All characters owned by Marvel Comics, song lyrics courtesy of the Beatles.

Sam

The new sky was a deep turquoise and stretched endlessly in every direction I turned. A single sun hung hugely heavy and red, low down on the horizon. I held tightly to Lila and lowered her to the ground, letting Hank and Rachel hover over her to check her vitals.

"It's cold," I whispered, sick inside. The temp was low enough I could feel it nip at the skin left exposed by my insulated uniform.

"Above freezing, thankfully," Hank replied, his furry finger feeling for the pulse at Lila's wrist.

"She okay?" Gambit asked. I craned my neck and caught a glimpse of him over my shoulder. He was slowly walking around us, the grass beneath us burned to the quick in a scarred, scorched circle. The surrounding yellowed grass stood thickly waist high.

"Hank?" I redirected the question to the Doc, though I was pretty sure I knew Lila was as okay as she was gonna be. It embarrassed her, the fact that her powers in their current state continued to drain her so completely after every use. It was a handicap, a liability, and I could practically see Ororo's stern face in my mind, chastising me, could hear a big 'I told you so' from Bobby Drake. Lila could handle this, I knew she could. We would deal with the limitations the best we could.

"She appears to be fine, merely exhausted as after every use of her power since the Purifier attack."

"Glad she's okay, but we need to move." I opened my mouth to protest, but Gambit held up a hand to silence me. "There's no cover here, no food or water that I can see for miles in any direction. No way would they have stayed put."

"Are we even certain this is where our lost X-Men landed on this planet?" Hank asked, running a handheld scanner over Lila.

"You know it is," Rachel voiced aloud. "From what we determined, her powers have the ability of pinpoint accuracy."

"Did their monster portal do this?" I gestured to the charred dead grass beneath us and shivered, remembering each cell of my body burning in exquisite agony. Rachel merely shrugged.

"Looks like some trees, quite a ways off," Gambit shielded his eyes and pointed his own scanner towards the horizon. His eyes were apparently much better than mine, I couldn't see squat besides grass, grass, and more grass. He turned and stepped towards us. "We should move, try to get going before…" There was the crunch of breaking glass beneath his feet, and his surprised eyes found mine. Rachel lifted Lila from my lap and I sprang at Gambit. He crouched low and brushed through the blackened grassy remains, his face a strange mix of relief and sadness.

"What is it?" I asked breathlessly. He pulled a thin twisted piece of metal about the size of his hand from the ground.

"Pair of Ray-Bans from the look of it." He held them aloft so Beast and Rachel could see, the silver frame glinting, but barely recognizable. "Anna likes her aviators."

"Jesus," I breathed. They were here. I swallowed my excitement.

"Rachel," Hank asked, more level-headed than me, "Do you sense anything?" The red-head concentrated and frowned slightly.

"Not with a passive scan. We seem to be the only beings with a higher consciousness in the immediate area. I have a sense of animals, but anything more would require a deeper scan. Our best bet for now would be to find water and set up camp before dark. If we get settled and relatively safe, I can take the time for a deeper look."

Gambit grunted and stood. I saw him carefully tuck the shattered sunglasses into an inner pocket of the jacket he wore, a shorter version of his usual ever-present trench coat. "Do we go on foot, or risk Rachel levitating the lot of us to those trees?"

"Tough call." I chewed my lip. "Too light out for me to fly, we'd be spotted for sure if there's anyone here to spot us, but she could keep us low enough to the grass. We'd be pretty hidden. That'd sure save time and energy for the rest of us, but would waste hers, and she's the one we need to be at top form." Rachel snorted.

"'She' is right here and 'she' is not a wuss, and wants to get this done and over with as fast as possible." She stood and brushed broken grass from her uniform. "The longer we're here, the more danger we are all in. I can get us to those trees with very little effort. Walking would take time and resources we can't afford to waste." That was that. Her energy enveloped us and she picked us all up, carried us on an invisible wave. I didn't like flying under someone else's powers. We weren't sky high by any means, just above the swishing grass. Rachel's telekinetic bubble shielded us from the cold wind that shivered over the seemingly endless field of grass, but I wrapped my arms protectively around Lila's sleeping body anyway. Rachel linked our minds like we had discussed in our mission planning, at least the best she could with Gambit's slippery eel mind, and I was briefly overwhelmed by everyone else's perceptions of the alien world around us before we settled into our rapport.

"Smells sharp, crisp," Hank bubbly mind mused. "No pollution or burning fuels in the air."

