at least phones made by Tony Stark. If we ever got home, he'd be fucking ecstatic to hear it. A little out of range for making a call, obviously, but I assumed she was looking at her pictures. These last few days she had been clingin' to that phone like a life raft, and I didn't want to think what was gonna happen when the battery died.

"Rogue." My voice was sharper than I meant it to be. "Did you hear me, girl?"

"Yes." She didn't even look up. I swallowed a growl and kept messing with the guinea pig.

"Can you help me here?" I asked.

She looked up at me under her long eyelashes, her expression dead. "Seems like you've got it handled." She turned her attention back to her screen and I was seconds away from snatching it from her and throwing it against the ground.

"Anna." Didn't often call her by her given name. She was Rogue to me for too long, it suited her. I pulled out her name for the important things and she knew it. She set her phone in her lap and raised her chin defiantly. I kept talking, trying to pull her out of herself. "You've been in this situation before. We've hardly got anything for tools or supplies, any bright ideas? Anything I'm missing here?"

She stared at me silently. I was ready to scream at her and shake her by her shoulders when a look crossed her face like she going to vomit. She covered her mouth with one of her hands and shut her eyes.

"Rogue?" I moved towards her but she held her other hand up to stop me.

"I…I thought we were staying put for a while?" she whispered.

"We can't stay here. It's too exposed to the weather, and we need to see what else is out there. What if help is just around the corner?"

"But, what if…" her voice broke but she didn't start crying. "What if they come for us and we're not here? What if they can't find us?"

I stood and rubbed my hands angrily down my face. "We can't bank on that and you know it. Staying here's not really a good option. It's too open, not a lot of food or water. We either need to look for civilization or look for a place that'll shelter us long-term. Sorry, darlin', looks like there's no Magneto to save you this time." Her green eyes blazed. I knew I had crossed a line, but I was so fucking ecstatic to finally have a response from her that I didn't give a shit how mad my comment had made her. She jumped to her feet.

"Go to hell, Logan." She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and stomped off into the darkness. I let her go. She had absorbed my healing factor. She'd yell if she had trouble, and truth to tell, I was a little sick of her goddamned attitude right then. It wasn't my fault we were in this mess.

The glow of her phone on the ground caught my eyes and I stooped to pick it up. I was sorely tempted again to dash it against the tree, but I turned the screen towards me. My stomach sank. Picture of her and LeBeau in happier times. Fuck. I hung my head guiltily. I knew this mess wasn't her fault either.

Rogue and the Cajun. Made me wish for the old days. When had everything gotten so damned complicated? Those two still loved each other, even after all the crap they had put each other through. I didn't know if they should be together, but if they wanted to be… They just had never been able to get it together, to keep it together. Both too stubborn. After her…relationship with that bastard Magneto, I wasn't sure where they had left things. Right now she probably felt like there was a lot of unfinished business between her and Gambit, maybe like she was never gonna see him again and I had just rubbed her nose in it.

I took off after her, following her scent. Girl was smart, she didn't go very far. She kept her back to me and hugged herself tightly in the darkness.

"Rogue, I didn't mean…"

"Yes, you did." She turned to face me, eyes fierce. "And you're right. You're an asshole, like always, but you're right. Nobody to help us but ourselves, that's what you're sayin'? This rock may be our new home, our friends just memories." The sadness was rolling off of her in waves and I was drowning in it. I closed the distance between us, forcing her into my chest. She sighed and shuddered, buried her face between my neck and shoulder. Didn't cry, though. That's my girl. Tough. We stayed like that, still and quiet, away from the fire, the alien sky above us ablaze with stars in constellations I'd never seen. We stood for a while longer and watched the stars shimmer and move above us, listened to the swirl of the alien wind.

"Do you think our sun is one of those stars?" she asked sadly. "Or are we too far away to even see it?"

I tipped her chin towards me. "Try to keep your mind off stuff like that. Need to stay focused, keep moving ahead. Don't worry," I said fiercely, "I'll take care of you." She snorted and rested her forehead against mine.

"We'll take care of each other," she answered roughly.

Sam

My powers were fucked. 'Scuse my language, but that was the best word for them. All the eggheads kept throwing out theories as to what was going on, but the thing about theories? They were nothin' but a guess, and they meant you had no goddamned clue as to what was really happening.

