Chapter 24

Rogue slept dreamlessly until Bobby shook her awake, back into the mid-day sunshine. "Dey's food, babe. You'd better get yourself up."

Rogue sat up obediently, shoving her stripes back off her face. The first deep breath she drew in was full of smells so delicious that every salivary gland in her mouth started going. "That smells amazing."

Bobby grinned, offering her a hand up with unconscious gentlemanly grace that echoed Remy when he was in that kind of mood. "How'd y'get down here?" he asked. "I woulda heard y'come through de hall. Jump out de window?"

"More or less," Rogue admitted. She hadn't considered that this might be rude, or at least weird. "Ah just haven't seen the sun in so long, it feels like . . . Ah didn't think . . ."

"You're fine," Bobby assured her. "Just never had a flyin' house guest before. It's kinda fun. Keeps me on my toes." He jerked his head towards the door. "Come on."

Rogue willingly followed him inside. There was a long-tabled dining room to her right . . . she caught a glimpse of it through the open door . . . but Bobby lead her straight past it. "Hope y'don't mind eatin' in de kitchen," he called over his shoulder. "We ain't used de dinin' room in a powerful long time."

"It's all good," said Rogue, meaning it. The bigger rooms in this house kind of freaked her out with their emptiness.

The kitchen was big, too, but there was a big difference between a quiet, echoey dining room and a big kitchen full of bubbling pots, clattering dishes, and Memere humming as she set a large ceramic soup tureen on the clean-scrubbed wooden table.

"Oh. My. Gosh." The table was a sturdy piece, but it was so covered in dishes of food that it was hard to assure herself it wasn't bowing in the middle. If this was lunch, she didn't dare think what dinner looked like.

"Assis-toi et mange," Memere told her, pointing forcefully at one of the chairs. "Henri, cherche ce plat au côté du frigo."

"Oui, Memere." Bobby grabbed a dish towel to protect his hands and hefted another platter onto the table. He pulled out his own chair and sat down. His hand shot for the nearest serving dish, but Memere was quicker, and laid a smack on his wrist before he could touch a crumb.

"Grace," she snapped.

"J'ai faim!" Bobby protested, whining a little.

"Fais-la alors," she ordered him, sitting down in the chair at his left hand.

Bobby bowed his head and murmured a brief smattering of sentences; both he and Memere crossed themselves. Then lids started coming off dishes.

Rogue had thought that Remy could cook. And he could; he was the best cook in the house. But compared to what Memere could do, Remy's best meals looked like ramen and instant mac and cheese. Every bite of everything was magnificent, perfect, rich and spicy and full of eye-popping flavor. Rogue wasted about thirty seconds trying to to communicate how delicious everything was, then gave up and just ate. The first plateful was because she was hungry, and the second was because everything was delicious, but the third . . . and she was slowing down pretty drastically by that point . . . was just because every mouthful she swallowed seemed to make Memere happier.

At last, she set down her fork and sagged back in her chair, gasping with laughter and fullness. "That's it, Ah'm beat. Ah could not eat one more bite if ya paid me a million dollars."

"Il y a du dessert," Memere told her.

"Oh, don't even talk tuh me about dessert."

Memere laughed at her, eyes sparkling with approval. "Du thé, alors."

"Tea," Bobby translated, when Rogue's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Oh. Uh . . . yeah, that'd actually be real nice. Maybe help some'a this food settle in a little bit."

Bobby moved to get up, but Memere beat him to it. When the three of them were seated again, each with a mug of tea in hand, Bobby finally got down to business. "Okay. Rogue, you sit back an' take your time wid'dat tea, an' tell us what's brought you here t'us and how we can help."

Rogue took a deep breath. The food, she suddenly realized, hadn't been one hundred percent hospitality . . . it had been to calm her down, to keep her sedated while they dealt with whatever problem she'd brought with her.

"We're, um . . . we're evacuatin'," she told them. "Not just the X-Men . . . every mutant we can get in touch with. We got a couple dozen outta the country already, and there's more packin' their bags."

"Is Remy out?" asked Bobby. His voice was calm and serious.

"Yeah, he got out with us."

