Thanks for waiting on this, guys. It WAS a bit, wasn't it? Well, FF.net was being a 'bitch' and not letting me upload ANYTHING. I swear, I was going to take out an ax and beat my computer with it. Thanks for all the reviews and supporting me as I continue to post this story. The next chapter will be out MUCH quicker.
Beta Readers: A.J., Laura, and Alex Dollard. You guys are great for putting up with my 'artistic' temperament. And ya know, when I disappear. Thanks.
The Road Away From Heartache
Chapter Four (4/15)
By Princess Twilite
Scott spent his afternoon in the Danger Room, moving through simulation after simulation until his stomach muscles throbbed and his arms ached for a break.
Afterwards, he sat on the stairs outside the room and drank heavily from the bottle of water he had brought with him. The water twisted its way down his throat, cooling off the dry, throbbing edges of his exhaustion.
He sat there for a while, wearing loose shorts and a shirt with its sleeves cut off, letting the sweat soak into him. Usually, he would have been in the shower by now, cleaning up and dressing in the proper attire for dinner. Usually, but not today. His shoelaces were beginning to come undone as he tapped his foot to the offbeat of his heart. Tearing the label from the bottle of water, he stared absently at the wall.
'Lighten up,' he could hear Jean admonishing. 'It's not the end of the world. Look at ya, you're doing okay.'
"Am I?" he whispered.
The stairwell where he rested, breath slow and even, was dark, layered in shadows. Every time he tore another piece of the label away, the ripping sound flattened against the walls. It could have been heard down the hallway, if anyone was listening. But Scott was alone, thighs burning from the workout, hair wet with perspiration.
He closed his eyes on a sigh as the last bit of label fell onto the step where his feet were tapping to that beat no one but he himself could hear.
* * * *
Rogue helped him plan the ceremony, though they hadn't set a date to hold it yet. Scott felt a little guilty, dragging her around with him everywhere, when she could be out with her friends or boyfriend, doing her homework, or any number of things she might want to actually do. But she wasn't complaining, had in fact offered her assistance, so he wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth. Things were taken away far too quickly to regret having them around when they were there.
Last night, they had sat around the fire in the living room with Bobby and Ororo, speaking for a long time about meaningless things that made them laugh. He had smiled softly at the way they looked together, Rogue and Bobby, sitting at the end of the couch with her head in his lap. The reflection of the flame had danced across her face as she fell asleep there, watching the television flicker at a distance, with some old sitcom on TV Land.
Bobby had carefully disengaged himself from her clinging grip. She'd grumbled and shifted in her sleep, snorting softly. Ororo had laughed quietly from her perch in the comfiest chair. Bobby mimicked the sound, shifting her up into his arms, cradling her like a child and struggling a little with her weight.
"Do you need some help?" Scott had asked, standing and flattening out the wrinkles in his pants with his palms. Bobby had turned, his back to the fire, light glinting over his shoulders as he smiled.
"No," the boy had said in a slightly strained voice, moving Rogue until she was in a better position in his arms. "She's a handful, but I think I can take care of her."
A soft, bittersweet pang had burst inside Scott's chest as Bobby turned away, Rogue in tow, her legs hanging over his forearm, head on his shoulder. He watched them go, a wistful burn in his heart. He felt the urge to call after them, but restrained himself.
'You better,' he had thought. 'Because if you don't... if you don't take care of her with everything inside of you, you might not get another chance. And then, I'll have to kill you.'
"Are you okay?" Ororo had asked, in that calm, knowing voice of hers. Scott forced himself to turn away from the departing couple, facing her stiffly, spine erect.
"I'm fine," he'd replied. Absolutely fine.
"Not everyone comes to a bad end," she had said, and that was that.
Returning to the present, Scott brought out a small box that he had placed at the top of his closet. It was deceptively light for something that held items of such importance to him. He took a seat across from Rogue on the floor, crossing his legs as she did. After a moment of hesitancy, he lifted the cover from the cardboard box. Inside were all the pictures of Jean that he had. A hard knot lodged in his throat as he carefully pressed his index finger against one photograph, at the top, a little dusty from storage.
In the photo, she was standing on the top step in front of the mansion with her arms spread open wide like she might leap and fly at any moment. There was a wide grin on her face, hair spilling down around her cheeks in thick waves.
Laughter, hers and his own, echoed hauntingly through his ears.
Silently, feeling a dull throb in his heart, Scott handed the photograph to Rogue, who was staring at him raptly. She took it in her gloved hand and looked at it for a long time, while he waited for her reaction. The muted glow from the lamp washed over the side of her hair, turning it a luminescent shade of red.
"She's so beautiful," Rogue whispered, a moment later, lifting her eyes to his face. He felt his cheeks tighten in something like a smile.
"That she is," Scott replied, gaze on the picture in her hand. "I'd... almost forgotten."
"Yeah," he heard her say softly, near his cheek. And then Rogue's arms were around his neck and he was pressing his forehead into her shoulder, letting her hold onto him. The scent of her was sweet and comforting. And God, he needed to cry, needed to know that someone was still alive. To know that for a moment, just a moment, things were okay.
The box of photographs sat between them, filled with memories of Jean Grey, her beautiful smile, and the way she just... *shone*.