Doc still had me on loose bed rest, I say loose 'cause he knew there was no way I'd stay in bed with Lila still unconscious in sickbay. He kept me in my own room for as long as I would take it, but finally gave up and helped me wheel a bed right alongside hers. I felt terrible, pain in my joints and on every inch of my skin. Got tired real easy, tired and cold, so cold I shivered constantly. McCoy's orders were to not stress my system, which, according to him, meant no powers. So, it had been a goddamned month since I had used my blast field, a month since Lila had been attacked and put in a coma, a month since we'd been injected with whatever the hell we were injected with, a fucking month since Anna and Logan had been sent to who knows where. A whole month, and after all the pain and trouble of the initial attack, none of the eggheads thought to have me test my powers to see if they were working right.

Well guess fucking what? They weren't.

I went outside a couple of days ago, feeling almost good enough to take a walk. Doc's standing orders were for me to get some fresh air. Couldn't stand seeing Lila like that, hearing the steady hum of the respirator and the beep of the heart monitor was starting to get to me. Rachel had been coming in for her daily 'therapy' session with Lila and kicked my ass out of the room. She was making no progress, best I could tell. Lila was still unconscious. Rachel pushed me physically and mentally out the door.

"I don't need your interference, Sam," she said coolly. Interference? T'hell with her anyway. No. Sorry. I didn't mean that, she was trying her best to help. One of the Doc's 'theories' was that I would have been in my own coma if I hadn't been blasting when they injected me. Egghead consensus was my partial invulnerability protected me somewhat from the effects of the injection. I wasn't sure if I subscribed to that one. If that had been the case, how had that Purifier bastard been able to inject me in the first place? Like I said, they had no clue. I think they were just throwin' stuff at the wall to see what stuck.

Rachel's glare told me she had picked up on my less than charitable assessment of her therapeutic skills. I shoved angrily out the door and stamped down the cold metallic hall. Was hard to stomp and limp in pain at the same time, but I did the best I could.

I passed the War Room on my way to the elevators, the large space filled top to bottom with state of the art computer hardware and monitoring systems. It was where all the X-Men's communications were routed through. The door was open, and, walking by, I caught a glimpse of Gambit huddled over a keyboard. The man had barely slept for the last month, and when he was awake he was knee deep in the War Room, monitoring interstellar communications, spending his days and nights talking to anybody who would listen to him through a universal translator. That old familiar guilt twisted my stomach. Man looked like he'd lost twenty pounds; I think he had been living on nothing but cigarettes and coffee. His face was beat, tired.

I had to lean against the inside elevator walls, suddenly dizzy. Happened too quickly these days. It passed, and I avoided the students the best I could on my way outside. The outdoor air was crisp with that perfect fall smell of dead leaves and wood burning stoves. I walked slowly along the path that ringed the campus, stopping too often to catch my breath.

When there was nothing else to distract me, my thoughts went to them. I hoped it wasn't cold where they were. I kept telling myself that Logan's powers would keep them safe, that Anna could use hers to share, that they wouldn't starve or freeze or get hurt. Based on the investigations conducted by the Avengers and the X-Men, agreement was that Rogue likely hadn't been injected by Surge. Only found two empty syringes at the sight of the attack, expelled from the Purifier's weapon like spent shell casings. Trying to remember a whole lot about that night was still blurry for me. I do remember Anna glowing, but that glow had looked like Lila's power signature, like she had borrowed Lila's abilities with her own. Anna had probably used her powers to stop Lila's portal from swallowing the arena whole, bless her. I held onto the hope that her own mutant powers would protect her wherever she and Logan had landed.

I got dizzy again and realized I had walked further from the school than I had meant to. I didn't want to have to call for help like an idiot and get chewed out by McCoy. Figured it was a great day for flying, so I gave it a shot. My power always came natural, like wiggling your toes or licking your lips. I didn't think too hard about using them, just pushed and there they went. Only they didn't. I pushed and tried again, and it was like my powers were there, they were just…muffled. Hidden, like I couldn't get to them. I concentrated, pushing so hard I broke out into a cold sweat. All I got for my efforts was a little ripple of my blast and a shooting, burning pain. I screamed and dropped to my knees, my skin afire so hot it damn near burned my brain. Sweet Jesus, what had they done to us?