"Is he hurt?"

"He was, but he's okay now."

"Okay." He nodded for her to continue her narrative, now that these important points were clear.

"Me an' Kurt . . . that's mah brother, Kurt . . . we got sent down to pick folks up. Everybody we know and a lotta people we don't. We were poolin' names, an' Gambit . . . Remy . . . mentioned somebody he particularly wanted checked up on. So here Ah am, to check up on her. Evacuate her if she wants to get out."

"Just sayin' 'her' don't narrow it down much in dis town, not if we talkin' 'bout Remy," said Bobby. "Sorry," he added, as an afterthought.

"Oh, Ah know," Rogue assured him. "But it's, y'know, her. Belladonna."

Memere sat up abruptly; Bobby's head snapped up. "Belle's a mutant?" he demanded.

Rogue nodded. "A telepath."

Bobby stared at her, then slouched back into his chair, abruptly producing a string of monotone French profanity that startled Rogue so much she almost jumped. She was used to such monologues from Gambit, but Bobby tended to have better manners. "She's a telepath, an' Remy never told me? He never told me Belladonna Beaudreaux is a mind-reader?" He scrubbed a hand across his face in frustration and horror.

"She didn't manifest until after he got banished. And telepathy's hard. She's had only a couple years to learn it, and nobody to learn from . . . she's not that dangerous. Probably can't even read you unless you're up pretty close to her."

"Which none of us has been, not since de weddin'," Bobby allowed, calming a little. "But saint dieu, dat's a scary thought."

"All Ah need is tuh talk tuh her for ten minutes," Rogue insisted. "Just gotta let her know how to get out if she wants to go. Remy owes her that much."

"He always does pick de worst times t'decide t'be a gentleman," Bobby muttered. "And t'dodge de banishment, he sent you 'stead'a himself?"

"Professor Xavier had other jobs for him tuh get done," said Rogue, swallowing hard to shove sadness and panic back down her throat. "He couldn't get away."

"S'il a apris finalement de suivre des instructions, c'est un miracle de Dieu," Memere muttered. "Peut-etre il va vivre jusqu'a son vignt-cinquième anniversaire."

"Ah know Ah'm asking a lot of ya'll," Rogue acknowledged apologetically. "Ah just need ten minutes, and Ah'm gone."

"We'll make it happen," Bobby insisted. "Cross my heart. I promise."

Gambit woke up again unsure of what time it was or how long he'd been sleeping. He had vague memories of Colossus coming in, trying to speak to him, and giving up when he didn't respond, although that might have been a dream. He remembered just as clearly meeting Rogue at the swimming hole south of his father's house, and he was fairly sure that hadn't happened.

He dug himself out out of the mound of blankets, stolen from other boys' beds, under which he'd buried himself. The room was empty. He checked his watch; it read 11:32. He'd slept way too long. And in his clothes.

He showered and cleaned himself up, which helped a lot, but there was no escaping the fact that he simply had nothing else to wear. After pulling his uniform back on, he hesitated for a long moment with Rogue's jacket in his hand. If he hadn't detoured for this stupid jacket, none of the last twenty-four hours would have happened. The job would have been smooth, and he wouldn't have had to leave a teammate behind. Kitty would still have her hair. He would still have the trust of his team. But now, all he did have was a canvas coat from 'Nam . . . not even the love of the woman to whom it belonged.

You. Got. Stupid. Pay for it.

He wanted to blow the coat into ash right there. Or throw it out into the outer-space cold. Or at the very least stuff it under his bed, into the shadows. But another part of him would fight to the death before he'd be parted from it. He'd risked everything for this fragment of Rogue—it was his trophy and his curse. It had to stay with him, until Rogue forgave him or he ceased to want her forgiveness.

Besides, he was a thief, and this was his take. He pulled on the jacket, then covered it with his coat.

There. His reflection looked like Remy LeBeau, Master Thief, again. He gave the man in the mirror an affirming nod. Oh, yeah. I can handle this. Kitty was alive, Piotr was no longer baying for his blood, the job was successfully completed. Three for three. He was on a winning streak.

Now if only he could convince his gut of that.