"I loved her so much," he said into Rogue's ear while she kept her arms banded tight around him, trying to take the hurt away.
"You still do." Southern-accent lilting over the words, making the ache go away.
"Thank you." Again. He was always thanking her.
"For?" So many things.
"I once said you gave me something back. I just didn't know what it was."
"What then?"
"I think I can live without her."
"Don't thank me for that."
"Rogue..."
He wanted to say more, even began to. "Rogue," he whispered, when his tears were dry and itchy on his face, but she made small sounds in her throat like her muscles were cramping up. She groaned when he pulled back, releasing her, falling back onto her butt on the floor with a heavy thump. The hem of her dress tipped up at her ankles, and she reached down to rub her calves as if they'd gotten sore.
Scott felt briefly ashamed, picking at the carpet, stroking his fingers along the edge of the box. Like a child who had held onto his mother in that shaky time of adolescence when it was embarrassing to and his buddies would rib him for it later on.
"Sorry," she said, flashing him a grin. "I'm not very good at hugging. My muscles think it's a work out or something."
"Thank you," he told her, ignoring her dodging statement.
The smile dropped from her face and she turned, ever so slightly, the lamplight catching on the harsh, forever-defensive line of her cheek. "I keep telling you to stop thanking me."
"And I keep telling you to stop apologizing."
She frowned, the type he had seen only a few times before, when she'd just come to the mansion, skittish and afraid. The type of frown that made him wonder about the woman behind it, about why she was so afraid of caring for anything, and about why she bothered trying to comfort him when she couldn't seem to comfort herself.
"It's okay to live without her," Rogue murmured to him, out of the blue. He found his eyes drifting over her face in surprise. How had she known what he was thinking, what he had wanted to tell her?
She handed him another picture from the box. "She would have wanted it that way, I think. You happy. Large and in charge. I think she would have wanted you to go on like always."
"And if that's not possible?" he asked, balancing the photograph on the flat of his palm.
Rogue tilted her head to the side, considering him. Abruptly, she stood up, the skirt of her dress falling down around her stocking-covered legs. He looked up her body, at her face, down turned in his direction.
"You know, Scott," she began, and she was smiling again. "I think just about anything is possible. Now, let's get the hell out of this suffocating room and get some fresh air."
Scott nodded, pressing his hand to the rough carpet as he raised himself to his feet, tucking the photograph into his jeans pocket. He gestured for Rogue to lead the way, and she did in that flouncing way of hers, ponytail of streaked hair bouncing against her neck as she walked away. He followed behind her, leaving the box behind him, for another day when he would pick out the photographs for the bouquet.
A bouquet of Jean. Photographs gathered together; all the memories of her forever with each other. Scott was sure that if she were still with them, she would laugh at him and call him a romantic at heart, even as he denied it.
* * * *
That night, Xavier's voice pulled him from sleep. Scott blinked his eyes open, staring at the wall on the opposite side of the room while he tried to adjust himself with where he was and why Xavier seemed to be speaking directly into his ear.
Or, perhaps, in his mind.
'Scott, come to my office. Immediately, please.'
He shot up in bed like a steel rod had been shoved into his spine, tossing the covers from his body and making a half-asleep beeline for the closet.
'Coming,' Scott replied.
Less than ten minutes later, he strode into Xavier's office, fully dressed. Charles Xavier was behind his desk, familiar lines dug deeply into the skin of his face, lines that meant only one thing: trouble. Logan, sprawled out in the chair near the door, looked up when Scott entered.
"Cyke," he grunted.
Scott only scowled at him, too tired to deal with it. His eyes moved back to Xavier, even as Ororo and Nightcrawler came through the door behind him.
"There's a situation," Xavier stated, his palms flat against the surface of his desk.
"What kind of situation?" Scott inquired, taking a seat. There was a migraine, just behind his eyes. He was used to it, but the throbbing irritated like an itch, beating in time with his heart, every rush of blood sending another jolt of pain to his brain.
Ororo sat down beside Scott, looking more awake than anyone had a right to at this god-awful hour. Her hair was tied back in a messy knot, as if she'd tried to pull it all back at the last minute, and had given up. She nodded at Scott in greeting. He smiled tightly in return.
"It's in New York City," Xavier began, pushing his wheel chair away from his desk a few inches, picking up the remote sitting on its surface and pointing it toward the television. The television clicked on; a flash of light on the large screen, a spray of static and then a live news feed came through. "I intercepted this from a local news station. They decided not to run the story because it reflected badly on humans in this fight. However, I believe they've been... *convinced* to back politely away from broadcasting a situation such as this one. There are still powers in the government that don't wish for viewers to begin questioning who the right side actually is."
They all became quiet as the feed played.
A helicopter light shone over a building. The camera shifted over the city, quickly, moving back to the reporter's face. She was blonde, young, and looked like she was about to be sick. Wind kicked up her hair, made it hard to hear her.
