Do Not Go Gentle - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Lori McDonald
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 1

Some of my stories need some explanation, and in my opinion, this is one of them.

To start off, you really need to read "Keeping A Distance" before this one, or it's not going to make sense. So if you haven't read that one yet, you might want to consider doing so. Otherwise you won't know anything about the main character.

This story came about simply because a woman named Bonnie Hamilton suggested I write a sequel to KAD. She's not the only one who suggested I do so, but she said something that twigged in my brain at just the right time and this is the result. However, she didn't know what I'd do with the story once I started, so don't blame her for anything. :)

This story is one of my experiments. It's a story about parallels and opposites, and takes that idea to the extreme so much that there are two seperate endings to the story, both of which are very different. Each ends the story in a different way and while you don't have to read both, each of them does give a little bit of information the other doesn't. The protagonist was thinking different things during each, after all.

One of the two endings is the official one, but I'm not going to say which here, so it's up to the reader to decide which ending they like better. Feel free to email me and tell me which one you prefer and why. I'm kind of curious.

Anyway, enough babbling and on with the story.

He woke up on a beautiful spring morning - when the birds were singing and the scent of flowers was in the air - screaming himself hoarse.

A second later, the door banged open to reveal an armed Bishop, and he flung himself out of bed, bolted for the bathroom, and locked himself inside.

In the bedroom, he could sense Bishop move around, then come over to the door.

"I heard you scream," the big man explained. "I'm required to check into anything out of the ordinary." He left.

They were always explaining things to him. What they were doing, why. All in that same even, nonthreatening tone. When he'd been a prisoner of Sinister, used as a subject for experimentation, he'd never known what would be done to him or why. The X-Men who'd inadvertantly rescued him and who he lived with now seemed to realize how important knowing was to him. Still, there were times when he wanted to tell the whole lot of them to leave him alone.

Not that he really wanted to be alone. After escaping from Sinister, he'd lost himself in the Morlock tunnels beneath the mansion. It'd taken the X-Man a long time to find him and coax him out, and now he wanted to be near people, not that he wasn't painfully shy and skittish. He wouldn't tell them anything about himself, even his name. He still barely talked and only Rogue could get close enough to touch him.

As he was dressing, he heard a soft knock on the door and froze. "It's time for your exercise session," Jean called.

For him, they called it an 'exercise session'. For everyone else it was 'Danger Room training'. A simple choice of semantics, but one he appreciated nonetheless.

Finished dressing, he went out into the now-empty hall and down to the Danger Room. Even though he'd lived here in the house only a week, he already knew where everything was and nothing was locked to him. The X-Men didn't want him to have any reason to think they were keeping secrets.

The Danger Room was programmed to look like a gym, complete with weight machines, exercise bikes and more. It was a lot like the gym the X-Men had in the mansion, with one exception.

This gym was busy. Men and woman worked at the weights and there was an aerobics class exercising to an energetic beat. More, there were wide windows on the front of the building and pedestrians constantly passed by outside.

He was afraid of people. That's why they had him in there, to slowly acclimize him to others again. He was the only one in the room who wasn't an illusion, but still they made him nervous. It'd taken the X-Men months to earn his grudging trust, and still he avoided most of them.

Grimacing, he tried to ignore the proximity of the holograms and adjusted his grip on the bar he held himself above, supported on his arms. There was a corner of the gym set up for gymnastics, and it was his favourite place to exercise.

Bending forward slightly, his arms still straight, he scissored his legs and slowly pushed himself up and over until he was doing a handstand on the bar. Just as slowly, he brought his legs back together again, carefully turned himself around and let go with one arm, balancing himself as he reached out to the side with it. The other hand started to tremble and he returned to a two handed grip.

Quickly, he blinked away sweat. It'd been years since he'd done this, and he knew he shouldn't be pushing himself to do so much so soon, but he had no intentions of stopping until he ran through the entire routine. It would be a reaffirmation of self, one of many he'd been making of late.

Carefully, he adjusted his grip and swung himself around the bar. Once, twice, turned around on the third spin and back into the handstand, his entire body shaking as he struggled not to fall.

He didn't and he grinned. Then he did it again, though on the third spin he let go entirely and twisted himself around, grabbed the bar again and swung back in the opposite direction.

The mistake was a tiny one. He let go on the arc of a swing, intending to twist, drop, and regrab the bar. His timing was off though, and he came down too close to the bar, hitting his head with an explosion of pain on the steel as he passed.

