A series by November

Chapter 49: Jabbing Fist and Stabbing Knife

"You know this peacetime,
jabbing fist and stabbing knife
Only get one look before you die."
--Duran Duran

In early November another call came for Rogue. This one was also answered by Logan.

"Is Rogue there?"

"Who is this?"

"My niece has just told me she’s a mutant. She called there this summer and spoke with someone called Rogue. Rogue told me to call. My niece is in danger and I need help."

"Sorry Bub. Hold on. Marie!"

"Who is it?"

"Some guy whose niece talked to you this summer."

Cody. Oh my god. He noted her change in demeanor and was mildly alarmed. But she took the phone without saying anything.

"Hello?"

"Hi, my name is Cody Robbins and this summer you talked to my niece, Kayla. She’s just told me that she’s a mutant and there are people here trying to kill her. She said you could help."

"We’ll try. Get Xavier," she said to Logan in her authoritative voice. Logan ran from the room. She could hear him banging on Scott and Jean’s door.

"Okay. What’s the situation?" she calmly asked him.

"We’re in my mom’s house. The Klan are outside. This is freaking me out. We’re white."

"I know you are. Where’s Kayla?"

"She’s right here with me. They’ve got these torches. This place is wood and it could go up in a flash."

"Okay, Cody, don’t say stuff like that, you’ll scare her."

"Wait a minute. How did you know we’re white?" He sounded wary. "Who are you?"

"Cody, it’s Marie. D’Ancato. When Kayla told me you were okay, I was so relieved. I haven’t been back to Meridian since. It’s a total coincidence that she got me on the phone, but right now tell me what’s going on so I can help you!"

Logan returned, and in a few minutes Xavier wheeled in to the living room. Rogue held up her hands and made a motion as if shooing him into her head. It was impossible to talk to Cody and explain to them all at once. He nodded and she felt the ghost light tendrils tickling her mind. He was out quick, and explaining to the others. She covered her other ear so she could pay attention to Cody.

"Not much to tell."

"I take it you don’t exactly trust local law enforcement?"

"If I did I wouldn’t be on the phone with you."

"Okay. We’re dispatching a team to come help you."

Scott was already looking at his PDA. Xavier’s hands were at his temples, telepathically dispatching a team.

"You’re at your Momma’s house on… St. Luke Street, Right? 1521. Okay. When I talked with Kayla she could make fire. Does she have any other abilities?"

"No."

"Okay. Go into the basement and put wet rags under the door. Get down under something big, like the hot water heater. I’m gonna put you on with Scott. I’ll see you in a little while."

"Watch Maggie?" she asked, and Jean nodded. She wouldn’t be going on missions until after her baby was born. Marie bolted down toward the locker room.

In five minutes they were in the air. Rogue looked around at everyone’s face and wondered how they had all gotten from her suite and into the air so quickly. Storm was here. And Carter. Logan didn’t look really happy. She vowed to explore that later. Bobby was piloting and Scott was giving them the details, since they hadn’t had an adequate map room session.

As soon as they were in the air Rogue got up and pulled a flexible dry erase board from the ceiling. She waited until Scott was done giving Carter orders to make the Klansmen sleep. With a marker she drew an upward slash. "This is I-20." She made a downward slash. "This is route eleven. We wanna land just west of that intersection, if possible. It used to be a field but I haven’t been there in six years. St. Luke Street is here. Cody’s mom is at this end, on the south side of the street. There was a wooded area here" - she made an X - "So we should have pretty good cover going in."

"Bobby, what’s our ETA?" Scott said.

"Twenty three minutes."

Scott hit the button on the radio that patched them through to Cody’s phone line. "Cody? What’s happening there?"

"There’s smoke." His voice was far away. The horror of him nearly dying came back to her. She was not gonna let him go this time.

"Get down low!" Scott yelled. Over the phone they could hear Kayla crying.

"Bobby, Mach 8!"

"Copy!"

Rogue went for Scott’s radio without permission. "Cody, is that field under the bridge still vacant?"

"No, there’s a seven-eleven."

"Fuck! Okay. What about the yard behind yours, where we partied with Kate and Lenny? Is there still a little bit of space there?"

"Define little bit."

"I’ve got it!" Bobby said. "ETA five seconds!" They were already landing.

Outside the window, she could see the burning. Storm’s eyes were pure white. They had been for five minutes. She had been working on remote control for the past year.

"Never mind. We’re here. It looks like the top floors are burning. Stay low, keep Kayla low. Is there a basement window?" She had wrested command from Scott but he didn’t care.