"Oui," Gambit agreed, his natural resistance to telepathy making his mental voice slightly muffled. He stared off in the distance. "No contrails in the sky, no buildings or similar structures visible on my scanner, neither." My mind soaked in the colors, the sights. A flock of neon green and red birds with feathers draping nearly a foot from their wings floated by us. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that we were here. No matter how many times I had been off-world and no matter the circumstances, it was always a miracle to me, to see things that my Daddy could have only dreamed of. I wished Lila was awake to see where her powers had stretched to bring us. Where were our friends? It was bitterly cold and my mind dug deep, producing a picture of that little dress Anna had been wearing the night of the attack.

"Stop it," Gambit hissed out loud, his red on black eyes furious.

"You're not helping, Sam," Rachel's voice echoed guiltily in my mind. I shut up and let the landscape roll beneath me. We floated on the invisible telekinetic carpet for hours, following the flaming sun's sinking path. Rachel had made the right call. The distance we traveled would have taken us days, if not weeks, on foot.

Gambit's scanner, now strapped to his wrist, had pointed us towards water, a small creek that looked to wind its way further on through the grass. We made camp underneath the strangely twisted trees; Gambit started a fire with a flash of his kinetic ability while Hank and I set up our tent. We had sure packed light. Instead of each of us bringing a tent, we had brought one, and it was more like a lean-to than a real tent, no poles or zippers, but it was large enough for all of us to rest under with sides that folded down. All that mattered to me was that it was waterproof and would keep out the wind.

Lila was finally awake, and sat next to the fire, picking morosely at her ration pack. I excused myself from Hank and walked towards her, grabbing my own supper. "What did you get?" I asked, folding my long legs under me as I sat next to her.

"It says chicken enchilada, but I'm pretty sure it's lying." I laughed and she glared at me, exhaustion still tugging at the corners of her big brown eyes. It must have been a rude awakening for her, to come to and realize we still had no goddamned idea where our friends were. Sure, having to hunt for them had always been a possibility, but I think we all secretly hoped Anna and Logan would be right where Lila's portal had left them, stupid as that sounded.

"Want to trade?" I tested, offering her my drab green pouch. She eyed it suspiciously.

"What is it?" I tipped the stamped black type towards the light.

"Chipped beef." She pulled her chicken enchilada protectively towards her.

"Um, no." I tore into mine, hoping it tasted better than the smell that wafted out of the bag. It didn't. "Where are Remy and Rachel?" she asked in between grudging bites. Hank could still be heard puttering in the shelter behind us, probably rustling through his medical pack from the sound of it.

"Gambit hopped to the other side of the crick, scanning as far as that little unit will go. He said he wanted to plot possible routes for tomorrow. Rachel's doing the same thing, sort of. She's using her powers to do a deep scan for Anna and Logan's mental signatures." Gambit was also keeping an eye on Rachel. She had demanded to be alone while she meditated and cast out the net of her telepathic powers, but none of us were too keen on leaving her on her lonesome in this weird ass place. We had wordlessly agreed to take shifts watching her 'til she was done. Lila nodded and chewed slowly. The crisp grass crinkled behind her like someone balled up a piece of paper.

"Hope her range is a lot further than this damned scanner." Lila gasped when Gambit practically melted from the shadows and sat beside us.

"Jesus! Don't do that!" She slapped his arm, and he grinned, his devil eyes glinting mischievously in the firelight.

"Get anything useful?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Grass goes on for a long, long time without much of a break. It looks like trees start to spring up and eventually lead to a forested area, but still no buildings or man-made structures." He grimaced, "Sorry, no alien-made structures." Hank joined us by the fire.

"Curious and curiouser…" The Beast muttered under his breath.

"What's that, Beastie-Boy?" Gambit teased the Doc. "Wondering how they get away with calling those rations food?"

"No, my Cajun friend, I am quite confident that the contents of said pouches have nothing whatsoever to do with edible cuisine. My query was in reference to our current surroundings. Mind you, we have been planet side for merely a handful of hours, and have hardly viewed a slice of the possible landscape, but in all the galaxies nothing is more scarce or rare than inhabitable worlds. There simply has to be some form of higher being here, the physical possibilities this form could take surely endless, but Anna and Logan could not have remained here for nearly nine months without running afoul of something beyond the birds and the bees."

"You think they went looking for these higher beings?" Remy probed, his glittering eyes suddenly dark.

