Remy couldn't move. Something was pinning him firmly, something heavy and massive and stinking of dust and sulfur. He was lying facedown, and when he opened his eyes he could see nothing but the quartz-chipped surface of a crumbled cement block inches from his face. He tried to move a little, and a searing pain ripped up his side from his legs, making him cry out in agony. He froze then, holding himself still and panting harshly. T'ink, Remy! he ordered himself sternly. If you have pain, dat's a good t'ing. At least you're not paralyzed.
One arm was pinned over his head, and it felt strangely wet...probably not a good sign. His other hand, however, felt different...he wiggled his fingers a little, the feel of cool air touching his skin reassuring him somewhat. At least he wasn't completely buried...that was something. Unfortunately, the fingers of that hand were the only thing he could move...but maybe that would be enough.
He managed to squirm his arm around, gingerly touching whatever it was that seemed to be pinning the majority of his body. It was something metal...he ran his fingers along it lightly, then closed his eyes and concentrated on filling it with energy. This was going to hurt like a bitch...he felt the metal warm beneath his hand, and when he pulled back, the vibration of the charged metal could be felt all the way to his toes. A second of infinity passed...then with a dull shriek of metal on stone the entire thing exploded in a resounding boom.
The percussive blast nearly blinded him...but cool air was caressing his face. Good job, mon ami, he thought wryly...and promptly passed out.
***
Ororo landed hard, rolling into an instinctive fetal position with her arms wrapped around herself tightly. She splashed into water, her eyes screwed tightly shut...and then she was sinking, the roar of the explosions and the silo collapsing dimly audible even in the cold cocoon of the water.
Her feet struck bottom, and she pushed upward. Something slammed into her head...thank the Goddess, the water slowed its velocity, but she was still stunned. She floundered for a moment, her head reeling...then she began kicking for the surface, keeping her eyes and mouth closed, uncertain of what she had fallen into.
With a gasp, she broke the surface. Ororo opened her eyes...debris was falling all around her, crashing into the water on either side, where dim bursts of fire showed chunks of stuff floating all around her. Where in the world...? She licked her lips and tasted chlorine...the air was thick with its smell.
Her eyes rapidly adjusted to the dim light...high above her head, a lattice-work of steel beams had acted as a safety-net, trapping the majority of the rubble from the collapsing floors. She had fallen neatly through their intercrossed beams, landing squarely...in a swimming pool.
Ororo began to giggle. Of all the absurd things...the silo had exploded, yet she, and her baby, were alive because of a lower level swimming pool. There was no time to marvel, though...chunks were still falling, landing beside the pool or hitting the water with a violent splash, and the beams high above were groaning alarmingly...Ororo subdued her hysterical relief and began swimming for the side of the pool. She had to get to safety, and quick.
***
A chunk of rock slammed into the back of Forge's head. He saw stars...his eyesight went black with red flashes behind his eyelids, but some presence of mind had him reaching out, flailing for something to hold on to and stop his fall. He opened his eyes in the split second following...and with lightning-fast reflexes reached for and successfully grabbed a protruding piece of steel beam, poking out from the crumbled walls of the north wing. The shock of the abrupt stop in his fall nearly jerked his arms out of the sockets...he swayed, his arms groaning from the pain...he tried to pull himself upwards, but the strain was too great...
A shadow fell over him. He looked up, startled...and saw a familiar, bloodied, dirty, and altogether wonderful face looking down at him.
"Hey, bub. Need a hand?"
"Logan!" Forge cried joyously. Logan's lips quirked in what might have been a grin as he stretched out a hand. Forge let go with one of his and grabbed Logan, the welcome strength of the other man's fingers closing over his securely. Logan grunted, wrapping an arm around the steel beam in order to steady himself, and pulled as Forge kicked out with his legs, his feet finding purchase on the remains of the floor still clinging here and there...and then he was on solid ground again, Logan stumbling back wearily as Forge clambered to his feet.
Forge still gripped Logan's hand in his. He shook it once, then pulled him in and wrapped his arms around Logan in a brotherly embrace. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Logan replied with gruff amusement. "Glad I was walking by this way...I might not have seen you."
"I thought I might not see you again."
Logan snorted and patted Forge's back awkwardly. "Easy there, Forge. I'm not ready to pick out curtains with you yet."
Forge burst out laughing, stepping back with a firm, companionable squeeze to Logan's shoulders. "You're all right then?" he asked, his expression growing serious as he studied Logan's blackened, swollen eyes...the slow trickle of bright red leaking from the corner of his mouth. "You look terrible."
"Thanks for noticing," Logan remarked dryly. He allowed himself to sink to the floor, leaning back against the wall with a sigh. "Santrock had one of his boys give me a workover after you escaped."
"But, you're healing?"
"Yeah, but not fast enough." Logan closed his eyes, and Forge noticed for the first time the painful laboring of Logan's chest as he breathed.
"How did you get away from them?" Forge asked.
"Long story."
Forge watched Logan's tortured breathing for a long moment...realizing that something was dreadfully wrong. He's fading, Forge thought worriedly. I don't know how he got away, or how he got down here in the first place, but whatever reserves of energy this guy had he just used up saving me. "We have to get you out of here," he said aloud, coming closer and crouching down by Logan's side. "Can you still walk?"
Logan opened his eyes a little. Something stirred there, as if he were trying to rally his flagging strength, then Forge saw a deep and awful resignation steal across his face. Logan shook his head slowly. "You know I can't," he said simply. "I need a place to hole up, someplace where they can't find me, so I can heal."
"Then let's get you out of here."
Logan laughed a little...and the movement turned into a coughing fit. Forge watched him with mounting concern...Logan managed to get it under control, but when he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth it came away clotted with bloody sputum. "Not good," Logan grunted, then he wiped his hand on his jeans and gave Forge a wan smile. "You know as well as I do that I won't make it out of here, Forge. Not without some time to heal."
