Image of Stone
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4
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By A. Lias (giving Silver a lil' break from mutants)
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The red neon cross far ahead blurred as the rain intensified, but Logan only drove like Jehu and made straight for it. There was no moon out this time of the month and the cloud cover was as dense as his own skull, but his night vision and animal instincts guided him just as unerringly as if it’d been the noonday sun overhead. He was no math whiz, but he knew the bit about the shortest distance between two points being a straight line, so he put the Jeep into 4-wheel drive and made his own off-ramp to exit the freeway. He plowed up a few manicured lawns and flower beds since his beeline to the hospital required serious trespassing through the residential suburbs, but he didn’t give a damn. For some strange reason, he didn’t encounter any police cars--but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had: He wasn’t about to stop.

Not until he saw Remy.

And maybe not even then.

"Hey--you can’t park that Jeep there!" some moron in a white coat yelled at him as he skidded to a stop directly outside the Emergency Room door.

Logan got out of the Jeep, walked up to the moron, and said, "Then I’ll drive the damned Jeep right up yer ass and park it in yer chest cavity."

The moron took one look at the marbly lights in those yellow eyes, put up his hands, and stepped back. "Look, man, we don’t want trouble here."

"Then tell me where they took the hit-n-run victim who came in a few hours ago."

"Surgery’s straight down the hall__"

Logan was already gone.

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Fortunately for all concerned, the first person Logan saw when he rounded the corner was Dr. Henry McCoy. Hank was just leaving the Operating Suites, pulling a paper mask down from his face and peeling a pair of latex gloves off his enormous hands. He was dressed in surgical scrubs, and looked exhausted.

He didn’t even see Logan until the feral man grabbed him by the collar and snarled, "How’s the kid?"

Hank firmly disengaged his mitts and patted his arm reassuringly. "Remy will be fine, Logan. I was called as soon as the hospital realized that our Cajun is a mutant, and was able to perform all necessary surgery myself, as well as direct every aspect of the operating theater."

Logan heaved a sigh of relief; just hearing that Remy would recover was music to his ears. "Damage report," he said.

"Gambit suffered a broken left leg when the Harley spun out and landed on him. I was able to set all the fractures and stabilize the leg in a cast. There were some internal injuries which weren’t too difficult to suture; however, he has lost a great deal of blood. But he is young and quite resilient; he should heal quickly with rest."

"Where is he?"

"He didn’t even require an Intensive Care bed, my friend: You should find him on the Surgical Ward, which is on the east side of the third floor. Just look for all the police."

"Cops?! What’ve they got ta do with this?!"

"Remy was struck by a driver who left the scene of the accident. They have some questions to ask him when he regains consciousness."

Logan felt his hackles rise. "Kid needs rest--he don’t need th’ cops in his face!"

"The one witness to the accident said that a woman with children was driving the truck. He didn’t get the license number of the vehicle, just a description of the truck."

"Jerkwad dummy--!"

"No, Logan. The witness had a choice between trying to get the plate number or calling for an ambulance. I am grateful to him for saving Remy’s life: Had he been left alone on the side of the road, he would surely have bled to death before morning."

"Don’t matter," Logan rumbled. "I’ll find th’ woman."

Hank’s hand was suddenly on his arm, the hairy fingers pressing into his flesh with strength McCoy rarely exerted. "This isn’t the time, Wolverine. Remy needs you now. He needs you here. He isn’t out of danger."

"But you said he’ll be fine."

"He has weathered the surgery, and for that, I’m pleased. Unfortunately, it has reached the ears of the law enforcement and government agencies that a super-powered mutant is in the hospital. Remy has been identified."

Logan didn’t understand. "Kid doesn’t have a record . . ."

"He has no CRIMINAL record in this country, Logan. However, it is known what Gambit is capable of in terms of kinetically charging any inanimate object he chooses. The authorities know that he is here, and he has been placed under guard."

"He’s been made."

Seeing Logan’s face harden, Hank went on. "Officially, he is in protective custody, as the police have not ruled out attempted murder until they question the driver of the other vehicle and complete their investigation, but I suspect that plans are being made to move Gambit elsewhere. So, you see, we cannot go rushing out after the human who has injured one of our own until we assure that Remy is safe."

"In a nutshell, we gotta get him outta th’ hospital and back to th’ mansion."

