Just an idea that I had that combined my three favourite characters, Storm, Rogue and Jubilee, with one of my favourite suplots, Storm's claustrophobia. Not that Jubilee does anything. xD

Hope you enjoy. :)

Rogue's hands flickered over the Danger Room controls, entering in her own details and that of the woman beside her. This brought up a number of preset options.

"We want our enemies toasted, roasted, or deep-fried, Storm?" she asked cheerfully. Storm pulled a fakely thoughtful face.

"I believe we shall try them roasted."

Chuckling, Rogue tapped the first of the options on the screen. It made very little difference, merely making their chance of facing various types of opponents (in this case, those with ranged weapons) a little less than random. She had already rotated the difficulty dial to merely medium. The real point of the inputted data was to verify that both of them were going inside, and therefore control over the Danger Room should something go amiss would automatically reroute to the nearest available X-Man.

"Remote control: Hank McCoy" flashed up on the screen. Storm leaned over and clicked on the square icon underneath the message, activating a live link to the infirmary. Beast's face wobbled into view, and he gave them both a broad grin.

"Control accepted, ladies. I trust you'll have an exciting and worthwhile exercise."

"As do we," Storm replied. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she craned her neck as if looking for someone or something. "How is Jubilee?"

"I'm fine! He's just fussing!" shouted Jubilee from off-camera, her voice a mixture of frustration, resignation, and a little bit of humour that she would strenuously deny.

"A concussion is certainly something to fuss over," Storm reproached.

"That'll teach ya not to skateboard indoors," Rogue added teasingly. Jubilee huffed audibly, and both women smiled. "Hank, we're ready to rock and roll; as soon as I remember how to open these darn doors ..." Rogue trailed off and stared at the buttons for a second. Beast told her and gave them a thumbs-up sign.

"Farewell."

The doors opened slowly. Those in such a frame of mind could have even described it as ominously. Storm wasn't aware that she had shuddered, only that suddenly Rogue was looking at her with a measure of concern.

"You sure you're up for this, gal?"

"Quite sure," Storm replied, more coldly than she had intended. Persistent as ever, Rogue continued;

"'Cause, you know, wouldn't be surprised if the room's had enough of ya by now." It was said in a carefully joking tone, and Storm gave it the required wry twist of her lips in reply.

"Perhaps."

For the past week, she and the Professor had programmed the Danger Room to enclose her in smaller and smaller spaces, on a carefully graduated scale. The purpose of the exercise was two-fold; it demonstrated quantitatively which levels of containment adversely affected her performance and to what extent, and by repeating the exposure so frequently it aimed to deaden her claustrophobic sensitivity to, eventually, something that she could function one hundred percent alongside.

The Professor was pleased so far, but had warned Storm to take a few day's break. The constant fear was more draining than either of them had anticipated. So yesterday and the day before that, she had done nothing: lazed around; gone shopping; stayed at base with Jubilee when the rest of the team went out to answer the distress call of three mutants cornered by thugs from the Friends Of Humanity. Today, as a result, she had been bored and restless, and eagerly volunteered when Rogue wondered who was up for a "quick rough-'n'-tumble with Danger."

"I have not had enough of it," she said fiercely, and stepped into the room.

"Yeah, that's kinda obvious," she heard Rogue mumble as she matched her step forwards. Side by side, they stood and waited with tense muscles and razored reflexes for the opposition to appear.

"Initiating Rouge and Storm training program."

Ssshick!

Twin lasers hit the closed door where their chests would have been had they not heard the warning click and, in unison, taken to the air.

"There!" Storm, pointed out the wall-mounted weapons, dodging another blast. "I will take the left, you take the right!"

"Consider it done," Rogue called as she dropped back to the floor and ran towards the gun. It was more difficult to dodge on the ground, and Storm winced as a beam smacked Rogue high on her thigh and sent her spinning away.

"Rogue!"

"I'm fine, sugar," Rogue panted as she rolled to her feet again. "They couldn't keep me down if they tried." She ran at it again, reached it without incident and without so much as tensing, ripped it from the wall and snapped it over her knee. "One down. You got yours?"

"Yes." Narrowly avoiding a shot to her shoulder, Storm sent an icy blast at 'her' gun. It froze it into useless immobility.

"That's not gonna defrost on us, is it?" Rogue called suspiciously.

"I doubt it."

Both women stilled and concentrated again, waiting for the new threat. This time it was Storm who wasn't fast enough; a sharp-edged metal projectile glanced off her rib. Using the stab of adrenalin from the pain, she spun in mid-air and blasted it with a lightning bolt. It was not destroyed as she expected, merely knocked off course. It careered into the wall and came back at an oblique angle, heading straight for Rogue. Contemptuously, Rogue rose a few feet in the air. The projectile hit the wall again, and on its return was wobbling furiously. Storm dashed it viciously into the floor with a gust of wind, which finished it off.