"But..."
"I'm dying, Forge," Logan said gently.
Forge swallowed hard, meeting Logan's pain-filled eyes and knowing he was right...horribly right. "But...your healing factor...can't it...?"
"Healing factor or not, there's only so much a body can take before it begins to shut down," Logan said. "As much as I hate to admit it." He closed his eyes again, and Forge noticed for the first time the appalling, haggard paleness of Logan's face...except for two burning, livid spots of color high on his cheeks. Forge moved closer and felt for his pulse with sure hands...Logan didn't react, but the pulse was there, beating very, very faintly. Logan's skin felt like it was on fire. He was right...there was no way Logan would make it out of this place in his present condition.
"Logan, I'm going to go look for a place to hide you," he said aloud. Logan opened his eyes and looked at him, nodding a little. "Once I get you someplace, I'll find a way back to the upper levels...I still have to find the others, and we have to get Santrock and destroy the records of this project completely."
Logan's eyes narrowed suddenly, some of the familiar spark coming back. "The others?" he asked.
"The X-Men, Logan," Forge explained. "They're here...they came to rescue you."
Logan grinned wearily. "I'll be damned," he said. Then he glanced at the blasted end of the corridor where Forge had been dangling only moments before. "But...the explosion. Did they...?"
"I'm sure they got out of the way in time," Forge said...having his own private doubts but refusing to say them aloud.
"Is Ororo here?" Logan asked softly.
Forge met his eyes steadily. "Yes. Yes, she is," he said. He frowned a little, looking down so as not to see the pain reflected in Logan's eyes, but then his eyes strayed across Logan's hand lying limp and motionless at his side. The delicate gold ring Logan had meant for Ororo still glimmered there, looking strangely out of place on Logan's large, blood-stained hand. "I think..." Forge began quietly, the tiniest bit of regret panging in his heart. "I think you both will have much to talk about when you see each other again."
Logan regarded him thoughtfully, then shook his head. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Logan, I..." Forge sighed and tucked his long hair behind his ears in a nervous gesture, trying to think of what to say. "Look, Ororo and I talked about...about what happened between you two. It was a misunderstanding. Don't let it be a tragic one."
"I'm not following you," Logan said.
"She thought..." He fumbled for words, knowing it wasn't his place to tell Logan, but desperate to somehow put this thing right.
"She thought what?" Logan asked tiredly.
"That you knew something, okay? Something personal that she wasn't ready to tell you, and..." Forge looked around helplessly, wishing Ororo would somehow magically appear and save him from this drowning conversation. "She thought you asked her to marry you out of a sense of duty, or...obligation. That's why she refused you...she thought you knew..." He groped for words. "That you knew..."
"What?" Logan was paying full attention now, his eyes glowering with their old fire.
Forge opened his mouth, then shook his head. "Let her tell you, my friend. It's not my place to say..."
Logan's sudden burst of movement caught Forge by surprise. He grabbed Forge's shirt collar, yanking him close to his face. "Tell me!" he growled. "Is she dying? Tell me!"
Forge blinked, then scowled in disbelief. "What? No, she's not dying!" he said.
Logan snarled again and shook him, rattling Forge's teeth together. "Tell me!"
"She's pregnant!" Forge shouted, angrily wresting his shirt free of Logan's fingers. He instantly regretted his outburst, and a bright flush of shame crept up his neck as he stumbled away from Logan, avoiding his eyes. A long beat of silence passed between them, and Forge cursed himself angrily, his face burning in disgusted embarrassment.
"What did you say?" Logan asked softly.
Forge sighed, keeping his back to Logan, not wanting to see what expression might be on his face. "Ororo's pregnant. You're going to be a father," he said finally. "Damn you, Logan...she should have been the one to tell you."
"You're kidding, right?" Logan said faintly.
"No. No, I'm not."
Disbelief registered on Logan's face...but then, ever so slowly, a look of wonder replaced it. His lips curved in a bemused, almost giddy smile...and then he shocked Forge completely by beginning to laugh.
"Logan? Logan, are you okay?" Forge asked worriedly.
Logan covered his eyes with one hand, continuing to choke on his laughter but powerless to stop it. God...it felt good to laugh, even if it was ripping his insides apart. "Why am I not surprised?" he said aloud, gasping for breath as he tried to calm his laughing jag. "Between my pride and hers, it's a wonder the two of us ever got together in the first place."
"I'm not sure I understand," Forge said.
"She..." Logan wasn't able to finish...another fit of coughing swept over him, and he doubled over, hacking up blood and seemingly unable to catch his breath. Forge knelt swiftly beside him, pounding his back as firmly as he dared...and after an terrifyingly endless moment Logan leaned back again, his eyes closed as air rattled into his lungs.
"Lie still," Forge commanded. Logan didn't answer...he slid sideways down the wall and ended up curled on the floor, his eyes still closed and one hand flung out limply as a fresh stream of blood started from his mouth. "I'll be back, Logan," Forge added, not sure if Logan was still conscious enough to hear him. "I'm going to find someplace safe to hide you."
Forge stood up, looking about as he tried to decide which way was likely to prove the most fruitful. Where was he, anyway? The sky was getting lighter over the still-smouldering wreckage of the silo...soon it would be light enough for Santrock and his men to search for them easily. He began to move quickly down the hall into the depths of the north wing, his head swinging impatiently from side to side as he looked for some sort of bolthole in which to hide Logan. The lights lining the walls had either been shattered from the blast or were victims of the power outage that had engulfed the entire compound upon detonation. Santrock would activate the auxiliary power, or course, but it only generated power for the uplink computer systems, the water supply...things of that nature. It would therefore stay fairly dark the farther one moved down the hall, away from the destruction zone. If he could find a secure place down here to hole Logan up, then there was an excellent chance that Logan would remain undetected. So...