"Exactly. I have called the others. It’s up to you and myself to prevent Remy from ‘disappearing’ until they can arrive." He beckoned Logan to the window. The far parking lot outside was filled with olive trucks, jeeps, vans, and armed soldiers--with more arriving. "My status as a former Avenger grants me a certain amount of immunity from molestation by government personnel, but Remy has no such special protection--besides the fact they know what he is capable of: I have heard the term ‘walking bomb factory’ used tonight when I was believed to be out of earshot. Worst of all, I fear that Bastion is lurking close by."

Logan’s blood ran cold at the mention of that name. He and some of the other X-Men had recently suffered all too much from Operation Zero Tolerance: The thought of his lover in Bastion’s cold clutches made him nauseous. "Yer right, Hank," he muttered. "Snow will freeze on the sun before I let Bastion within fifty miles of Gambit."

"He is probably much closer than that already, old friend. Come, it’s the custom of the attending surgeon to visit his patients after the operation." Hank opened a nearby linen closest and handed Logan a white coat like the one he was wearing. "And it is not untoward to make rounds with one’s colleagues, Dr. Logan."

Wolverine smiled for the first time in several hours.

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It wasn’t difficult to find Gambit: The nurses on the third floor were all a-twitter that the most handsome man any of them had ever seen--mutant or not--was admitted as a patient on their floor, and they were in the process of arguing over which of them would get to be his primary nurse. The other aspect of having a super-powered mutant on the ward was the density of law enforcement officials staking out the area: The unit was crawling with wall-to-wall cops and plain-clothes guys; Logan recognized some FBI, and certainly some OZT officials.

He kept his head down, his coat collar up, and followed Hank to the door of the room. Hank was examining Remy’s medical chart and remarking about it to his ‘colleague’: Logan didn’t understand the jargon much, but he was willing to play along with anything that would get him in to see Remy. Soldiers carrying automatic rifles were stationed in the hallways and outside Remy’s room. One of them stopped the two ‘doctors’ when they approached.

"Nobody sees the mutie," he said, hefting his rifle--of which he was clearly quite fond--in his arms.

"That is understandable given the circumstances, Colonel," Dr. McCoy said smoothly. "However, I am his surgeon Dr. McCoy and this is my partner Dr. Logan. It is our responsibility to ensure that our patient receives appropriate medical care while he is here."

"Well, he isn’t going to be here that long," the officer said. "We have orders to move him out to another facility as soon as all the wagons get here."

"Then it is incumbent upon me to make him ready to travel, sir," Hank answered genially.

"I’ll right--go ahead." The officer waved them in.

Remy was sleeping when they entered, still coccooned in the anesthesia from surgery. A clear plastic oxygen mask covered the lower part of his face, and several IV bottles hung above him, connected to his veins by clear tubing. His left leg was encased in plaster and elevated on pillows. It was all Logan could do to stop himself from dashing to the bed and taking Gambit into his arms.

Then he saw that Remy was in restraints

Even the casted leg was tied down

And a Genoshan collar encircled Remy’s neck.

Hanks saw it, too. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded of the agents who insisted on following them into the room. ÒI gave no orders to place this patient in five-point restraints."

"Bastion’s orders," said the agent who appeared to be in charge of those guarding the room. "Supersedes any other orders, even yours, doc."

Logan could stand no more of it. He unsheathed his claws, stuck them under the shocked agent’s chin, and snarled, "Try THESE for orders, bub!" as he waded into them.

Hank unbuckled the restraints after the fight went out into the hallway. Jean had telepathically contacted him, as well as Logan: Kurt and Scott were teleporting in, now that Hank and Remy were alone. They would take Gambit back to the Mansion, and Hank was to go out into the hallway to ‘assist’ the soldiers to preserve his cover while Logan took his own escape and made his way back to the Mansion.

*** How is Logan? *** she asked Henry via her telepathic contact.

*** Being in love is good for our old friend,*** he answered.

He heard her laugh gently in his mind.

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Laura Ann Miller watched television anxiously while her kids ran around the living room screaming like wild Indians. While she didn’t regret leaving the injured mutant to die--after all, it wasn’t as if he was a human being, right?--she did worry that the law enforcement agencies might not see it that way. If she’d run down a human, they would be looking for her. Well, who cared if another mutie bought the farm? She remembered the mutant looking up at her, opening those red glowing eyes and fixing them upon her--it gave her shivers just thinking about it. She wouldn’t have left the scene of the accident if he’d been human, she would have gotten help for him.

But he wasn’t human, and the world was a better place without him.

