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Rogue

"Damn."

It took me a few steps before I realized that Logan had stopped walking. I turned, surprised to see him rubbing his hand along his stomach. It was late afternoon and had been hours since we had last taken a break.

"Something wrong?" I headed back towards him through the waist-high blades of crinkled, buttery grass. He shook his head, but the look on his face was a worrisome mix of confusion and pain.

"Stomach's just makin' crazy noises." Considering our always hungry bellies had been competing daily for whose could growl the loudest, 'crazy noises' really meant somethin'. As I was finding out, you could survive a long time without much food as long as you had water, especially with a mutant healing factor constantly knitting your body back together on a cellular level. Even with the occasional help of his powers, I was wearing out, our bellies beyond empty with how hard we had been pushing every day. Don't get me wrong, we were eating, and I was grateful for every bite that passed my lips. I knew things could definitely be worse, but the grasslands didn't provide a whole lot of edible choices. A few bitter greens, or yellows in this case, and some small stringy game were pretty much it for food selections. Nothing super substantial had managed to make it on Logan's menu so far, and the stubborn asshole insisted on eating everything first to see if it was dangerous.

"Can you make it to those trees up ahead?" I pointed a football field ahead of us to a lame excuse for an orchard, nothing more than three or four curlicue saplings that together shaded less square footage than a picnic blanket. He nodded, but within a few steps his walk became a gut-gripping hobble. I did my best to help him, slung one of his hefty arms around my shoulders and looped mine around his thick waist. He's a short guy, shorter than me, but all muscle, his adamantium laced skeleton making him heavier than a wheel barrow full of bricks. There was no way I could drag him if he couldn't move himself. He was dripping, sweatier than normal. Oh, lord, I didn't know what we were gonna' do if he was sick. Would his healing factor be able to cope with an alien virus?

We pushed out of the tangled edge of the grass into the empty patch surrounding the trees just in time for Logan to pitch forward and throw up all over the sandy soil, his vomit a shocking electric orange, the neon shade of a traffic cone.

"It's okay, it's okay." He was on all fours and I knelt beside him and rubbed his broad back, wrinkling my nose at the acidic smell. He hung his head and spit into the sand, then leaned back on his haunches. I helped him stand and waddled him a few more feet to the shade, propping him against the skinny trunk of one of the trees. His face was so pale it was grey, and he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

"You were testing something again, weren't you?" I set my jaw, trying to keep my temper in check, but inside I was seething. His brilliant strategy for our survival included using himself as a guinea pig for any potential alien food sources we stumbled upon. As soon as I realized what the idiot was doin' I had put my foot down. If I had learned anything during my time in the Savage Land, it was that it was better to ere on the side of caution when it came to food. Keep things simple, find what works and stick to it. Lots of things could be eaten, sure, but lots of things could tear you up. Better to eat boring and be just a little bit hungry than to vomit up the inside of your stomach, lose all your water. No way no how was I gonna' let him risk himself just so we could have a little more variety in our daily meals. Was I hungry? Yeah, but we had figured out enough things to stomach so far, enough to keep us going anyway. Do you think that was where it dropped? Too much to ask that he be reasonable? Well, sugar, that wasn't how the Wolverine did things. That SOB had probably been stuffing his pockets when I wasn't looking, and now he had eaten something that had made him sick. I fought the urge to scream at him, but figured he probably could smell how goddamned angry and worried I was. "What did you eat?" I asked, keeping my voice even. His breath came out in a shudder.

"Just some berries." Jesus H. Christ, if this didn't kill him, I might.

"Oh, sugar, when are mystery berries ever a good idea?" He chuckled, which made him grimace and clutch his stomach. "Especially berries that color. What were you thinking?"

"Weren't that color goin' down, darlin'," he said. "They tasted pretty good." I snorted.

"Taste pretty good comin' back up?" He glowered at me.