"What would you have done?" Hank returned, but nobody was willing to answer. I stood and stretched, tossed Hank my uneaten ration pack.

"I better go check on Rachel," I headed towards her perch on a small rocky outcropping slightly downstream. I knew she wanted to be alone, she had practically shoved us away mentally and physically, but too damned bad. Girl was tough, and I knew she could take care of herself. Gambit had taken his turn keeping his sly eyes on her, now it was my turn. The grass had frosted over and crunched under my boots. I stopped and looked above me, took in the sea of stars that erupted over my head the further I moved from the fire. Rachel was just in sight, levitating herself a few feet off the surface of the rocks. I stayed silent, but it wasn't like she didn't know I was there. I stared up at the sky, stupidly wondering if, right now, Anna was staring at the same stars. Rachel gasped suddenly and fell flat on her butt, her concentration clearly shattered. I scrambled to help her up.

"You okay, girl?" I patted my hands on her arms and back, looked her up and down for any signs of injuries. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, a slight smile playing on her lips.

"Yeah. Better than okay." Her eyes cleared and held mine. Her smile widened. "I found them, Sam. I freaking found them!" I stared at her mutely, stunned. She dug her fingers painfully into my arms. "They're alive! But, they won't be if we don't get to them, fast!"

Logan

"Wake up!"

I sputtered and puked a gut full of muddy river water, flopping uselessly onto my stomach on the cold bank. Stupid! Stupid! You just had to go after them! Should have taken Anna away from here, kept her safe. Protected her. Icy fear gripped my insides, rocking me with spasms of pain. Anna! Where was she!? My mind raced through my last minutes of consciousness, saw her crumpled form fall to the ground before that briny-bastard blasted me. I pushed up on my arms and fell back down in the muck. The matching holes in my back and chest burned with healing flesh, and my clothes were in tatters. I didn't have time for goddamned weakness. She was in trouble, she could be hurt, or…

"She's not dead, Logan." I blinked. Must have been hallucinating, hearing voices. I tried stubbornly to push myself up again, but my quivering arms failed. I just rolled over on my back, the sun blinding me. I blinked again, suddenly stunned by the sight of a red-headed woman standing over me. She held out her hand, the sunlight streaming through her transparent form.

"Jeannie?" I whispered. "Is this it, darlin'? Have you come to take me home?" The woman laughed, and the laugh was familiar, but it wasn't Jean's.

"Silly man. We're here to take you home, just not like you're thinking."

"Rachel?"

"In mind, if not yet body. Hold tight, Logan. The X-Men are on their way." She smiled and evaporated, leaving an emptiness behind in her wake. I managed to haul myself up to sit on a big rock, but I didn't believe I hadn't dreamed it until hours later when Sam Guthrie cannon-balled into view, dragging the Beast behind him. When we got home, everybody was gettin' a damn lesson on the subtle and sneaky approach. Home. A laugh bubbled in my throat. Anna, darlin', you had your rescue, shame you weren't here right now to see it. Guthrie and Hank landed at my side.

"Oh, sweet Jesus! Logan!" The kid swallowed me in his gangly arms and started sniffling on my shoulder. I patted his back and let him, smiling at Hank over the hayseed's head.

"Bout flamin' time," I grumbled. Hank flashed his teeth at me in a huge grin.

"You know the X-Men. We thrive on dramatic impact." He pulled a scanner from a bag slung over his huge furry shoulder. "You look atrocious, my friend." I snorted.

"I bet." I slapped Guthrie's back again and squeezed his shoulder. "All right, all right, that's enough, kid." He scrubbed his face and pulled back, leaving what was left of my shirt soaked in tears. "Thanks," I said sarcastically.

"Logan," His face twisted in remorse. "I'm so sorry…" I held up my hands.

"Hey, we're good. Never blamed you or your girl. Wasn't your fault." I thought he was gonna start bawling again, but thankfully Rachel and the rest of my rescue squad floated into view. Sam, Lila, Rachel, Hank, and Gumbo. Part of me winced at Ororo's absence, though Gambit was something that would have to be dealt with. The fact that I owed him a punch to the gut caused my fist to momentarily clench at my side when I saw his red on black eyes searching for her. I choked it down. He was here because of his feelings for Anna, and she needed to be our concern. Red's smile was as welcome as the sunshine, just like her mom's.

"Wolvie!" I squeezed her close. We had our differences over the years, but I would always be grateful that a part of Jean Grey, alternate version or otherwise, still lived on.