So why didn’t SHE feel any better?

She still harbored the fear that someone had seen her flee the scene. Any sound made her jump--what if it was the police knocking on her door? She couldn’t deal with being arrested, taken from her kids and put in jail. She was sick, deep down she was sick and she wasn’t ever going to get well: If they sent her to prison, she would die there and never see her children again. She needed these few months, needed them uncluttered with mutant trash.

She wore out her throat yelling at the kids until they went to bed. She hadn’t told any of them about her illness, not even her eldest son. What could she say? ‘Mommy is going to die: Her body has turned against her and it’s eating her up inside because she smoked too much.’ No, she couldn’t tell them. But when they were at school she spent a lot of time trying to make arrangements for their care after she was gone. Her own mother was too old to take the kids, she had no other living relatives: How could she tell her kids that they would be split up and sent to foster homes?

But the Nighttime Show came on and went off, the infomercials started up, and no cops had come beating on her door. Laura finally let out her breath and prepared to go bed herself. She didn’t expect to sleep: She rarely did anymore; the coughing kept her up whenever she got horizontal and sometimes she feared that she would stop breathing altogether if she went to sleep. Besides, with so little time left to live, why waste it sleeping?

She washed her face, brushed her teeth, put a couple of curlers into her hair. As she looked at her own reflection in the mirror, she realized that her skin was taking on a grayish hue and the dark circles under her eyes were deepening a little more every day. She probably had a few more white hairs on her head now than when she’d started out this morning, too. But there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could do for her children, the mutant she’d killed, or herself.

Sleep didn’t come, though, and Laura lay there tossing and turning. She couldn’t get comfortable. Nothing different about that, but her nerves were shot and no wonder.

Then she heard it.

A faint scraping sound

Like fingernails on a dusty old chalkboard.

The scraping became progressively louder

She tried to pinpoint the location of it within her room, suddenly afraid to get out of bed and turn on the lights. But it was everywhere around her, as though she was being circled, stalked by it.

"Who’s there?" she finally demanded, dismayed at the way her voice whispered so timidly.

"Mebbe I’m th’ Bogeyman," came the growling words.

Scrape, scrape.

"Or mebbe I’m yer conscience."

Scrape, scrape.

"Get out of here or I’ll scream."

The growl formed a low, guttural chuckle. "You ain’t got th’ lungs fer screaming, sister. An’ we BOTH know it." Scrape. ÒI smell it on ya. I smell yer chest rottin’ out. Got yer will made yet?"

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

ÒI don’t know what you’re talking about."

Scrape, scrape.

"I really don’t," she repeated. "I’m not sick."

"Yer beyond sick, darlin’."

Sniff, sniff.

"I give ya a couple months--tops."

That was EXACTLY what her doctor had said!

Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape.

Like some clawed monster carving on her furniture and her heart.

Terrified and wishing she had a telephone in the room, Laura quavered. "What do you want?"

"Just fer ya t’ do th’ right thing before ya croak."

Scritch, scritch.

When she didn’t answer, the low voice rumbled, "You hit a kid on a Harley tonight. Then ya left him on the side of the road."

Scrape.

"He’s dead, isn’t he?"

"Nope."

She didn’t want to breathe such a loud sigh, but somehow it came out that way.

Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape.

"He’s just a kid, Ms. Laura Ann Miller. Unlike you, he has his whole life ahead of him. He saw ya, Miller. He got a real good look at ya and ya better believe he’s gonna describe ya right down t’ th’ cigarette stains on yer teeth. An’ it don’t stop there, either. Somebody ELSE saw what a shitty thing ya did, too. He’s given th’ law yer license number. Only a matter of hours ‘til they track ya down. Just like I did."

The nails/claws caught in a bit of wallpaper fabric and tore slowly at it, making a sound like, ‘Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.’

"Are you going to kill me?" she whispered.

"Why should I? Ya already done that yerself, by th’ sound of yer cough."

"I can’t go to jail."

"Rather stay here in this rathole and be a fat-n-happy felon? Yer kids saw ya run down th’ guy on th’ bike--that how ya want ‘em t’ remember their mom?"

"I don’t know what to do!" she cried. "Tell me what to do!"

Scritch, scritch.

"Go turn yerself in, Miller."

Scrape.

"I’ll go first thing in the morning."

Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape.

Closer.

Scrape, scrape.

Closer and closer.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

Hot breath on her face, in her hair.

