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Warning: This chapter also contains a few situations and references which may disturb some readers.

And I do promise that we will eventually get to the RoLo!


Chapter Three


Rogue and Gambit sat on the floor of the FOH cell next to each other. They sat close enough together that the guards didn’t have a clear view of their hands entwined. Although her nerves were on alert, Rogue was also exhausted from her sleep being interrupted and from her body’s raging but thwarted desire to fight back against FOH. She drifted in and out of consciousness. She knew she dozed off intermittently but she was too filled with anxiety to get any fulfilling sleep, much less dreams.

Rogue’s mind wandered. As the strain of the current situation pressed down on her, she forced herself to think of pleasant memories as a distraction. She needed a mental diversion if she wanted to maintain her sanity, she knew. After all, the Professor had said that the brain was one of the mightiest weapons.

She tilted her head towards Gambit, who also dozed lightly, and smiled. As much as the man exasperated her sometimes, she loved him fiercely.

She remembered the days before she acquired an inhibitor collar. Her heart had been in her throat at the thought of their situation “ Remy admitting that he loved her, watching him fight his desire for contact. Rogue vividly recalled forgot the day she told him to just forget her and to pursue other women, ones he could actually touch. She had gone back to her room and cried into the pillow even though she felt that setting him free had been the right thing to do.

Not too long afterwards, he had tapped on her door. “I can’t jus’ forget you like dat, chere,” he had murmured passionately.

She had allowed him to witness her crying. “What do you want us to do then?” she had wailed. “I can’t touch you!”

“Remy t’inks dat you gonna t’ink of a solution one day,” he had responded, hugging her tightly through the protective barrier of their clothing.

Remy had waited a few days before Rogue had her epiphany. She had begun to wonder why he hadn’t suggested it herself but then slowly it dawned on her that he had wanted it to be her idea; he wanted her to realize what she could do if she wore an inhibitor collar. She marched into Hank’s lab and asked for a collar. Rogue also asked him how it worked and whether one would suffer any harm from wearing it. Hank had smiled and reassured her as he reached into a drawer to pull one out.

Rogue remembered back to the look on Gambit’s face when she first told him what she had acquired. She remembered how she asserted herself and told him what she was and was not ready to experience. She remembered his smile and how he eagerly, and respectfully, complied with her guidelines. Her favorite memories were the long afternoons and evenings when he patiently and gently guided her, how she came to adore touch and to fully embrace her sensuality. Gambit’s words of love always helped. He would use his hands on her, and later his mouth, until she was finally ready to offer herself fully.

He had more than made good on his assertion from years ago that there was plenty he could teach her. She had learned from him and had overcome her awkwardness in finding out what to do, discovering how he liked to be touched.

Rogue stifled a giggle when she recalled preparing for one of her and Remy’s earliest dates. She had visited three stores to search for the perfect outfit and was unsatisfied with all of her purchases. She had collided with Bobby in the hallway and had poured out her frustrations to him. Before she knew it, Bobby had demanded that she fly them both to the nearest mall where they scoured every clothing store until both were satisfied that she had flattering clothes. Items were discarded breezily for being not revealing enough or too revealing or the wrong color or too expensive. They were fanatic about the clothing selection process and enjoyed every second of it.

Her reverie was interrupted by an FOH soldier who peered closely at them. “Hey, you two. Quit holding hands!” He waved the torture device menacingly.

***

I don’t know how much time was passing. Each minute felt like three hours. We had tried everything to escape but now the guards were torturing us even if we moved. Wolverine had stood up and started to pace, and just for that they used the collar on him.

I don’t need to write out what I saw when I looked around the cell. We all looked ready to jump out of our skins. We all looked like death. I think everyone was eager for battle, for a fair fight but we had no way to get free of the collars.

We heard footsteps and the same leader guy approached. My heart fell out and landed on the floor. I thought it had been about three hours since his last visit. This had to be it. I couldn’t even imagine living through what he had been saying. I couldn’t fathom Jubilee and Rogue and Storm and Jean being raped. And the rest of us being forced to watch it. That all almost seemed worse than the execution he had promised afterwards. I mean, we’ve battled some morally degenerate enemies before but I don’t think it would even have occurred to them to ever suggest doing something like this. My mouth was dry but I glanced and saw that we had finished all the water.