"It looks like they've got a little girl trapped inside the building..." The feed became a little scratchy, warbling. And then it turned clear again. "She appears to be a mutant, and officials are saying that this is a hate crime against the mutant population, payback for their recent attacks against humans." The camera moved, focusing on the city below again. The building loomed, broken and shadowy, only lit by the yellow, circling light. The reporter continued to talk. "There are a few squad cars outside of the building, but this wasn't designated as a high priority case." The reporter stopped talking, and mumbling could be heard, a male's voice too quiet to pick up. "What?" She asked. The camera panned back to her. She looked tense, pale around the eyes. "Oh... Shit! So why are we even filming? Cut feed. Now!"
The television screen went to snow. Buzzing.
"Fuck," Logan grunted from his chair, reaching up to scrub fingers through his wild hair. "They're just gonna let those fuckers do what they want to that little girl?"
Xavier looked at him calmly. "They don't understand it, not quite as we do. They see us as the threat, Logan. It's going to take time for that to change."
Scott simmered silently, staring at the dead screen. No, they didn't understand. They would never understand that there was really no difference between them. There were hearts in both humans and mutants, hearts that burned.
"That's shit, Chuck," Logan muttered, stalking the rug. Caged. The room was too small for him. Scott smiled narrowly at his cursing, agreeing, but said nothing. Logan continued to rant. "They don't give a fuck about who they hurt. They just want to be the superior race. No matter what the cost. No matter how many little girls get caught up in the crossfire."
"You're generalizing," Xavier replied, tapping his fingers together. "And now's not the time. This brings me to another interesting topic that I've been concerned about. When are you leaving?"
Logan paused, as if struck. He looked around him for a second, toward Scott, before shaking his head. "I don't know."
"If you're going to be a part of this team," Xavier began seriously, leaning forward with an intense expression on his tired face. "You're going to have to do better than that. I need to know if we can depend on you, at least for a time. Otherwise, it isn't smart to bring you in on yet another mission. We can't grow to count on you if you're not going to be there."
Scott kept his eye on Logan, watching the way the man swayed a little on his feet uncertainly, eyes darting around like he'd been trapped. The light snapped over his face, casting him in a pink glow. For a brief moment, Scott was amused. What would the big bad Wolverine say if Scott was to tell him that through his eyes, he always wore red and pink? The humor immediately fled when Logan suddenly stilled, his muscles going rock solid.
"I'm not ready to leave yet," Logan said, deadly serious, in a gravely voice. "I'm not finished with..."
Grieving.
Xavier simply nodded and gestured for Logan to take his seat again. When he did, his eyes briefly caught on Scott's face and a flicker of understanding passed between them. It was uneasy, a common thread of real pain, and it had Scott looking away, his mouth turned down.
"How much time do we have?" Ororo asked, bringing the meeting back around to the topic at hand.
Xavier rubbed a weary hand over his cheek. "We need to take action as soon as possible. The kidnappers are extremists vying for attention. They want to be heard. And I doubt they'll be happy with the lack of exposure. They want everyone to see who has the power; to expose their group nationally, if not internationally."
"When they realize that they're not being covered by any syndicated news broadcast, it's going to set them off," Scott put in, feeling sick at heart. He pushed it aside. "We need to get in there and get her out before they react."
"I agree," Ororo said. She stood. "We'll discuss details on the way."
Xavier nodded at them. As Scott stood, he noticed the professor shifting uneasily in his wheel cheer, as if he couldn't get into a comfortable position. It struck him how aged the Professor had become these past months, how much he had seen compared to *any* of them. Swallowing hard, Scott forced himself to look away and followed the other X-Men out of the room.
* * * *
The jet hovered over the abandoned apartment building for a moment. Ororo turned off the lights, careful not to alert the attention of the few policemen at the bottom. There needn't be any casualties. Scott unbuckled the seat belt from around his chest and waist, moving to stand beside Logan as Ororo brought them down onto the roof with barely a sound.
"Nicely done," he commented, tapping her on the shoulder. She looked up at him, smiling past a slice of hair. Jean had once told him that her hair was white as snow and just as beautiful. Scott had a vague recollection of white, but his mind had clouded over the years and he couldn't quite grasp it. He only knew that sometimes Ororo looked like a chilly statue standing all alone in the wind, never crumbling but never touched. Jean had been her friend, but sometimes mentioned that Ororo never seemed to speak of herself, like she only existed in the now.
Scott stared out the windshield, where electricity polluted the night sky, making it impossible to see the stars. More than one police siren blared in the city air; a constant wail that no one heard anymore, far too used to the sound.
Nightcrawler moved up beside them, looking at Logan in that intensely innocent way only he could pull off. "Are we ready?"
Logan lifted a bushy eyebrow. "Let's go."
On the roof of the building, they moved silently, like shadows attaching themselves to the blanket of darkness. Scott, at the front, walked slowly across the stone surface as they approached the edge of the roof. Puffs of smoke rose from the many chimneys throughout the city, fighting off the nighttime chill. He pressed his hand against the side of the chimney next to him, leaning over the ledge a little to determine if the police had changed position yet. They hadn't. They remained lounging against the hood of their vehicle, one smoking a cigarette, the other polishing his handgun as if he was bored. They were talking, low and fast.
"Bastards," Logan muttered suddenly, close to Scott's ear.