"Too much trouble to ask you to get me some water in between lectures, Anna?" I gritted my teeth, smiled syrupy sweet on top of white hot angry.

"Sure thing, Logan." I rose and stepped towards the water with my poor little plastic bottle in my hand. It was already looking worn at this point, but it was the only container we had. I wished we had a knapsack or something bigger than my purse to haul things along with us, maybe then I could make some cups or bowls for us. I filled the bottle, sniffed it, and took a small sip myself. Thankfully, the water here hadn't given us any trouble so far, no pollution or strange bacteria and we'd been drinking it for weeks now. The last thing I wanted was to add some alien water parasite on top of his poison crunch berries. At least he was puking the sons of bitches up and was still coherent while doing it. Hopefully, that meant as soon as they were out of his stomach they'd be out of his system. It's not like I wasn't appreciative of what he was doing, he was just looking out for me and trying to save me any hurt he could, and I was grateful. Just wished he were a little more rational about it instead of just shoving whatever he could find down his pie hole.

I wiped the sandy dirt from my knees as I stood and walked back to him. "No more testing anything neon, okay?" The only answer I got was the sound of puke splashing onto the ground. I sighed. It was gonna' be a long night.

Logan

Its flanks quivered in the morning sun casting sparkling light through the overgrown grass. Eyes darting, nostrils flaring, it finally put its muzzle to the cold clear water and drank, deciding it must have imagined the noise that was me. I wordlessly cursed myself. I was sloppy, more worn out than I had been willing to admit, and it had almost cost us a week's worth of food if it passed my test. This was the closest I had gotten to one of these things so far. On Earth it would have been from the elk or deer family, four slim and muscular legs, small hooves, long neck, but that was where the similarities ended. It stood taller than me, most of its body covered with downy black fur, but its front legs were outlined at the edges in blazing white. On its head and neck the fur thickened and changed color to a blue so dark it looked indigo. Its horns began as white bony ridges surrounding its eyes and continued back along its skull, fanning out in three sharp prongs each side, the color deepening to a crimson on each point. The horns, coupled with the fact it was alone, made me think male of the species.

I shifted for a better vantage point, staying downwind. This flamin' alien grass amplified every little sound, like walking through strips of aluminum foil. It was now or never and I lunged forward, waiting to pop my claws until the last possible second, aiming for its neck and hoping for a quick, clean kill. It heard me and turned as I struck, catching me with its horns. I roared, felt the tips as they pierced and broke against my adamantium laced ribs. My claws had hit home. Thick blood, salty and hot, poured from its neck as it kept fighting me, hitching and shaking, trying to shove me off its neck. I curled myself around its head, pulled it to the ground with my weight, held it fast as it shuddered against me, flailing in vain, one of its big black eyes staring at me. Two hearts I realized, heard their fluttering beats. They thrummed, failed, stilled. Pulled out my claws and stood, flexed and popped the deer's horn tips out of my torso. The wounds stung, burned. I sniffed the tips, wondering vaguely if they were poisonous. Guess I'd find out.

I hacked off the horns to make it easier to carry the heavy carcass around my shoulders, but grabbed them anyway to show Rogue, thinking maybe she could make some tool or something out of them. She was proving to be pretty damned resourceful with the things we'd stumbled onto so far on this planet.

I needed to skin the animal, let its blood drain and try to cut it up and cook it, eat it before I fed it to her. She would argue, yell at me for eatin' somethin' and puttin' myself at risk again, but how the hell else were we supposed to know what we could eat? Her new thing was she wouldn't lecture me about trying new foods if I would let her absorb my power and eat the unknown alien plant or animal with me. Tit for tat, she said. After my last bought of poisoning, she didn't want me taking any damn chances, but I was sick of eating nuts and grass, and hell if both of us needed to be sick. Better me than her any day of the week. Heh. Day of the week. What day of the week was it? Things like that just seemed to fade further into the background the longer we were here.