He left the secure door from the dorms and headed downstairs to the common levels. Halfway to the kitchen, he passed a group of kids, all younger than him, none of whom he'd ever met before.

"Hey, X-Man!" one of them called out. The words made him defensive, but the tone was admiring. Everyone was checking out the X on his coat sleeve, then smiling at him. "Hi. What's your handle?"

Handle? That was a term he'd never heard. "Gambit," he told them.

"Gambit," said one of the girls. "Cool. I'm Crystal. Well, I'm Sarah, but Crystal's my handle."

"Too much like a normal name," said another of the boys. "I'm Marrow, and this is Tripwire, and that's Red Bull . . ."

"Yes, like the energy drink," said Red Bull.

"And Liberty and Matt. He hasn't picked a handle yet."

"I'm thinking 'Rainier'," said Matt.

"It sounds like 'rainier,' as in 'today is rainier than it was yesterday'," said Tripwire.

"That's where my powers manifested. I was camping with my dad. Mount Rainier. It's a mountain."

"I figured."

"Plus it doesn't rain in space."

"Your eyes are cool," Crystal observed—she looked to be the youngest of the bunch, no older than eleven or twelve. "What's your power?"

Gambit had never, in his life, been asked this question in such a tone of innocent, friendly curiosity, as though socially stigmatizing mutant powers were a nice topic for introductory conversation.

"Um . . . biokenesis," he said, less confidently than he meant.

"What does that mean?"

"I blow stuff up."

"Cool."

"Guys, we're gonna be late," Red Bull urged, checking his watch. "Come on."

"Late for what?" Gambit asked.

"Training!" said Crystal, as if this should be obvious. Red Bull pulled her down the corridor with the rest of the group, and soon they were out of sight.

He went down to the medical lab first, and was informed by the mutant on duty there . . . who introduced herself as Liz . . . that Kitty was up and about, and having lunch under her own power. This was a surprise, but a good one. She'd recovered faster than he had. He submitted to having the rumpled and wet bandage removed from his ear, then headed upstairs to see her.

He didn't make any special effort to sneak up on her, and in fact thought he was moving pretty loudly, but Kitty still started when he came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder and a kiss on the top of her head. "Shouldn't sit wid yo'back to de door, petite, not a jumpy girl like you."

"Gambit," she gasped, getting her breath back. She reached up and took his hand, squeezing it with the solidarity of friendship. "Oh, gosh. Are you okay?"

"Better'n you, it looks like." He took the seat next to her and teasingly nudged the fold of cotton scarf that framed her face. "Dis is new."

"Storm made it."

"It's cute."

"It feels weird. I can't stop . . . fidgeting with it." Her hand danced up to the edge of the fabric, tugged it, fell heavily again.

He took the restless hand and squeezed it. "I'm so sorry, Minou. Should never've left you back at de house. An' I wish t'high heaven I could steal y'hair back."

She grinned. "Well, as long as you were upstairs, you could have grabbed my necklace. The y-shaped one."

"Wid de garnets. I know it."

"Of course, with the fuss you always make over Rogue's earrings. You've got to know every piece of jewelry we own."

"C'est ça." Seeing that the bowl of chili in front of her had been much picked at but little eaten, he slid it over to himself and ate a spoonful. "Ugh. Would it kill you t'put some hot sauce in dis?" Letting the question fall, rhetorical, he continued, "You always liked dat one best."

"Yeah. It was . . ."

A tik tak of metal on metal interrupted her. Both the X-Men looked up. Magneto had entered the room. He had changed his cape and uniform for civilian clothes; in dark slacks and a gray buttoned shirt, he would have looked almost normal to anyone who didn't know him.

Gambit turned deliberately away from him, unwilling to let his unwelcome presence interrupt the conversation. "It was what?" he prompted Kitty.

"It was, um, a present from my grandparents."

"Birthday?"

"Bat mitsvah."

"Indeed?" Magneto asked.

Kitty's head swivelled around to him again. "Yeah," she admitted. "I just kinda wished I'd stuffed it in my pocket on the way out, y'know? Just to have something familiar to tug on, if I've gotta tug on something."