The floor was padded, of course, but it still hurt enough to be the final straw.

"Damn! He knocked himself out!"

"He's bleeding pretty badly, Scott. He may have a concussion."

"I knew he should have had a spotter."

"He wouldn't have let anyone close enough to touch him."

"Then we shouldn't have had that bar in here."

"How were we supposed to know he was going to be doing Olympic level gymnastics?"

"Move back, Hank's here."

There were hands on him, touching him, rolling him carefully onto his back. One of his eyes was pulled open and a bright, painful light shone in it. A huge surge of fear filled him and both his eyes snapped open.

He was lying on the steel floor of the Danger Room, the program turned off, with X-Men kneeling over him. Scott squatted by Jean, while on his other side was Dr McCoy, holding a little flashlight. More X-Men were gathered beyond and around them. It seemed they were all there, surrounding him.

He panicked. Giving an inarticulate scream, he lashed out, trying to crawl back away from them. Immediately, Hank grabbed him.

"Easy, my enthusiastic young friend. You need to remain still so that I may examine you properly."

Grabbing the sleeves of the doctor's lab coat, he charged it to explode.

"Jesus Christ!"

The X-Men moved to get the lab coat off the wildly dancing Beast and he scurried away from them on his backside.

"Jean, stop him!"

He felt her mind touch his, to freeze him in place like Professor Xavier once had, and clamped down all of his psychic walls.

Her eyes widened. "His mental shields - they're like nothing I've ever seen! I can't even sense him now. It's like he's not there."

"Then use your telekinesis."

The X-Men were spreading out, surrounding him. He'd tried to stand, but his head had swum and his knees buckled under him. He'd finally crawled into a corner, almost sobbing in his terror. There was so much blood running down his face from the gash on his head that he couldn't see out of his left eye. He threw up and he felt like he was going to faint.

"That's it, all o' ya, get out!"

Everyone looked up to see an angry Rogue standing in the doorway with an equally annoyed Logan.

"Rogue-" Scott started.

"Ah mean it!" She barked. "Y'all spend six months gettin' th' man not ta see us as his enemies, then y'all gang up on him. Ya should be ashamed."

"But-"

Wolverine growled. "We'll take care a him, Slim. Now scoot."

Slowly, the X-Men pulled back and left the room, many of them looking reluctant. Hank, however, stared at the two defiantly.

"As a physician, I am most assuradly not leaving," he told them.

In the corner, he relaxed somewhat as the X-Men narrowed down to three. He didn't trust McCoy, but he liked Logan and his love for Rogue was what had given him the courage to leave the Morlock tunnels.

Hank looked at him critically. "Whatever you are contemplating doing, I recommend haste," he told the others quietly. "I do not approve of the way his eyes are tracking."

Rogue moved a few feet closer. "Hi, sugah. Ah'm sorry we scared ya. Ah guess we're a little too used ta bein' a combat team."

Gingerly, he nodded and reached up to touch his fingers to his head. They came away bright red.

She came closer, reaching out to lay a hand on his knee. He stiffened, but forced himself not to move. He wanted to trust Rogue. Besides, he was afraid he'd pass out if he tried.

"Ah'm afraid ya really hurt yaself, sugah," Rogue told him. "Ya bleedin' like a stuck pig. Ya need some medical attention."

He remembered Sinister's lab, Sinister's experiments. "I can't," he whispered.

She bit her lip and glanced at Hank, then back at him. "Ah can' make it so that ya don't know ya bein' worked on."

"No needles."

"Ah... don't have ta use needles. All ah have ta do is touch ya."

"Careful, darlin'," Logan warned. "You're setting yourself up to know what Sinister did to him firsthand."

"Ah know." Her eyes never left his face. "Do ya trust me?"

He swallowed. He wanted to trust her, did trust her. Still, the "Yes" he whispered was the hardest word he'd ever had to say.

Rogue leaned towards him, smiling sadly. "Ah promise ya won't feel this."

Her lips touched him, pressing into a kiss. They were soft, and silky, and he found himself wanting to put his arms around her.

After the first moment, however, she yanked back, her eyes huge. "Ya still awake!" She gasped. "Oh, mah God... Beast, no!"

There was a flash of blue and he felt something grab his sleeve and rip it down, right before a needle was jabbed painfully into his arm.

Hank pushed the plunger down, filling his veins with an icy cold liquid. "It's a fast acting sedative," the doctor explained. "You'll be asleep before you know it."