Damn. Forge slowed to a stop, his face falling as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The end of the corridor had caved in...Forge highly doubted this was what Santrock had intended, but remote detonations of the magnitude Santrock had applied were known for their percussive blasts. The roof...probably not too structurally sound in the first place...had crumbled and collapsed like a rock slide, completely blocking the end of the hall. Nothing was visible, no narrow gap to pass through...just a heap of broken stone and asbestos tile tangled in and around some steel beams propped against the wall, partially obscuring a metal sign reading BARRA...
Wait a second. The sign said BARRACKS. He was standing outside the third level barracks. It was a small collection of six rooms...two beds to a room, two rooms sharing a bath...and if he remembered correctly, they would have been empty at the time of the blast, because "C" level soldiers had been on rotational duty at that time. If he could only find a way through the rubble...and if the barracks were largely undamaged...this could be the perfect place to hid Logan. Santrock and his men wouldn't even think to look there, especially blocked by debris like it was.
He got to his knees and began cautiously testing the beams, shaking them slightly to determine how structurally sound they were. They seemed to be wedged in place fairly well...he crouched down farther, pulling as many hunks of concrete as he could out of the narrow space between the beams. It was mostly loose rubble...he managed to dig out a small crawlspace, inching along on his stomach...and then less than two feet under the pile his questing fingers struck the wooden door.
He carefully rolled over on his back. Face up, he could see a few cracks here and there, tiny pockets of air between the rubble and the battered wood of the door. He managed to reach up, slipping his hand and arm carefully between the chunks of concrete...one chunk slipped free and smacked his chin before he could stop it, and he grunted and swore softly. Just a few...inches...more...his fingers felt the doorknob, closing around its cool metal surface. Here we go, he thought grimly. I really hope this pile doesn't collapse...
He turned the knob quickly and flung the door inward, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth as he waited for the inevitable avalanche. It never came, though...a few solitary rocks came loose and bounced harmlessly to the floor inside the barracks, rolling away on the wood, but for the most part the pile of rubble held. Forge opened one eye cautiously...he stared up at the pile hanging above his head, then breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn't going to come crashing down on him anytime soon.
He stuck his arms into the hall beyond and scrabbled with his feet, sliding himself on his back until he was wholly within the barracks and out from under the pile at the door. Only then did he look around, coming slowly to his feet. It was very dark in here...there were no windows, and what little illumination there was came from the bits and pieces of pre-dawn light that managed to get through the rubble at the door. It was deserted, though...Forge crept cautiously down the empty hall, opening a door on one side, peering into an empty room on the other...the rooms were quiet, clean, and dark, and with the main door to the barracks closed, its camouflaging rubble in place, Santrock and his men would never be the wiser. The last room on the right caught his attention particularly. It had a private bath...a glorified officer's quarters, most likely...and there was a solitary window of frosted glass set high in the wall. It wasn't much, but it would help greatly where the lighting issue was concerned...as well as provide some measure of escape in the unlikely event that Santrock discovered this secret den. So now the only thing remaining to figure out was how in the hell he was going to get Logan in here.
That was going to be a problem. He couldn't very well drag him in here...Logan's metal-laced skeleton made that plan worthless. Well, Forge thought ruefully. Logan is just going to have to get here on his own.
Forge crawled back through the door and wormed his way back through the rubble, emerging on the other side covered in concrete dust and with a smear of blood on his chin from where the rock had struck him. He sprinted quickly back down the corridor, an expression of relief flickering over his face when he saw that Logan was right where he had left him.
"Logan. Hey, wake up," he cajoled gently, kneeling down beside Logan's shivering body and giving him a gentle shake. Logan opened his eyes a little, and Forge was dismayed to see they were blurry and unfocused from what was obviously a full-blown fever. "I found a place to hide you," he said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice and off his face. "But you're going to have to get up, and...it's kind of tough to get into."
Logan struggled to a sitting position, with a gentle assist from Forge, then he bravely climbed to his feet and stood there, one hand bracing himself on the wall as he closed his eyes and vainly tried to stop the hall from spinning. Forge took his arm supportively, slinging it over his shoulders in a gesture that was becoming too familiar...Logan stiffened a little as if he were going to pull away.
"Let me help you, Logan," Forge said.
"I'm tired of needing help," Logan replied huskily...but he relented and relaxed a little, allowing Forge to support him and guide him back down the hall. What had taken Forge only a few seconds to traverse took an eternity for Logan...every step was a rippling agony, and his breath was becoming more and more labored.
They reached the pile of rubble, finally, and Forge pointed at the well-disguised crawlspace into the barracks. "Can you crawl though there?" he asked Logan. "It's not far, but..."
"You're kidding. Please say you are," Logan muttered. He pulled his arm free of Forge and knelt slowly, his face a mask of careful anguish as he eased down and peered inside the hole. "Jesus," he said hoarsely. "All right, then...I can do it, you insensitive bastard."
Forge surprised himself by laughing. "Okay, then...I'll be right behind you," he said. He watched as Logan first lowered himself to his stomach, then painfully began to pull himself laboriously across the floor and through the tunnel of debris. Forge waited until his feet had disappeared, then he crawled after him...emerging on the other side quicker than he had anticipated. Logan had moved quickly...when Forge slid out on the other side, Logan was upright, leaning against the wall between two of the doors, sweat pouring down his face as every labored breath rattled in his throat.