"I owe you ten t'ousand favors, Petite. You say de word an' I'll go back an' fetch it for you."

Kitty laughed. "Like you could get back inside without me in a million years."

Gambit felt his competitive spirit rise at this slight on his skill, but he fought it down. She needed to be reassured, not argued with. "S'pose I couldn't."

Magneto imposed himself on the conversation again. "With matters as they stand, I cannot bring your necklace to you either, but perhaps I can provide a stopgap."

He held his hand out over the table. The surface of it rippled and shivered, and a slim wire of naked metal pulled up out of it. The silver line twisted from smoothness into carefully detailed texture . . . the tiny links of a fine chain. With another twitch of his fingers, he pulled a six-pointed star out of the tabletop. He linked it onto the chain and let the whole necklace drop into his palm. With his free hand, he took Kitty's, turned it up, and laid the trinket in the hollow of it.

"I . . . um . . ." Kitty trailed off, absolutely blindsided by the sudden and unexpected gesture of what might, coming from anyone else, almost be termed kindness. "Thank you," she finished at last, lamely. "It's really pretty."

"If ever y'decide t'give up evil villianing, could make good money as a jeweler," Gambit deadpanned.

"Indeed. It's a pity there are so few career options for those specializing in sarcasm."

Kitty undid the clasp and slid the necklace underneath her head scarf, but flinched as the muscles of her arm flexed around the IV. "Gambit, could you?"

"It's too small for me t'manage wid gloves on," Gambit said apologetically . . . he was not in a mood to risk his bare hands near her skin.

Magneto fastened it for her. With his hands, not his powers. Gambit felt his eyes narrow a little, involuntarily. "Awfully sentimental dis mornin', ain't ya, Boss?"

"It is a shame to lose such a gift. I hate to see someone robbed of their innocence and their faith so young." He let the scarf drop back over Kitty's shoulders. "I received a pair of gold cuff links at my own bar mitzvah in 1939. I wore them only six months, and never saw them again."

Kitty turned in her chair . . . she'd already snaked one hand under her veil to fiddle with the star charm. "You're Jewish?"

"Wit' a name like Lensherr, you were expectin' Methodist?" asked Gambit.

"How do you know his name?"

"I was workin' for him, an' I was nosy an' bored."

"I would expect no less," said Magneto approvingly. "Miss Pryde, after I lost that gift, I saw the race of men do such things that when, many years later, I learned that I was not human, I wept in relief. I would not wish such an experience on my vilest enemy. Hold onto your trinket a while longer."

Kitty's head cocked sideways, her brown eyes studying the face that she'd had so little opportunity to see unshadowed. "But then you stopped hanging out with humans, so you could never see anything different."

"Whereas you chose to live your life surrounded by humans, and look where it's gotten you. All roads seem to have lead to Rome."

"I guess the question is where the road going once it comes out the other side."

Gambit raised an eyebrow. Kitty was quick on her feet this morning. Metaphorically.

Kitty pushed away from the table and stood up, holding onto her iv stand for a little bit of extra stability. "I think I'm done. Thank you . . ." she gestured a little with the hand still holding onto the necklace under the scarf. " . . . for this. I'm gonna . . . gonna see if Liz will let me off this stupid needle."

"Need a hand?" Gambit asked her gently.

"No, I've got it." But her eyes danced away, refusing to meet his.

He reached across and caught her hand. "You all right?"

"Yeah." She looked up and smiled at him, then jerked her head a little towards Magneto. "Ask me again later."

"Okay." He released her hand and watched her leave the room, alert for any sign that she was going to fall over and require catching. Only when she was out of sight around the corner did he turn his attention back to blatantly ignoring Magneto under the guise of eating unspicy chili.

"And are you back in fighting form, now that you've had a chance to clean yourself up?" Magneto asked him.

"I had my face taken off by Colossus and got shot through de ear," Gambit told him, not looking up. "Fightin' form might not be de words I'd use."

"Still, you're on your feet, which is not unimpressive."

"Glad you're impressed."

Magneto pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Gambit finally raised his eyes, annoyed.