“Just when you thought mutants couldn’t sink any lower,” he began. During that split second, I was almost relieved since it didn’t appear that he was announcing his leaders’ arrival.

My relief was very short-lived.

“Now we find out,” he went on, “that you have a homosexual among your ranks. We don’t have to wait until our leaders get here before we start having fun with you,” he said, looking directly at me. “You worthless queer”.

I kind of wondered how they knew, but I guessed there were a few possible ways. I assume FOH had been monitoring us and it’s possible they knew I went to a gay bar sometimes. Also, if they had indeed captured and tortured Banshee or Moira, perhaps one of them mentioned it. And years ago, at the Professor’s gentle suggestion, I had visited a psychologist just to have a non-X-man to talk things through with when I was coming out “ if they went through our personnel files at the mansion, I’m sure that would’ve been in there somewhere.

I was, however, in fear for my life so I wasn’t spending a lot of time pondering all that.

“Come here,” he ordered me.

I actually sprang to my feet in a matter of seconds. I didn’t want someone else getting the collar used on them because of me, and I could walk even though my legs were stiff. The soldiers opened one of the force fields and I stepped through. I was dimly aware of the others again trying to rush the force field, but it didn’t work --- thanks to both the collars and to that airlock thing they had going on where there was always one force field up.

Three soldiers and their leader led me down a hallway.

***
From what I saw when walking down the halls, I didn’t think we were on board one of FOH’s starships. I even passed a window and from the glance outside I took, I guessed we were at one of their main headquarters.

But I didn’t have much time for speculating. The soldiers shoved me inside a small room. I can’t explain why, but I felt calm all of a sudden. I was still terrified, but my heart wasn’t racing quite as much as I would’ve thought.

“Alright, who wants to go first?”

Apparently they hadn’t organized what they were going to do to me. One of them just took a swing at me and punched me. Then another. They just kept hitting me again and again. I’d never been beaten up before “ not without mutant powers involved -- so I guessed this was what it was like. As they hit me, they hurled out every anti-gay slur you could imagine. They shoved me from one guy to another. Sometimes one would hold me up so another could punch me. I fell to the ground several times and they either kicked me or scooped me up and held me up again.

Pain. I’d never felt such intense pain before. One blow after another, it was torture. I think every part of my body had been hit. Pretty soon there wasn’t a nerve ending in my body that didn’t cry out. Years ago I had been defeated in combat back when I used to fight -- I had one encounter with one of Mags’ cronies that left me pretty black and blue but it was still nothing like this. I was in so much pain that I eventually couldn’t even hear the insults they were throwing at me. Blood was everywhere.

At some point, there were several punches right to my mouth. When they stopped, I found myself coughing and I remember spitting out a tooth. How I didn’t pass out right then and there, I’ll never know.

Something happened not much longer after that. I think some of their watches beeped “ maybe it was their turn to be on duty somewhere else. So a few of them left, and then one of them grabbed me by the arm and threw me inside another room. He left. After some amount of time “ I was in so much agony I had no idea how long “ that room’s door opened and another FOH walked in.

He closed the door and I was alone with just this guy. I couldn’t stand up on my own so I was kind of crouching against the wall. I’m sure one of the other X-men would’ve been able to take this guy, even with a collar on, but I was so beat up all I could do was try to stay conscious despite the raging pain in my mouth and pray that I’d get some sort of respite as I vaguely wondered why he was just standing there.

Maybe a minute or so passed with him watching me and doing nothing. Finally he took a few steps closer to me and started to talk. I was expecting another round of name-calling -- I’d never heard the term “faggot” used so many times in one day -- but he said something else.

“I hate mutant scum,” he began, but he wasn’t yelling the words. He was saying them conversationally as if we were sitting down to coffee. “I really do. I joined FOH because of that and because I needed a job. You rich mutants living in that mansion have no idea what it’s like to want to work and not have a job”. I trembled as I forced myself to listen to him. “But my sister was raped and I don’t want anyone else to go through what she did. And they’re going to force us to participate once the leaders are done. You see,” he began again, emphasizing each of the next five words, “I just can’t do that”.

I wondered if I was dreaming. The guy pulled out a map. “Here’s how to get back to your friends’ cell. I’m gonna take your collar off you and give you a gun. You’ll probably kill me, I don’t know, I guess I don’t care at this point. I’m going to shoot myself in the side to make it look like you overpowered me. Your best bet is to steal one of our starships and get the hell off this planet. Good luck”.