"Yeah!"

"What side?"

"West."

"Okay, we’re gonna pull you out that window. Is it clear?"

"Yes."

"Hold on! We’re coming!"

They landed in someone’s yard and through a fencerow they could see the burning house. Carter had made great strides in controlling his ability. All seven Klansmen dropped the instant he stepped off the plane. Rogue pointed to the west side and Logan followed her. Storm deplaned and the rain fell even harder. It was literally pouring from the sky. It was a square mile’s torrential rain, pouring down only on the house.

Cody had pushed out the West window with a shovel and without thinking, he boosted her into Rogue’s ungloved hands, then his eyes widened when nothing happened. Rogue ran the girl immediately back to the plane. "It’s over, baby, it’s gonna be okay."

"Where’s Cody?"

"Logan’s getting him out. That blue guy is a doctor and he’s gonna help you." She thrust Kayla at Hank and went back.

Logan was pulling Cody out of the window. "Keep his head steady." Rogue and Logan put him in a fireman’s carry their hands were slick with blood. Cody had cut himself on some glass. He was a bit woozy from smoke. "Cody! Do you know where you are?"

"Mom’s. Dunno why you’re here though." His speech was slurred.

"Cody, who’s the president?" Cody looked at her and promptly passed out. They carried him up the steps to the plane. "Hank, he’s bleeding from lacs to torso and disoriented, unconscious." Hank single-handedly lifted Cody to a med bunk while Rogue held his head as stable as possible. She helped him fit a cervical collar around Cody’s neck and an oxygen mask over his face and she put pressure on the wound while he steri-stripped it. "Cody, wake up!" Hank rubbed his knuckles hard on Cody’s chest and Cody moaned.

He should be fine." Hank said.

"The perps?" Bobby asked.

Rogue ran out of the Blackbird and jumped to the ground. She started pulling white hoods from the unconscious men. One. The local butcher. Two, a stranger. Three, a stranger. Four, her uncle Todd. Five, her fifth grade teacher.

Six, her father.

Aged ten years in the six she had been gone.

Wearing new glasses, hair longer, grey stubble on his chin.

She stood in the rain with the white hood in her hand. She was sinking to the ground. Her eyes fixated on a face she hadn’t seen in years.

She remembered him singing next to her in church.

Helping her with her homework.

She was peripherally aware of Logan next to her. He was no longer jealous. He was trying to comfort her. "What is it, baby. Who is it?"

Marie shook her head. She knew that if she told him he would kill him. She was spinning, flying around in circles in her head. She couldn’t make a decision.

Scott came out into the rain. "Rogue, what is it?" He was at her other side.

She had memories of her father helping her carve a pumpkin.

Memories of steadying hands at the back of her first bicycle.

He used to sing her to sleep.

"Rogue, listen to me!" Scott screamed and forced her to face him. "Listen to me Rogue. I want to give orders to terminate all of them. If there is something I don’t know you need to tell me now. The fire department is on its way and we need to leave now!"

Logan rolled her father over and yanked out his wallet. In the spotlight he could read the name Max D’Ancato. And in one of the compartments, hidden behind a FoH membership card, a picture of a young Rogue.

Logan kicked the man with all his might. Somewhere in him bones splintered. Rogue screamed and cried.

Then she spoke. "Kill all the other ones. Let him live. Let him live so he can know."

Scott nodded at Carter, and every man but Max D’Ancato stopped breathing. Their chests sunk in unison beneath the white robes and did not rise again.

On the Blackbird, Marie cried the whole way back. She was holding her father’s wallet. Taking out the contents and laying them out like hand of cards. Six bucks. His Kiwanis membership card. A FoH membership card. Her photo, from third grade. Pigtails and her red plaid dress. A spare key to the garage. A Blockbuster membership card. A picture of her mother. This made her sob the hardest.

His drivers’ license. A card from the Hair Cuttery, with five of ten haircuts punched out. An organ donor card. She dealt them out and couldn’t make sense of them. She cried. Logan wrapped his arms around her. Kayla was scared. Hank held her and whispered soothing things. Scott watched Marie shuffle the contents of her father’s wallet. Bobby flew. Cody appeared, ironically, to be comatose. They had him on oxygen.

Rogue insisted on attending the debriefing. Logan fought with her about it.

"I fucked up, Logan, I jeopardized the mission! The least I can do is own it!"

"You didn’t fuck up! And you don’t need to do this."

"I’m doing it. Get out of my way, Logan!"