"Someone has to be keeping records on the mutants who are going missing . . . the protesters with nowhere to hide," Magneto told him. "I would guess the FBI. There have to be prisons and guards . . . a paper trail and a money trail. If these could be traced, these people could be found, and freed, and brought to the safety of Avalon. Could you obtain this information?"

"If I can is de wrong question to ask," said Gambit. He ate another mouthful of chili. "So dat's de next mission? Another strike team?"

"This is a private observation that I bring to you as an independent agent. The last time we did things Charles's way, with large teams and information spread everywhere, we nearly lost one of our own. There was a leak."

Gambit nodded. "Had to be. De night of de raid, everybody's usin' live rounds, but by de time we got back to de house, somebody'd got smart. De kid who shot Kitty had a gun loaded wid tranq darts. Half-filled tranq darts, probably, for her to stay awake as long as she did. He knew exactly who an' what he was shootin' at, an' how to bring her down."

"And once she is captured, no one hunts for you or prevents you from leaving with the video files you came for."

"Ouais." Gambit scowled. "Ça m'inquiete." He let his spoon clatter down into his bowl. "So you come t'me, alors?"

"If I am to confide in only one person, best to choose the person who has the most valuable skills. And if there is another such 'leak,' It is convenient to know exactly whom I should kill."

"Very convenient."

"Will you do the job?"

Gambit was silent.

"Name your price, then."

"Stuff yo' price, sir," Gambit snapped. "I don' work for you."

"As you choose."

"But I do work." Gambit pushed back his chair and stood up. "Gimme what background you got, an' I'll see what I can do."

"I will. And I will take you planetside when you wish to go."

The two helicopters were still circling above them, sometimes droning off into the distance, sometimes coming roaring overhead. Logan was about three quarters of a mile away from the cabin, along the edge of the lake. It was a fairly narrow body of water, and though it did get deep towards the middle, there was an inlet across from him where the bottom was much shallower. There, the ice had melted, but over the middle of the lake huge chunks of it still floated.

Red?

She didn't reply for a second, and when she did, her mental voice sounded distracted. Yep?

Can you check with the kid, ask her where she is?

Um . . . yeah, sure. Just a second.

What are you doing over there?

Nothing. There was a brief, dishonest pause. She's signalling you. Take a look.

On the other side of the water, Logan saw one of the uppermost branches of a huge pine tree shake heavily up and down, dislodging a few clumps of snow from its needles.

Good. That gave him a good angle to bring the chopper in on. One of them droned past again, too far away. He sat down and unlaced his boots. Nothing was more miserable than wet boots in March.

The other chopper swung over again. Logan stood up, barefoot, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders. Yeah, that one would work, if he timed it just right . . . He popped a claw and stepped into the freezing water, maneuvering through the tree roots and drooping boughs that trailed into the edge of the lake. The thick tree cover blocked the sunlight for about four yards, so by the time he felt the warmth of it hit the back of his neck, the water was up to his waist.

He raised his fist and angled the claw, catching the sun on the gleaming blade. The beam of light shot straight up into the air, then angled low across the trees until it shot straight through the front window of the helicopter.

They'd seen it; the tail swung around, pointing the nose straight at him. Logan waded back into the dim cover of the trees. The chopper came thrumming toward him, dipping too low over the treetops . . .

What's she waiting for? C'mon, Kid, go now . . .

He could hear her attack scream echo across the lake as Laura launched herself from her hiding place. Logan felt the corner of his mouth twitch up in subdued admiration . . . that girl could jump like nothing he'd ever seen. She flew what seemed an impossible distance, arms spread wide, then dug both fists of claws into the underbelly of the helicopter, just below the tail. The chopper reeled in the air. It was a small enough craft that her weight threw off its balance, and whoever was piloting seemed unsure if he wanted to shake her off or tip sideways so that one of the soldiers inside could get a half-decent shot at her. Laura swung for a moment like a snake clamped onto a hand, then swung both feet up and slammed her toe-claws through the metal. A few more well-placed stabs, and the helicopter was diving, swirling madly out of control and pouring smoke from the gaping holes in its surface.

She'd overshot it. Instead of landing in the shallows, where it would have been easy to recover weapons and gear from the crashed chopper, the whole mess went plowing into the middle of the lake.