"We're almost there," Forge said. He took Logan's arm and guided him to the end of the hall, trying to ignore the death-rattle in Logan's lungs and the feverish feel of his skin. He opened the door at the end again and carefully led Logan inside. "There's a bed," he said...and turned Logan around. Logan sleepwalked to it on his own, his knees coming unhinged as soon as he reached its side. He sagged onto the mattress weakly, closing his eyes.
Forge studied him with a deep frown of worry. He's dying...by the ancestors, I hope he's right about his healing abilities, because if he's wrong we're going to have a corpse in here. He didn't speak these thoughts aloud, though...instead he crossed quietly to the bathroom and made sure the door was propped open, allowing the dimmest sort of early morning light to steal softly across the floor. Then he returned to Logan's side, kneeling beside the bed and taking Logan's wrist into his fingers carefully. Logan opened his eyes a little, smiling wanly as Forge checked his pulse.
"You're a touchy-feely bastard, aren't you?" Logan laughed weakly.
"I know," Forge said with mock-seriousness. "It's your bedroom eyes...they turn me on."
Logan blinked, then began to laugh, choking a little as he did so. "Jesus," he croaked. "What a time to find out you have a sense of humor."
"Laughter's the best medicine." Forge smiled gently and replaced Logan's arm at his side, studying Logan's pale, drawn face with some concern. "I need to go find the others," he said finally. "Will you be okay here?"
Logan nodded, closing his eyes once more. "I hate feelin' this damn helpless," he mumbled. "I should be out there with the rest of you."
"If you tried to go with me, you'd be dead," Forge said simply. "And I really don't want you to die on my watch."
"Why? Would you miss me?" Logan laughed.
"No...but I know someone who would," Forge said, his smile fading to a gentle expression. "That ring on your hand belongs to someone...and I'm going to make sure you have a chance to give it to her."
Logan opened his eyes at that, looking at Forge carefully. "You're really okay with this?" he asked.
Forge smiled without artifice. "Yes. Yes, I am."
Logan studied him a moment longer, then nodded. "You've saved my life twice now," he said. "I won't forget it."
"And you saved mine...so you're only down by one," Forge chuckled. "I have to go. As soon as I find the others, I'll send someone to check on you. Okay?"
"Okay." Logan closed his eyes again, the throbbing pain in his tortured body swallowing him, drowning his mind in welcome oblivion. One more thing, Logan, his mind whispered, sounding like an echo from someplace far away. Just in case this is the sort of sleep you don't wake up from. "Forge?" he mumbled, forcing himself to speak.
"Yes?"
"When you see 'Ro, tell her..." He paused slightly. "Tell her that I love her."
Forge smiled. "I will."
Logan nodded in exhaustion and let sweet nothingness engulf him completely. Forge waited...then he left the room, shutting the door behind himself as he did.
***
Rogue shook her head, trying to clear the nauseating, throbbing drum section that was beating drunkenly through her skull. She remembered Forge shoving her roughly into Remy's arms...and hadn't that been the tiniest bit exciting, even with the floor bucking around like a bronco? she thought with disgust...and then with a sound like nails on chalkboard the entire wall, floor, ceiling...everything...collapsed on top of them as easily as a child spilling their blocks. She'd been slammed backwards, Remy's solid weight landing on her with a thump...and then with a creak and a gasp something else had knocked him off her and he disappeared in a cloud of dust and tumbling rock.
She had rolled, then landed, amazingly, in a sitting position with her back against the undamaged left wall of the corridor. The corridor behind her, of course, had been vaporized...but as she opened first one eye, then the other, patting herself all over comically to assure herself that nothing was broken and all her limbs were where they were supposed to be, she realized that somehow through luck or divine intervention she had come through the entire explosion with nothing more than a bad headache. Her instant's relief vanished quickly, however, in one clear and terrifying thought...Remy!
Rogue scrambled to her feet, the sudden movement sending off another firecracker of pain in her head, but she doggedly ignored it and began to stumble forward, toward the still-hovering cloud of dust and crap that had been the back half of the hallway only a short while before. Coughing, tripping over god-knows-what tumbled in her path, she choked her way through the haze and at last came tottering out to the edge of the floor, peering down into the messy gloom as best she could. Nothing...she couldn't see a darn thing. She sat down carefully on the edge of the fractured floor, hopping lightly to the rubble, her booted feet slipping on the loose scree as she wobbled and clambered slowly down into the wreckage. Her eyes started to burn from the smoke...they watered, and she dashed the tears away with the back of her gloves, searching the rocky landscape for some sign of the Cajun...of Forge...of anybody.
Okay, Rogue...use your brain, you dingbat, she sternly ordered herself. Think black leather uniforms...she stepped a little wrong, pinwheeling her arms as she tried to catch her balance, and at the last second she slid like some bizarre surfer down the last few feet of the rubble embankment, landing with a teeth-jarring thud against a pile of scrap.
"Owwww..." she grumbled. The wind stirred a little, ruffling something close by that caught her casual attention...then her eyes widened. Remy! She could see his pale face, eyes closed and the morning breeze gently ruffling his brown hair. He was so still, though...Aw, geez, don't be dead, Remy, please, her mind babbled, and she scrambled to her hands and knees and lurched her way to where he lay, his long legs pinned by a steel beam.
"Remy? C'mon, please, wake up," she pleaded, shaking him as roughly as she dared. He moaned a little, and her heart leapt at the sound...at least he wasn't dead. One of his arms was over his head, the fingers encrusted with a drying maroon splotch of blood, and there was a small cut above his left eye, but other than that he seemed unharmed. Rogue tried shaking the beam that lay across his legs, noting as she did so that there seemed to be quite a few familiarly blackened chunks of metal scattered around Remy's general vicinity. Had he already tried blasting his way out? That thought was encouraging, but what now?
Get the beam off, of course.