"Shh," Scott hissed in response, watching as the smoking officer tossed his cigarette away from himself, the tip glowing in the night, stumbling into the grass and dying out. Somewhere, another siren blared, angry and wet with violence.
"They can't fucking hear us," Logan replied, now leaning over the ledge as well. "They're complaining about the assignment. 'Protecting some mutant brat.' I'd like to cut him a new hole to shit out of."
"Keep your mind on the situation," Scott warned, turning to face the older man. "Going in angry and getting us all killed isn't going to help the little girl, is it?"
Logan snorted derisively, but he backed away from the edge, leaning his face up to the sky and flaring his nostrils like he smelled something.
"Blood," he said, voice crackling with disgust. Shook his head. "This city stinks."
Ororo and Nightcrawler waited near the arched glass ceiling on the other side of the roof. It was in the shape of a triangle, missing a few panes in some spots, completely broken in others, from an era when the building had been on the A-list, before it had been taken over by termites and squatters. Scott moved swiftly over to them, nodding to let them know that the cops were occupied enough not to give them any trouble.
"I don't hear anyone there," Logan stated, grabbing the rope he had on his back. He attached it to the stone roof with its clawed weight, tossing the slack down through one of the missing panels of the glass ceiling.
Scott secured his gloves and grabbed onto the durable rope, before quickly and silently dropping down into the room, immediately enveloped by the darkness. Only shards of light broke through the cracks of the boarded up windows, breaking over the odd pieces of furniture squatters had managed to gather into the vacated apartment. Touching a button on the side of his visor, he turned on the night vision component, peering around the room.
And old mattress sat in the corner, stained with either piss or booze - by the smell of it, possibly both. Scott's lips turned down in distaste as he continued to look around at the trash littered room. Spotting no movement or sign that anyone had been there in the last few hours, he gave a tug to the rope, signaling the others that it was safe to come down. Moving to the side, he waited for them to drop down, one by one.
Ororo also had on her night vision goggles as she came down, but Logan and Nightcrawler, able as they were to rely on their senses, had no use for them. Old dead dust tickled Scott's nostrils as they slid like silk across the floorboards, knowing that time was short before it became obvious to the extremists that their message wasn't being heard. The door leading out of the apartment was half-open, held that way by an empty bottle.
Scott slipped out first, shoulders close to the wall, glancing both ways down the long hallway. No one else waited there, just the slivers of a streetlight peering in through yet another broken, dirty window and an unattached door leaning against the wall he had his back against. Motioning to the others, Scott pushed forward. They moved cautiously down the hallway, feet barely making a whisper of a sound as they touched the hardwood floor, stained with things Scott didn't even want to try to imagine.
Behind him, he heard a vague hiss from Logan. And then, "The smell of blood is getting stronger."
Scott swallowed, continuing on. They reached the door to the stairway within seconds. Maybe it was instincts, or maybe it was just deductive reasoning, but his stomach balled up into a knot of flesh as he opened the door and slid into the stairwell. He took the steps quicker than he should have; his hands slipped over the metal railing with a squeak as he descended, and his breath began to ricochet in his chest.
Logan was right behind him, breathing down his neck.
As they headed toward the second floor, a list of names and profiles worked its way through Scott's brain like snapshots. Paula Jasc, a 41 year old single mother with thin eyes and weak knees, pissed about losing her husband to a pretty young mutant. She's the group's passion. Michael Laney, a twenty-something pretentious author who wants nothing more than to write about something that no one else ever has before, and if that meant he had to kill a few mutants, so be it. His face is perfect. He's the group's brain. Eric Adams, the thirty-three year old fetishist, who longs for something real to sink his knife into. He doesn't care if it's mutant or human. He's the group's muscle. Then there is Aaron Lawrence, a fifty-year-old woman with a metal jaw. A mutant attacked and killed her children twenty-three years ago. She has never forgotten. Aaron... Aaron is the leader.
Short of breath, Scott reached the bottom level before the others.
"Cyke!" Logan hissed from behind, but Scott had already rushed through the door. Ororo and Nightcrawler were still on the stairs of the second floor as Logan followed Scott's rapidly disappearing figure, running down the hallway on light feet that barely touched the floor. It was a trick all mutants must necessarily learn: run light, run fast, and run quietly.
'This is what I am,' Scott thought as he neared the room Xavier had pinpointed as the extremists' location. 'This is what I do. I have to do this.'
Logan grabbed him before he could barrel into the room and completely wreck the plan. Scott struggled violently, muttering against the hand covering his mouth and kneeing the older man in the gut. Logan heaved a breath and dragged Scott back a few steps, shaking him roughly to get his attention.
"I understand, all right?" he growled at Scott.
'He said there was blood...' Scott thought, trying to pull himself together. He focused his eyes on the man before him, seeing the urgency there.
"You understand what, exactly?" Scott whispered. "Yeah, you loved her. But I had her and now she's not there. I can take it. I can. But I can't fail at anything else."
Logan shook his head, releasing him. "Smarten the fuck up, is all I'm saying. You're the leader here - think about that before you go losing control like a rookie. Think about what you just said to me on the roof."
Scott nodded and pressed his back against the wall, taking a few deep breaths. He saw Ororo and Nightcrawler approaching over the line of Logan's shoulder and straightened, slightly ashamed that he'd almost revealed them all.