"Hey, pun'kin." I kissed the top of her head, taking comfort in the smell of her hair. Friends, family. My mind still couldn't believe it; I still had to be flamin' dreamin'. Gambit's eyes bored into mine, the stink of angry panic rippling out from his usually cool as a cucumber demeanor.

"What happened, mon ami? Where is she?" His tone was accusatory, like I hadn't taken care of her, like it had been my fault. I growled, the anger torrid in my throat.

"Logan!" Rachel's mind held me fast for a heartbeat. "We know where she is, Remy," she said aloud tartly. "We just need to go after her." Lila Cheney smiled sheepishly and waved at me before she ducked under Guthrie's waiting arm.

"A sound assessment of the current situation, young Grey." Beast packed away his pointless medical scanner. I was fine, healing up like always. "A plan would appear to be of the utmost necessity?"

"What happened?" Guthrie repeated Gumbo's question. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rachel telepathically jumped in.

"Why don't I mind link us? You could let us see what happened instead of telling us. We've been linking periodically since we came here. It's certainly faster, and there's less chance you'll forget some important detail." I snarled.

"No."

"Logan, we have found it extremely useful on this venture. It would expedite things immensely…" Hank stuck his two cents in, but I wasn't having it. What had happened here between me and Anna was nobody's goddamned business.

"So would shutting up and letting me talk," I growled.

"Logan…" Rachel's mind reached for mine again.

"I said no, Red!" I tried to stop it, but my mind replayed the last sweet kiss I shared with Anna before it all went south. Rachel's eyes widened.

"I…I can route everything through me first, Logan. Just show them the important stuff…" She mentally pleaded. "I can keep it private…" Fuck. We were wasting time that Anna might not have.

"Do it," I spat. She spread her fingers along my temples and closed her eyes, but it felt like her fingers kept going, digging her telepathy deep into my brain, pulling out the threads of what she wanted. In my mind's eye, my life since the night of the Purifier's attack flickered past at warp speed. Rachel's eyes fluttered beneath the lids and I saw everybody else wince as the slide show hit their cerebral cortex. It all gushed out of me, ripping open freshly healed wounds I wasn't ready to deal with yet. Anna, were you hurt, darlin'? Rachel gasped in front of me, her face turning the color off her hair at my memories she was reliving. Her scent was a fathomless cocktail of embarrassment, arousal, and confusion.

"Logan…" She breathed out loud, and her powers pulled from my brain like a dull knife blade.

"Not now," I thought at her as it ended.

"Fascinating!" Beast. "A species based on the phylum Chordata! If the situation were not so dire, the opportunity for further study would be monumental!" I grunted, but watched Gambit's eyes. He started moving slowly along the river bank. I knew Rachel had kept my memories of Anna and me together out of the other's heads, but Gambit was a wild card when it came to mind-readers. He may have gotten more of a show than he had been gunning for.

"All right," I said gruffly and stood, my body finally not shaking with every move. "Enough fucking around. Rachel, you can track Anna?" Her face twisted at the word. I hated to ask it of her, knew what those actions had cost her, but it couldn't be helped.

"Yes." She furrowed her delicate eyebrows, her face more like her father's than her mother's when she dug in and concentrated. "She is alive and conscious." She smiled Jean's smile. "And ticked off. She's trying to work out an escape plan." I smiled.

"That's my girl," I hadn't meant it like that, was just an expression, but the Cajun frowned at me from the river bank. "Can you link us?" Rachel pursed her lips.

"No…I can communicate with her, but it's difficult. I only found her in the first place because she was broadcasting intense emotions. To talk to her, it's not clear. Something is blocking me…another consciousness or a physical barrier." I nodded and clenched my jaw.

"Just tell her we're coming for her…I'm coming for her…"

Rogue

"Desmond had a barrow in the marketplace…"

"Molly is a singer in a band…"

Been working my way through the White Album at the top of my lungs for the last couple of hours. Those briny-bastards haven't even looked my way since right after I woke up, and it was more than a little insulting to be completely ignored. Glass wasn't that thick. I could hear them, all their little gurgles and purrs floating between them, the blips of their equipment. I knew they could hear me.

"Obla di obla da…"

Hang tight, Rachel had said.

"Life goes on, bra! La la how the life goes on!"