Rogue dug her feet into the slag behind her, mashing it into a crunchy semblance of firm footing, then grabbed the beam and pushed with all her might. Her feet provided the leverage she needed...she grunted, her teeth clenched and her face screwed up tightly as she heaved with all her might...and then miraculously the beam shot free and went tumbling away, startling her with its sudden shift and collapsing her across Remy's legs before she could catch herself.
Remy groaned again. Rogue crawled clumsily to his head and tried to turn him over, mindful of how rough she was pushing as she didn't want to hurt him any further. The slag shifted a little and she was able to roll him gently to his back, his arms flopping limply and sending up little clouds of concrete dust. "Remy?" she said softly, leaning close and holding his face between her hands. "C'mon, sugah...wake up, please?" She could feel the smooth warmth of his skin beneath the thin leather of her gloves, and she rubbed his cheeks lightly, hope blooming in her heart as his eyelids first fluttered, then opened a fraction, the red on black of his eyes fixing on her like someone waking from a dream.
"Remy...Remy's dead, non?" he asked, his voice cracking.
Thank you, God, she thought. "No, you're not dead," she told him, a huge goofy grin spreading across her pretty, dust-streaked face.
"You sure?" Remy said, the weak grin on his face matching hers. "'Cause Remy t'ink you look like an angel."
Rogue burst into relieved, tearful laughter. Remy struggled to a sitting position, a twist of pain marring his face for a second, then he was sitting up and pulling Rogue into his arms. She threw her arms around his neck gladly, hugging him as tightly as she could, and he returned the embrace with equal affection, the two of them giddy and high on the fact that they were, after all, alive. After a moment, though, she pulled away. "Can you walk?" she asked him with some concern. "Ah don't know where Forge is, an' we still have tah try tah find Logan."
"Remy t'ink so," he said. Rogue stood back up, weaving a little as her boots slid this way and that on the loose rubble, but she gave Remy her hands and braced herself to help him stand up. He groaned painfully, sharp pains shooting up his leg from where it had been pinned, but in the end he was standing beside her, squinting against the ache and inspecting the huge tear in the leg of his uniform. Rogue leaned over and peered closer...the muscular length of his leg could be seen through the tear, the skin marred by a large, vicious-looking bruise.
"That looks painful," Rogue said.
"It'll be all right," Remy replied. He hobbled in a slow circle, surveying the smoking ruin of the missile silo, and he let out a long, low whistle. "Mon dieu," he said softly. "How we ever gon' find Forge an' de others in dis mess?"
Rogue had been thinking the same thing, but now the shared hopelessness in Remy's voice made her heart sink as well. "Ah...Ah don't know. But we have tah try."
Remy nodded, but the expression on his face didn't look very confident. "All right, den...guess we go back up...see what we can see," he said. "C'mon." He started slowly down the embankment, favoring his injured leg slightly, and Rogue stumbled and slid in his path, arms out at her side in an effort to keep her balance against the loosely piled rocks and steel girders. Remy worked his way around a heap of ceiling tile and other unidentifiable fragments, then began heading back up the short slope toward the hall Rogue had first found herself in. After a moment they had to crawl, climbing up the side of the debris like a pair of low-rent mountain climbers...Rogue kept her head down, carefully finding secure places to put her hands and knees as she followed him slowly...Remy reached the hall, pulling himself up with little effort, then extending a hand to Rogue and helping her up as well. They stood in silence, catching their breath.
"What now?" Rogue asked.
"Dat way," Remy replied, pointing straight ahead down the dark hall. "Dat's de way we were goin' when all dis stuff happened, so Remy guess we should keep goin' dat way."
Rogue studied the dark passage apprehensively, then nodded. "Okay, Ah guess...Ah..."
"Shhh!" Remy silenced her with a gentle hand to her arm. "You hear dat?"
"Hear what?" Rogue looked at him nervously. "Ah don't..."
"Gotcha, bitch," a male voice hissed. Rogue didn't even have time to shriek...somebody leaped out of the concealing shadows behind her and wrapped their arms around her tightly, pinning her arms at her sides. Remy shouted...but he seemed to be contending with a surprise of his own, and Rogue had other things to worry about...namely, the stinking breath of her captor as he chuckled in her ear. "Whatcha gonna do now, mutie?" he sniggered.
Rogue went limp, and the sudden dead weight caught the soldier off guard. He relaxed his grip with a surprised grunt, and she slipped out of his arms, rolling to the floor and back to her feet with a quickness that surprised even her. Her head snapped up, glaring at the soldier venomously...but he got over his initial shock quickly and squared off against her, his dirty yellow teeth leering as he crouched into a ready stance and spread his arms wide. "C'mon, little girlie," he laughed. "Whatchoo got for me?"
There was a brilliant flash of rosy light from her right and a small explosion. Rogue flicked her eyes to the side...two more soldiers stood there, or rather one did...the other collapsed to the ground with a howl of pain, clutching his face where Remy had just flung a charged piece of concrete rubble. Remy had ducked out of the way, and the other guard came at him in a bum rush, catching the Cajun in the stomach and slamming him painfully to the wall. She saw all this in a flash...but she looked back too late.
The soldier across from her launched himself, and she was caught and dragged to the floor. They rolled...she was trapped underneath him, his sweaty, meaty face inches from hers as he struggled with her flailing limbs, trying to pin them down. She slapped at his face blindly...he laughed again uproariously and grabbed her wrists, after which Rogue instinctively brought up her knee squarely between his legs, socking it into his unprotected crotch with a solid whack. "Unnnhhh..." he whimpered...and then he was tumbling off her, rolling in anguish on his side as he cupped his testicles in both hands.