Ororo shook her head, making it clear that now wasn't the time for apologies.
The plan was to distract the group by kicking in the door while Nightcrawler crawled up the wall, onto the ceiling and got the position of the girl while Logan, Ororo, and Scott rushed her captors. That was the plan. Very simple and broad, leaving a lot of room for the details to be handled as they happened. Of course, strategic maneuver could only account for the opponent's tactics to a certain degree. Some things no one could predict.
Scott kept thinking about the blood Logan scented in the air. It could be a dead rat or a dog. It could be that one of the four were wounded. Hell, it could be a dead body in an alley near by. He took a deep breath as the other three X-Men lined up beside him, and then he slammed his foot hard against the door. It flew open, into an apartment lit by a single dirty bulb.
There was a muttered 'fuck' in a raspy, cigarette-thick voice. Eric Adams leapt from his folding chair with a snarl, eyes a little wild as he lunged at them with a streak of metal. Nightcrawler had already vanished from sight, a puff of dark air that skittered across the ceiling like a ball of gas in the night sky. Eric looked like a bloodthirsty vampire, teeth shining beneath the light, knife snaking out to slice off a piece of his skin. Scott ducked out of the way just in time, dodging the larger man even as Logan's hand popped out of nowhere, slamming into Eric's jaw, knocking him backwards.
There wasn't time for thank you. There were possibly three other people in the room. They couldn't afford to be distracted by a single one and let the others pounce on them like a litter of baby sharks. Scott spotted Paula struggling with Ororo at the other side of the room, decking the mutant square in the nose. Ororo's head bounced off the side of a table as she lost her balance and fell, but she recovered immediately, sweeping her leg out and taking Paula's feet out from beneath her. The woman banged her face off the floor as she twisted mid-air to try and catch herself.
"Bitch," Paula cursed through bloody teeth, before attacking again.
Ororo smiled, a slice of her lips upward that spoke of the deadly thrill a fight brought out in her. Logan jerked around, growling, when Eric managed to get to his feet after being hit so hard with Logan's metal fist.
'He has that covered,' Scott thought, looking around for Michael and Anna. His eyes stopped their search at the sight of a figure leaning in the corner, casually smoking a cigarette, gaze flickering over the violent scene before him. 'He wants to write something that means something. Something that no one else has dared to write before. He doesn't care what he has to do to reach that goal.'
Their eyes caught, held.
Michael pushed himself off the wall, propelling himself forward with the momentum of a boot heel against the plaster. The sound of the fight around them filled Scott's ears as he let the man approach him. Flesh hitting flesh. Grunts coming from a deep place inside the belly. Logan's growls were distinct among the others' curses.
"So, you're a mutant?" Michael asked in a quiet, civilized voice.
"Looks like," Scott replied, muscles tense as he eyed the other man.
Michael nodded, watching him with curiosity. "How's that working out for you?"
Scott sighed, balling up his left hand into the fist and striking the man smartly across the jaw. Michael put up his hands as if to stop him, but his movements were too slow.
"About like that," Scott replied when Michael backed away, wiping blood from his mouth. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
Michael shook his head, and attacked awkwardly, slamming his shoulder into Scott's stomach and driving him back against the small television in the middle of the room. He fell over it, taking it down and smashing it against the floor as he went. Its crash sounded loudly through the room, and Scott saw Logan look over briefly from his brawl as Scott rolled out of the way of Michael's boot heel when the man tried to slam it down on his face.
Scott reared up at the man above him, driving his fist into Michael's solar plexus, knocking him back. Michael was winded, gasping for breath as Scott rose to his feet easily, slamming his foot into the back of the man's leg, knocking him to his knees where he was met with a fist in the face. It knocked him out like a light.
Scott smiled, thin like a blade and glanced over his shoulder. Ororo was wiping a spot of blood off of her cheek where Paula had drawn blood with her nails. She nodded at Scott. Logan removed the knife from his shoulder, wincing a little as he gestured to the unconscious man at his feet.
"I'll tie them up," Logan said, and Ororo tossed him the rope she'd had hooked to her belt. He snapped it in his hands, taking obvious pleasure in the task set before him. "Play with them a little before we hand 'em over to the cops."
Scott looked around uneasily. "Where's Aaron?"
Ororo went to his side and shook her head, a line appearing between her eyebrows. She frowned and scanned the room. "I was wondering the same thing about Kurt."
Crying. Someone was crying.
Shadows moved on the wall, catching Scott's eye. The wall was near the kitchen, where light burned brightly. Lips firmed, he gestured for her to follow him. They picked their way through the debris the fight had caused, carefully approaching the archway. As they edged closer, the sound of crying became progressively louder.
Apprehension wormed nauseatingly into his gut. Scott peered around the edge of the wall cautiously, scanning the room for Aaron. What he saw stopped him dead and he stared blankly at the sight before him. Nightcrawler was kneeling on the floor, rocking back and forth at the knees of the little girl.
The dead little girl.
'The scent of blood is getting stronger,' Logan had said.
Ororo gasped in horror at his side and Scott closed his eyes.
The child was dead and Aaron was nowhere in sight.
