TITLE:

AUTHOR: Cerebral Seductress (Fallon D)

DESCRIPTION: Desperate to bring Rogue out of her self-induced coma, the Wolverine lets himself become trapped in the dream world she's created. What will he have to sacrifice to save her from herself?

RATING: PG-13, or T. The language, however, will be more suited to an M or R-rated story. Since M-rated fics can't be archived in C2 communities, this fic will remain T.

A/N: This is a moviefic, although I have taken the liberty of borrowing certain events, situations and characters from the X-Men comics. Set sometime after X-2.

…

…

…

"He's gone."

"He can't be."

"Rogue-"

"He can't be. I can feel him."

…

…

…

Her lips were parted slightly, every breath so soft and shallow that she seemed not to be breathing at all, frozen in stasis on the cold metal gurney, her untouchable skin bare beneath the swath of sheet that covered her from shoulder to toe. There were dark circles below her eyes; her face was nearly as pale as the snow-white streak that started at her brow and laced dramatically through her chestnut hair.

Logan reached out a hand to run his leather-encased fingers through that white streak. It had always been, to him, a painful reminder of what had taken place on Liberty Island. Marie had laughed it off. "I kinda like it," she'd said, her tone teasing as she stared up at him. He didn't like it at all. The way she styled her hair around it- like it was some kind of trophy to be flaunted- was like sucking his life force dry all over again. She'd nearly died that night. Because of him. Because he hadn't been able to keep his promise.

He was reminded of his heartfelt oath on the train, right before Magneto had stolen her away from him.

"C'mon, I'll take care of you."

"You promise?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I promise."

Years had gone by. Marie had evolved from a gangly teen into a striking, confident woman. Logan had found himself reluctantly drawn into her young world, tolerating her changing music tastes, learning to smile back when she shot him a rare grin, remembering to wear gloves when they were together so she wouldn't have to. He taught her how to defend herself; she coaxed him into letting his guard down. He had cradled her sobbing body in his arms on the day that Bobby had broken her heart, had watched her laugh when he'd made the Iceman sprint an extra ten laps in gym the next day. Marie, in turn, had pretended to understand his obsession with Jean, and later, with the Phoenix. Their friendship was the only constant in Logan's life, and he knew she'd be there waiting every time he returned to the mansion.

Until the night he'd walked into her room to find her gone.

Not just absent. Gone. Fucking gone. Her bed was undisturbed, her possessions piled into cardboard boxes in a corner, her scent too faint for him to find in the darkness.

Jean had stared at him after he'd awoken her, eyes blurred from sleep, half-leaning against the door like she wasn't alert enough to stand. "You didn't hear?" she'd asked softly.

Horror had risen within him, a constant pain that never lessened with familiarity. "Hear what?" he seethed through gritted teeth.

"The Brotherhood took her. She went with them willingly," the redheaded woman said defensively. "There was nothing we could do to stop her."

Logan sucked in his breath, keeping his face a carefully blank mask. "They took her?"

In response, Jean had lifted a hand to his temple, touching his skin with delicate fingertips. And the past two months of memories came pouring into his mind. There were underlying fragments that he didn't touch- moments with Scooter, interludes discussing gifts with the Professor- and it surprised him how much he didn't want to look at those aspects of Jean's life. A year before, even a minute before he might have thought about invading her privacy, finding some blackmail to pressure her with. But at that moment, all he had wanted to do was figure out what had happened to Marie.

"You screwed up, kid," he told her silent form now, gruff because he wasn't sure how else to be. "Shoulda waited for me."

He had a pretty good idea of what Magneto had promised her. It was the only thing that could have tempted a straight-and-narrow kid like her- the only thing that she'd wanted more than anything, the only dream that she'd ever fantasized about in the entire time Logan had known her. The only sensation she was denied.

Touch.

"Shit, Marie," he cursed softly, his hand moving from her hair to the curve of her cheek. "I could have given you just as much as he did. More. Should've waited."

It wasn't something he would have said if he thought she could hear him. The Wolverine wasn't the type to blurt out his feelings to twenty-one year old girls. Hell, the Wolverine wasn't the type to have feelings.

The door slid open behind him, and Logan tensed, picking out the faint whirr of the Professor's wheelchair, the caress of Jean's perfume. Hank was with them, his furry feet making almost no sound on the metal tiles. They were coming to tell him to leave, that there was nothing he could do here. But there was nothing he could do anywhere else, either, and at least when he was with her, he could be sure that the Brotherhood wouldn't come to take her away again.

Jean walked around the gurney and stopped across from him, her vibrant Phoenix gaze settling on Marie's face. Conscious that his fingertips were still resting against her cheek, Logan clenched his hand into a fist, breaking contact.

"Jean."

"Logan." She returned his greeting without a trace of emotion. Smart girl.

"You've been here for almost eighteen hours, Logan," the Professor said. "If they planned to come for her, they would have done so long before now."

"I'm not leaving her alone," Logan said flatly.

"We're not asking you to," said Jean. "Hank and I will stay with her while you get some rest."

Under normal circumstances he would have continued to protest. But Logan was tired- no, beyond tired, exhausted, fighting off the blackness that lurked at the edges of his vision like shadowed threats. He was still wearing the uniform, still had blood encrusted in his hair and slashed across his face. His body was drained from healing itself so many times. He wouldn't be able to sleep, not now, but at least he could try to.