There was a crunch behind her...she whirled around, stumbling, in time to see Remy deliver a roundhouse punch to the one soldier's face. He reeled back...but then the soldier Remy had initially blasted was staggering to his feet, and Rogue stumbled away hurriedly as he swung his ham-sized fist at her. It whistled by her face...she ducked, and he came raging at her with all the grace of a stampeding bull. She ducked again, swerved and avoided his clumsy blows...hey, float like a butterfly an' sting like a bee, she thought crazily, and then she moved once too slow and his fist connected with the side of her jaw, knocking her off her feet and sending her sailing as a dull firecracker of pain exploded in her head.
Remy saw the hit. He bellowed and launched himself at the soldier in front of him, the suddeness of his movements catching him off guard. The soldier went stumbling back as Remy jumped and caught him in the chest with both feet, riding him to the floor like a lumberjack astride a falling tree as the soldier hit the floor with a mighty crash. Remy was on him in a second, grabbing the man's head between both hands and cracking it once, hard, against the rock-strewn floor. It was enough...the man gave a grunt, then his eyes rolled up in his skull and he was still.
Something clicked over his head. His head snapped up, and his heart sank...the goon that had knocked Rogue ass over teacups was standing over him, a machine gun barrel held steadily to Remy's sweat-streaked head. "Get up," the soldier grunted, the side of his face blackened and bleeding from where the charged concrete had exploded. "Over by the wall...now."
Remy spread his hands wide, keeping his eyes on the guard warily as he slowly climbed to his feet and backed away. The wall met his back, and he froze, watching the unblinking eye of the gun barrel and wondering just how itchy the guy's trigger finger might be.
Behind the soldier, Rogue lifted her head and shook it groggily. She could see Remy against the wall, his hands held out like a kid in a police raid, and then a second later she saw the soldier standing before him, automatic rifle in hand. Her head cleared quickly, and she looked around desperately for a rock or weapon or anything she could use on the guard. What she wouldn't give for a mutant power like Cyclops or Storm right now!!
You've got a mutant power, you big dummy, a voice whispered in her head. So why don't you quit whinin' about it an' use the damn thing?!
Rogue blinked. Why not? Because she'd have the soldier's head grumbling in hers for a few hours? Seemed like a small price to pay to save a friend's life. Without another thought, Rogue began to pull off her gloves with her teeth, keeping a eye on the soldier, who was even now advancing on Remy menacingly.
Remy steeled himself, watching the soldier advance...watching the gun barrel advance until it was touching his forehead with its cold steel. "I always wanted to see if mutie brains looked like normal brains," the soldier laughed, his beady, excited eyes boring into Remy's terrified ones. "Guess today's my lucky day."
"Guess again, sugah," Rogue said, leaping on the soldier's back and grabbing his face between her bare hands.
***
Cyclops had been knocked backwards by the last of the explosions, crashing into Jean and sending them both to the floor in a tangled heap. The wall and the entire doorframe separating them from the entrance hall had shuddered once, then come down with all the smooth and improbable grace of a falling curtain...then only seconds later the explosions ceased, leaving Cyclops and Jean to slowly lift their heads in disbelief, blinking and coughing in its dusty, silent aftermath.
"Oh, God," Cyclops said. He stumbled to his feet, his mouth slack in shock. "'Ro..."
He never finished the thought. "Scott!" Jean cried in warning...just as a pair of soldiers came bursting through the door ahead.
"Mow 'em down!" one of them shouted.
Cyclops leaped and grabbed Jean, slamming her down and rolling with her across the floor as a whirring hail of machine-gun fire sizzled through the air just over their heads. Cyclops snapped a hand to his visor and shot without sparing time to aim, catching one of the pair by surprise. The beam exploded through the soldier's chest and into the door behind, shattering his ribcage and the solid oak of the door almost simultaneously.
The other soldier was quicker...Cyclops fired off another blast, and the soldier reacted by doing a flying leap through the air, arms out in front of him like a two-bit Superman impersonator, his mouth a big round "O" of surprise...only to be even more surprised when Jean caught him in her telekinetic grasp. She had pushed herself to a semi-upright position, one hand extended, and before the soldier could figure out what had happened or how, he found himself sailing through the air, slamming into the far wall and landing senseless next to his companion.
There were shouts behind them, a harsh voice barking out commands somewhere in the wreckage of the silo. Cyclops met Jean's eyes, then grabbed her hand. "Come on, Jean!" he said urgently, and pulling her to her feet they ran down the rest of the hall, hopping awkwardly over the tumbled bodies in front of the door. They burst through another hall, then Cyclops buttonhooked to the right and barrelled through another door, this one standing slightly ajar. Jean scrambled in after him, and he slammed the door shut, hard enough to rattle its frosted glass window in its frame.
It was too dark to really see anything...they stood against the door, Cyclops sliding the skinny bolt home with shaking fingers, then they stared at each other in tense silence, their faces ghostly in the pale light coming through. The sound of shouts grew closer...Jean's eyes widened as a troop of men ran by the door, their figures only black shadows through the opaque glass...but then the sound of their heavy boots disappeared down the hall and they were safely alone.
Cyclops expelled his breath in a shaky gust. "We've got a few minutes breathing room," he whispered. "Can you try contacting the others?"
Jean nodded, and when she spoke her voice held a nervous quaver. "Who first?" she asked.
"Ororo," Cyclops said immediately. Jean nodded and closed her eyes...and reached out with her mind.
***
Ororo stood in what had once been the white-tiled doorway into the swimming pool area and shivered, feeling the cold rivulets of pool water dripping from her hair and into the neck of her uniform, sliding their wet fingers down the line of her back like ghostly caresses. She had wrung out her hair as best she could, but hair as heavy and thick as hers was a proverbial bitch to dry out naturally, and as a result she had given up and allowed it to continue to drip its way into her eyes and down the sides of her face. What she really wanted to do was get naked...leather didn't wring out very well, and right now the feel of her skin squishing and slooshing in her tight uniform and boots was enough to drive her mad.