Logan snarled as he waded back out into the water. "Stupid, stupid kid! Ain't got the brains God gave sheep . . ." He knew that she'd actually done very well—even an uber-trained superweapon needed to learn from experience, which she simply hadn't had much time to do in her young life—but complaining was a standard defense when plowing into something he didn't want to do, like diving into ice slush to fish SHIELD personnel out of his lake. He filled his lungs and threw himself forward, setting out for the wreck in a fast, hard front crawl.

The helicopter was already sinking. Laura had freed herself from the wreck, and as he craned his head up he saw her surface, dragging a high-powered sniper rifle with her. The sniper to whom the rifle had belonged was bobbing alongside the craft, searching for a way back in.

Logan swam straight past Laura, ignoring her for the moment, and grabbed the frantic soldier. "How many men were with you?" he demanded, swiping his wet hair awkwardly out of his eyes.

"Three! Three more . . ."

A voice sounded from beyond the sinking craft. "Me and Richards are over here!"

"Where's Kleinman?"

Logan swung around towards Laura. "You see anybody else come up?"

She shook her head. "I just grabbed—"

He didn't stick around to hear, or care about, what she had grabbed. He just lunged up out of the water as hard as he could and sank straight down, as fast as only someone lugging a hundred-pound metal skeleton could.

He flipped himself as soon as he'd sunk to a level with the chopper's open door and squirmed inside, fighting to see through the dark, murky water. The crash had stirred up a lot of sediment from the bottom of the lake, and the particles stung at his eyes. In the pilot's seat of the plane, still wrestling with his jammed harness, was the missing fourth crewman. Claws made short work of the tough nylon straps, and in less than ninety seconds both Logan and his rescued pursuer were in the clear air again.

Unfortunately, they were right under the second helicopter.

The blades of it churned the calm water into foam around them. A few yards away from him, Laura was struggling to keep her head out of the spray—not because the waves were that high, but because she was running out of the energy necessary to keep her own adamantium-weighted frame afloat in the water.

"Let me guess!" Logan shouted up at the helicopter. "Surrender Dorothy!"

The side hatch swung open, and a black-uniformed operative leaned out of it. "I've got clearance from Colonel Fury to drug you both into Oz and then fish you off the bottom of this lake, so I'd stop smart-alecking and start surrendering if I were you."

Logan was combing through his options. He had some potential hostages down here in the water with him, but they were useless as long as he was unwilling to let them die . . . which SHIELD knew perfectly well was the case. Laura had a waterlogged rifle that wouldn't fire, and they both had claws that the chopper would stay well clear of until they were unconscious. And neither of them could keep swimming for much longer.

And then a second dawn broke at the edge of the sky.

Behind the helicopter, streaks of orange and red licked above the treeline. They thickened and multiplied, crawling up through the air like claws, and Logan felt a wave of heat wash up against his face. It was fire, enormous and ravenous, arching up across the lake and over the chopper, spreading wide like wings vast enough to blot out the sun.

Every alarm in Logan's brain or body went off at the same time. He had never in his life seen anything like the fiery apparition looming over them, but something way down in his gut screamed that whatever this thing was, it was BAD. Not 'it's-going-to-kill-you' bad—way beyond that. Off-the-scale bad.

And it was on top of the spot where he'd left Jean.

He barely noticed the helicopter veering wildly out of the way of the rippling heat . . . had not a second's attention to spare for the four SHIELD agents in the water, and barely a second to check that Laura was following him . . . he just struck out for the nearest point of shoreline. It was covered with thick brush, thicker than what he'd come through on the other side, but what he couldn't dodge, he cut through, and if anything slashed open his feet or his skin, he didn't feel it.

He'd lost Fox in this place, in water . . . and he was going to lose Jean in fire, before he'd even had a chance to understand what had happened or to raise a hand in her protection, just like before . . .

He could see her now, standing at the water's edge, both hands raised to heaven as if in worship. She turned to him, letting her arms fall, a smile on her face, and her eyes were clear and bright and shining with excitement. "Did you see that? Did you see what I did?"

