POV: Jean

"Jeanie?" Logan's voice, filled with desperation and near panic drew me away from my preparations as he and Rogue entered the lab. At a quick glance, neither of them seemed symptomatic, but that could change quickly.

I'd donned level two biohazard gear thanks to Scott's warning and was ready to treat them. It was basically the standard surgical attire except for a long-sleeved plastic jumpsuit to cover my scrubs and a face shield to protect my skin from any poison remaining.

"Over there," I said pointing at the privacy screens I'd set up in a corner of the room. "Take everything off, get any remaining blood off your skin, and put on the hospital gowns."

They obeyed without one clever quip or comment, and that more than anything underscored how seriously they were taking their predicament.

When they emerged, I pointed them to the beds I'd summoned from the floor. I had blood kits waiting by each bed. I needed to take samples from both of them to get some sort of idea of the type of poison I was facing. Logan refused to lay down on his bed. Instead, he helped Rogue onto her bed and stayed by her side, touching her shoulder where the thin fabric of the gown protected him.

"Logan, I need to examine both of you,"

"Her first, Red," he responded, his voice brooking no arguments.

"Ok, she's first, but you're next, Logan," I answered, my own voice just as strong.

I drew Rogue's blood without any problems, but a few minutes later, when I was drawing a sample from Logan as he sat next to her bed, she started to shift uncomfortably.

"The lights," she mumbled, clumsily pulling her arm up to try and cover her eyes. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated.

Logan immediately stood up, ignoring the fact that I still had a needle in his vein. I quickly extracted it so he wouldn't injure himself and turned my attention to Rogue as well.

"Marie," Logan asked. "What's wrong? What about the lights?"

"Too bright," she whined, her voice rising in pain.

I psychically adjusted the light level while Logan settled a hand comfortingly on her shoulder. She flinched away from his touch, wincing like she'd been burned. She was starting to sweat, a fine sheen developing on her face.

"Rogue, what is it?" I asked. "Can you tell me what your symptoms are?"

"Everything hurts. Don't talk. Don't touch," she gasped out through gritted teeth.

Her heart monitor started beeping more rapidly and then her whole body stiffened, every muscle tightening.

"Jean, do something!" Logan demanded, his voice frantic with worry.

Rogue arched up off the bed and started convulsing so violently that I worried she might fall off.

"Hold her down," I ordered Logan as I ran to the supply room for soft restraints.

I'd only used them once, when a young mutant boy had come into my care. Mark was a telepath who'd spent the better part of three years in an insane asylum before coming to the mansion. He'd been manipulated by the voices in his head to hurt himself and the restraints were the only way to protect him from harm until the professor could reach him. Just the thought of what he'd had to endure made me shudder to this day.

Since it'd been years since I'd used them, it took me over a minute to find the restraints. When I came rushing back into the room, I was greeted by a horrifying image. Rogue was lying quiet on the medical table and Logan was slumped over her, his bare hand still touching her forehead.

I screamed something unintelligible as I used my power to throw him off of her. I couldn't let him touch her for one more second. Logan collapsed to the floor bonelessly, seemingly lifeless. I never should have left him alone with her.

As I levitated his body up to the table I'd prepared for him, Scott burst into the Med Lab with a small, thin woman in tow.

"Jean, she's the one who..." he started to say, then he stopped when he saw Logan and Rogue, both unconscious and unmoving.

"Put her in the quarantine room," I said, not even looking up from Logan's body.

I summoned E.K.G. pads from the nearby heart monitor and quickly hooked him up. His heart was beating rapidly, almost twice the normal rhythm, but he wasn't breathing. I mentally floated an intubation tray over to his bed and quickly tubed him, starting the artificial respirator.

Once he was temporarily stabilized, I checked on Rogue. Her heart had slowed down to a normal rhythm and she was breathing normally. From everything I could tell, she was unconscious, but otherwise unhurt.

Scott returned from the quarantine rooms in the back of the lab just as Logan started seizing. His body stiffened and his claws shot out, then he started arching and straightening, slamming forcefully into the bed.

"Scott, those restraints," I shouted, cocking my head in the direction of the leather bindings I'd abandoned on the floor. I was using my body and my telekinesis to hold Logan down and it was barely working. I couldn't keep him still for long. We attached the leather chest strap first, cinching it down on his chest when he'd straightened out during the seizure. With Logan's chest held down and his body taut, it was easier to get the other straps into place.

It was only after we'd gotten his body securely fastened that I realized Logan was in danger of something far worse than just falling off a table. His jaw was clenched shut so tightly that he'd clamped off the ventilator tubing. He wasn't getting any air.

"Dammit!" I shouted, trying to pry his jaw open with my hands and my TK. It didn't work. The brain can only last four to six minutes without oxygen before irreparable damage occurs. Logan'd been seizing for about two minutes, and I had no idea when he'd stop.