Now what? she wondered, peering out of her hiding place at the groaning ceiling over the pool. If the way had been clear overhead, she might have stood a chance of conjuring a wind current to ride back to the top and safety, but as it was there was no getting through the matted mass of tumbled rock and steel that covered the crosshatched ceiling. The only other way, then, was the conventional one...she would have to somehow find her way back up via stairs or something, and that would mean navigating the dark, eerie corridor behind her...which was, as far as she could see, the only way out of this subterranean gymnasium.
<<Ororo?>>
Ororo yelped, feeling as if she had leaped three feet in the air. It's only Jean, you nitwit, she scolded herself, the sudden terror being replaced just as quickly with a feeling akin to overwhelming, exhausting relief. Jean, at least, was okay...and that made her situation down here just a little more bearable. <<I'm here, Jean!>> she shouted jubilantly in her mind, and she could feel Jean's elation just as clearly through the mental channel that had been opened.
<<Thank God!>>Jean said. Then: <<Where are you?>>
<<That's an excellent question...and one I'm afraid I don't know the answer to,>> Ororo replied. She looked dismally at the apocalyptic scene in front of her. <<I seem to be in one of the lower levels, but I have no idea how far down I am. I fell into a swimming pool.>>
<<A swimming pool?! Are you hurt?>>
<<No, I'm fine.>>
There was a pause, then Jean asked, almost timidly, <<Are you sure?>>
Ororo heard the unspoken question in Jean's voice, and she smiled, hoping her smile would somehow travel to where Jean was listening. <<Both mother and child are doing well,>> she said.
<<I'm so glad!>> Jean said, the obvious relief in her thoughts carrying perfectly well to Ororo. <<There's trouble up here,>> she continued, her thoughts sounding a little breathless. <<Soldiers everywhere...Cyclops and I are hiding in this little office off the main corridor on the first level...there's a computer in here, and I think I may be able to access and delete Logan's files, but we're going to need help. Cyclops says we need to make a change in plans.>>
<<What do you need me to do?>>
<<Get up here, if you can,>> Jean replied. <<Cyclops and Forge were hoping to make this a quick ambush...rush in and grab the files, and Logan, and get out. There's no chance of that now...they were ready for us.>>
<<So he wants us to regroup?>>
<<If we can,>> came Jean's nervous reply.
Ororo closed her eyes and leaned against the solid wall behind her. Regroup? And do what? There weren't enough of them to take the entire compound by force, but she had the unsettling notion that this was exactly what Cyclops had in the back of his mind. She trusted him, of course, totally and completely...she would have cheerfully followed him into the middle of Antarctica and never once bugged him to ask for directions, but this...?
But, then again...what other choice did they have?
<<I'm coming, Jean,>> Ororo said in resignation. <<I don't know how, but I'll find my way up there somehow.>>
<<Be careful, 'Ro,>> Jean replied. <<We'll be waiting for you.>> Ororo felt her gently break the connection, and her shoulders slumped even more as she turned and began to make her way up the dark, forbidding corridor.
Oh Logan...where are you? she thought mournfully...then the darkness swallowed her in its black embrace.
***
Remy watched in stunned amazement as the soldier standing before him let the gun slump limply out of his hands. His face throbbed, the veins standing out in stark relief...then he slowly sank to the floor with a sort of gasping moan, his knees not so much giving way as folding as he collapsed in a comatose heap at Rogue's feet, her small, slender white hands still holding his massive head between her palms as he sank into his own private void.
Remy snapped his eyes back to Rogue's face, momentarily taken aback by what he saw there. Her eyes were lidded halfway, and a small, almost sensual smile was on her lips as she obviously sucked the very lifeforce from the soldier now limp and wasted on the ground before her. Sacre bleu! Remy thought, his mind reeling in a twisted sort of awe. De fille look like she enjoyed dat, non? She liked sucking dat homme's brain dry! On the heels of that thought, rushing in with a sort of frightening clarity, was the realization that she terrified him...she terrified him and excited him all at the same time...
And on the heels of that was the sudden and inexplicable realization that, if he wasn't careful, he could lose his heart to this girl without a single backward glance.
Rogue let go of the soldier's head, and it sagged to the ground with a dusty sort of thump. She met Remy's eyes then, and the shining, almost hungry brilliance in them made that half-scary, half-arousing feeling sweep over him all over again. He felt a stirring in his loins, and with an uneasy gulp he forced himself to see Marie again...shy and sweet and a little uncertain, and certainly not dangerous. He succeeded too, for when he met her eyes again the hungry look was gone.
"Ugh," Rogue was saying. She was holding her hands out in front of her like they were a pair of dead fish. "That was really disgusting!"
"You...what..." Remy swallowed hard and tried again. "What you do to him, chere?"
"Ah'm not sure, exactly," Rogue said, looking down at the crumpled soldier with a slightly curious expression. "That's the first time Ah've ever done it on purpose...but the professor said that its like Ah suck the life right out of them." She looked up at Remy again, too quickly for him to hide the faint revulsion in his eyes. Her head drooped a little. "Ah'm sorry, Remy," she said. "Ah didn't mean tah freak you out, but Ah couldn't think of anything else tah do."