Hopefully I could clean this beast without attracting any unwanted visitors. So far hadn't seen much for larger animals besides the deer, but there was probably a predator to match. The wounds where it had stabbed me were itching hot and crazy, sending little jolts of fire along my ribs as they healed and sealed.

I followed Rogue's smell and the sound of trickling water back to camp. Hated leaving her alone while I hunted, but we needed to eat and the girl had as much stealth as a marching band. These damn grasslands seemed to be going on forever, but since we had found the stream there were at least trees here and there along its banks. We had been camping for a couple days next to the creek on a flat slab of sandy soil surrounded by a few trees. I had made a lean-to against one of the trunks, but had decided that unless it was cold or raining I wouldn't bother making a shelter most nights. Took too much time and too many resources, not much for firewood around, and we both seemed to like sleepin' under the stars, even if they weren't technically ours. Looking at them gave us something to talk about when the silence between us got too deep.

I had woken her up before I left, pulled her grumpy ass out of the shelter and gave her the job of stoking the fire to keep her awake and alert until I got back, made her absorb a chunk of my powers for her own damn good. I had been toying with the idea of making her absorb my powers on a regular basis. Would make things easier, she could go longer and faster during the day, and better to be proactive with any injuries. She would fight me on it, but I didn't want another situation with her hurt and unable to absorb me because she was unconscious.

She heard me coming and stood next to the fire as I stomped through the end of the tall grass. "Jesus H. Christ, Logan!" She squealed and covered her eyes with her hands. I chuckled and dropped the deer and its antlers onto the grass at the edge of the sandy ground.

"Something wrong, Rogue?" She just sputtered.

"Why are you…naked!?" Kneeling by my prize, I laughed and rolled my eyes.

"What did you expect? Only have one set of clothes, didn't want 'em to get all bloody. Made too much noise swishing through the grass in jeans and boots anyway." Wasn't like it was the first time she had ever seen me naked for Christ's sake. Never have known her to be real squeamish, either. I had done my damnedest but had still ended up with blood coating my arms, chest and legs, sure I was a real sight. "Left my jeans and flannel hangin' in the tree. Didn't you notice 'em? " She put her hands down and huffed, still not looking at me.

"Obviously not, sugar." I chuckled again. It was a little too fun to get under her skin, but she made it so flamin' easy.

"Got a present for you," I said. She snickered and her face reddened. "Oh, for the love of…cool it!" I growled, still smiling, the sight of that blush making me a little too happy. "I won't make you help me clean this thing, but thought its antlers might interest you." She opened one eye experimentally, then the other, walked toward me with her chin up, looking only at my head. I picked up one rack of the antlers and wiggled it at her. "'Fraid you might see something you like, darlin'?" She scowled and snatched the antlers from me, but I swore I caught her giving me the old 'elevator eyes' before she turned around in her usual huff of hair to sit back by the fire. Now, that sure was interesting. Had my comment hit a little too close to the mark?

I turned my attention back towards my deer. We didn't have any rope, hadn't stumbled on anything we could use for it yet, so I would have to dress my kill on the ground. It would make a flamin' mess, but it wasn't like we'd be camping here for days. I positioned its hooves over its head and started to drag it away from our campsite. If I moved down the creek a little bit it would save a squeamish Rogue the smell, and I could rinse the carcass in the water without messing up today's drinking water.

"Save some of the fat for me," she called over her shoulder. I stopped tugging and looked at the back of her head, confused. She turned a little further, apparently forgetting I was naked. She scowled and closed her eyes.

"For soap, sugar. I can use animal fat and plant ashes to make soap." I'll be damned, I had learned something new today. I nodded and got back to dragging.