Diazepam! I could administer it intravenously to stop the seizures. Leaving Scott by Logan's side, I hurried to the drug locker and flung it open. Grabbing an I.V. kit, saline bag, and a bottle of diazepam, I went back to my patient.

The seizure was affecting every muscle in his body. Even the muscles in his face were twisted up in a tight smile. His eyes were wide open, almost bulging, and the pupils were so dilated that I could barely detect the hazel color. I couldn't tell if he was awake or unconscious, but I hoped he couldn't feel what was happening to him.

I immediately found a vein in his straining arm and set up the drip, administering a little more than would be called for in a human patient, but not too much. Rogue had absorbed his powers, so he was temporarily weakened, but there was no way to tell how much of his abilities she had permanently acquired.

The seizures stopped as quickly as they'd begun, Logan's body collapsing into complete relaxation. His jaw was still locked closed, but there was enough space to maneuver the tubing out of his throat.

I pulled over a tracheotomy tray and set it next to his bed. When I placed my gloved left hand on his neck to tighten the skin for my scalpel cut, the muscles in his neck jumped. He was tied down well enough to allow for the minor surgery, however, despite how difficult his flexing muscles made the procedure. Finally, almost five minutes after the start of his seizure, I had established a more secure airway for him.

Still, it was only a temporary solution. I had no idea what kind of poison he had in his system or how to treat him. Blood studies would take time that he might not have. With his metallic skeleton, I couldn't risk him going into cardiac arrest. I might not be able to bring him back.

Scott had been there the entire time, watching as I worked on Logan, but I'd been too busy to acknowledge his offers of help until now. "Scott, get on my computer, the medical database, and look up these symptoms for a poison."

I waited while Scott got a pen and notepad. "Sensitivity to light, sound, and touch. Tonic and clonic seizures. Pupils dilated. Eyes wide open. Got it?"

"Got it," he replied.

Even with the seizure medication, Logan was twitching. It seemed to correspond to the sound of my voice, but I couldn't be sure. The heart monitors and his ventilator were also making a lot of noise in the room and the twitching didn't stop completely when I'd stopped speaking.

While Scott searched my comprehensive database, I changed gloves and walked back to the quarantine rooms to find the mutant who had started all this. Why she had attacked Logan and Rogue and how she had gotten on the mansion grounds in the first place were questions foremost in my mind, but I pushed them aside. My patient couldn't wait for me to satisfy my curiosity.

"How do you treat it?" I asked without preamble.

She looked up from her crouched position on the floor in the back corner. Her face was so pale and sharply lined, she looked almost like a cadaver, like a warning of the death she brought to others.

She didn't ask me what I was talking about, she just answered, "You don't. They die."

I wasn't about to accept that death sentence. "There has to be a way."

"No one's ever figured it out," she said, her raspy voice slightly tinged with regret. "They die too fast."

I couldn't believe that. How could this woman kill without trying everything in her power to find a cure for the next time an accident happened?

"Jean?" Scott's voice called to me from the main room. "I think I found something."

I left our pitiful captive behind to see if Scott's search for answers was more productive than mine.

"Venom tell you anything?" Scott asked as he surrendered the computer chair to me.

"Venom? That's her name?" I asked, settling into the chair. When I saw what was up on the screen, I forgot any curiosity I had about our mysterious intruder. "Strychnine?"

"Yes," Scott answered. "It has the same symptoms."

I examined the information. "It takes much larger doses to produce these reactions with skin contact and the activation time is 15 to 30 minutes. So, it's looks like we have a fast acting strychnine derivative on our hands."

Treatment. I scrolled down the page only to find that there was no treatment medication for dermal exposure. All the medications had to do with oral exposure to the poison. As I scanned paragraphs of suggesting gastric lavage and ipecac, I found a piece of information that I could actually use.

"In poisoning by strychnine," the article began, "the patient must be kept absolutely quiet, no noises should be permitted, nor should even a draught of air be permitted to strike the body."

Of course, Rogue had been so sensitive to touch and light before the seizures began. Logan is still twitching despite the I.V. anticonvulsants. Maybe if I got him into a quiet room...

"Scott, I need your help," I said, rising from the computer station and going back to the supply room for a stretcher.

"Ok," he said, following me as I gathered the things I needed.

Scott and I released Logan from the soft restraints. Even though he was still jerking a little, there was no danger of him falling anymore. I TK'd Logan onto the stretcher and spent a few moments detaching him from the fixed machines and transferred him to the portable heart monitor and ventilator. I pushed the stretcher while Scott rolled the ventilator behind us.

I had just gotten Logan hooked up to the more permanent equipment in his new room and had switched the readouts to silent alarm when I heard Rogue's blood-chilling scream from the main room of the Med Lab. "LO-GAN!!!"

Author's Note: Technical information from the USDA Strychnine Pesticide Fact Sheet.