Remy watched her for a moment, then he suddenly stepped over the fallen soldier and pulled Rogue into his arms, hugging her tightly. She stiffened for the barest second, amazed that he actually wanted to touch her after the display of her powers that she had just given...but then she relaxed happily, wrapping her arms around him in return and loving every minute of the feel of his hard, lithe body pressed against hers...even if it was through the leather of two uniforms. "T'anks, chere," he said. "You saved my life." And then he totally stunned her by turning his head and pressing a kiss to her cheek, protected by the thick fall of her lustrous brown hair. She pulled away from him slightly, but he didn't let go and neither did she, and then they were standing there, breathing a little harder although neither of them noticed it, and she was staring up into his bizarre and absolutely gorgeous eyes only inches from her own.
Rogue bit her lips, and Remy's eyes stole to her soft mouth inadvertently. Then they flicked back to her eyes, and Rogue was suddenly very conscious of his heartbeat, hammering against her breasts as they met each others eyes in silence. Something indefinable passed between them...Rogue knew, in a sudden blinding flash of just knowing, that if there had been any way possible in the universe for Remy to kiss her now without passing out in the space of two seconds, he would have done so...right there in the middle of God and everybody and the building falling down around their ears. Another silent heartbeat passed...and then Remy swallowed hard and confirmed what Rogue had already guessed. "I...I wish I could kiss you right now," he whispered, his accent suddenly softened by the nervous tenderness in his voice.
"Ah wish you could, too," she whispered back. His arms tightened about her waist for the briefest of moments, the want and longing and lust and...yes, even terror in his eyes making her ache...and then the moment was shattered by a implacable and utterly foreign voice suddenly crash-landing in Rogue's head.
<<Rogue?>>
<<Aw, cripes!>> Rogue sputtered. She jerked reflexively, and Remy let go of her with a puzzled expression. "It's Jean," she told him by way of explanation. "She's in my head...she's a telepath, you know."
Remy's blank expression faded a little, but he still looked perplexed. <<What is it?>> Rogue asked, her mental voice coming across a little more flustered than she had intended.
<<Are you all right?>>
<<Ah'm fine,>> Rogue said. <<Where are you? Are you okay?>>
<<I'm with Cyclops...we're in an office...I think...on the first level. Are Forge and Remy with you?>>
<<Remy is,>> Rogue replied. <<Forge disappeared in the explosions...we were just on our way tah go look for him when we ran into a little trouble.>>
Jean sounded instantly worried again. <<What sort of trouble?>> she asked sharply.
<<Nothin' we couldn't handle,>> she replied proudly.
There was a pause, then: <<Cyclops wants both you and Remy to try to find a way back to where we are. We're just off the main hall, where we came in. Do you think you can do that?>> she asked.
<<Yeah...but what about Forge? And Logan?>> Rogue argued. <<We still have to find them!>>
<<Let me worry about that,>> Jean said. <<The two of you just get down here as quickly as you can...all right?>>
<<All right,>> Rogue sighed. She felt the connection separate, looking up to see Remy staring at her with a completly confused expression. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she grabbed his leather-clad arm and began to pull him along.
"Where we goin', chere?" he asked, his long legs keeping up with her easily.
"Back the way we came, sugah," she said. "There's been a change of plans."
***
Jean pushed her mind out a little farther, reaching for Forge in that dark place hiding behind all memory. She felt him jump as she entered his mind, and she hastened to soothe him: <<Forge...it's Jean.>>
<<Where are you?>> he asked immediately.
<<In an office on the first level. You?>>
<<I got separated from the kids in the explosion, but...>> There was a pause, and when he answered again his mental voice sounded strained. <<I found him, Jean. I found Logan...or rather, he found me.>>
<<Is he okay?>> she asked.
<<No. No, he's not,>> Forge replied soberly. He didn't elaborate further, and Jean felt an icy hand clutch at her heart. <<I'm on my way up,>> Forge continued after a moment. <<I'm still on the third level, but I think I've found an unblocked stairway.>>
<<The others are on their way, too,>>she told him.
<<What now?>> he asked.
<<Cyclops thinks we might have a chance if we regroup,>> she said, but her thoughts didn't sound very sure. <<I'll let him fill you in when you get here. We're going to try to find Logan's records now.>>
<<I'll be there soon.>>
Jean broke this last mental link...then, after a pause of uncertainty, she tried reaching out and touching Logan's mind. Be there, Logan...please? she thought...and then she was there, in that dark and frightening place she had entered once, back on the first night after Logan had come into their lives.
<<Logan?>>
There was no answer...only a dull, throbbing ache that pounded its way into her brain. He's unconscious, she realized with mounting anxiety. And something is very wrong. The pain seemed to build, cresting into a horrible wave, and she moaned a little and broke the connection quickly.
"Jean?" Cyclops said.
She opened her eyes, sighing shakily and nodding at Cyclops' questioning expression. "It's done," she said. "They're all on their way."
"Okay," he said decisively. He moved away and crossed the room, toward a large banker's desk that was against the opposite wall. There was a computer sitting on it, dark and silent and barely visible in the dim light from the door's window. A few stark file cabinets lined the walls behind it, but it was the computer he was interested in...Logan's files would almost certainly be on disk or something in there, and even if there were paper copies floating around, the plan he was slowly formulating would take care of that problem. He seated himself in the desk chair, its leather-bound cushion expelling a soft, wheezy sigh as he sat down, then he booted up the computer quickly, the light from its screen slowly filling the room with a cold silver glow.
Jean came up behind him and leaned over his shoulder, the flashing code on the screen flickering across her face. "Do you know what you're looking for?" she asked softly.
"No...but that's were you come in," Cyclops replied. The code abruptly vanished, then the screen turned black with a single white-lettered box in the middle of its dark square. Password flashed on and off cheerily.
"Shit," Cyclops muttered. "I wish Kitty were here...that kid's always figuring out stuff like this."
"What did you expect?" Jean asked with a touch of amusement. "Of course the files would be password encrypted."
"Yeah, but I can hope, can't I?" he said. He sighed. "Well, here goes nothing."
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