* * * *
A creeping sickness took up residence in his throat.
Scott and Logan entered the mansion through the garage door, walking quietly through the gas-scented room. Logan walked well of course, with his healing power. Scott watched him bitterly as he limped up the cement steps and wiped a streak of blood from the cut on his forehead. It still bled, but the flow had slowed significantly. Didn't matter. His insides felt like they'd been mangled by something other than violence, an image of the child's body weighing there like a stone floating to the bottom of the ocean.
The last thing he expected when stepping inside the halls of the mansion was to have three of his students waiting by the door, staring at him with wide, nervous eyes. Scott's gaze immediately landed on Rogue who stood shivering in her nightgown, arms wrapped around herself. The lamplight sat on her shoulders, shrouding her in a gentle cloak. Bobby and Jubilee stood at her side with extremely weary expressions, like they could fall asleep on their feet at any moment.
"Shit," Logan muttered. "Ain't you supposed to be in bed?"
Rogue's eyes flicked toward him, and then landed back on Scott. "We were, but I heard the jet leaving and I kinda woke J. and Bobby up to wait for you guys."
Scott moved further into the hallway, closing the door firmly behind him. Ororo and Kurt had taken an alternate route, through the garden and up the winding stairs that led to the adults' rooms. If the look on Rogue's face was any indication, he should have done the same.
"Everything is okay now," Scott told her quietly. "You can go back to bed."
Okay? Right. He could tell her just how okay things were not. He could tell her what it was like place a careful finger on the hand of a small girl whose mutant power had been electricity living within her skin, yet not feel any spark at all. He could tell her that this battle between mutant and humans might never stop. They might never accept mutants as human beings with something extra, as a natural step in evolution.
"What happened?" Rogue asked Logan, ignoring Scott's suggestion. "I woke up and I felt sick. I only ever feel that sick when something really bad has happened."
Logan shrugged, glancing back at Scott. A pained frown wrinkled his forehead.
"It's nothing you need to know," Scott said, swallowing. He could still see the little girl's lifeless eyes, staring at him accusingly from her mute body. "This isn't for you."
Her lips parted. Bobby's fingers closed over her shoulder, squeezing, but she pushed him away. "Don't TELL me this isn't for me. I've been working my ass off to try and prove to you guys that I'm ready to learn. I've been on missions before. I've been at the center of a lot of this crap, so you can't just tell me that I don't need to know. Not when I wake up sick at heart at the idea of not going with you guys. Look at you! You're bleeding! Am I supposed to always sit here and wait for the next class to start when I could be there helping? I've had a taste of it. I want it."
"Hey," Bobby whispered near her ear. "Calm down."
"No!"
Scott was about to speak when Ororo suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. "Rogue," she said, quietly. Rogue froze, before turning slowly, looking over Bobby's shoulder at the white-haired woman staring reproachfully down at her. Scott saw the guilt swim onto Rogue's face, like a cloud blunting her features.
"This isn't the time," Ororo stated, descending the steps carefully, as if she was skating across ice. Smooth. Always so precise. "You have no idea how much this isn't the time."
"I'm sick of not being able to do anything!" Rogue moved out of Bobby's reach as he once again tried to calm her. She turned her back on the men and Jubilee, staring desperately at the woman before her. Scott could only lean wearily against the wall and rub the skin on his forehead, where beneath the flesh and bone, a headache brewed.
"You must have patience," Ororo said, reaching the bottom level and striding toward Rogue. She took the girl's shoulders into her hands, holding her tightly.
Rogue stared up at the older woman. Her voice was agonized when she spoke. "I hate not helping."
Ororo considered her for a long moment. It was a filtered silence that not all of them could hear. Only a few knew what it meant. Scott felt vomit rise in the back of his throat. Bobby and Jubilee looked as if someone had just shaken them awake, both watching the back of Rogue's head as if she had changed before their very eyes. Maybe she had. The way she stood suggested determination. He recognized the fight in her that had once been in him.
It had faded. Everything faded eventually.
"Then you *will* do something," Ororo stated simply. "You will begin your training so that you are prepared when we need you down the road. You are still young, so there is time for proper lessons. Now go to bed. We'll speak further on this tomorrow once I've had my beauty sleep."
Scott's chin dropped against his chest as his heart nearly stopped.
"No," he growled abruptly, breaking the silence.
Logan arched a bushy eyebrow in interest, lips swiveling to the side of his face like: 'shit, did tight-ass just growl?' Ororo's eyes traveled over Rogue's head, landing on Scott's face as her fingers fell away from Rogue's twisting form.
"Only over my dead body is she ever going out there again," he said, glaring at Ororo from behind his visor. A part of him wished he could just take it off so that for once they understood the force within him, that he was alive and burning like the rest of them, even if he had to control it constantly. He moved to take Rogue's face between his palms, protected from her deadly skin by the gloves he wore. She looked shocked, slack-jawed as he spoke intensely. "It's not safe. I'm not about to lose everyone I care about to this cause. I don't even know if I *believe* in it anymore. So just... no."
