Blueshift

Blueshift Twenty Three (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *bounces * I’m almost done with another side bit! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. :) ProPhile: Um…damn. I’m not awake enough for anything cute or clever… Morgan: Same thing… Readers/Reviewers: Thanks. :)

Rogue twisted her fingers together, making her knuckles pop in the silence of the van. Logan was driving and part of her dimly wondered if that was a good idea. He looked tired, unusual for him, and haggard. She thought of all the times she had seen him wander out of the gym or Danger Room after hours and hours of intensive training, looking as if he had just come in from a pleasant walk in the country side. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, her throat raw from screaming. Logan did not look at her, sitting in the passenger seat, but he nodded curtly. “Okay.” Professor Xavier’s tense mood radiated from the back of the van. He hated riding in the van and the other two mutants knew it. It made him feel less than, it made him feel as if he were nothing more than an aging man in his chair. Logan had put him onto the lift and operated the controls, sliding him into place, securing the chair and then him. Rogue had seen his expression as he watched Logan perform these mundane tasks and she had felt a pang of his old, almost forgotten self pity and disgust at the fact he was something different, not in terms of his abilities but in terms of humanity in general. Rogue closed her eyes and wondered how much of her thoughts were due to Empath still kicking around in her back brain and how much was due to the Professor being a projector and not controlling an errant thought or impression.
“I wish you would explain to me what we’re doing,” Logan said to no one in particular. “I don’t like being dragged in from the cold just to be shoved right back out in it again.”
Rogue licked her too-dry lips and cleared her sore throat. “Scott will fix the heater when we get home.” She unfolded her bent fingers and held them in front of the narrow vent before her. “It’s a little warm.”
Logan grunted, putting a world of meaning into the one sound.
“Cecilia was helping Henry in the lab this morning when a call came in on the school’s publicly listed phone number,” Professor Xavier said smoothly, pressing his feelings into a tight little ball to be picked apart and analyzed later in the privacy of his bedroom. “A…person…at a rural sheriff’s department had called to inform us one of our students was in their keeping.”
“Todd,” Rogue said the name jaggedly, vocal broken glass cutting her throat. “Todd is dead.”
Logan blinked slowly, coming to a stop at a red light on a county road just outside of Bayville. “Huh?”
Professor Xavier sighed, a long and soft sound that was more like a hiss in the quiet vehicle. “We’ll discuss this when we reach our destination.”
She bit her lip then, so hard she tasted blood, bright and salty on her tongue. “No,” she countered savagely albeit belatedly. “No, we talk now!”
Logan groaned under his breath and accelerated when the light turned green, making Rogue press against the seatbelt and the Professor’s chair creak a little. “Rogue, just take this easy… I know it’s hard but…”
“No, you don’t,” she replied, her voice ratcheting up a few levels. “You have no idea. You don’t know if I’m upset or confused or sad or happy or…or…”
“Turn here,” Professor Xavier intoned in a voice just loud enough to be heard, the tone commanding obedience. Logan turned off the two lane county road into a two lane, but slightly more narrow, private road. “It’s about five miles down, on the right. Can’t miss it, according to the man I spoke with.” His head ached again. Still, he corrected himself. His head ached still. The pain was nearing unbearable but he would not let it show, he knew. It was not out of bravery or machismo or anything other than it was his plain and simple nature to keep it to himself. Emma was in the medical ward, thrashing against the sedative. He could see it as plain as day. Jean was curled on her side in the boathouse, Scott starting to panic, thinking of things like tumors and dementia and blood clots. Jono seemed to be faring the best of them all. He felt it, the Professor knew, felt it and heard it and knew, but he was staring from the attic dormer, across the lawn. He wanted to collapse and curl into a ball of pain, but he did not. The Professor admired him silently, deep down inside, in a way he would never admit. He focused on the immediate moment as Logan shut off the engine. They had arrived.

Rogue thought she would be brave, be able to stride in, demand to see him, be able to touch his cold skin, but she found herself frozen in the door. Logan laid his hand on her elbow and she shook her head frantically. “I can’t,” she choked. “I…no!”
Logan nodded. “Don’t force yourself.” He stepped aside and let Professor Xavier past. The room was cold, the heater over head barely warming the air. “Hey, buddy,” he barked at the officer at the desk. He opened his hand palm up and glanced up at the heating vent, his question clear if unspoken.
“Oh,” he sighed, apparently sick of explaining. “Just got fixed. It’ll be an hour or three before this place is comfortable.” He moved around the desk and made a beeline for Logan and the Professor. “You the guys from Bayville come to get the body?” He winced as Rogue’s sharp, jagged cry rent the air. “Guess that’s a yes…”
Professor Xavier raised a disdaining brow. He could see Todd stretched out on the narrow bench in the cell, a sheet pulled over him. “Why is he in here?” he asked suddenly.
“Ain’t got a morgue and Solly, who owns the ambulance, he’s on vacation with his wife in Rhode Island…” He shrugged, sniffing. “Only way to get a corpse to the nearest hospital is in an ambulance. Some state law or some such…”
Professor Xavier looked as if he had eaten something that tasted like wet garbage. “Make an urn of coffee,” he said, brooking no argument.
“Huh?”
He turned to face the officer. “Behind you is a ten gallon coffee urn. Make some coffee. And entire urn full. Please.”
Logan raised a brow but did not question his friend. Instead he led Rogue to sit on one of the orange plastic chairs out of sight of the cell where Todd lay. “Don’t worry, darlin’,” he murmured, “It’s gonna be okay.” The words tasted salty and trite but he had to say them. Rogue did not immediately respond. She had seen the sheet draped form and her brain had gone into some sort of protective shock.
She turned her eyes up to meet Logan’s, her throat working to force words out. “Coffee?”
He sighed, nodding. “I know, darlin’… I know…”