Found a good spot in the shade of one of the scraggly river trees and laid the animal on its back. The heat had dried its blood to a crackling crust on my body. I wanted nothing more than to jump in the water of the creek, but there wasn't much point until I was done. I popped a claw and cut it from sternum to crotch, careful not to rupture the sack of guts under its hide. I pulled the guts out of its cavity, cutting the membrane free as I went. They came out in a great gush of black blood. I continued to work, was right about there being two hearts, wondered how much Rogue would freak if I cooked them up for us to eat. I skinned it and hauled it to the creek to rinse and cool it. There was a decent amount of edible meat on the thing. We could cook some for tonight, keep some cool in the stream for tomorrow, but there was more than I had expected. I grunted. In our situation, on the move with no containers or refrigeration, maybe it would be better to stick to smaller game or fish. We could sun dry a bunch for jerky, but even then we could only carry so much. Dammit, I was so freaking hungry. We wouldn't starve thanks to my powers, but those little ass rodents and the few plants I had figured out we could eat just weren't cutting it. I had just wanted a steak, a big fat juicy steak, but now I almost felt flamin' guilty because we were going to end up wasting a good chunk of this beast. If we were staying put it would have been different, we could have smoked some of the meat, found a cooler place to store it, but being on the move…Frustrated, I pulled the carcass out of the water and laid it across some big rocks at the shore, started slicing thin strips for drying. I heard Rogue swishing her way towards me through the grass.

"Need any help, Logan?" she asked, still concentrating her gaze on my face. I plopped a handful of thinly sliced deer onto the rock.

"Nah, no sense you gettin' nasty, too. I don't mind." She nodded and crouched by the deer's hide, running her long fingers through the indigo fur.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. I grunted.

"Hope it tastes beautiful. Deer meat you usually let sit for a couple days before you eat it, lets it flavor through, but we can't exactly do that, it'd spoil in this heat. Hopefully it's not too gamy."

"You're not going to let me eat it tonight, are you?" She raised a questioning eyebrow at me.

"Nope." Not 'til we knew if it made me sick. She chewed her lip like she always did when she was thinking. Thought maybe she was fixin' to argue with me, but instead she took a different track.

"Those antlers are interesting, sugar. They're hollow, but really strong. I hacked into a big rock with the point, made a little bowl. They're real sharp." I snorted.

"Tell me about it. Sucker got me in the ribs before I got it down." I gestured to my bloody side but the marks were long gone, healed.

"Logan!" she gasped and her eyes flashed at me, then snapped away when she caught sight of my naked hairy ass.

I laughed so hard my belly hurt.

Rogue

The first thunderstorm we survived caught us with our pants down.

The grasslands we had been beating a path across so far were nothing but open country, a sea of swishing yellow blades that sliced and poked and sang as you walked through them. An occasional stand of trees clumped along the edges of the creek, but they were the exception, not the rule. We could see for miles in every direction, nothing but undulating waves of rolling blades and the wide perfect stretch of sky, a deep shade of peacock blue that intensified to purple on the horizons.

We stopped to rest at the base of the widest tree we had come across so far on our little hike, a sprawling behemoth with branches that spiraled and twisted its thick black leaves skyward, large enough to cast a good shadow. I flopped down in the dirt and leaned my back against its thick knotted trunk, the texture of it felt roughly reptilian. Logan sniffed his way towards the creek like he always did, on a constant mission for water and our next meal. Ordinarily I would be helping him, but I was dirty and gritty and it felt too good in that moment for me to get back up. My bare arms tingled and I looked down to see the last rounds of grass inflicted cuts and scratches sealing up thanks to a bit of borrowed healing factor. It had been dry and warm for weeks, everything now coated with a thin layer of yellowy dust that hovered around us as we moved. Logan, reminding me a little too much of Pigpen from Charlie Brown, sliced his way through the tall blades of grass.