He released Rogue and she stumbled back, grabbing onto Bobby's forearm. A horrible weight settled in the room, taut and obese. He couldn't take it. Feeling trapped, Scott turned and strode down the hallway, away from them and their insane suggestions. Rogue wasn't about to put her life on the line every day. She had enough problems in her life as it was, simply by being what she was.
Behind him, a curtain lifted up. It caught in the wind of the open window, like a hand waving goodbye.
* * * *
Scott found her standing in the center of his bedroom when he returned. He pulled up short, holding the edge of the door. Rogue turned, wearing a robe around her nightgown, hair fanning out around her shoulders. She looked tired and beautiful and strong. He wondered if she'd been waiting there for long.
"What are you doing here?" He didn't mean to bark it, but couldn't keep his words gentle.
"I want to talk to you," she said seriously. Her arms wrapped around her chest, gloved fingers catching the broken pieces of light from the moon. "Logan told me what happened tonight."
Scott shut the door as he pushed himself into the room. His lips turned up sardonically and the back of his throat hurt. "Of course he did."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. It means nothing."
"Scott..." Her accent softened the hard sound of his name. He ignored her, moving to his desk, shuffling through the papers its surface. Busy work. She came up behind him, touching his arm briefly.
He turned his head to look at her. "She wasn't even five," he whispered. "She didn't do anything to them and they mutilated her."
"God."
Scott laughed mirthlessly, shoulders shaking. He wasn't sure the shaking was going to stop. It just kept coming on in waves until he felt Rogue press her cheek against him, between his shoulder blades. She sighed, gripping his arms.
"Fuck," he whispered, closing his eyes. "You don't need to know this."
She stepped away from him and Scott turned, taking a seat on the corner of his desk. The tension already radiated off of her.
"You keep saying that," she muttered.
"I mean it every time," Scott replied, clenching his fists together and setting them in his lap. It was all he could do not to shake her until she had a change of heart and realized what a stupid decision it was to want something that could only hurt her. "I don't want you to be a part of this."
Rogue's lips thinned. "And I don't think I can give ya that. I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Scott said, chin dropping against his chest. He stared down at his hands, twisted together, aching to his fingertips. "Everyone is sorry. All the time."
"I can't make things better for you by not going after what I want," Rogue cut in, gently but firm. A burst of sardonic laughter broke from his chest and he looked up at her bemused expression.
"You want this life, Rogue? So very badly? I suppose it's the wonderful pay that attracts you. Oh wait, we don't get paid. Maybe it's the travel that intrigues you. Well, traveling to exotic locations where everyone tries to kill you is so much fun I can see why."
"Stop it."
"What?" Scott's face remained blank. "You don't want all that? I can't imagine why you wouldn't."
"I said stop," she hissed. "I want to help people, okay? I want a place, somewhere to fit. Maybe you can't understand that but don't take what happened tonight out on me."
Scott opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Heaving a lumbering sigh, he slid off the desk and approached her. "What makes you want it so badly? What makes you think it will be where you fit? Tell me that much."
Rogue shrugged, pulling back a little. Her eyebrows drew together. "I've taken from people," she explained, shifting uneasily beneath the robe, like she hadn't revealed this to anyone before. "That's all I've done. My skin takes and takes."
"It's not your fault, Rogue."
"I *know* that." She grimaced in frustration. "That's not the point. Ever since I got here, I've watched ya'll go off on one mission after another. Doing something to make things different. I've seen you fight for something good. You have something to believe in. And I believe in it too. I want to fight for it. I want to give something for once."
"Rogue-"
"No. I do, Scott. Nothing you say is gonna change it, so don't even try talking me out of it. Ororo said she was going to talk to Charles... I mean, Professor Xavier tomorrow."
At her slip, Scott's eyebrows shot up on his forehead. Was Magneto still in her head?
"I can't just sit around and watch like everyone else," she continued hurriedly, like she was afraid he was going to stop her. "That's not who I am. At least, that's not who I am today. You never know about tomorrow."
Her attempt at humor fell flat. Lips trembling, she dropped her arms from around her waist, lifting them in the air in a half-shrug, as if to say: 'that's all folks.'
Scott closed his eyes for a moment, taking it all in. She sounded sincere, like she needed this. In his heart, he knew that maybe she did. When she'd last helped them in the White House, that single time that was meant to stay a single time, she'd walked a little bit taller, stood a little more firmly on the ground. The uniform had suited her, but he'd been too distracted to pay much attention to the new way she'd held herself.
"Fine." The word was weighted. "Okay, Rogue. You win. If you want to start training to become an X-Man, then I'm not going to stop you."
Rogue's face brightened by degrees. First her mouth turned up, and then her lashes shielded the pleasure in her eyes. A moment later, she rushed toward him, throwing her arms around his neck. He sighed and patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Just one condition." When she pulled away to face him, he smiled. "I oversee your training."
* * * *
Everyone had a picture of Jean in their hands. Rogue had passed them out at the beginning of the ceremony, before people began taking their seats in the fold-up chairs lined up evenly across the lawn. Scott remained distant to everything around them, finding himself distracted by the glare of the sun, a crackling red flame dancing over the lenses of his glasses.
The grass was freshly cut, the flowers clipped and placed near the enlarged photo of Jean set up in front of the chairs.
