It was a strange, hellish time. Remy seemed to get worse not better. Hank nursed Remy almost constantly, trying to draw the wrecked, silent body back to life. He performed a tracheotomy when Remy became unable to breathe on his own. Logan sat for hours and watched the kid being breathed in and out of for hours, as if he were some sort of device.
It twisted him up inside, but he couldn�t force himself to look away.
Hank found him camped by the side of Remy�s bed one night almost two weeks later. �Logan,� he said softly. �I need to talk with you.�
Logan nodded, though he didn�t look up from the figure on the bed.
�Logan, we just got the latest reports. A third of Sloan�s victims have died so far. Of the rest half of those are comatose and deteriorating. We know from the records that Sloan had a great many more victims than those we found, probably something over two hundred, spread over a period of a little less than four years. His experiments were almost all fatal.�
Logan still hadn�t looked up from the bed. Hank spoke again. �Logan, I need you to understand. Remy has sustained a tremendous amount of trauma.�
�What are you dancing around Doc?�
�I think it would be easier if you prepared yourself. That is, you might want to look at this�out finding our friend as an opportunity for closure. A chance to say goodbye.�
A chance to say goodbye. Four weeks ago, it had been all Logan wanted. Now he looked at the bed and wondered if he could really be satisfied with so little. He had so many things he needed to remember, things he had forgotten over the past six months. He had things he needed to tell the kid, things to plan with him and things to ask him.
<How did you get here Remy?> <Why aren�t you dead?>
Three weeks into the treatment Remy was still not able to generate his own body heat. Hank was trying to wean him of the ventilator, but it was hard, especially since Remy had caught some sort of pneumonia and had fluid in his lungs. He was still skeletal, what calories Hank was able to give him through the shunt did little to ease the thinness of his frame.
One night Logan left briefly, went for a quick workout and a shower. When he got back to the lab, it was empty, except for Kurt, sitting bent over Remy�s bed.
Logan sat beside him. For a few moments neither of them spoke. Then Kurt said softly, �He saved me you know, during that Cabrini attack.�
Logan nodded. It was burned into his memory.
�I don�t remember getting hit. Suddenly I was just�lost, outside of my mind. It was cold, dark. There was so much pain.� Kurt�s voice shuddered with emotion. �It was like dying, only worse, because dying has an end, and this just went on and on, so much suffering. It was as if the suffering in the world had all been laid on me.�
Logan nodded again, he remembered the feeling.
�Then there was this warmth�.this sense of kindness. It was Remy, though I didn�t know it. He lifted me, protected me, showed me how to come back to myself. It was extraordinary. I don�t think I will ever be able to explain what that was like, him finding me, bringing me home. He was so beautiful, when I saw his mind, so much kindness, so much love.�
Kurt softly touched Remy�s hand. �Why would someone do such a thing? Why would they want to destroy something so exquisite. I do not understand, who would want to purge the world of such goodness.�
Logan had nothing to say. He felt shame, for all the times he had secretly wished that Remy was not an empath. It had always been something he had tried to accept, to marginalize and ignore. He had never really thought about the people Remy helped, or the ones he saved. Kurt would be dead now, if it hadn�t been for Remy. How many others?
All this time he had said he would love Remy as he was. Now he wondered if that had only meant �in spite of how he was.� It was a troubling thought, one that Logan turned over in his mind obsessively during the long hours he spent by Remy�s beside guarding over the painfully still form.
Logan was sitting by Remy�s bed a week later when Remy began to shake, softly at first and then harder. Logan was terrified.
�Hank!�
The doctor rushed in and checked Remy�s vitals. He smiled. �No, it�s a good thing. It means that he�s regaining control of his skeletal muscles. It�s a step in the right direction.�
Logan looked at the bed and wondered how far they had fallen that Remy�s quaking could be considered a good thing. He tentatively reached out to touch the kid�s face. It was warm beneath his fingers. For the first time in more than half a year Logan almost smiled.
Remy�s color got a little better too, his hair began to grow a little. He was still wasted, but ever so slowly he began to look more alive than dead. Logan started doing something he hadn�t done in a very long time, he began to think a little about the future. He felt himself coming back to life, his personality and feelings resurfacing after a prolonged hibernation.
�Will he still be able to charge things?� He asked Hank.
�Sloan wasn�t trying to eradicate the charging. He was trying to destroy Remy�s empathy.�
That was something to think about. �So will Remy still be an empath?� He felt the faintest twinge of hope that Hank would say no. His stomach turned over with guilt. After all this was that what he thought about?