He tried to fight back against the effect, but he'd already collapsed against Rogue and didn't hear a single word after fast.

"Sugah, can ya hear me?" A gloved hand gently stroked his cheek. "Come on, it's time ta wake up."

Sleepily, he looked up at Rogue. She smiled. "Well, welcome back, sugah. Ya lookin' worlds better t'day."

"Today?" he whispered. "What happened?" His head throbbed horribly and when he reached up to touch it, he found it was covered in bandages.

Rogue frowned. "Hank said ya prob'ly wouldn't remember. Ya see, what happened was ya fell in th' Danger Room yesterday an' hit ya head. Ya got a concussion and cut yaself, but ya gonna be okay. Ya really don't remember this?"

He shook his head and immediately regretted it as his headache grew worse.

Rogue patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Anyway, we've been takin' turns wakin' ya every so often, just so that ya don't go too deep, but ya weren't really there, if ya know what ah mean. Hank was pretty sure ya'd wake up all th' way t'day, so ah made sure ah was th' one watchin' ya."

He yawned, suddenly very tired. "T'ank you," he told her and let his head fall sideways on the pillow, slipping away again.

"Wait," he heard her call from what seemed a very long way away. "There's somethin' ah wanted ta tell..."

He didn't see more than snatches of Rogue for the next several days. Between her visits, other X-Men would wake him, feed him some broth or help him walk to the bathroom. Then he would sleep again.

From what he'd overheard, he understood he'd cracked his skull on the bar in the Danger Room gym program. He didn't even remember waking up that morning. Hank had needed to operate to stop the swelling of his brain and all his hair was shaved off in the process. He also heard Hank was complaining about not being able to keep him in the infirmary, but he was glad of it. He'd have been out of that lab in an instant, concussion or not.

Still, the incident was good in that it helped him get over much of his fear of the X-Men. It was still there, but it was hard to run in terror from someone when they smuggled in beer and cigarrettes and snuck in against doctor's orders to play a quick hand of poker. At this rate, he figured he'd own the mansion within a month.

One morning, a week or so after his accident, he lounged in bed reading a book. He still felt a touch lightheaded when he stood up, but his headaches were gone and he was free to move around if he wanted to.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," he called, flipping the page of his book.

Hank came in and he tensed. The doctor had examined him almost every day, with Rogue there for moral support, but he was still afraid of him, which seemed to bother the furry mutant. He was finding to his own surprise that he did like the doctor, but he still didn't trust what he was.

"How are you feeling?" Hank asked him.

"Okay," he answered shortly. "Y' wan'ed somet'ing?"

Beast settled down in a chair by the door. "I've been awaiting an opportunity to discuss your recent concussion with you."

He put his book down. "So talk."

Hank folded his hands in his lap. "Do you remember the experiments Sinister performed on you?"

Constantly. "Some. He knocked me out for a lot of dem." He didn't want to talk about this, but he had a feeling that Hank would just keep nagging him until he did. He just wanted to forget, though his nightmares wouldn't let him.

"Do you remember him performing brain surgery on you?"

He shrugged, not looking at him. "Sure, right after he caught me. Least, I woke up wit' no hair an' my head bandaged. He did de same t' all de subjects."

Beast nodded and his eyes softened, his voice dropping into a reassuring tone. "I regret the necessity of asking this, but were you cognizant of the fact that Sinister implanted some form of device in your cerebral cortex that is laced through your brain?"

He stared at him, horrified.

"I discovered it when I did a CAT scan on you, and even saw it during the operation. When you hit your head, it wasn't very hard, but it was right where your skull had been cut open, and unfortunately your protection is weakest there."

"Did you take it out?" He whispered.

"I am afraid that until I know what it does, I don't dare remove it. And even then it would be extremely hazardous to try. I was hoping you would know what it was."

Shaking, he got out of bed and started pacing back and forth anxiously.

Hank stood and reached out to him. "What-"

He spun on him. "TAKE IT OUT!" he screamed.

Hank jerked back. "I can't. I could do irreparable damage..."

"I don' care! I don' care if I die!" He started clawing at his bandages. "I don' wan' anyt'ing of him in me!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't. Please, you'll hurt yourself."

Sidestepping the doctor, he ran out of the room with a sob and down the hall to the stairs. He could hear Hank following him, but he was faster and he ran out the front door, across the lawn and into the forest.

