Author's Note: Thanks ever so muchly to my Dad for flinging me a particularly ravenous plot bunny. I was well and truly stuck on this story before we discussed it.

POV: Rogue

"Nuh... No... Mar..."

I can hear Logan's voice, but I don't see him anywhere. All I see are the bodies of the fallen as I walk through the foyer. They're so cold, lifeless. In some places, there are so many that I have to watch where I step.

Paige, Jennifer, David, Everett, Jacob, Malcolm, Peter, ... Jubilee, my roommate for so many years. She embodied life and energy, and now she lies crumpled, pale, eyes forever closed in death. She is just one of so many taken from me, a family forever lost.

As I watch, her pale blue eyes snap open, the orbs clouded and her gaze cutting right through me.

I stumble back, away from that accusatory stare only to trip over another body, Peter's. His eyes are open as well, and as his dead, gray arms reach out for me...

My eyes snap open to find myself twisted in the covers of a shabby bed. I'm not at the mansion; I'm in a hotel room, sweaty and gasping for breath.

"It was a dream," I whisper to myself. "Just a dream."

"Mm... No..."

Logan's mumbling next to me, shifting in his sleep. He must be having a nightmare, too.

"Logan."

"Mar... Nn... Stop..."

I reach over and gently nudge him, but he remains asleep, so I start jostling his shoulders. "Logan, wake up."

"Marie!" he shouts as his eyes shoot open. He moves like lightning, pulling me into a tight hug, and I can barely breathe; he's squeezing so hard.

It's a good thing it was Logan's turn to dress for bed tonight. He's not thinking about my skin and my face, held close to his chest, could've killed him.

"Logan."

"Marie... Marie. You're alive."

He's clutching me so tight it's like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go.

"Logan, it's all right. I'm here. I'm here."

"I thought... thought I'd lost you."

He's kissing me all over the top of my head, where it's safe, and his gloved hands are starting to stroke my bare back.

"It's ok, sugah. I'm still here. We're together. We're alive."

We spend the next few hours proving to each other just how alive we are.

Logan's playing with his ring again. Whenever it's my turn to drive, he just sits silently, twisting his ring around his finger. I've asked him a couple of times what he's thinking, but he just brushes me off or changes the subject. Whatever it is, it's bad. His face gets all tight, and he hunches his shoulders down like he doesn't want me to see what he's doing.

At first I thought it was the cut in his ring. I told him we'd find a jewelry store and get it repaired, but he said not to bother. That it wasn't right to fix it until... but he never finished the sentence.

"How far?" he asks, and I'm surprised to hear his voice. He's taken off the ring and is running his fingers over the break.

"About another hour," I answer.

He doesn't say anything else, returning to his quiet contemplation.

It's been two weeks and we're going back to the mansion. We've been sniffing around all the military bases in the area, literally, without finding anyone who was involved in the murders. Logan wants to go back home in case we missed something, but I don't hold out much hope. The attackers could've been from a unit in another state, men from several units, or even not in the military at all. With so little to go on, I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever find them.

Even if we do, what's next? Hunting down only those men directly involved leaves the men giving the orders alive. There's no way two mutants can get revenge on the entire U.S. government, although I'm sure Logan would love to try.

It's not just about revenge, either. We need to find the soldiers to find Scott and the other captive mutants. If they're being kept together at a base, how will we get through the defenses? What if they are being kept in separate facilities? If we attack one place, will the mutants at the other locations be killed before we can reach them?

I've never felt so powerless as I do right now. If I didn't have Logan, if he'd been taken or killed too, I know I'd just give up. He's the only thing keeping me going right now, with the world against us.

"Marie?" Logan's put his ring back on and is pulling my right hand into his grasp.

"Yeah?"

"It'll be ok. We'll find them, and get them out. We're gonna be just fine."

He tenderly rubs my hand between his clasped ones, but I don't know who he's trying to reassure. Himself or me.

POV: Dr. Elizabeth Mason (original character)

Latitude: 41.2512
Longitude: -73.54092

"What is he doing back at the mansion? Doesn't this guy have any survival instincts?"

I'm fuming at my computer, reading the current location of a man I know only as the healer. He escaped when the troops invaded Xavier's school, but the damn man keeps coming back. If I don't do something, he's going to ruin everything. It's not like they're looking for him right now. Dr. Thacker decided to just pick him up along with all the other mutants in the national sweep, but he isn't exactly acting like a person who doesn't want to get caught.

He's been traveling around New York, going to military bases and hanging around the bars the soldier boys frequent. If he asks the wrong people the wrong questions, there'll be nothing I can do to save him.

I've been following his movements ever since the day I picked him up on the GPS by a fluke. There's something about the guy that makes him the perfect antennae for the nano laying dormant in his body. It's almost like a large part of the guy is metal. That's impossible, though.

Anyway, if his meddling makes Dr. Thacker speed up the project, I won't be able to finish and everyone will be screwed, himself included. I've stalled Dr. Thacker saying that it'll take three months to get the nanos built, which isn't exactly true. It'll take three months to get the nanos built to complete my plan. Theoretically, it would only take a month to get done what the doctor has in mind. If he gets involved deeply enough to figure that out, no one will be safe.

"Hello, Elizabeth," a deep voice sing-songs behind me.

I quickly switch my screen to production readouts, covering the global positioning information on the missing mutant.

"Hello, Dr. Thacker," I say, mentally adding, 'you bigoted, heartless prick.'

"How are we doing today?"

"Fine, just fine. We're running at full production. The machines are testing every hundred and I'm personally testing every few thousand in detail for flaws. So far, we're at a success rate of over 99 percent."

"Even 99 percent is insufficient. We're talking about over 270 million humans and mutants. Ninety-nine percent leaves a few million flawed machines."

"We can't fully test every nano. That would take forever. Maybe we should plan on a second wave after this first one."

"That will give any remaining mutants time to fight back. No. It must be simultaneous. Perhaps I should look at the schematics myself and see..."

"No!"

'Calm down, Elizabeth,' I mentally reprimand.

Composed, I continue. "No, you're too important. We won't get done without your management skills to oversee the entire project. I'll go through the process step-by-step personally and bring down the error rate."

"Very well, Elizabeth. I trust you."

I smile, but the smile fades as soon as the little weasel is out of my sight. That was too close. He could have caught on to the fact that I didn't want him anywhere near my blueprints.

'Two and a half months, Elizabeth. You just have to keep everything together for a little while longer.' That's what I keep telling myself, but when I switch my screen back to the global positioning information, I wonder if I'll be able to do it.

No. Not while he's roaming around. I need to chase him away, just until I'm ready.