There was a sound like a disturbed snake; suddenly six lasers were dancing around the room and three sharp bits of metal were flailing at the walls.

"Room thought we weren't having enough fun!" Rogue said sarcastically as she used the remains of the first wall-gun to batter the metal dics inches deep into the walls. A laser beam hit her collarbone and she stumbled momentarily, her head jerking up.

She stared at the ceiling in disbelief.

Storm had different weather conditions coming from each hand; hail from one and lightning from another. Two guns gave up the fight, though not before one of them had singed her hair and another had ripped a shallow wound in her neck. She was distracted from blasting the next two into fragments when she heard Rogue yell;

"What in tarnation?, I know I didn't program this!"

Icy intuition made her look up.

The ceiling was descending with all the ponderous invulnerability of a glacier. Familiar panic closed its claws around her neck, but she shook herself free of its paralysis and swooped to the floor. Rogue met her there, and handed her some metal discs that she had pried out of the wall to protect their heads and chests against the lasers while they thought really, really quickly about their next course of action.

"Can you hold it?"

Rogue shook her head. "Dunno. Couldn't last time." She squinted up at the ceiling. "I'd need something to brace 'gainst, at least, and that means waitin' 'til it's at head height."

Storm tried to push the fear to the back of her mind, just like she had been practising in conditions so like these. "It must be a fault in the programming somewhere. The Professor will need to be informed."

"Yeah." Rogue turned to her with a grin that didn't even looked forced and said, "There's one good thing 'bout this - it's cutting off the guns." She pointed. Storm followed her line of sight and saw that, yes the ceiling had lowered to a point beyond the guns. However she also saw that it was now less than a metre above their heads. More to keep herself busy than out of any real hope it would do something, she raised her hand and began to layer the ceiling with ice.

It did do something. It came faster.

"Gotcha!" The ceiling touched Rogue's upturned palms, and she spread her legs into a more stable stance. There was an awful crunching sound from the wall, and Rogue's biceps momentarily bulged. "Yeah," she continued breathlessly, "I got it. It's heavy, but nothin' I can't handle."

"What now?" Storm was alarmed to hear the edge in her voice. Keep control, she scolded firmly. It's all in your head.

"Beats me. Wait and see."

Storm watched and the parts of her brain that weren't frozen and burnt with onroaching panic were filled with admiration for Rogue's strength. She began to pace, and the fact that she had the space to do so helped to calm her more than the movement itself. A plan formed in her mind. Her mind tried to kick it back out again as too risky - too terrifying. Her nails dug into her fists as she tried to gain control over herself.

"Hon, you might not wanna walk too much," Rogue said in an uneasy voice. Storm looked up from her position over half the room away from Rogue, to see the ceiling busily creating a crack down the middle. Even as she watched, there was another horrible crunching sound and the half hovering above her began to descend.

She screamed. Well, she didn't remember screaming and it didn't sound like her, but she didn't think it was Rogue.

"I got it, I got it," Rogue gabbled, racing over to her and catching hold of the ceiling again. "You'd better stay close."

It was sinfully proud, but something in Storm rose up in protest at that. To be reduced to cowering helplessly next to a team-mate, unable to do anything, seemed in that moment worse than the smallest of spaces. Before her mind could change, she outlined her plan to Rogue.

"Are you crazy, gal?" Rogue stared at her with wide eyes. Storm shook her head, and carefully, determinedly, stepped back into the half of the room unprotected by Rogue.

Her plan wasn't really a plan, as she saw it, more like the only option. She rationalised it as she walked away, pushing the shivers out of her voice. They settled instead in her arms and legs.

"For some reason, this isn't activating Beast's alarm - it clearly won't do until one of us believes she is in mortal danger, as that should activate the last-resort shutdown the Professor added this week." She swallowed hard. It tasted sour. "Unless you have another option?"

"No," Rogue's voice was heavy. "B-but, I can't just let you - "

"You can if you want to get out!" Storm snapped. "This is the only way." She had to hunch over, the ceiling a weight on the top of her head even then and sinking fast. She was shaking so violently that walking was difficult. "The quicker, the better," she mumbled, and deliberately removed a layer of self-control.

Rogue nearly dropped her side of the ceiling in shock as Storm released a shockwave of hail and wind upwards. The ceiling above her froze for a mere second, then positively flew downwards. Storm was forced to her knees. The keening scream she was making without seeming to realise hurt Rogue's ears almost as much as her conscience.

I shouldn't be doing this. This is awful. I should be breaking my bones trying to punch a hole through the wall rather than just sitting here and watching this.

Storm was curled into a foetal position now. The ceiling was mere inches above her. As Rogue lowered her arms to run to her, Storm's control finally fled, and fear intense enough to crack sanity seized her powers.