He ran without any goal in mind, ignoring the uneven footing under his bare feet. Finally, he came out on a dock near a boathouse. Quickly, he ran to the end of the dock and fell to his knees, staring at his reflection in the water.

His bandages had come loose and he pulled them off fully, then ran his fingers along the suture line on the upper left side of his head. There was a second scar there as well, a much fainter and older one in the shape of a square.

His lip trembled and then he was ripping his pyjama top off, running his hands over the scars on his chest, abdomen and sides. the insides of both arms were a mass of holes made by IVs and needles.

For a long minute, he stared at the roadmap of torment Sinister had inflicted upon his body, then buried his face in his hands and bent over until his forehead touched the ground. He moaned.

"Sugah?"

His head lifted and he saw Rogue floating in the air a few feet away beyond the end of the dock, her hands behind her back and her ankles crossed.

"Ah saw ya run outta th' house an' followed ya. Are ya okay?"

He sat up and wrapped his arms around himself, wishing he had something to cover himself so she wouldn't see what had been done to him. He kept his head turned so that the scars were hidden.

She waited for an answer, and when she got none, she landed on the dock and knelt before him.

"We know what Sinister did ta ya, sugah. When he found it, Hank started screamin' curses even Wolvie doesn't know an' swearin' all kinds o' death an' destruction on Sinister." She smiled at his look. "It was quite a sight ta see. Ah was impressed."

"He says he can't take it out," he told her.

"Not yet he can't, but he will." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "We're tryin' ta find out where Sinister is right now, or at least one o' his labs. Once we do, we'll learn all about that li'l doohickey thing."

He gaped at her. "You're goin' t' take on Sinister? For me?"

"Hey, we've done it b'fore." She tapped his nose. "If we hadn't, you wouldn't be here."

Impulsively, he reached out and pulled her to him, burying his face against her shoulder as he shook. She stiffened at first, then slowly relaxed.

"This is so weird," she whispered.

"What is?"

"Havin' someone ah can actually touch."

He blinked. "Hehn?"

"The day ya got hurt, ah kissed ya an' ya didn't pass out or nothin'."

He pulled back and looked at her, studying her glorious green eyes intently. Still on impulse, he leaned in to kiss her forehead.

The world went black.

At least his hair was growing back. He looked in the mirror in satisfaction. Like most mutants, his hair had always grown insanely fast, and he had an inch back in a week. In two months, it'd lengthened down past his shoulder blades again.

He still hadn't gotten used to knowing Sinister's device was in his head, but at least he'd learned not to think about it all the time.

Glancing at the clock, he went down to the kitchen, where Rogue was taking her turn on lunch-making duty.

"Hi," he said to her.

She smiled at him. "Hi, yaself, sugah."

They hadn't spoken of what happened between them on the dock right after his accident, nor told the other X-Men. He still didn't understand what went wrong, just that he woke up to find Rogue rocking him in her arms, tears pouring down her cheeks. Neither of them could figure out how he'd be immune one moment then not the next, though he'd been giving it a lot of thought, and he found himself wishing he could remember their first kiss.

"Did ya check th' chore list?" She asked him.

He stared at her blankly. "Chore list?"

She nodded towards a bulletin board by the door. "Ya a member o' this household, so we're gonna get some work out o' ya."

He looked at the board suspiciously. Among grocery lists and a dire threat to anyone who ate the cherries in the crisper was a list of chores for the week with names written next to them. The star by tonight's dinner, he assumed, indicated him.

"Somebody coulda warned me," he groused.

"An' give ya time ta run foh th' hills? Ah don't think so." She grinned at him fondly and went back to making sandwiches. "Ya could just reheat last night's potroast," she pointed out.

He grimaced. "I hate leftovers."

While she finished making sandwiches, he amused himself digging through the refigerator and cupboards looking for ingrediants. He enjoyed cooking and actually found he was looking forward to this.

"Have ya decided what ya gonna make?" She asked at last.

"I'd like t' make gumbo, or blackened Cajun catfish, but you don' have what I need."

"Ah detect a definate Cajun theme here."

He grinned at her. "Dat's prob'ly 'cause I am Cajun."

She pointed her knife at him, looking inordinately pleased with herself. "Ah knew ah knew that accent! Hot damn, ah win th' pool."

He blinked at her, a little surprised. "You were bettin' on me?"

"Sure we were. Ah knew ya were a Cajun." Humming to herself, she began piling sandwiches on a platter. Shaking his head, he went to help her.