With that, he helped me to my feet and did exactly as he said. He reached around my neck “ I flinched at being touched “ and pressed a few buttons on his device. He proceeded to take out a pistol and shoot himself, and then hand me the gun. He must’ve had a silencer on it as it made almost no sound.

I stood there blinking for a few seconds, but utter fear of what awaited the X-men made me snap into action. I wasn’t a warrior, not at all, but I had to figure this one out. I had to act.

Immediately I turned into my Iceman form. I hadn’t done it completely for a while, but it came right back. I took the gun but was much more comfortable using ice. Changing into the ice form must have completely numbed the pain from all over my body; I remember it used to do that in the past and did so again that day. I didn’t even think anymore about the effects of the beatings.

I didn’t debate between using a slow and stealthy approach or a bolder one. The map indicated that I wasn’t far from the X-men’s cell. I made an ice slide and barreled down the hallway, full speed ahead. I ran into a few FOH, reached my arm out, and iced them over instantly. It still worked! In truth, I hadn’t had time to worry that it wouldn’t. It just *had* to.

I continued to careen down the hall on my ice slide. I reached the area outside the cell and the soldiers guarding it didn’t have time to do anything more than open their mouths before I froze them in blocks of ice. The other X-men jumped to their feet. I wanted to take a second to savor the looks on their faces but there was no time, and to this day I have no memory of it.

But now I had a problem “ I had to figure out how to get the force field down. “There!” Cyclops yelled, pointing at a panel on the wall. I started to freak out just a bit then and started randomly pressing pretty much every button on the panel. Miraculously, the force fields dropped.

An alarm sounded. I reached Wolverine first and turned his collar into ice. He tore it off, and we proceeded to use either his claws or my ice to remove everyone else’s collar. I thrust the map I had been given towards Cyclops. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Colossus scoop up the Professor since obviously his wheelchair wasn’t there.

In the past, I’d lose all sense of reality in battle. Adrenaline or panic or whatever would kind of overtake me. In the chaos of combat, it really was hard for me to maintain any sense of…normalcy or equilibrium. Now that the others had their powers back, I just followed along, relieved to not be the one on whom everything was dependant anymore.

I remember us rushing down the hallway and encountering many FOH soldiers. I remember lots of lasers shooting from Cyclops’s eyes, lightening bolts from Storm, charges from Gambit, and so on. We took some guns from some of the soldiers we encountered so that those of us who needed weapons had them. I remember Cyclops and Storm calling out plans over the din of battle.

FOH, at least at this compound, was toast.

Most proudly, I remember managing to stay rather sane during the pandemonium and shooting out ice whenever needed. A few times I had to fight back fear that I would accidentally freeze one of my teammates but somehow that didn’t happen, which was a minor miracle given how untrained I was. Out of the corner of my eye, I once saw Jean nearly fall on the remnants of one of my ice slides, but she steadied herself straightaway. Fighting in a battle with a lot of powerful mutants is kind of like a big elaborate dance, but more like one where people can get really hurt.

Along those lines. The worst moment in battle occurred when I heard Colossus scream, “Xavier’s hit!” I vaguely remember whirling around and seeing blood coming from the Professor, who was still held in one of Colossus’s arms.

Storm and Cyclops led us to a hangar which housed several FOH ships. I remember hearing Jean proclaim “This one is empty!” and Forge declaring that it looked space-worthy.

As we bounded up the ship’s ramp, there was one conversation I remember well.

“We gotta rescue Alpha Flight!” Wolverine yelled.

“We can’t,” I heard Cyclops reply. “They had their chance to join us; we reached out to them. And we have to get Xavier to safety”.

At the same time Cyclops spoke, I heard Angel yell, “Too dangerous! We need to get out of here!”

Storm’s wisdom came through in the end. “We don’t know where they are. And if what FOH said is true, then they are already dead, anyway. And as Cyclops said, getting Xavier somewhere safe is our priority”.

“What about Banshee and Moira?” Hank asked.

Jean touched her hand to one of her temples. “I can’t say why, but I believe they are safe. Wherever they are”. Then I was surprised to hear her admit, “But my intuition might be clouded a bit by my worry for the Professor”.