He grabbed her face in both hands, barely remembering in time that he ought to retract his claws, and all but devoured her face with his eyes, frantically seeking a burn or an injury or some indication of trauma.

"I knew I could TK fire, I've done it before, but I never expanded it like that! That was huge! And it was just like the extended telepathy thing, I just had to control my body's reactions to the stress, the adrenalin and the lactic acid and stuff like that, and I feel great, I'm not even tired!" She stopped talking long enough to catch her breath, slowly realizing that she was the only person in this conversation who was excited about this. "Logan? What's wrong?"

His hand snaked up to comb her hair back off her temple, to be absolutely sure that there was no bloodied wound hidden underneath. She was fine. Unmarked, unworried. She was fine. She was fine, she was fine. His heart rate dropped out of the turbo gear it had been in, so he could differentiate between individual beats again.

Heedless of prudence or propriety, he pulled her tight against him, cradling her head in the curve of his shoulder and body crushed safe against his chest. Her ribs strained against his grip as she struggled for breath, but for a long moment he couldn't make himself let go.

Logan? She didn't make any attempt to get away from him, even though he was dripping wet and freezing cold, and her hands reached reflexively around him to cling to the damp fabric that covered his back.

"Don't ever," he insisted, gripping her tighter for emphasis, "ever scare me like that again." He'd meant it to be a command, but his voice had no edge of anger to it. He sounded startlingly vulnerable, even to himself.

Her voice, when she gathered the breath to reply, was no more than a penitent whisper. "I didn't mean to scare you."

He released her a little, enough to check her over again for some overlooked injury. Shining traces of moisture gleamed along her bottom eyelids—his reaction had startled her almost to tears, but her expression was composed and calm. She looked much better than he felt. Something was squeezing painfully inside his chest: the wrenching awareness of what it would do to him if anything were ever to happen to this woman.

He heard a rustle of bracken and the quick footfalls of someone with a short stride, and knew without looking that Laura had caught up to him. Still trying to convince his arms that they needed to let Jean go, he turned his head to check that the younger girl was all right. She was as soaked as he was, her heavy breaths misting in the air before her face, but her eyes were wide with a sort of frightened fascination as she surveyed Logan and Jean. Her head cocked sideways, a mannerism that he was coming to recognize as an indicator that she was struggling to understand some new thing.

It's love, he slowly realized. He hated to think the word when Jean was so close to him, the scent of her filling his head, but that's what it was. She's read about love in books, but she's never seen it, not with her own eyes.

Then reason returned to her throne, reminding him sharply that he was not supposed to be holding onto Scott Summers's girlfriend the way he currently was, and he let Jean go and stepped away. (Too late; the scent of her was in his blood now, and she was going to haunt his dreams when he fell asleep again.) "They'll circle back around," he announced, suddenly all business, "and pretty soon after that we'll have half of SHIELD pinning us down. We've got to get out, now, so are you coming or what?"

Jean was holding her breath. Logan was trying not to think about what he ought to do if Laura bolted. That wasn't a decision he was ready to make . . . not with so little time to think.

Then her proud, sharp chin jerked down as she nodded. It was only a little nod, but it was decisive, and it was enough. "I'll go with you."

Author's Notes:

A veritable plethora of French!

Assis-toi et mange. Henri, cherche ce plat au côté du frigo: Sit down and eat. Henri, get that dish next to the fridge.

J'ai faim! I'm hungry!

Fais-la alors: So do it (say grace) then.

Il y a du dessert: There's dessert.

Du thé, alors: Some tea, then.

S'il a apris finalement de suivre des instructions, c'est un miracle de Dieu. Peut-etre il va vivre jusqu'a son vignt-cinquième anniversaire. If he's finally learned to follow instructions, it's a miracle from God. Maybe he'll live until his twenty-fifth birthday.

And from Gambit:

C'est ça: That's it/you're right/that is indeed the state of affairs.

Ça m'inquiete: That worries me.

And there is plenty more where all that came from.

As always, thank you all so much for your reviews and encouragement! Your support is invaluable as I continue to work through this extremely difficult and demanding project.

Updates on what's going on with Scott to come next chapter, cross my heart.

Seri