I sighed and closed my eyes. The breeze felt deliciously cool in the shade. I tried to relax, to enjoy a moment that was as sweet as any I had in a long time, but I couldn't stop my mind from wandering its way to things I didn't want to think about. Frankly, I was getting real sick of seeing nothing but grass and the back of Logan's head day in and day out. His master plan left more than a little to be desired. We just walked every day until our feet practically fell off, followed this creek, assuming that it would join with progressively larger bodies of water, maybe leading to some sort of civilization, or, at the least, better shelter and food than we had found in the grasslands. His plan had so many damn flaws I hardly knew where to begin. If there was a civilization, how would we communicate with them? What if it was a planet that had no idea other worlds existed? What if they killed us on sight? All these things and more seemed pretty goddamned likely to me, but as my only plan was to curl up in a hole and wait to be rescued, I didn't get a say.

Hopeless anxiety wound through my nerves, tingled down my arms and legs, settling in a breathless ball in my stomach. I tried to breathe deep to calm myself, but got nothing but shallow constricted gulps. This was my life now. Wandering aimlessly across this plant tangled rock, so far from home that the human race would be long dead before the light pouring from the sun hanging high and red in the sky above me reached the Milky Way. I held my breath for seven counts, breathed out for seven, breathed in for seven, tried to remind myself how much worse it could have been. We could have died in transit, or been horribly injured. We could have been dropped on a world covered in ice, or on a desert world, or a world with food or water or air that didn't support us. I vaguely wondered if maybe Lila's power honed in on inhabitable worlds subconsciously. It could have been worse, I reminded myself again, gripping my hands into fists and relaxing them in time with my breathing. I could have ended up here alone. We could have been separated in transit, or I could have fallen into the portal before Logan grabbed me. I could have died here all alone. Icy fear drove itself into my chest and I gasped, my eyes snapping open. Logan was squatting in front of me, a strange look on his face.

"Hey, darlin', you okay?" I launched myself at him, catching him in a hug that nearly knocked him over. He chuckled and rubbed my back. "All right, it's all right, Rogue." Damn him and his enhanced senses, I was sure he could smell the panic on me from the creek. "Go on, get some water, then we'll move out." He helped me up and took my spot by the tree. I stumbled over the uneven ground towards the bank, crouched by the water and took a long cool drink, rinsing the grit from my face. A school of tiny fish that looked like lacy red diamonds floated nearby, and I watched as they formed shapes and patterns beneath the water's clear surface. As of yet, there hadn't been many fish big enough for us to eat, the water of our stream was a little too shallow to support bigger things on the food chain. Hopefully that'd change as the stream widened out like it was fixing to do.

I shivered, suddenly cold. The air pressure dropped so fast my ears popped. I swore under my breath and opened my jaw, pressing on an ear. My movements startled my underwater friends and they darted away; a flock of sparkly birds rose into the air from the opposite bank.

I stood and stretched, walking back towards Logan, but was hit with a cold stiff wind so hard it pushed me back, swirling around my legs and threatening to flip my dress up and over. Logan was standing with his head cocked to one side, a serious frown etched on his face.

"What?" He held up a hand to quiet me. He stepped from underneath the shade of the tree and I joined him, copying his motion. Beyond the noise of the wind, picking up steam and hissing across the ocean of grass like a snake was a low rumble, a growl building at the edge of my hearing. I tensed. An animal? Or... "Thunder?" My eyes swept the sky, still clear as a bell. Logan pointed towards the horizon.

"There." Where the grass feathered horizon kissed the endless sky the deep purple was starting to swirl wildly, spirals of the royal hue reaching their angry fingers into the calmer teal.

"What is that?" I breathed, though I was pretty sure even without the benefit of Storm's powers that I was looking at this planet's version of a growing thunderstorm. Years ago, when I first joined the X-Men, Ororo Munroe had allowed my young angry self to absorb her weather-controlling abilities to gain a new perspective on life, so I could see how a goddess saw the world. The recollection of what came after that innocent exchange still churned my guts, but the shockingly vivid memories of the visuals her powers gave her of the world have stayed with me over the years. Ororo saw the Earth's systems: the sky, clouds, water, all as swirling patterns of energy that she could use her powers to reshape and manipulate. The newly roiling sky was the closest approximation to emerge in reality I have seen since using Storm's powers firsthand.