We're coming, she had said. Don't do anything stupid. Well, t'hell if I was gonna wait like Rapunzel in her tower for some knight in shining armor to come and rescue me. Sadly, my attempts to rescue myself had been spectacular failures so far. I had gotten bored pretty fast watching them pilot their little water filled vessel. The one I had k-oed with my powers, I was calling him Ernie, seemed to be the subordinate, the co-pilot. The other one, the one that had kicked our asses but good, he was Bert. Bert was bigger in size and spent a lot of time gesturing towards things for Ernie to do. Best I could tell, a rendezvous was coming sooner than I wanted it to. Ernie seemed to be hauling a lot of suspicious looking crates into the main bridge, and the duo's activity grew more hurried the longer we moved along.

With my jailers otherwise occupied, I worked on testing the limits of my cell. I had first tried rocking the tank loose from its bearings, but the sucker was pretty solid. Slick on the inside, too, hard to gain any purchase. I had taken off my boots and tried to scale the inside, like I said, the dynamic duo were pretty much ignoring me, but it was humid as sin inside the tank, sticky and thick. My hands and feet squelched embarrassingly down the glass surface like a squeegee. My original plan had been to make it to the top of the tank and hack into the air vent, make a hole big enough to get out. Air had to be piping in from somewhere I had reasoned. Unfortunately, several disastrous attempts at scaling the walls had gotten me nowhere, leaving me frizzy and irritated. I had stripped down to just my dress, my boots, leggings, and jacket crumpled together in a pile. The tank was hotter than a Mississippi July.

The next plan was to get ahold of one of them and use my powers. Sadly, for that to work, they would need to actually acknowledge my existence and come close enough for me to touch. To get their attention and to get them to open my tank, I had screamed and pounded until my fists were bloody. I had tried everything I could think of to get their attention. Lord help me, I had even faked a heart attack Sanford and Son style, but these assholes had just kept about their business like they hadn't even seen me. But, I knew they were watching me, that they could hear me. When Rachel had found me and suddenly popped into my head I had jumped out of my skin and screamed her name. Ernie, the little guy I had traces of in my head, had twitched in surprise and swiveled his big saucer eyes towards me. Old Bert must not have liked that, he had made some pretty loud vocal sounds, and had made what I considered some universally rude gestures in my direction. Didn't need a translator to tell me what he had said. I was sure it was something along the lines of 'ignore her', like I was some misbehaving child.

I decided I sure as hell wasn't going to make it easy on them, hence the inspiration for my little rock concert. I stood and leaned against the glass, closed my eyes and kicked the volume up a couple notches, twisting my voice flatter than a pancake.

"Happy ever after in the market place…"

Molly lets the children lend a hand…

Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face…

And in the evening she's a singer with the band…

Obla di obla da…

Life goes on, bra!

La la how the life…"

SMACK!

I jumped back from the glass. Boss-man Bert's webbed hand, the fingers ending in curled claws, had slapped the water side of the glass where my head had been. He bared his teeth, tiny fangs arranged in razor-sharp rows like a shark's back home. Goddamn, they had to have teeth like Jaws, didn't they? I ignored the shiver that wanted to crawl up my skin.

He looked livid. Now we were getting somewhere. I leaned one forearm on the glass just above my head, and put the other hand on a cocked hip. "Not a Beatles fan, sugar?" I smiled and bared my own teeth. Incomprehensible noises came out of his mouth in a rush of angry air bubbles. "I take requests…" He slid his claws down the glass, my tank reverberating the nails on a chalkboard screech, my enhanced hearing amplifying it down to my very nerves. I gritted my teeth and growled, my claws itching to tear into him. I hadn't popped them. Yet. I had wanted to keep something a surprise. He smacked the glass again, and I smacked back, my temper beyond control. I braced my backside against the opposite curve of the tank, and kicked as hard as I could right towards his outraged face. I started my song back up in between thudding kicks. Did nothing but hurt my feet, but Bert stopped smacking back. He wasn't human, but if he had been, I would have described his face as murderously cold. He languidly circled my tank, my eyes tracking his every gliding movement. He stopped near my face, and his hand drifted to rest on a control panel just outside the glass. At his touch, the air vent over my head whirred to a sickening stop. Four spigots opened in the ceiling, sending torrents of cold, salty water down onto my head.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Any other time, an ice cold shower on a hot humid day would have been welcome, but the water was rushing in and not rushing out. The tank was already filled to my ankles. I screamed and swore. Bert's lips and teeth split into what had to be a smile, his eyes gleaming sadistically, the threat crystal clear in any language. Fuck. My heart pounded erratically. 'Pears he had decided I was more trouble than I was worth.