That was enough debate. We piled on board the ship, rushing towards the bridge. Within seconds, Forge and Beast figured out how to engage the cloaking device and get us out of there. It’s nice having a few geniuses on your team. By the time FOH got one of their starships into the air, we were already zooming ahead with warp drive and had the cloaking device functioning. FOH had no way to track us.

***

I went right to sick bay after that and the next several hours were a bit unclear for me, but here’s what I know happened.

Cyclops, Storm, and Forge stayed on the bridge to take care of our immediate concerns. They made sure the cloaking device was holding and that no FOH ship was following us.

I guess the Professor had given Cyke and Storm some coordinates that he kept hearing in a dream or message or something. It was supposed to be a place of healing, which the Professor desperately needed though I’ll get to that in a second. The message or dream wasn’t much to go on but we didn’t really have any other destination. Going back to earth wasn’t a good idea. Forge had checked the ship’s supply of dilithium, which is this power source that runs the engines as well as life support, the cloaking device, and the replicators. So it’s pretty important. Forge discovered that this ship had enough of it to take us to the coordinates Xavier had mentioned “ I guess we had enough to last a while, regardless. So that’s where they set the ship’s course for.

Beast dashed to sick bay to tend to the Professor. It was serious. With Jean assisting, Hank had to perform surgery on the Professor to remove two bullets. When their grueling work was finally done, the Professor was in a coma.

As for me, as soon as I reverted back to my normal form, I nearly collapsed in pain. The Iceman form and the adrenaline from our escape had numbed my pain but as soon as I changed back to myself, I was one beaten up guy. I went to sick bay too, which wasn’t that big so I could always see what was going on with the Professor. As much pain as I was in, I fervently hoped Xavier would pull through.

Jean at one point apologized and promised that she and Hank would help me as soon as they were able. They were the two, obviously, best suited to taking care of the injured, but others had had at least basic first aid training. Nightcrawler and Rogue tended to my wounds.

They bandaged me up best they could. At one point I remember Rogue yelling over to Hank, “What do we give him for the pain? They knocked out a tooth!” I remember Nightcrawler hurriedly reading the label of whatever medication to make sure they gave me the right dosage, as Rogue brought up a computer and tried to search the database. The two of them did the best they could, and whether it was due to pain or fatigue or the medicine, I lost consciousness a few times. Which was fine with me.

When Hank was finally free “ and he looked as exhausted as everyone “ he bandaged my ribs. Two of them were fractured. At one point I took a look in the mirror and wished I hadn’t. My eyes were blackened and my face swollen. I really looked hideous and felt that way too.

Okay, enough about me and back to what everyone else was doing. I heard that once they felt that the bridge was secure and our immediate needs taken care of, Cyclops and Storm worked on some logistic-type stuff. This is the kind of thing I love to coordinate but I was too sick to do any of it. Things like assigning rooms to people, learning the layout and workings of the vessel, creating a “bridge duty” schedule (for safety’s sake, we needed at least one person on the bridge to make sure the ship was functioning alright, we weren’t under attack, etc), using the food replicators to prepare meals since we hadn’t eaten for a while, and most importantly putting together a “sleep schedule”. We absolutely had to get some rest, though there was so much to do. No one had slept much while we were imprisoned and I can’t even estimate how many straight hours we’d all gone without sleep. I believe that the others slowly began to retire to their new quarters for rest, though I remained in sick bay, napping occasionally.

Despite everyone’s urgent need for sleep, and the fact that I was in and out of consciousness myself, I did have many visitors once Rogue and Nightcrawler patched me up as best as they could. Gambit came. I think he was thanking me for rescuing the team, but his visit was right after I was given the pain killer and I believe I fell asleep while he was talking. Later on, I have dim memories of visits by Jubilee, Storm, Wolverine, and Cannonball I think. I remember being thanked and remember one or two wanting to hug me but they couldn’t because I was so sore.

I’ll never forget my conversation with Hank when he was bandaging my ribs and admonishing me to not move.

“I am sorry, my friend, that I was not available to take care of you earlier,” he said.

I tried to not be stunned. “Hank, give me a break. You had to *perform surgery* on the Professor! I think that takes precedence”.

“I still wish that I could have done more. And I also want to thank you for rescuing us. You are very brave”.

I let his compliments roll right off me. In fact, as he was talking I really wished I could’ve stroked his blue fur reassuringly since I knew his regret at not being able to do more was sincere. But it seemed that the more I moved, the more pain I felt.