"We gotta find cover," Logan grunted and grabbed our jackets, thrusting mine into my hands.

"Cover? We're in the middle of nowhere." He glared at me and pulled my arm forward, away from the coming storm.

"Head for deeper trees or something, we can't be caught in the open." His hackles were raised same as any wild animal. I yanked my arm from his grasp and pointed back at the approaching storm. It was growing exponentially, a colossal purple wall cloud now blanketed the lower half of the sky and the thunder boomed, orange strokes of lightning sizzling in branches of electric veins by the hundreds. Jesus H. Christ, it was like nothing I had ever seen and it was coming our way.

"Trees? Great idea, sugar. Let me get a piece of sheet metal to hold over my head, too." I rolled my eyes and bawled at him over the deafening noise. "That sucker is coming way too fast. I think we're just gonna have to ride it out and get drenched, hope for the best." His face was pissed but I didn't give two shits right then. We weren't going to make it to any shelter, and his goddamned metal bones were going to make him into a walking lightning rod. We needed to make ourselves as small of targets as possible, lay low in a trench or something, hope we didn't get washed away. Be nice if we could find a spot near the tall tree we had been resting by, maybe if the lightning had a bigger target it would strike that instead of my metal soaked friend. The temp dropped twenty degrees in one rip of wind. Moving fast I got ahead of him, started kicking through the grass. I found a little dip, a sort of depression between two gradual hills. I motioned for Logan to join me, the wind and thunder too loud for our voices even with enhanced hearing. It was the middle of the day, but it turned black as night, dust and dirt flying into my eyes and mouth.

When Logan moved towards me, I felt all the hairs on my arm stand on end. I screamed, but a thick bolt of orange electricity snaked horizontally along the ground and caught him in a blinding, smoking flash. The bolt ripped him from the ground and shot him backwards in a shower of sparks that left burning charred grass in his wake. The storm wasn't even to us yet, the lightning was crawling across the ground ahead of the main energy, pulsing from the massive wall cloud like blood through arteries.

I ran after him, jumping over tongues of fire licking their way up the scorched remnants of grass. Please be okay, please be okay! I threw myself to the ground next to his still sizzling body, and bent low to check for a pulse, to see if he was breathing. He wasn't. I started CPR, his lips so hot they singed mine. I pushed on his rock hard chest and smoke poured from his mouth.

"Fuck!" I screamed to no one in particular. The grass was alight, fire spreading quickly from Logan's flight path. He suddenly gasped beneath me, his eyes wide he coughed and sputtered. "Move!" I hissed right in his ear and hauled him to his feet. Best at what he did, time to goddamned prove it! I slung his arm over my shoulder, a detached part of me marveling at how intact his clothing was, but he was disoriented and his heavy ass almost toppled me over. He steadied himself when he caught the scent of burning grass over his own charbroiled behind. The wind was spreading the flames, smoke and embers were flying at us as we ran, our stumbling almost comical. I slapped my own head and screamed as my hair caught fire.

I smelled the dirty thick smell of ozone, heard the storm roar and looked over my shoulder at a wall of impenetrable rain coming our way. It drove into us, hammering us to our knees with its weight. We were soaked to the bone and then some in a heartbeat, barely able to breathe through the buckets of water lashing us. I struggled to get upright, the fire was coming…through the blinding rain we watched the grass fire sputter and mercifully die. I pushed Logan all the way to the ground and shielded him the best I could with my body, praying that the lightning followed the front of the storm and stayed well away from us.

Logan held me tight and the noise and rain abruptly sputtered and died around us like someone had turned off the faucet. I raised up on his chest, blinking at him, completely soaked and bewildered. We both turned and watched the line of rain continue its progression across the grassland. The god damned storm had lasted five whole minutes and drenched us with a day's worth of rain.