�I think we need to take this one step at a time Logan. I�m still worried about the fact that Remy has not regained consciousness. I fear that you need to prepare yourself for the worst. If he survives, there is every reason to suspect that Remy will have sustained irreversible brain damage.�
�You enjoy the messages of doom, don�t you Doc?�
�I�m sorry Logan, I thought you would want to know the truth.�
Logan didn�t know how to feel about the truth. He was unaccustomed to feeling. Intellectually he knew that LeBeau would hate having brain damage, that given the choice Remy would rather die than live diminished.
In his heart though, Logan wondered how he would feel. Losing Remy had destroyed him so completely. He knew that he would give anything, he would stake his salvation on being able to reclaim just a shadow of his lover from the abyss.
<Maybe Remy would forgive, if he saw that it was all that saved my soul.>
He couldn�t know. It seemed like so much metaphysical bullshit anyway. Remy hadn�t moved since they found him in the lab. What was the point of these stupid questions he kept asking himself, over and over?
Then, after lying still for almost two months, the kid woke up.
Remy had opened his eyes before, a reflex more than any sign of consciousness. Logan could tell this was different because the beeping of the monitors changed rhythm.
Staring into the red and black eyes, Logan couldn�t breath. Remy�s face held no recognition, no awareness of any sensations. The gaze he fastened on Logan�s face was washed in a world of pain. Yet there was no doubt that it was his kid, or some fragment of him, staring out from that fragile, broken body.
Logan knew that he should call for Hank, but he couldn�t. He didn�t want to disturb the moment, wanted to keep it, after he had been hungry for so long. It didn�t matter anyway, before he had recollected himself, before he had even fully realized what was happening, Remy�s eyes slid closed again, and the monitors resumed their turgid beat.
�Be sure to call me quicker next time, if I�m not here.� Said Hank. �I need to assess his condition.�
�This is good, right?�
Hank was unwilling to commit himself even that far. �It isn�t bad.�
The second time Remy opened his eyes, Hank was in the room with him. Remy didn�t speak that time, or the next, nor were there any signs he was aware of his surroundings. He blinked a few times and his eyes traveled in slow circles around the room before he slipped away again.
Hank was more convinced than ever about the possibility of brain damage, though he knew that they would have to wait longer to understand its extent.
The fourth time Remy opened his eyes, Logan felt his gaze lock on him. There could be no doubt of recognition, those eyes held amazement and no little disbelief. Logan saw the kid open his mouth and mouth a little �Logan�, though no sound came out. A hand on the bed twitched.
�Yeah, that�s right kid. I�m right here.� Logan reached out and took Remy�s limp hand, running it down his own cheek. �I�ve missed you Remy, God, you can�t know how much.� He didn�t feel the tears running down his cheeks. Remy moved his mouth again, silently, but whatever words he meant to say were lost in silence, and his eyes slid closed.
Hank was greatly encouraged by the recognition.
�He couldn�t speak.� Logan complained.
�He might not be able to speak at all.� Said Hank. �But he can�t make any noise until I take out the vice.�
�What?�
�The vice. Sloan put a little clamp inside Remy�s throat. It expanded and puts enough pressure on the trachea to distend the vocal chords and make speech impossible.�
Logan felt his stomach heave. �Why didn�t you take it out before?�
�I didn�t think he was strong enough. The procedure promises to be quite painful and Remy had more pressing medical needs.�
Meaning that Hank hadn�t thought Remy would live long enough to need to speak. Logan felt an irrational surge of pride in the kid.
His pride was replaced by horror though, as he watched Hank insert a long, thin pair of prongs down Remy�s throat. It didn�t seem like anything that long should be able to fit into the body. Hank fiddled a little, then his face cleared and he slowly pulled back, revealing a bloody bit of plastic on the end on the pinchers.
Remy immediately began coughing, huge spasms wracked his body. Hank gently turned the young man on his side and rubbed his back. �There, it�s okay. Get it all up.� Even unconscious Remy seemed to hear him. Clots of blood dripped into the white pan Hank held below Remy�s mouth.
Logan turned pale. �He�s bleeding.�
Hank shook his head. �It�s just the blood from the old wounds that has been collecting in his lungs blocked from getting out before. He should be able to breathe easier now.�
Logan bent to examine the small piece of plastic caked in Remy�s blood. �Why would Sloan go to the trouble anyway?�
�It silences the screams.�
Logan stared. �Remy doesn�t scream.�
It was true. One of the most creepy things about the kid was his utter stoicism in the face of pain. Logan thought he�d barely ever heard Remy grunt before. That he could scream to the point that Sloan would think it necessary to muffle him��. Once again Logan looked at Remy in the bed and wondered exactly what had been done to him.