“When your mouth heals more,” he added, “I’ll make you an implant to replace the tooth that was knocked out”.

“Sounds good. But Hank -- you look really tired. Promise me that as soon as you’re done with wrapping my ribs, you’ll go to your room and get some sleep?”

He looked around the sterile sick bay. The Professor lay on his bed and I wish he had been just sleeping instead of just in a coma. “Perhaps I should remain here”.

“No! Look, if I need you, I’ll call you on my communicator, okay? Gambit gave me one too. If the Professor wakes up, won’t his machine start beeping? So can’t you get a bit of sleep?”

In the end, he compromised. Rather than heading for his quarters, he slept on one of the empty sick bay beds.

***
Jean Grey entered the bridge. Her husband and Storm were still stationed on the adjoining captain and first officer’s chairs, still discussing plans.

Jean stood behind Scott and circled her arms around him. “Jean, honey…you need your rest now,” he said quietly, tilting his head around, though he enjoyed her embrace.

“So do you,” she answered. Jean then looked at Storm. “And you too, Storm. We might have our powers back but it doesn’t mean we don’t need basics, like sleep”.

Storm nodded. “We spoke with Forge four hours ago. We had agreed that he would seek five hours of sleep and then come here to relieve us”.

“Good,” Jean said. “Because as much as we love our leaders, you’re not of any use to us if you’re brain-dead”.

“I’ll be able to join you soon,” Scott promised, standing up to embrace his wife. “Just one more hour”. With an arm around her, he led her to the bridge’s sliding door.

Later, Scott made good on his promise and joined Jean in their room. She was sleeping soundly. He looked around their quarters. The room was sparse and utilitarian. One dozen of the rooms on the formerly-FOH ship had been designated officer quarters and thus, although Spartan, had their own private bathrooms. The room itself contained a queen sized bed, shelves, desk and chair, and tiny window.

Cyclops kicked off his shoes and settled into bed next to his wife.

“I can’t believe,” Jean murmured, “that we’re on a starship heading through space”.

“To an unknown destination, in the hopes that *something* there can somehow help the Professor out of his coma,” Cyclops finished. He then added, “Though we have found ourselves in situations that were nearly this unusual”.

Jean turned onto her side and rested her head on his shoulder. “Try to sleep,” she said softly. “We’re worried about Xavier but there’s nothing we can do now”.

“Is Hank getting any sleep?”

“He said he would. Though knowing him he won’t leave sick bay”. Jean paused and said, “I know you’re worried about the whole team, but I think everyone is hanging in there. Actually, considering what we’ve been through, I think everyone’s doing just fine”.

“Is um…is the baby alright? I mean, I know you would’ve told me if you sensed something…” he let his voice trail off.

“I meant to tell you -- Hank checked the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope and said it was fine, thank goodness”. She took a breath, thinking back to the collar torture. “I can’t remember ever feeling so much pain in my life. I don’t even have words for it”.

“Same here”. As much as Scott wanted to drift off to sleep, he knew he couldn’t rest unless he brought up something else. He reached one of his hands to clasp hers. “They…they threatened to do some horrible things to us. Are you alright?”

He silently chastised himself for feeling awkward about bringing this subject up with his own wife, but he didn’t want her to think he was trying to forget it ever happened. It was fairly impossible to forget, given the number of times the soldiers told them what the FOH leaders were going to do.

Through her mindlink with Scott, Jean picked up on some of these thoughts. “I am glad you asked because what they threatened us with…we’ve never experienced anything like that”.

“I know. It was shocking”.

“But I’m alright,” Jean insisted. “I’m making a conscious effort to think of other things because I feel a bit ill if I dwell on it for too long”.

Scott nodded.

Jean whispered, “Let’s get some sleep, my love”.

The couple soon fell into a sound sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.

***

Pretty soon, I think a sense of normalcy came over the ship. Well, that’s probably the wrong word but I will say that once everyone had eaten and slept, things didn’t feel as urgent and so Storm and Cyclops called us all together for a meeting.

I was still on pain medications, but Hank switched me to some that didn’t make me spacey. I hadn’t been out of sick bay much, so Rogue and Gambit escorted me to the meeting room since I didn’t yet know my way around the ship. One of my eyes was still swollen and I couldn’t see too well out of it, and I had to walk slowly. Rogue and Gambit took me to a large room adjacent to the bridge. It had a big circular table which we all barely fit around.