And he wouldn't be any good to Marie if he were dead on his feet.

Logan stood, swaying and then steadying himself with a hand on the gurney. "I'll be back in an hour," he said.

"Make it two?" Jean asked as she slid gloves on over her perfectly manicured hands. "I need to run a few tests, and you may not want to be here-"

"One hour." His tone brooked no argument.

The red-haired telepath bit her lip, but said nothing.

Logan glanced down at Marie, not sure if she would hear a goodbye if he said it, then turned and walked out the door.

He put the shower so scalding that his skin turned scarlet in protest, healing and re-healing itself after each blast of blistering-hot water. Logan turned the knob until it wouldn't go any hotter, wanting to wash away his guilt, his memories. But it was impossible to clear his thoughts, not with the events of the past week looming.

This failure was another link in his chain of despair. Logan took risks with his thoughts, kept his self-loathing as a constant companion, his regrets like little shards of tile attached to the mental whip he used to flay himself. There were no safe-words or emergency exits in the Wolverine's psyche. It was as dark and hopeless a place as it needed to be, because no matter how far he fled or how much he changed, Logan knew his past would always haunt him.

And it would always hurt the ones he cared about.

…

…

…

Killing Carol had changed her. Logan hadn't realized how much until he'd found her, waiting for him in the old warehouse that the Brotherhood had briefly used as headquarters.

She didn't look like Marie anymore.

Hers was the face of a fallen angel, a succubus. A woman scorned. The slash of crimson across her lips was too bright for her pale features. Her hair was a wild mane of curls, white streak cutting jaggedly through the darkness to frame her beautiful, dangerously seductive face.

She was the Rogue now, heart and soul, sensuality and death and bittersweet poison rolled into one. When her sparking eyes turned upon him, they were a brilliant emerald instead of the sweet sable he remembered, and when Logan said her name- unconsciously, never realizing he had even spoken- her expression was furious.

"Don't ever call me that" she snarled. "Marie is dead. Dead. Pathetic bitch. Always groveling. Waiting. Waiting for the big bad Wolverine to take notice of the poor, little southern girl." She floated into the air, and Logan reflexively popped his claws, taking a step back and shifting into a defensive stance before it had even registered in his mind that Rogue was flying.

Flying.

"'I think she's a little taken with you.'" Rogue mocked Jean's words. Her hair was alive with static, writhing around her face like a living thing. Her soft, lilted drawl seemed to make each word more seething, more acidic than the last. "She was taken, wasn't she? Taken with the Wolverine, taken by the Wolverine."

Jade eyes flashed, cutting through him like knives. "And you were such the rebel, in love with another man's wife, laughing with the others over the infatuated kid who couldn't see straight for being so crazy about you. I…" She stopped, stared blankly at him.

An eternity passed as their eyes met. Held.

"You killed me," she whispered at last. "You bastard, leaving her all alone. She had nowhere else to go."

Logan's breath was coming faster now. Jean had said there were side-effects to the murder of Carol Danvers. Before Carol, Rogue had never killed anyone with her gift. She'd always stopped, let go, released her victim just short of death. Absorbing a person entirely meant that the mutant's powers would never fade away. Worse, Jean had said that Rogue seemed to be waging a battle with Carol inside her body. The woman had been sucked into Rogue's mind and would now remain there.

Rogue began to pull off her gloves, a sadistic smirk on her face.

Logan clenched his fists, feeling the adamantium edges cutting into his skin, the heat flaring in his hands as he healed instantly. He couldn't kill her. He had promised himself he'd bring her back alive.

…

…

…

"Find him!"

"I can't focus his energy. He's…here, but there's no way to pinpoint his location, center his consciousness."

"Logan! Logan, can you hear me?"

…

…

…

Her skin was pale in the near-darkness, milky-white and so flawless that Logan almost forgot that it was a deathtrap, that touching her would lead to pain and injuries that even he couldn't recover from. With the faint illumination of the light from the locked medicine cabinet, Marie was an angel. She was once again the innocent girl that he remembered from that first night in Laughlin City.

He'd rather remember her that way, Logan realized, reaching out to run a hand through her hair for the thousandth time since she'd fallen into her coma. He'd like to remember Marie as the sweet girl she'd been, instead of the vicious siren that had murdered so many- that had almost murdered him. He wasn't a fucking priest by any means; Logan had no problem killing, particularly when it was deserved, but the thought of Marie doing it- hurting anyone- was impossible. She was still a child in so many ways, and she didn't need to see the darker side of mutation and its enemies any more than she'd needed to touch Magneto and gain his memories of Nazi Germany.

His ungloved fingers skimmed across her brow, and Logan flinched as he felt the vacuum of her powers opening up. Uneasily he drew his hand away, and when he broke contact Marie shifted in her sleep, murmuring something that even his sensitive ears couldn't make out. It was the first sign of activity since this nightmare had started, and Logan froze, hardly daring to breathe as she shifted, turning her head to the side and falling back into her trance-like state.

"Marie," he said, and his voice cracked. Logan cleared his throat and tried again. "Marie."

But she said nothing.