"C'mon, Kit Kat." Jubilee said, pulling her friend away from Bobby with one hand and holding leftovers from dinner in the other.

"Where're we going?"

"Carol's been in her room all day. She's gotta at least be hungry."

"Carol, please open the door. We're your friends. We just want to know you're ok," Kitty pleaded through the door.

She turned to Jubes, with a look of resignation. Then, with a click, the door unlocked, but didn't open. Jubilee knocked tentatively as she turned the knob and opened the door.

"Carol?"

The blond girl was on the bed, clutching her legs tightly to her chest and rocking back and forth. Jubes could see the trails that tears had made down her face. She set down the plate of food and sat down next to Carol, reaching to put an arm around her, when the girl shrunk back in terror.

"Don't touch me."

Jubilee jumped off the bed, startled by the reaction and the fear she saw in Carol's eyes.

Carol went back to her rocking and then muttered, "Jean says Rogue's touching thing is coming back. It's blinking on and off, and I can't tell when it's safe."

Kitty whispered to herself, "If Rogue is dead, then why is her mutation coming back?"

"What?!" Carol shrieked. "What did you say, Kitty? You think I've been lying all this time? That this is some kind of fun thing for me, that I wanted to end up in this body?"

Kitty was shocked into silence, she hadn't expected Carol to hear her. "How did you..."

"I absorbed Wolverine, remember? Good hearing kinda comes along with the asshole in my head. As if I didn't have enough voices to deal with before, now I've got him stuck in my head, too."

"What?" Jubes asked in a quiet voice.

Carol, realizing what she'd said a second after she said it, and had to cover. "What?"

"What did you mean by that? Having his voice, too?"

"Look, I'm tired. I don't know what I said. Just, can ya just leave me alone?"

"Yeah. We just brought you dinner, thought you might be hungry." Jubes said, heading for the door. "C'mon, Kits."

After they'd left the room, Jubes turned to her friend. "Did you hear what I heard?"

Carol was furious. She'd wanted to fly away, wanted to go to the roof to think, wanted to go to the gym and beat the stuffing out of her punching bag, but she knew as soon as he woke up, he would track her down.

She'd been in her room all day, trying to think a way out of this mess. Along with her more recent injuries, the scars, the limp, all the reminders of that terrible car accident, were gone. Jean'd even told her she was growing a new spleen. It was everything she'd wished for, and she hated it with every breath in her body, because now he was with her, in her head, and he was helping Marie. She'd push Rogue down, and Logan would fight her. She'd push Logan down and Rogue would get stronger.

After a day of fighting in her head, she'd been tired when Jubes and Kitty visited, and she'd let the secret slip. They knew that Marie was still alive.

Carol noticed it the next day. Whispers began to float around the school. The others stared at her when they thought she wasn't looking. She couldn't hide the gloves the professor insisted she wear.

She was working out when he found her. She tried to ignore him, but Logan, though still weak, was not a man to be ignored. "Hey, kid." The voice grated on her ears. It had kept her up all night; his voice and Marie's in unison claimed that she needed to leave. Carol pretended not to have heard.

Within seconds he was beside her. "I know you heard me. You've still got my senses, Carol." She whirled on him, her arm catching him in the chest. He groaned and stumbled back, her superior strength knocking him back. "Damn it."

Carol tried to look properly shocked, but the thrill of hitting the man who was helping her lose her body was too much. Marie screamed inside her head. Logan screamed inside her head. Carol bit her tongue to keep from letting the two combined personas inside her mind rule her body. It was her body, her body, her body... It was as if she kept repeating it, it would make it true.

Logan stood up and looked at her. He took in her gloves, and the look of terror and concentration on her face. He flashed her a brief, and somewhat malicious smile before turning on his heel and leaving.

Carol slumped to the floor. The exhaustion of the previous night's sleeplessness had caught up with her. She stripped off the gloves with venom.

~Let me out, Carol.~

~You killed me! I had--~

~She didn't kill you.~ Logan's voice interrupted her tirade. ~And you have no right to this body.~

Carol fought Logan with her mind and words, unaware that another link of the chain that held her to Marie's body had snapped.

"What exactly do you think you're doing, Logan?"

Logan was standing in front of the fridge, an open bottle of milk pressed to his lips when he heard the angry demand.

"Uhh… getting a glass," he withdrew the container from his mouth and leant over to the cupboard where the glasses lay. Jean entered the kitchen more, cutting off the entrance with her body.

"I'm not talking about your lack of hygiene. I was referring to what you're doing to Carol."