In the two months he'd lived with the X-Men, he'd gotten used to them enough that he could be in the same room with them, but he still couldn't pile in to attack the plate of sandwiches. Luckily, they'd also gotten used to his reluctance and they always left enough behind for him, though sometimes such generosity had to be ensured by force. Taking his sandwiches last, he sat on the loveseat next to Rogue in the living room while they talked.

He still hadn't told them his name, or of his life before Sinister caught him. He wasn't sure why, though there were a lot of things about his past he didn't want to admit to, namely his previous profession. But he supposed it was mostly because he just couldn't go back to that life. There was a shadow between then and now, in the shape of Sinister.

"Ya owe me fifty dollars, boys," Rogue said sweetly. "Our friend here's a Cajun."

Amongst much protesting, the X-Men paid up.

"Why couldn't you have been from Quebec?" Bobby groused. He just smiled.

As they ate, Rogue looked at him. "Ya know, sugah, if ya want, we could head inta town an' get some o' those ingredients you were talkin' about."

He hesitated.

She smiled, fluttering her long, winsome eyelashes at him. "Aw, come on, ah'll be with ya th' whole time. It c'n be a date."

A date. How long had it been since he'd been on anything resembling a date?

"Sounds good t' me."

The grocery store was mostly deserted for a tuesday afternoon, bored housewives wandering along pushing their carts while their kids rode inside or trailed behind.

He and Rogue walked hand in hand down the aisle, each carrying a basket filled with groceries. There were only a few things they still needed, but they didn't hurry. They were enjoying their time together, the first time he'd been off the mansion grounds, too much to rush.

"This is nice," Rogue said softly.

He smiled and put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her to him as he kissed the top of her head.

"Careful," she cautioned. "Ya don't want ta touch mah skin."

"Don' know 'bout dat. 'Cordin' t' you, we touch once pretty good."

She sighed. "Don't tease, Cajun. Ah ain't in th' mood."

He stopped and turned her to face him. "I been t'inkin' 'bout dat. Jeannie's been workin' wit' me an' she says I've got really good mental shields. De best she ever seen, 'cause dey're all defensive wit' no offensive like a telepath got. She say when I'm usin' dem, it like I not dere, an' I had dem up when you kissed me." He leaned towards her. "I didn' on de dock."

Her eyes were huge, emerald green and gorgeous. He'd never seen anything so beautiful. "Ah... ah-"

"You keep tellin' me I c'n trust you," he whispered. "You gonna trust me now?"

"Ah... do."

He closed his eyes and kissed her, his mental shields up as powerfully as he could get them. It felt like an impenetrable wall which was being pushed on from the other side by something that could almost, but not quite, get through.

Her lips, however, were soft, and gentle, and trembled under his own, as did the rest of her body. Something wet touched his cheek. It was one of her tears.

"Do you like?" He whispered at last.

"Thank you so much," she responded softly, tears in her voice.

"You gave me back my life. Dis de least I would do f' you."

Her eyes shone.

He sensed movement and remembered they were in the middle of a public store. He was just stepping back when Rogue screamed, a piercing, soul twisting shriek of agony. Her back arched, a blue nimbus of sparking energy surrounding her. Then it was gone and she collapsed.

Immediately he grabbed a can off the nearest shelf and turned, preparing to charge and throw it towards what he sensed to be the source of the attack.

Then the can tumbled out of his nerveless fingers and a scream bubbled up in his throat, one that couldn't get past the icy block that made it so he almost couldn't breath.

He started to back away, wanting to run, shaking his head dumbly, and tripped over Rogue's unconscious body. He fell and still backed away, trembling and shaking.

Sinister walked calmly towards him, his face expressionless, not bothering to say a word as he reached to reclaim his property.

The scream came then and wouldn't end as he curled himself into a little ball that wanted the whole world to just go away.

The cage was square, about ten feet by ten feet with bars on the front and side and a pallet for sleeping, as well as a toilet. It was worlds of luxury away from the cylinder he used to crouch in, but it was still a cage and he reacted to it the same as he did his first prison. He squeezed into the farthest corner and sat with his knees drawn up and his head buried in his arms.

Rogue's reaction in the cell next to his wasn't nearly so quiet.

"Let us outta here, ya goddamned, pasty faced freak!" Her language went downhill from there and he watched out of the corner of one eye as she tugged futilely at the inhibiter collar around her neck. He wore its twin around his own, and while they both still wore their clothes, he felt completely naked and exposed.