"Not too many," Rogue had warned. "The pictures will take their place. Her beauty and life should be surrounding us, not dead flowers."
She'd been right.
In a daze, Scott faced everyone. A wind gently ruffled the trees over their heads, lifting his hair from his forehead, tangling in it like fingers from the past.
"I keep trying to understand," he told them, clutching a photograph of Jean in his pocket. "I keep trying to figure out why she did what she did. Why she sacrificed her life to spare us when she had so much left to live for. I guess that's what heroes do and that's what Jean has always been. A hero. My hero."
Scott paused, looking around at the faces staring back at him, all emotion intent on Jean's memory. His heart gave a hard lurch, but he shoved himself on. "Sadly, her parents couldn't make it to this ceremony, but Jean was the type of person to take what she had and make the best of it. She found ways to be happy in the little things, like the fact that we all have each other here, thanks to Xavier. We're not alone in the world. I can only hope, that wherever she is now, that's one thing Jean isn't. Alone."
Rogue stood off to the side, holding a photograph to her heart as if she was lost. She had a sundress on, the type that slapped against the skin with every caress of the wind. It was the type of dress Jean would have adored. Tears blinded him, as surely as the sun that broke through the trees and pressed through his sunglasses.
"I think that's Jean's biggest gift to the world. Connection. Of the mind and of the heart. She taught us how to be with each other."
* * * *
Scott scrubbed his hands with anti-bacterial soap, getting the skin clean so that he could go in and eat dinner with everyone. Rogue had commented on his anal-retentive tendencies as he'd excused himself from the table, and for a moment, he'd seen Logan in her eyes. It'd been a little unnerving. The girl had more personalities in her than a schizophrenic.
He flexed his fingers, scrubbing in the soft place between them. His hands felt raw, like he'd scraped all the skin off and stood with throbbing muscles in their place.
A constant ache throbbed in the back of his throat, as if someone had pinched the skin there and refused to let go. Spitefully, he scrubbed the skin a little harder, before forcing himself to carefully fold the cloth and set it back onto the sink. He turned the cold water on, placing his hands underneath the spray and watching the suds wash away as the water hit them.
The soap washed down the drain, swirling, vanishing, red.
'Jean, you know you don't have to do those dishes.'
'I'm not busy. I might as well.'
'Is it because of your nightmares? They're getting worse.'
'No. No, Scott. I'm fine.'
A throat being cleared behind him had his shoulders tensing, the memory ripped from his head. He wasn't surprised to find Logan leaning against the wall with a beer dangling from his fingers.
"You okay?" Logan grunted, obviously ill at ease. A muscle beneath his eye twitched every few seconds, like he didn't really want to be there.
Scott shrugged, just as uncomfortable. "As good as can be expected." He paused, looking the other man over. He looked a little worse for the wear, as if he hadn't been sleeping lately. Dark circles sat beneath his eyes, thick and heavy. "You?"
Logan smiled without humor, a baring of teeth. "About the same."
Scott nodded and reached for a towel, drying his hands. Logan strolled over next to him and opened the refrigerator door, pulling out another bottle. A cool slab of air slapped against Scott's shins, making him shiver.
He eyed the bottle Logan held out to him suspiciously.
"C'mon Cyke," Logan said, swinging the beer bottle in his grip, trying to entice. "You look like you need to loosen up a bit."
"Is that your polite way of saying I'm a tightass?"
Logan snorted. "Geeze, man, I ain't ever polite and don't go telling people I am. Besides, if I wanted to call you a tightass, I'd call you a tight ass... ya tightass."
With a sigh, Scott took the beer. "Thanks."
"Yeah."
They stood together in silence for a few moments, taking pulls from the bottles. Scott grimaced a little at the taste of the beer. Logan noticed and flicked an amused eyebrow at him. Scott only shook his head and took another sip, letting the bitter liquid wash away the ache in his throat.
He could still smell the freshly cut grass that had surrounded him as he gave his speech on Jean's life. The picture of her weighed heavily in the back pocket of his suit pants.
"So, what is it?" Scott asked when he could no longer contain himself.
Logan sighed, eyeballing the bottle before setting it aside with a click as it touched the porcelain sink. "That obvious? Huh. I guess I just wanted to tell you... that I'm... well, that I'm... fuck."
Scott crossed his arms over his chest when Logan scrubbed his hands over his face, digging fingers through all that hair.
"You're sorry for something," he deduced.
Logan shrugged, looking distinctly irritated. "I'm just saying that when... when Jean was around, I might have acted in ways I shouldn't have."
Scott's stomach clenched. Fuck. "Doesn't matter now."
"No." Logan frowned heavily, showing some of his true age in the lines around his mouth. "No. I guess it doesn't, does it?"
* * * *
The next morning, when he rolled over, he knew even before he opened his eyes that Jean wasn't beside him. Scott stretched his arm out over her side of the bed, pressing his cheek into the pillow, shutting his eyes.
"I miss you, Jean."
Time moved and the clock ticked, but he didn't hear it. The seconds and minutes passing weren't loud to him. He wasn't running to keep up with them. No, Scott had already fallen back asleep, holding what had been her pillow to his heart.
Goodbye could be a quiet thing.
End Chapter Four (4/15)
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