“Hey girl, didn’t expect you this early, but don’t worry your table’s empty.”

She glanced up at him and smiled a little. “Well Sam, that’s good to know, this year has been a little harder than most.” With that she took the drink that he poured her and headed to the dark corner of the bar room that she always preferred.

In all his years at working at this bar, Sam knew all the regulars by heart. This one had come in the same time every year for the past ten years, but lately she had been coming more and staying longer. It worried him, she was a sweet girl, good tipper, but she was haunted by demons he had no need to know. She was so skinny and drawn like the world was on her mind and in days like these it didn’t take much to wonder why.

Sam sighed in pity as a foolish young man, a newbie soldier most likely with his jacket recently pressed and washed, ambled over to her throwing on the charm. She smiled softly as he talked her ear off and she pushed his hand of her leg before refusing a drink from him or a turn on the floor. He turned away embarrassed as she ducked her head away from his hand that sought to touch the silver that framed her pretty face.

As the boy sought refuge from the laughter of his friends Sam offered him a drink with a little advice. “Did you ask her to dance? Let me guess, she told you no. Oh, don't take it all that hard that she smiled and turned you down. For a complicated girl she ain't that hard to figure out…” The boy listened and very slowly he began to understand.

The smile on her face slowly changed to a grimace as she saw through the bottom of her whiskey glass a familiar face. She quickly plastered back on a grin as she lit up her cigarette.

“You should really stop that, those things kill you,” he told her as she rolled her eyes at him.

“Come on Logan, you’re the last one who should be telling me this,” she whispered, letting out a breath of smoke directed at his face, but he didn’t blink or even grimace at the smoke in his face and she noticed the fog and how hazy it made his face. With the dark of the corner she could almost pretend he wasn’t here.

“You should really stop doing this to yourself, all of this can’t be healthy.”

She laughed hard at that, “Healthy? Healthy? You’re worried about me being healthy when we are being hunted down on the street like dogs. Funny, but then that’s just like you. Tell me Logan, how am I supposed to be healthy when it is legal to shoot us by the dozen because our ‘president’ decided that we were a mistake that needed to be ‘cleaned up.’ I’m lucky I don’t look like what I am. Funny, I could even almost pass as normal,” she ranted, her voice growing in volume before she realized she had drawn the eyes of the nearby patrons, so she dropped her voice. “Do you remember what they did to Beast?”

“Rogue… I was there. Of course I do.”

“Kurt, I think that he lasted the longest among them, going from state to state before they finally got him trying to save that little girl. She had wings, you know, such beautiful wings, but she could only fly so high. Because they had clipped them, like they do to parrots.”

“Rogue…”

“And Remy with those piercing red eyes. They called him a demon before they tore him apart on the town square.”

“You need to let it all go, Rogue. Nobody can live life in the past when there might not even be a future.”

“Let it all go? I can’t just let it go. I can never forget. Storm said I was their memory, that nobody would be forgotten as long as I was still around. This whiskey that I drink can dull their screams but I can’t forget any of it. I have so many memories, more than anyone should ever have. But I would never give them up. It’s all I have left of them. It’s how they still live.”

“Nobody should ever have made you carry this. I wish I could help you with this.”

“But you can’t, none of you can.”

“Just leave this place, go home. Please. I hate seeing you like this.”

“No, I’m not leaving. I need this place, this atmosphere, this little haven away from the real world. Come on I’ll get you a drink, I’ll get you anything.”

“You know I can’t,” he growled back at her, running his hand through his hair, refusing to give up. She looked around the room now and noticed a few others. Bobby and John were staring at her from a corner, their expression serious, Piotr was at the bar laughing softly with Kitty. Eyes stared from the darkness behind her, dark eyes, eyes that had been in so many of her nightmares, eyes from the past. Eyes filled with so much hatred, even now. “We’re going now,” he said getting up.

Tears welled up in her eyes before she whispered again, “I can’t.”

“Please,” he told her, slamming his fists on her table.

“Please, Logan, I can’t. I need this. Please, I need this.” Her eyes roamed around the room looking into the eyes of her friends. “I know…I know what this all is. I am no fool, but I need this. Please, Logan I need this.”

“Rogue.”

“Logan, please. I know this isn’t real. I can never make myself believe that this is true. I can never forget that this isn’t real, even with all the drinks. I saw John burn, Bobby’s blood stained my shirt, and I watched the Blackbird fall from the sky. All of that is just too real for me to let me pretend.” Her gaze fell upon her friends again, but their images were changed, from fantasy to hard truth, so she stared back at Logan. “Damn you, damn you. Why did you have to come here? I just wanted to pretend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be, you were not supposed to be able to leave me. The ageless man with the wandering soul, riding in on his white horse to save the day whatever happened to that? What happen to that man that could not die,” she yelled her voice hoarse from unshed tears.

The bar quieted and the crowd surrounding the bar parted to reveal a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a man in shades. “God,” she laughed, “It looks like the cavalry is here. Time to start running again. I wonder where to this time, Africa, Asia? Tell me Logan, what does my future hold? Are the dead privy to some knowledge that the living are not? Who will it be next that I lose? I have so few left to give.”

The eyes behind her emerged from the shadow to reveal Magneto, who smiled at the new arrivals and called out, “Who seeks the living amongst the dead?” He laughed bitterly at the joke that nobody else found funny, shrugging before he whispered to his old friend, his enemy who would never hear him. “Look Charles, look at the world left to you. Do you still believe that you were right after all that has happened? Or is that what you try to forget as you lie awake at night trying to sleep? Or can you even sleep, friend? You look so small now.” And Magneto disappeared, as did all the rest as she stood up to follow what was left out of her family out of the bar.

“I’m so sorry, Rogue. But god, I loved you,” he whispered under his breath.

“Did you?”

“…With my last breath.”

“That’s nice,” she told him giving him one last look. He lingered there crying with his head in his hands before disappearing with the rest.

---

The Lyrics:
She Only Smokes When She Drinks
Performed by Joe Nichols
Written by Connie Harrington, Tony Martin, Tim Nichols

So you lit her cigarette
You're feelin' pretty good
You think you've got a shot
Most girls you probably would
Yeah this is that kind of place
But she ain't that kind of girl
You're readin' it all wrong
Let me tell you about her

She only smokes when she drinks
She only drinks now and then
Now and then when she's tired
Of bein' let down by men
You can give her a light
But it's not what you think
Everybody knows she only drinks alone
And she only smokes when she drinks

Did you ask her to dance
Let me guess, she told you no
Got to take her some place quiet
And see how far that goes
Oh, don't take it all that hard
When she smiles and turns you down
For a complicated girl
She ain't that hard to figure out

She only smokes when she drinks
She only drinks now and then
Now and then when she's tired
Of bein' let down by men
You can give her a light
But it's not what you think
Everybody knows she only drinks alone
And she only smokes when she drinks