"Are ya listenin' ta me?!" Rogue screamed.

The cells they sat in were two of a line of six along the wall of what looked almost like a storage room for Sinister's equipment, including gurneys and beds, but there were no operating tables. At least he wouldn't have to watch Sinister dissect Rogue. He shied away from that thought. If he were lucky, Sinister would take him first. Then his agony would be over. To think he'd believed himself free of the scientist. He'd never be free.

"What do you want with us?" Rogue grated.

Sinister looked up from what he'd been working on. "Only the recording device in your young friend's brain, though you will make an interesting test subject."

He looked up, suddenly pale, as Rogue's eyes narrowed. "Recordin' device? Is that what that is?"

Sinister smiled at her without emotion. "Of course. It records everything he sees and hears." He picked up a small vial and a needle.

"But..."

"I implanted that same device in a dozen different mutants," Sinister explained as he filled the needle. "I knew that you X-Men would rescue at least one of them and take them into your home. Remy here made an excellent, if unsuspecting spy."

It'd been so long since he'd heard his name that he'd almost forgotten what it was. Now he stared at Sinister, feeling sick. He'd been turned into an experiment because he wouldn't work for Sinister. But in spite of all he'd gone through, it hadn't meant anything. Sinister had made him a traitor anyway.

Sinister didn't seem to notice or care as he withered inside. The needle now filled, he disposed of the vial and started towards the cages.

"What's in that?" Rogue asked suspiciously.

"Cyanide."

She turned white, but he watched it with a feeling almost of relief. It would be over soon after all.

Rogue, however, stared at the scientist, then at him, then back. "You can't," she whispered.

"Can't I?"

He opened his cage and came in. He just stared up at him, afraid not just of the needle, but of his very presence. He knew he'd let the man kill him and not make a move to stop him.

Rogue knew it too. "Ya can't jus' kill him!" She screamed.

"You're letting your emotions get the better of you." He grasped his arm and pushed the sleeve up. He watched, feeling like he'd been hypnotized by the movement of the needle.

Rogue was gripping the bars of her cage so tightly that he could see her knuckles turn white. "Ah'm not. Ah'm bein' logical." Her voice was strained by her need to remain calm, and Sinister lifted his head to listen to her. "Ah can understand ya wantin' th' recorder, but if ya kill him ta get it, ya will be throwin' away an irreplacable resource."

"Irreplacable? I think not. I can get a hundred more like him."

But Rogue shook her head. "No, ya can't. Don't ya see? He's a mutant, with totally unique DNA an' powers. Ya ain't nevah gonna see another subject like him."

Sinister considered her words, but he found part of himself wishing she'd just kept quiet. It said that death now would be infinately preferable to a lifetime as Sinister's test subject. Another part wanted to live no matter what the cost.

"Very well," Sinister agreed at last. "You've convinced me." Rogue sagged in relief.

The geneticist's grip in his arm tightened until it was painful and Sinister dragged him out of the cell and over to a table. Once there, he let go of him entirely and quickly filled another needle with a sedative. Then he took his arm again and injected him with it.

He stared at the floor the whole time, not saying anything, no more emotional than Sinister as his vision began to grow grainy and blur. About the only thing he could think about was that it was a good thing Rogue was there to fight for him, since he wasn't willing to fight for himself.

His head had been shaved again. That was his first realization as he rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself up on his forearms. He put a hand to his throbbing, bandaged skull and groaned.

"Hi, Remy."

He looked over to see Rogue squatting on the other side of the bars, her glorious eyes shining. She bit her lip. "Do ya mind if ah call ya that? Ah mean, it is ya name."

Slowly, he sat up and leaned back against the bars. "Yah, y' can. Don' know why y'd want to, though. I'm not dat person no more."

"What do ya mean?"

He sighed. "Remy LeBeau fought when Sinister came t' take him. He fought wit' all his heart an' soul. He kept fightin' even when he was in Sinister's lab. I cower an' surrender an' die."

She was silent for a long moment, then her arms came through the bars to wrap around him in a hug. "When did Remy become you?" She asked quietly.

He closed his eyes. "I don' know. It jus... crept up on me. But I ain' Remy LeBeau no more."

"Do ya want ta be nameless th' rest o' ya life?"

He shrugged. "Lab rats don' got names."

"Ya ain't a lab rat!"

"Tell dat t' Sinister."

"Why don't you?" She whispered.