It was Rogue's turn now to scream without knowing it as a funnel of wind whirled up from Storm's body. It tore straight through the ceiling, but the gap that appeared as a result grew no wider. Still the ceiling descended around the tornado as if it was nothing more than a greased pole.

"Storm!" Rogue yelled. Even as she shouted, the funnel exploded outwards, filling the entire room and throwing her back against the far wall with a painful, jarring thud. "Storm!" A sudden gap opened in the winds; seizing her chance she raced forwards and landed with a thump in the eye of the storm. She dropped flat onto her stomach and wriggled rapidly forwards on her elbows and knees. There was so little space left that even she was beginning to feel oppressed. Reaching out, she put a hand on Storm's trembling shoulder -

"Get back!" Storm screeched, raising crazed white eyes. The tornado doubled in ferocity and the Danger Room finally relinquished the power supply. The guns and discs vanished, and the illusion shattered, revealing the tattered remains of the physical roof. The clear blue sky above poured incongruous sunshine into the room.

All Rogue saw was Storm throw a lightning bolt square at her chest.

A loud screeching noise woke Jubilee from her doze. She sat up, holding her throbbing head in one hand.

"Beast, what is it?" she demanded, looking around dizzily. A glimpse of blue passing through the doorway was followed by a fading reply,

"The Danger Room alarm! Highest level!"

"What?" Jubilee leapt out of bed. Her head reeled and she staggered, but she regained her balance through sheer stubbornness and hurried after him.

What she saw when she arrived at the Danger Room made her legs give out completely.

There was no roof left, only a few jagged edges here and there. Rubble littered the room. Storm lay to one side, curled up tightly even in unconsciousness. Her X-Men uniform that she had been wearing when Jubilee had last seen her on the infirmary room screen was gone and instead she wore ordinary grey trousers and a pink blouse. Rogue lay next to her. Her green and yellow uniform was torn in a small ragged hole with burnt edges, exposing part of her breast. Beast was bent over Rogue with the closest expression to panic she had ever seen on his face.

"What happened?" Jubilee called, using the wall to shove herself to her feet. Beast gave her a brief glance, then returned to staring at Rogue and looking panicked. Jubilee didn't exactly understand what the problem was until Beast took off Rogue's right glove, taking infinite care not to touch her bare skin, and laid it carefully over her mouth so that the fingers covered her lips. Then he removed his white jacket and placed it over her bared chest.

Then it made terrible sense. Rogue's heart wasn't beating and she needed CPR to save her life, but Beast hadn't been able to risk giving her mouth to mouth, or even the compressions, until he had worked out how to protect himself.

All X-Men were taught extensive first aid, even Jubilee, so she found herself unconsciously counting along with Beast's compressions and breaths. Thirty to two. One-two-three, one-two-three ...

She walked closer, and saw that Storm was stirring slightly. Quickly, she made her way to her side and sat down. Crouching or even kneeling felt too unsteady at the moment.

"Sssh," she soothed as Storm moaned and mumbled something utterly incoherent. "It's ok, Storm." As best she could, she checked her for injuries. Sticky blood coated her neck, but a tentative prod showed Jubilee that it came from nothing more than a deep scratch. Blood oozed through the blouse at a point just below her heart. Nervously, using her fingertips, Jubilee lifted the linen blouse up and looked at the cut there. The sudden white flash of a rib bone was disturbing, but, to Jubilee's eyes at least, didn't look serious. So, nothing that would explain her current state. It took a whole lot more than scratches to knock out Storm.

"There we are, Rogue," Beast sounded relieved. "Well done, my dear."

Jubilee breathed a sigh of relief as well, and stared at the fluffy white clouds in the sky above.

"What happened?" she asked again, this time to herself. The sickness tightening her stomach wasn't just the concussion.

"That, Jubilee, is an excellent question." Beast stood with Rogue flopping in his arms. "I need to defibrillate Rogue immediately. Can you stay with Storm until I return?"

"Yes, of course!"

Storm only stirred once in the time before Beast returned, and that was to briefly grab hold of Jubilee's hand. It was such an un-Storm-like thing to do that it made Jubilee worry all the more.

However, upon examination, Beast discovered nothing worse than profound exhaustion and the flesh wounds that Jubilee had identified.

"I suspect her claustrophobia played a part in this," he mused. Jubilee swung her legs back and forth on the bed Beast had demanded she return to.

"But I thought her and the Professor were trying to sort that out," she protested. Beast nodded sadly.

"Yes, and in the long-term it may manage to do so. In the short-term, however, I fear that it merely made her even more susceptible."

"And what do you think happened to Rogue?"

Beast shrugged.

"I wish I knew."

I have two more chapters already written, but obviously this isn't a very popular fandom, so I'll wait and see what response this gets before uploading any more.

Thanks for reading!

xMhax