"Has Scott gotten to you now?" Logan asked, lacing his voice with boredom, but Jean wasn't going to be dissuaded.

"I've seen the way you look at her, Logan," Jean stated carefully.

Logan knew she was testing the waters, desperate not to push him away despite the confrontation.

"Jealous, Red?" Logan smirked.

Jean shook her head and frowned, "You're terrifying Carol."

Logan slammed the milk down onto the counter, splashing white fluid across the bench. He stilled a chuckle and replied.

"You're not going to tell me you still believe that Marie *isn't* in there, are you?"

Jean breathed slowly and considered how to phrase it.

"It's not that I'm saying she's not there, Logan..." Jean paused and Logan walked in closer, giving her an oddly encouraging look. "Her skin – the mutation, is likely to be a residual effect of Rogue's body. Carol could have just lost control of it somehow... I realize how you feel but..."

Logan's expression became dangerously hard but Jean continued.

"What are you really doing?"

"I always figured you for the bright one," Logan drawled, "I'm hunting Carol down and getting Marie back."

Jean cocked her head, not expecting him to put it quite so bluntly.

Admittedly, this was Logan, she reminded herself. He'd been sniffing around Carol constantly for all the time he'd been there, and it was his constant meetings with her and obsessively neurotic behaviour that had caused this conversation. Despite his stealth and natural aloofness, it hadn't escaped her entirely.

"Because whether you can admit it or not, we both know she's in there," Logan added.

"What about Carol?"

He bristled, "What the hell about Carol?"

He leaned menacingly into her but Jean stood her ground. It wasn't as easy as she'd hoped, having never been the true focus of his anger before. Even now, she was barely scraping the surface.

"Doesn't her consciousness have a right to live too? What if Marie-"

Logan shook his head violently, cutting her off. He breathed deeply. Jean could see the internal battle raging and almost reached her mind into his to understand it.

"Marie's body – Marie's mind. Carol can damn well die. Marie wouldn't have given up if that's what you're implying. She'd fight... damn hard if you'd help her," his voice dropped to a rasp. He'd wrestled enough with his conscience for Carol's death. It was a sacrifice he knew he was only too willing to make, but it scraped at his sense of humanity nonetheless.

"How can you be sure what you're doing is helping anyone?"

Logan snapped his face up as she questioned him.

"Why did you come here, Red?" Jean took a step back but his hands locked around her arms, binding her to the scene.

"To say, we're so sorry... if only you'd been there... get the hell over her, Logan?" He looked into her and Jean felt herself exposed, naked in that look.

"No," she answered quietly but he didn't even recognize she'd spoken.

"Because it's about damned time that someone tried *something*. Cause your method sure as hell hasn't gotten her back."

"The Professor wants to see you in his office. He thinks maybe..." Jean broke away. She shrugged her arms from his grasp and Logan let her.

"You should go," Jean stated. Logan looked at her face and knew she wasn't just talking about leaving the kitchen. He snarled under his breath and strode past her into the corridor. Pausing, he called over his shoulder, "Oh, and Jean... how the hell could you know how *I* feel?!"

"I'm psychic," she muttered, before slumping to the tiled floor.

Xavier was sitting behind his desk when Logan entered. The old man, at least the one who looked old, wheeled back slightly from his place to gesture at Logan to sit. But the scent of the other in the room had overwhelmed him, heated by anger and ready to lash out, the peroxide bit into his nose while the softness of *her* seeped into him.

"Logan, so good of you to join us," Xavier stated calmly. He was always so damn calm, Logan growled to himself. There was an answering raise of one eyebrow as the professor examined him. Carol was cringing in her seat, leaning into one side. Logan stood doggedly.

"You wanted me."

Xavier sighed and nodded. Logan cracked his neck, still standing.

"Carol was gracious enough to come down and meet with us tonight," Xavier started. "As I explained to her, my intention is to resolve a certain... situation that has arisen between you."

"You could call it that," Logan grunted.

The Professor shot a warning glance at him. "I've had reports that you're harassing Ms Danvers. Is that true, Logan?"

"Don't believe a word One-Eye says, he's just blowing smoke up your-"

"I've received reports from four individual parties. They say you've followed her, taunted Carol during training sessions, repeatedly instigated conversations where the sole purpose was to address Rogue..." Xavier continued down the list of Logan's recent behaviour.

Carol sat rigidly in her chair while Logan paced behind her. As he prowled past the other door he turned to look at her and mouthed words. Carol gritted her jaw and refused to respond.

"I'm sorry to do this, but I have no choice Logan. Please collect your belongings and leave," Xavier finished.