He stepped aside. He wished with everything in him that she wouldn’t walk down the hall but he would not stop her.

They were all sitting around the table a few minutes later. No one, Scott included, knew how to proceed.

Xavier, always sensing what she needed, said "Rogue, why don’t you lead?" Logan gave a growl that made their hair stand on end.

She stood up and paced. "This summer I received a phone call from Kayla Robbins. She was in crisis, had manifested with pyrogenic abilities and didn’t know who to tell. I asked who in her community was sympathetic. I learned that her uncle was Cody Robbins, the boy I had injured during my own manifestation." Logan watched her breathing calmly and realized that Xavier had been right.

"I told her that if she decided to tell him, because he was sympathetic, that he should have her call for me. He did, this evening. I told Logan to get Xavier and heard him knock on Scott and Jean’s door. Cody said that they were trapped in his mother’s house with torch-bearing Klansmen outside. I told them to get into the basement. At that point I gave the phone to Scott and ran off to prepare.

"After Scott gave his orders, once we were airborne, I drew a map of the area." She pointed to the gray map table. It linked to a sattelite and showed real-time surface data, including the fire trucks and police cars that remained. "I thought we could land here but Cody told me that there was a 7-11 here. I asked him if this yard was still relatively undeveloped. By that time Iceman had located a landing site anyway so we deplaned. He said that the west basement window was clear. Carter knocked all the Klansmen out. He boosted Kayla up through the window. I brought her to the Blackbird. Logan pulled Cody out. He was bleeding and disoriented. We carried him to the Blackbird. Storm had been making it rain. At this point I ran outside and started pulling off their hoods. One of them was my fifth grade teacher. One of them was the butcher. Three I didn’t know. The sixth one was my father. I didn’t pull the seventh guy’s hood off. I saw my father and freaked out. I apologize to all of you. At this point I freaked out and jeopardized the mission. I’m sorry."

"Rogue, you did not jeopardize the mission." Scott said softly.

"From what I can hear, Rogue, you acted extremely efficiently under pressure." Xavier said. "You found out in the worst possible way that your father was a murderer. You are entitled to freak out."

She tried so hard not to sob at the map table and Logan pulled her close, whispering things they couldn’t hear into her ears. "Baby, remember when you told me I was entitled to cry, that you are amazed I came through it even sane. This is like that. You did great. You saved their lives. You acted decisively when they called and if you woulda taken a few more seconds, they woulda died."

She nodded and choked back tears.

"Rogue, you want me to take over?" Scott asked.

She nodded, and focused hard on breathing.

"I explained to Rogue that since they were caught in the act of murder that I would normally terminate them all. She was very upset. I told her that if she had information I didn’t she needed to call me because the fire department was coming. Rogue said to kill the others, let him live. I was one hundred percent comfortable with letting her make that call."

"As am I," Xavier said.

"Well at least you guys were," Rogue said bitterly.

"We can always go back and finish the job," Logan grumbled.

"We could," Xavier said, "but that’s not our choice. It should be Rogue’s. And none of us should be making any choices tonight, other than what to eat before going to bed. Dismissed. Except for Scott and Rogue. Stay."

~Scott, can you show me the way Rogue behaved tonight, before she found out one of them was her father?~

Rogue let go of Logan’s hand. She knew that he would be right outside the door.

~You mean when she was in leader mode?~

~Exactly. Will you project it to me so I can show it to her?~

~Absolutely.~ Scott remembered, and Xavier saw the scene unfold. He smiled. He was so proud.

Xavier opened his eyes. "Rogue, I want to show something to you. Will you free your mind and let me?"

She shrugged listlessly, focusing on the veneer of the table.

"Close your eyes, Rogue. Relax."

Rogue saw herself, drawing quick lines, making concise explanations, interfacing with Scott and Cody, effortlessly taking the helm and guiding the mission in the direction in which it needed to go. It was strange to see herself through Scott’s eyes. She knew what they were trying to do, but the sound of her voice through someone else’s ears was disconcerting.

She smiled, and stood up. She gave Xavier a hug and said "thank you."

Same with Scott. "Can you guys watch Maggie for a few hours?" He nodded. Then she left the room, taking Logan’s hand. He took her to bed and rubbed her feet and held her when she started crying.

Her father’s wallet lay on the nightstand. He held her until she calmed and quieted and then he got Maggie. He told Maggie that her mom was just fine, but she was very tired. He read her a story and made sure she brushed her teeth and tucked her in with a kiss.

Then he went back to Marie and he held her close, staying awake all night and listening to her calm breath.