As I entered the room, a few of my teammates went up to me and shook my hand and thanked me for rescuing them. Colossus started to give me a manly slap on the back but fortunately stopped himself in time when I gently reminded him that every nerve ending in my body was sore. Cyclops made a point of shaking my hand and thanking me as well.

Hank entered the conference room last -- I’m sure he was reluctant to leave the Professor even though his condition hadn’t changed.

Storm kicked off the meeting by saying that it was a good idea for us all to get together in the same room and check in “now that we have all rested and know the lay of the land”.

“First thing we wanted to inform you of,” Cyclops began, “is that we estimate a six week trip until we reach our destination”. He looked at Forge and said, “We will have enough dilithium to get us there “ and back to earth “ if we continue at this speed”.

Rogue spoke up, “Can y’all remind us where we’re goin’ and why?”

Storm smiled. “I’m glad you brought it up “ in the chaos of the last several hours, I’m not sure how well we communicated with everyone”. She then went on to explain that Xavier had been informing both herself and Scott that he had been receiving messages of some sort that contained specific coordinates and conveyed the idea that healing would take place at those coordinates. The Professor viewed the message as important enough to tell the X-men leaders about it more than once and insist that they memorize the coordinates.

“Don’t mean to sound critical,” Gambit began, “but dat don’t seem like a whole lot to go on”.

Storm responded, “You’re right, Gambit. We X-men have had several…undeveloped plans before and we certainly don’t claim that this is much different. Cyclops and I have been discussing alternatives but we haven’t come up with a satisfactory one”.

“For example,” Cyke began, “we could return to earth but in Hank’s view, no medical facility that would agree to treat a mutant would be any better than the equipment he has here. And with FOH’s control over everything, there’s a certain logic to staying away for now. They defeated us pretty easily at the mansion and I don’t think it’s wise to risk any sort of confrontation with them now until we understand their weapons better”.

“And you can bet that airspace around earth is crawlin’ with FOH ships,” Wolverine added. “Waitin’ for us”.

Hank then said, “Our main priority has to be to heal the Professor. His condition is stable now but I do not know to bring him out of the coma. There is a possibility that a few of the state-of-the-art facilities on earth could do more for him, but as Cyclops said, none of those facilities treat mutants”.

I saw lots of people nodding, and no one looked like they disagreed. Someone would’ve spoken up if they had a better idea.

Jean shook her head. “I know this is totally unscientific, but my intuition tells me that we will find…healing or help or something at these coordinates”.

Angel said, “I completely agree that this ship seems safer now than just about any place on earth. For the past year or so, I felt like a sitting duck at the mansion. Now at least we can move around quickly, we’re hidden by the cloaking device, and this ship has weapons too”.

Storm looked around the room. “So, am I correct in thinking that you support this plan “ or at least that there’s no strong disagreement? That you can all get behind the idea of us proceeding to this place and deciding our next move from there?”

“I’m behind it,” Wolverine said.

“So then,” Cyclops continued, “in terms of how we will spend the next six weeks before we reach our destination…Forge and Beast have agreed to work on reconstructing the Danger Room. We have enough dilithium that this is a reasonable goal. There’s a large empty room in here that looks like it was supposed to be used for a holodeck, so using that space for the Danger Room would be ideal. Once the new Danger Room is functional, we’ll put together a training schedule. In the meantime, please use the gym to train. It’s fairly large and has quite a bit of equipment”.

“Here are maps of the ship for anyone who didn’t already receive one,” Storm said, passing out the papers. The major points of interest were the bridge, sick bay, mess hall, gym, recreation room, engineering, the meeting room in which we sat, and the personnel quarters. The personnel quarters all occupied one long hallway near the bridge.

Forge asked, his eyes still on the map, “Aren’t we going to be short one room? The personnel quarters, I mean”.

I saw Cyclops and Storm look at each other. “Oh yeah,” Scott began. “We meant to mention that. There are twelve rooms on this ship that were designated officers’ quarters. There are lots of other sleeping quarters on this ship, but they are more like army barracks “ big rooms with lots of bunk beds and with a group bathroom down the hall”.

“So with fifteen people on the ship and twelve rooms,” Forge said, “assuming that Cyclops and Jean are sharing one room and Rogue and Gambit another “ we’re short a room”.