He pulled away from her and went to the other side of his cage. "B'cause I can't."

"Don't give up, Remy," Rogue said to him.

"Ya have ta fight back, Remy."

"Ah love ya, Remy."

She was always saying that word to him. Remy. Interspersing it among her sentences, sometimes just chanting it softly to herself in her cage. Trying to get him to associate with it, to recognize it as being his name.

He listened without hearing, withdrawing more and more into himself as two weeks passed and he grew a short mane of auburn hair. As silent as he'd been when the X-Men first found him, he sat in his cell and let the time pass. Sinister they barely saw at all, though he was used to that. During his first imprisonment, months could pass before the geneticist showed up. Then someone would die.

As usual, Rogue wasn't so complacent. She yelled, she cursed, she exercised. She reminded him so much of the Remy he used to be that he had to smile. The smiles didn't last though, and he was sure her defiance wouldn't either.

One day, she paced back and forth all morning, then flopped down beside him and leaned against the bars.

"Ah've been thinkin'," she said. He didn't answer, but she was used to that. "Sinister must have some kind o' psi dampeners an' stuff in here, or th' X-Men woulda found us by now. They've gotta be goin' nuts lookin' for us."

He shrugged.

"Th' X-Men will find us, Remy. Don' ya doubt that. They'll never give up."

He lay back on his pallet. "I wish I had y' faith."

She reached over to squeeze his hand. "Then ah'll just have t' have faith 'nough for both o' us, Remy."

Sinister came back twenty days after their capture. Until that point, all they'd seen were the faceless clones who fed them and ignored all of Rogue's pleading and screaming.

The geneticist came in and immediately walked over to Rogue's cell.

"No..." he whispered.

Rogue glared defiantly at Sinister as he unlocked the door, then attacked once he swung it wide.

Capable of only a woman's strength with the collar on, Rogue threw herself at Sinister, aiming a kick at his head that was designed to break his jaw. He blocked it almost casually.

Without missing a beat, Rogue turned and punched towards his stomach. He blocked that as well. A dozen different attacks she tried, and he blocked each one.

"Enough of this," he said at last and backhanded her across the face. Stunned, she reeled, and he pulled her out of the cage.

Once out, she started struggling again, kicking and biting. She knocked him almost off his feet and they both slammed against a table. tossing the spare instruments he kept on it across the floor.

Finally, Sinister got his hand around Rogue's throat and lifted her off the ground. Choking, she could only hang there as Sinister walked towards the door.

"Rogue!" He cried from his cell, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it to be louder than a whisper.

Her glorious eyes met his for a moment, filled with pain and fear, and then she was gone.

He stared the way she'd been taken. Rogue. Sinister would kill her, just as he had so many others. He backed away from the bars and sat down, remembering.

Shortly before his escape when he was first a prisoner, one of his fellow subjects had been dissected, while she was alive and awake.

He remembered her screams and found, to his own surprise, that there was still something in him willing to fight after all. And it was not going to let Rogue die, no matter what.

There were spare scalpels, probes and other surgical and examination tools lying on the ground. He looked them over and lay down, reaching through the bars towards one in particular. He didn't know what it was used for, but it was thin and hooked at one end.

Sinister had made a mistake leaving the tools on the floor when he was in a cage with a lock. He'd obviously gotten used to him being broken, or he'd have remembered he was a master thief and that he could pick a lock with almost anything.

His outstretched hand touched the tool and he pulled it to him. Standing up, he went to work on the lock. It only took a minute to open and he watched without expression as the door swung wide. There was some pleasure that he could still pick a lock, but mostly there was terror. Sinister would kill him if he caught him, hold him down and cut him open, dissect him...

The way he was doing to Rogue right now.

He swallowed and stepped out of the cage, his heart pounding against his ribcage. His hands were steady though and he started on the collar around his neck. Two minutes and it was off. But, even with his powers back, it took every ounce of courage he had to go to the door Sinister had used and step through it.

It led to a corridor, of a brightly lit, sterile white. The only dark spot on it was a black phone.

After a moment's hesitation, he lunged for it. There was an outside line, so he phoned the X-Mansion.

"Xavier's," Wolverine said on the other end.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, and loosen his vocal cords enough for him to speak.

"It's me," he whispered.

"Wha- Cajun?! Where the hell are you?! We've been goin' apeshit lookin' for you two."

"I don' know." He looked around to make sure no one was coming.

"That's okay, I'm tracing the call. Wait a minute... got it. We can be there in thirty minutes."