�They were painful procedures. I see nothing in the records to hint that Sloan used any sort of pain killer.� Hank ran his finger over Remy�s twisted shoulder. �This was self inflicted apparently. He was battering at the cage, trying to get out. Sloan put him in a shorter cage, to stop him, but he never bothered to fix the clavicle.� Hank�s voice was devoid of emotion. Logan knew how hard it was on the other man, seeing the tools of science and medicine used to such appalling ends on his own friend. He looked at the kid.
�Jesus.�
�Later I will have to break it, so that it can be reset.�
Logan flinched, one more thing to look forward to.
The next two days brought little doubt that the Cajun was improving. His color was much better. Hank was able to remove some of the monitors and IVs, although what they were, and what their purpose had been still eluded Logan.
�It would be good to get him out of bed.� Hank said casually, one morning. �Would you like to hold him for awhile?�
Logan�s mind went utterly blank at the thought. It had been so long since he had seen Remy anywhere besides the bed that he�d almost for gotten the kid wasn�t attached to it.
Very gently, with Hank�s help Logan picked Remy up and sat with him curled in a small tangle of arms and legs on a nearby recliner Hank had carried in. He put up the foot rest and leaned back slightly, so that he could cradle Remy in the small cavity between his chest and his knees.
It was amazing how familiar it felt. Remy was about thirty pounds lighter, bony, mostly bald, and still, he curved into Logan�s body with a familiarity that almost broke the older man�s heart. Logan felt a part of him awaken that had been asleep for a long time. This was what he�d been trying to remember, this perfect sense of completion.
He felt Remy give a little sigh and relax, as he hadn�t done since leaving the hospital. Some of the marks of pain and fear that had been etched on the kid�s face relaxed. Logan marveled at how powerful touch could be.
He leaned back, relaxing, feeling closer to Remy than he had since the whole nightmare had begun. He thought at first that it was just the experience of holding the younger man, but then he sensed something on the corners of his mind.
He held very still, afraid to even breath. The presence got stronger. Logan let out a shaky breath. Remy was reaching out to him through his empathy. The kid was still an empath.
Logan tried to relax even further, lowering his minds walls the way that Xavier had shown him. The feeling of Remy grew even stronger. Remy was reaching out, taking refuge in Logan from his own twisted, wrecked body. Logan smiled and gently rubbed the kid�s head. <Welcome home kid.>
Was this what he had been so afraid of? All that pain and frustration and fear? This was so little, such a little thing, like touching with breath or heartbeat. It was like seeing Remy without his eyes. Why had he ever worried? He had never worried that Remy would blind him in his sleep.
He planted a kiss on top of Remy�s head and rubbed the growing fuzz on his scalp thoughtfully. When Hank came in to check on them,. Logan put a finger over Remy�s mind just between his eyes. �He�s sleeping inside me.� He said softly. His eyes were shining. Hank smiled and quietly crept away.
As the doctor closed the door behind him the doorjamb made a small click. Logan watched the kid start to wake up. The big, dark eyes opened slowly, they came to rest on Logan�s face and Remy smiled, an expression of heartbreaking sweetness.
Then Remy glanced slowly around. He seemed to gather more awareness. Suddenly he stiffened. Through their connection Logan could feel Remy�s sudden fear and�shame?
The connection between them slammed shut so quickly Logan�s breath caught. Remy was rigid in his arms, eyes riveted to Logan�s face, afraid. His mouth was moving and though he couldn�t speak Logan could read the words on his lips. <Sorry. I�m sorry. I�m sorry. I didn�t know.>
For a second he thought that the kid was having some sort of flash back. Then in a rush, Logan understood. Remy thought Logan would be angry about the empathy. He tired to slow his breathing, calm his own agitation, which he guessed was only putting the kid more on edge.
�It�s okay.� Logan whispered soothingly, rubbing his hand gently down Remy�s cheek. �It�s fine. I like havening you close to me.�
For an instant Remy stilled, looking at Logan in something akin to astonished disbelief. Logan concentrated, trying to push his feeling out towards the kid, to let Remy read his sincerity.
Remy stared. With shaking hands he reached out and gently took hold of the sides of Logan�s face, running his thumbs along his cheek bones, the way he had in another lifetime. Logan bit his lip hard. The expression on Remy�s face was hard to bear, the one thing both of them had given up on. The expression was hope.