"Wham, bam, thank you ma'am," I whispered. If this was an example of this planet's inclement weather, we were fucked.

Sam

"You look…like shit…"

I near jumped out of my skin at the sound of her voice. My chair was pushed back against the wall or I probably would have fallen over and cracked open my skull. It had been sixty-five days. I bit back tears and knelt beside her bed. "Hey there, baby girl," I whispered and found her hand among the IV line and sickbay blankets. Her eyes were unfocused slits but she managed a weak smile.

"Wha…happen…?" Her breathing was shallow and she fought the tubes and cords around her mouth. My eyes flicked to the monitors she was wired to.

"Try not to talk, Lila. I'll go get Dr. McCoy." The Beast would rip me a new one if I wore her out or got her too worked up before he had a chance to look her over. I telepathically 'hollered' at Rachel and made to stand up. Lila tugged weakly at my hand.

"Not…yet. Tell me…" She swallowed and tried to lick her cracked lips. I looked around frantically for a water cup, but I didn't even know if she should have water so soon after waking up. Maybe ice chips? She raised her eyelids with effort and her strong will blazed up at me. I hung my head and squeezed her hand with both of mine. I didn't even know where to begin. McCoy was gonna kill me if I laid it all out there for her ten seconds after she woke up, but I'd never been able to say no to her.

Resigned, I exhaled slowly and dove in. "Do you remember anything from that night?" She furrowed her brow and licked her lips again.

"Concert? Started the…first song. Then…nothing…." She looked away from my eyes like she was trying to see something far away, to conjure the memories from the depths of her foggy mind. Her black hair was dark against her wane skin and she had circles under her eyes. Since I had met the woman, she never went without makeup, she even slept in it, but in that moment, her face scrubbed clean, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I took a deep breath. How do you tell somebody that they lost two months of their lives because a fanatical human supremacist organization had wanted to turn you into a walking bomb?

"Where…am I, Sam?" she asked faintly.

"You're at the school, in Westchester, Lila." I ran my thumb over the knuckles of her small, cold hand. "You were attacked at your concert. A group called the Purifiers wanted to make an example of your very public mutant status and teach you a lesson, I guess. They tried to use you and your powers to cause a big accident." Her eyes widened and her heart monitor blipped. I expected McCoy to barrel in the door any second but Rachel still hadn't answered my mental SOS. "It's okay, girl. We stopped them from doing exactly what they wanted to do. Only, there were too many of them, and they hurt you anyway, real bad. You've been…recovering." She turned her face from me and stared at the ceiling.

"Recovering…" She chewed on the word, rolled it around in her mouth. "What do you…mean? How long…" She turned her face back towards me; I reached out with my hand and smoothed the dark fringe of bangs that had flopped into her eyes. "Guthrie?" She was weak and exhausted, but there was steel in her tone.

"Sixty-five days, Lila. You've been unconscious for sixty-five days." Her lips quivered as that tidbit sunk in, but the number was so much deeper than that, there was so much pain and worry and heartache in those two digits. So much time, and yet the X-Men were still practically nowhere in their search, with nothing to show for the sacrifices we had made.

The team had their hands full investigating new attacks on mutants, all while searching for a sample of 'Surge', which the Beast needed to further his study. My powers were painfully spotty at best and I was still on inactive duty, but I made it a point to be kept in the loop. I had been doing what I could, what I was allowed to do in my 'condition', which amounted to searching databases for information on possible targets and coordinating the team's missions. McCoy still had no clue of the drug's long-term effects, though if my powers were any indication the prognosis for any potential injected mutant was grim.

A small strike team, consisting mostly of Gambit and Storm, had been taking the fight to the Purifiers and hitting known installations in search of information, of anything that could help us get to our friends. It was frustrating, watching the team just spin their wheels and not being able to help. We all knew that no matter what we did to the Purifiers, it was all pointless without Lila. Gambit and Storm were actually due to head out later that night to chase a new lead. My job had been to handle communications and to monitor government satellites and military frequencies in case of trouble.