She reached out, but touched nothing solid.

Scrape.

Laura sank her face into her hands. "I can’t take it anymore!"

"Then ya know what to do. An’ ya know, it’ll probably go easier on ya if ya turn yerself in."

Scritch, scritch.

"I’m going." Laura slid out of bed. She half-expected tentacles to whip out from under the bed and close about her ankles as she put her feet onto the floor, but nothing touched her. "I just want this to be OVER with!" She stuck her head out into the hall and croaked, "Kids! Get up and get dressed! Mommy has to go talk to the police!"

And an hour later, as the precinct steel bars closed behind her and her children were led away to foster custody, she listened for the scraping sounds, but never heard it again.

That night, Laura Ann Miller tore the hem out of her prison shift, made a noose out of it, and hung herself from the sprinkler system on the ceiling of her cell.

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Logan showed up at the Mansion in the wee hours of the morning. No one was awake except for Jean Grey-Summers, who had waited up for him. He felt a twinge of guilt as she ushered him into the kitchen where she had a pot of strong black coffee brewing, as though he was cheating on her.

But she smiled at him.

Logan looked at her sharply.

She knew.

"We all know, Logan," she said. "Charles and Betsy picked up your thoughts, too. And when Remy is injured or upset, he loses some of his control over his empathy and even those who aren’t psi-sensitive pick up on it."

He gulped a long draught of steaming coffee. "Don’t matter anymore. Just tell me how he is."

"Scott and Kurt were able to teleport him home without causing him any further injury." Jean reached out and took his arm. "He’s been asking for you."

Logan started to stand up, but she didn’t let him go. "He’s good for you, dear friend; you need him and he needs you," she said. "Don’t lose this chance at happiness, Logan. Don’t let Remy go."

He shook off her arm and went upstairs. Hank was waiting outside the infirmary door. He frowned when he saw Wolverine, and stepped in front of the door. "I will warn you only once, Logan," he said, bringing his own hands up to remind his feral friend that he, too, possessed claws. "He is in this condition because of you and your pig-headedness, and I will not stand for seeing that boy hurt again tonight. Are we at an understanding here?"

Logan couldn’t look at him. "Ya didn’t have t’ say that t’ me."

But Dr. McCoy stood firm. "I most certainly did. I wish to heaven that I had mustered the nerve to tell it to you yesterday."

Wolverine pushed past him and went into the sickroom.

Remy was dozing, but roused quickly when he heard the door open. Seeing that it was Logan, he smiled and weakly sat up, holding out his arms. Logan had him in a hug before another heartbeat passed, a careful but secure hug that wouldn’t stress any stitches, and he was stroking that soft auburn hair with his rough old callused hand, kissing the tears away from Remy’s face.

"It’s all right, darlin’," he rumbled. "I’m gonna make everything all right."

"I so scared, Logan," Remy murmured. "Henri, he say you stay behin’ t’ fight off Bastion and ‘is flunkies so I could get home. I scared dey bring you down an’ Gambit never see you ‘gain."

"Where’s yer faith, kid? I been chased by worse than that buzzard plenty o’ times. Not even th’ Hulk himself could keep me away from you." Logan buried his face in Remy’s hair, inhaling the scent of it. He found himself wanting to be physical, wanting to lay the younger mutant down on that bed and get the both of them naked. But he knew that Remy wouldn’t be well enough for sex for several weeks to come. Could Logan wait that long? Could he be that patient? Oh, yes.

Remy wasn’t thinking about sex at all as he snuggled into Logan’s arms: "I cold," he said, shivering.

Logan kissed him again. "Let’s see if we can’t do something ‘bout that, darlin’."

He shrugged off his shirt and slid under the blankets with Remy, taking his lover into his arms and cuddling him against his big hairy barrel of a chest. Remy felt thin and fragile, but he stretched his long body out against the comparatively shorter length of Logan’s frame and melted against its solid warmth, pillowing his face on Logan’s breast. He was asleep again within seconds.

Logan grinned like a cat with a saucer of cream. The rightness of this overwhelmed him, and he felt so much love for the Acadian that he would have died for him in that very second if Remy had but asked him to. Logan shifted his weight in the bed so that Remy was safely tucked into the crook of his arm. He kissed Remy’s lips again in spite of his lover’s sleeping state, just to taste his mouth, and raised his head to find himself looking across the room into the dancing yellow eyes of Kurt Wagner, who had been there all along.

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