"What?" Logan demanded. "What kind of shit are you trying to pull here?" Logan felt a bolt of ice lancing into his neck. The effect was to silence him.

"I don't feel that you're safe to have around here, with young students and especially with Ms Danvers. While it's not under question that you'll be leaving, if you would agree, I could organize some counseling for-"

Logan roared, releasing his claws into the air and Carol gasped. The last time he'd done that in front of her she'd been too occupied with opponents to truly observe. Now, the phenomenon of nine inches of metal slipping through skin into air, startled her. Sending a thrill of recognition through the darkest parts of her.

"Why can't you see it? Marie's in there! And she's begging to come out."

Xavier regarded him coolly and Logan slashed the air in frustration.

"Why won't you just *look*, dammit!"

Logan felt the anger swell, breaking over and flooding his rational self. He grabbed for her, it seemed the best thing to do. Carol resisted his arms as he pulled her from the chair and up against him. Her body was pressed hard into flannel and jeans, while three knives rested at her throat.

"Tell him," he hissed. Carol mouthed an obscenity coldly and he let one blade slip over her skin. A sliver of red welled up from under her jaw. Logan pushed at her, demanding Marie to revolt against the pain, while it took all his strength just to press that hard.

Tears pricked at Carol's eyes, "You can't hurt her, Logan. Not with anything more than a papercut. And even then, you think you're helping her."

Logan felt Xavier's mind skating over his, readying to disable him if he went so much as a step further.

"Only Marie would know that," Logan replied hoarsely, feeling the surroundings slip away as he concentrated on her. The feel of Marie stretched along him, her voice pulling at him and the tang of her blood in the air. He lowered his lips closer to her ear and jawline.

"No, you touched me too," Carol replied. Even now, he was taunting her in muted roars, "I can feel you now. Still rattling your cage." Within and without.

"They all know about you, Marie. They know you're in there. The looks... the questions... all the eyes are on *you*."

Carol's eyes slipped shut and the events of the day met her again. So many accusing stares. All she wanted was to live. To exist.

"Tell him, Marie," he whispered and his breath ran hotly over her ear.

Carol shivered and felt herself drift away from the touch. The door slid open as Xavier watched aghast. Scott reached forward to intervene but Jean's arm held him back. Kitty and Jubilee stood to the side, unsure of the situation. The coarse hair along his cheek grazed her skin as he bent further into her neck.

"Fight, Marie," Logan rumbled.

"Logan..." the voice was soft and lazily southern.

He purred deeply in his throat, as she reached out to him and her eyes opened slowly, shadowed with a friendly warmth. Marie. He brushed his lip over the trail of blood on her skin, before tentatively lapping at it, cleaning the wound he'd given her.

"Fight," he urged again.

Something rushed within, the single word flamed them both. `Fight' he said and fight they did. Carol felt her vision return immediately and she pushed the weaker Marie to the side. Staggering back, as Logan let his arms drop away from her, Carol searched the eyes of the room.

Xavier was fixed on Kitty and Jubilee as they ranted at him inside their minds. Carol knew immediately what they were telling him, about the incident in her bedroom, even pausing to wonder why they hadn't told him sooner. Logan was standing in the centre of the room, his muscles relaxed and his claws still hanging out as his chest heaved in breaths. Smug satisfaction was on his face... that and other things.

Looking back to Xavier, Carol felt the looks overwhelming her... They all knew. Even his kindly eyes, the ones who had peered into hers as they waited for Logan. The way they had been blissfully oblivious to the other student's gawks and had offered sympathy for having to put up with the brutish Wolverine... was all gone. They were calculating now, determining how to bring the other back. She'd been expecting this, ever since she'd seen it in Jubilee and Kitty. But to know finally that all her options were gone, was a terrifying thought to Carol.

Marie was strong in her mind, wrestling control back and forth so much that emotions were swimming from her grasp. But the realization remained.

She had to escape.

Logan wet his lips, tasting her blood again as he watched the scene unfold. His mind kept urging Marie to escape her prison and something was indeed happening inside her. Carol was almost thrashing in her own skin. The two telepaths debated internally, whether this was truly any place for them to take control.

Logan, fixated on her, was the first to see her turn. With a swift move she was launching herself to the window, part of her expecting merely to crash through it, as the controlling part expected her to take flight. He sprung into action, shouting as he pushed himself towards her.

Something gave way and she felt her weight lift from the ground. Glass rushed over her face before her body continued to lift. She was flying. Behind her, Logan's hands clawed through the air desperately reaching for her.