“Yeah,” Cyclops said. “We were thinking that we can deal with that when the Professor is out of his coma. We could always designate one of the large barrack rooms to be his “ it would be further away from all the other rooms but it would be nice and big”.

“We could also rotate who gets that room,” Storm added. “Or we could convert another space into a room for someone “ there are a few other conference rooms that could be converted, though they wouldn’t have private bathrooms”.

“We’ll deal with it when we need to,” Cyke concluded.

“So in the meantime, neither of the couples can break up!” Jubilee declared, and everyone laughed at her joke.

She then went on, “What is this ship anyway? I mean, what do we know about it? It looks like it’s never been used”.

“Best we can tell, this is a brand-new starship,” Wolverine answered. I guess he’d been doing some research on the place. “It’s got a few miles on it, but few enough that I think it was just taken for a few test-drives and that’s it. Ain’t no crew roster in the ship’s records; looks like this is the first time it ever left earth”.

“What are we gonna call it?” Rogue asked. At the questioning looks she received, she went on, “No, really, I think it’s gotta have a name. Can’t keep callin’ it ‘the ship’ “ that’d be impolite”.

I was really surprised to find myself speaking up. “How about the Victory?” I asked. “For Victory, over FOH. Which we haveta believe is going to happen some day”.

“I like it,” Cyclops said.

“And there is a certain logic to letting the man who rescued us all choose the name,” Storm added.

I felt myself blushing. “I was just doing what any of you would’ve done in that situation,” I said. All the attention made my stomach fill with butterflies, though I kind of liked it too.

“Speaking of that,” Storm began, as she got up and walked over to a cabinet in the room. She pushed a button and the door slid aside. A cake was inside, along with plates and forks. She lifted the cake and set it onto the table. “We all wanted to thank you, Bobby, for the rescue. You are very heroic. We’re trying to only replicate necessary items, as you all know, but we did want to make this cake to celebrate what you’ve done”.

“Yes,” Cyke added. “We wouldn’t be here without you, Bobby. Thank you”.

People applauded and I felt embarrassed but great. (Can you feel embarrassed and great at the same time?) Slices of cake were soon passed around. I know I was smiling from ear to ear. Someone made a joke about wanting to carry me around on their shoulders as they sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” but I laughed and reminded them that my sore ribs wouldn’t be able to take it.

“I’ve never heard,” Nightcrawler began, as he sliced into his piece of the chocolate cake, “exactly what happened. How did you get free of the soldiers?”

“Actually, I don’t think any of us know the story,” Rogue added. “What happened?”

I looked down at the cake. The meeting had turned so merry. Sorting through memories of our imprisonment would certainly bring the mood down. I stuttered for a bit, before I decided to just say what I was thinking. “This will be kinda a downer”.

“That’s okay,” Cyclops said. “I think we need to hear it”.

“Okay,” I said, and suddenly it was a lot easier to look down at the cake than at the group. “Well, they brought me into this room and they beat me up. As you can see,” I added, trying to put in a laugh. “It seemed like it went on for a long time. Then they transferred me to another room. I looked up and it was just me and this one soldier. I think he was a big shot”. My mouth felt dry and I realized that this would be difficult to tell. I wished I could be eating chocolately yumminess instead of retelling this tale. I made myself look up though since I couldn’t stare at my plate the whole time. “He started talking to me instead of hitting me. He, uh…he said that his sister had been raped. He said he hated mutants but he didn’t want anyone else to go through that. Then he started telling me that his plan was that he’d let me go and he’d shoot himself to make it look like I overpowered him. He’s telling me all this and I can hardly believe him. Plus I’m feeling a bit not myself since I’m in tons of pain from getting beat up. But anyway, he did as he said and he took off my collar. I did the Iceman thing and headed right for the cell you were in. I didn’t encounter that many soldiers but I froze those that I did”.

I paused, and then tried to make a laugh, “So you see…I didn’t *do* anything. I just let him remove my collar and I got over to you guys as soon as I could”.

“You still behaved heroically,” Storm said, her rich, reassuring voice helping to soothe my nerves. “You had been away from training for so long and yet you still reacted as an X-man”.

All the praise was a bit too much for me, so I tried to turn the conversation. “I guess I am surprised by what the guy said. I didn’t know any of them felt any sympathy for us or at least realized that we are human. But when he said he didn’t want us to go through what his sister went through…I guess he must’ve realized at some point that we’re not that different. At least not in that way, that we’d feel the same pain and suffering”.