The hope he'd been starting to feel died inside him. "Rogue don' got dat long."

"Where is she?"

"Wit' Sinister," he whispered. He'd have her gutted and sectioned before the X-Men got halfway there. It could already be too late. "He's gonna kill her."

"Then you gotta stop him, kid."

The panic rose again. "Me?"

"Ain't no one else. She's dependin' on you. I gotta go get the others. Good luck, Cajun." He hung up.

He stood there holding the receiver for a moment, then slowly put it back. He had to face Sinister. He couldn't. Even when he was escaping from his cell, he knew he couldn't. The man frightened him to the very core of his being, to the depths of every sense of self he had.

Yet he had Rogue and if he didn't do something, she would die.

It was that simple, and that hard.

With feet like lead, he turned and started down the hall. It got worse halfway down when he passed an adjoining corridor which led to a door marked 'exit'. Turning his back on that was incredibly difficult, but he continued on.

The corridor ended at another door, this one marked with a hazardous materials symbol. He sensed no one on the other side, so he picked the lock and went in, bracing the door open with a bucket. He was pretty sure he'd be leaving quickly.

There was a low hum of generators in the room he entered and it was filled with barrels and drums, many marked as hazardous. The largest was a huge tank near the door on the other side of the room, marked Phenol.

Nervously, he went through the room, careful to touch nothing. The Phenol tank, he noted as he passed it, was warm. Other drums were cold instead.

At the other door, he stopped, for he could sense movement on the other side. He was shaking uncontrollably as he reached out and opened the door a crack, just enough to look through.

Sinister wasn't on the other side. Neither was Rogue. Instead there was a massive, white room, filled ceiling high with cages like a prison for Sinister's experiments. Briefly, he wondered why Sinister had kept him and Rogue in another area, then he saw the reason.

Every one of the fifty plus cages had an occupant already.

Slowly, he walked into the holding area, the door propped open behind him. The room was eerily quiet but for his footsteps. Some of the prisoners looked at him, but only some. Most were collared, all were nude. All of them also had the same look of fear and hopelessness that he'd worn for so long.

Abruptly, he realized why Sinister kept his poisons and chemicals between the holding area and the exit. If anything went wrong, Sinister could blow that room to cut off his prisoners' escape, and probably kill all of them as well. Being taken through that room was also very cowing. He knew it had been for him.

There were doors on the far wall of the room, and a console to control the cells squatted like a metal toad in the centre of the floor. It was with some regret that he passed it. Sinister would no doubt be alerted if he opened the cage doors. He'd just have to hope he had the time to free them when he returned.

Carefully, he crept from door to door, using his senses to detect if anyone was inside, then taking a quick peak within. Most led to rooms with computers or DNA storage containers, or empty operating theatres. In one, he found a box of computer chips and pocketed a few handfuls. It was taking too long to look though.

He went to one of the cages. "Which way did Sinister go?" He whispered.

The occupant, a dirty man with dead eyes, looked up at him. "Let us out."

"I will," he promised. "Where did he go?"

The man pointed towards one of the doors.

"Thank you." He went trembling to the door.

"You said you'd let us out!" The man wailed.

"I will," he hushed. "I swear it."

Shaking, he pressed his ear against the door. He couldn't hear anything or sense movement inside, so somehow he managed to get his sweaty hands to open the door. He was so far beyond ordinary fear that he could barely breathe.

There was a short corridor to another door. He went to that one and inside there was an operating theatre. Rogue lay sedated on a table, her clothes cut open and her body prepped for surgery. There was no sign of Sinister, but he could sense him in a room beyond the theatre.

He froze. He was terrified, he was nauseated. He wanted to live so badly and he wouldn't if Sinister caught him. Surely even life in a cage would be better than death.

He looked at Rogue. She was so beautiful and she needed his help. It'd been a long time since anyone needed him for anything.

Before his nerve could break completely, he ran to the table and picked Rogue up. She wasn't a heavy woman, but right now she was dead weight and she was hard to carry. She moaned slightly as he moved her and he hurried out of the theatre, back down the corridor and into the holding area. He'd be able to free the prisoners and they'd all be able to escape. His fear felt balanced within him, perfectly on the line of being controllable or taking control. He started towards the computer console, the prisoners watching him hopefully.

"LeBeau."

Everything inside him froze and against his will he turned to see Sinister walking down the corridor, coming like the devil himself to reclaim him.