Lila was silent for a few minutes, and I just kept holding her hand and touching her face. I was so goddamned happy she was awake. I knew she'd be slow recovering after so long in a coma, and who knew if her powers were like mine or worse, but we'd take it one day at a time. She'd get better and then she'd help us find our friends. She blinked rapidly at me and tried to sit up.

"Oh, no you don't. I'm calling McCoy, should have ten minutes ago," I said and stood. I yelled again for Rachel in my mind, but got no response. I reached for the call button on the wall behind her bed.

"No, wait," she put as much force and air into the command as she could and I stilled my hand. "You said… 'We stopped them….from doing exactly…what they wanted." She raised her eyes to me in confusion. "What did you…mean…'exactly'?" Ahhh, hell. I ran a hand through my shaggy hair.

"Meaning…you still got hurt," I mumbled, but couldn't look at her. 'Exactly' meant those bastards hadn't been able to turn her into a living bomb and suck thousands of people into a gigantic swirling intergalactic portal, but they had still managed to use her to spirit away two X-Men. The last thing I wanted was to unload a whole helping of the guilt I'd been feeling on her plate after she just woke up. She narrowed her eyes to slits.

"You're such a …bad liar, Guthrie. Quit…stalling." I screwed up my face and jabbed my finger angrily at the call button, but instead of the cold metallic ring of the speaker, the Beast's rumbling baritone echoed from the doorway.

"Oh my stars and garters!" Dr. McCoy and his lab coat filled the doorway. He entered, and I saw Rachel peeking in behind him. "Welcome back, Ms. Cheney." He came towards the bed and edged me out of the way, but the look he gave me spoke volumes. "Mr. Guthrie, if you would extricate yourself to the corridor so I may examine our guest sans your well-meaning, yet overbearing facade?"

I squeezed her hand and stepped back, relieved at their good-timing. Lila's eyes followed mine pleadingly. "I'll be right outside, Lila. Dr. McCoy will take good care of you, sweetheart." Her small smile said we would be finishing our conversation later.

The door slid shut behind me and Rachel was waiting for me in the corridor. "Sorry we weren't down here faster, Sam. I was teaching a class in the furthest out soccer field, and Beast was in a teleconference with Tony Stark."

"Fast enough. She was asking things I really didn't know how to answer." She patted my shoulder reassuringly.

"All you have to do is tell her the truth, Sam. She'll appreciate you not trying to protect her feelings with something this big." She grimaced. "But, maybe give her a few days."

I snorted. "You don't know Lila very well, do you? Just a like a dog gnawing at a bone…" She smiled warmly at me and squeezed my shoulder before removing her hand. We stood in silence for a few minutes and I leaned against the wall. "Can you tell if her powers are…you know...?"

She shook her head "Can't tell yet, at least not from a casual scan. Figured I had better get the okay from Hank before I went with anything deeper. Or get the okay from Lila for that matter. It might be nice to explain things before I go digging around in her brain. I know everyone's anxious for us to move on this, but they're going to have to give her time. It's a process."

I nodded in agreement. There were going to be more than a few X-Men, mainly Gambit, who would be pushing for information out of Lila ASAP.

"You're playing telephone on the mission tonight?" Rachel asked, picking up on my train of thought. I nodded again. "You've got a lot on your plate all of a sudden, Sam. Do you want me to take over? You could fill me in pretty easily."

"No," I shook my head and pursed my lips. "No thanks, Rachel. Running the war room during these snatch and grab missions has been the only solid thing I've been able to contribute since I got hurt. I'm sure you and Doc will keep Lila busy most of the evening and then she probably will need to rest." What I didn't voice aloud was that I needed this, to help, to do something against the sons of bitches that hurt us, but standing next to a telepath, I didn't really need to say anything at all.