I slowly realized that people’s heads were turning away from me and onto someone else. I looked over and saw that Jubilee’s head was bowed and she had a hand over her face. It soon became obvious that she was trying to hide that she was crying.

The party had suddenly turned very serious. Jean got up and went over to Jubilee, putting an arm around her. “It’s okay. You can go ahead and cry,” she said. “I’ve cried at least once since we got free”.

Somehow Jean seems to know always just what to say. For a split second, I’d worried that things would be really awkward and Jubilee would feel totally embarrassed. I mean, there was no reason for that but sometimes people can feel that way when their emotions get the best of them. But with Jean going over to Jubilee, somehow any weirdness just evaporated. How does Jean do it? It’s like her voice and the way she says things seem to smooth things over. I could understand how both Cyclops and Wolverine “ and heck, probably others “ had fallen in love with her. She just seemed to light up a room.

Wolverine pulled out a handkerchief from who-knows-where and brought it over to Jubilee for her to wipe her eyes and nose. He also put a hand on her shoulder.

Once her voice was mostly steady, Jubilee spoke. “It’s just that thinking about us being caged up like that…and thinking what they threatened to do to us. It makes me feel sick, and scared”.

“I think all of us feel the same way,” Storm said. “You are certainly not alone”.

Cyclops added, “But the important thing is that we did get free. We’ve gotten out of every situation like that before”.

“But it *was* scary,” I piped up. “Because I think that was the closest we’d ever come to…well, to getting tortured and killed”.

Jubilee blew her nose and said, “I’m fine now. I had some bad nightmares last I slept, but I’m okay”.

Jean reached down and hugged her again. “Come to me anytime you’d like to talk, hon”.

The meeting pretty much ended after that. We went through a few more business items, such as getting everyone trained on basic ship functions, the bridge schedule, as well as stuff like times for when we’d have our meals. We were also reminded to minimize our use of the replicators “ use them for clothing and essentials but remember that each time we replicate something, it uses up some of our power supply.

I didn’t see my name on the “bridge duty” schedule. I guessed it was not on there since it was the type of pseudo-combat thing I normally didn’t do. I started thinking that I’d need to milk my hero-status and my injuries for all they were worth since I wasn’t sure how I’d earn my keep on board the ship. It seemed like most of Victory’s functions took care of themselves; even the kitchen was self-cleaning.

“The rec room is really nice,” Angel added before the meeting dispersed. “I imagine when we’re not eating or training, we’ll spend a lot of our time there”.

“Dere’s a pool table,” Gambit added. “Dough I expect to be playin’ lots of card games in dere too”.

“And, no doubt, trouncing the rest of us at them,” Storm concluded.

***

As the X-men filed out of the meeting room, Wolverine kept his eye on Jubilee.

“Hey,” he said, putting an arm on her shoulder.

“Hey,” she answered, looking down at her plate.

Wolverine knew that Jubilee was not usually one to pass up on sweets, but her slice of cake remained half-eaten. Some frosting was smeared on the side of the plate. “That ain’t like you,” he said, “not finishin’ your desert”.

“Guess I’m not hungry”.

Logan nodded. “That was brave of you, speakin’ about how you felt. I think everyone wanted to talk about it some but no one wanted to bring it up”.

Jubilee nodded. “It’s just hard to realize how close we came to….to, god, I don’t even want to say the word”.

“Those FOH bastards are pure evil. Once Xavier’s healed, we gotta figure out how to defeat them once and for all”.

“Do you think it’s true what they said about Alpha Flight? What they did to them?” Her voice sounded much steadier than at the meeting.

“I don’t know, Jubilee. It couldda all been a bunch of talk. Maybe they never even captured them and were just sayin’ that stuff ‘cause they knew it’d bother us. It might be a while before we find out what happened to ‘em”. He then added, “You’re safe here. And if anyone tries to hurt you, they gotta deal with me”.

Wolverine came close to issuing a silent prayer that he would be able to keep that promise, if those grim circumstances ever should arise again.

Jubilee nodded and remained silent. After a few moments, Wolverine spoke again, “I know you got lots of people tellin’ you that you can talk to them anytime you need to. You got another one here”. His gruff voice could sound amazingly gentle when needed.

“Thanks, Logan,” she said, reaching for the hug he offered. “I know I can always count on you”.

***

TO BE CONTINUED





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