After only a minute or two, the alley was quiet again. Rogue risked lifting her head to look around. The only person standing was a woman, or at least Rogue thought the silhouette looked female. The figure hurried over to her.
“Are you okay?” It was a woman’s voice all right, and she sounded pretty concerned.
“I think I’ll be fine. Just a few bruises to nurse away,” Rogue said in a voice that croaked. She guessed that the first man’s hold had been tighter than she’d thought at the time.
“I’ll do worse for them, once I get you cleaned up,” the unknown woman said. She reached down to help Rogue up.
The ground seemed to rush closer as Rogue got to her feet, and she would have fallen again if not for the woman’s help. “Whoa,” her rescuer said. “Let’s get you into my apartment. It’s in this building right here. That’s how I heard your attackers. Stupid bastards.” The woman kicked one of the prone men for emphasis as she passed with Rogue hanging onto her limply.
“Who are you?” Rogue asked. She knew her voice sounded weak, and she hated that.
“My name is Carol. Do you have family, someone we can call to get you home?” the woman asked as she practically dragged Rogue up a set of concrete steps and opened the door to a nice, if somewhat shabby, townhouse.
“Not really,” Rogue said bitterly. No one at the mansion was likely to care all that much about her situation at the moment. They’d probably say she had brought it on herself. The bad part was, they would be right.
Rogue felt as if she was floating up the two flights of stairs. When she looked down at her feet to check, her vision faded out. She let out a low moan and started to gag a little. It had been a while since dinner, so there was nothing on her stomach for her to throw up, but the feeling was terrible all the same. A disgusting taste filled the back of her throat and her mouth, making her want to gag even more.
“Hold on just another minute while I get my door open,” Rogue heard Carol say. She felt her weight being shifted. The sound of clinking keys rang in the otherwise quiet hallway.
The apartment Carol led Rogue into was clean, with sparse furniture. A red rug on the floor and a red sofa were the only bright splashes of color among the browns of the wood floor and the white of the wall. Rogue thought she glimpsed a small kitchen off to the left as Carol led her over to the sofa.
“Now you just lay down, and I’ll get you some ice,” Carol told her firmly. She sounded so much like a mother at that moment that Rogue obeyed without thinking. She looked around doubtfully as she heard cabinets opening and closing in the other room.
“By the way, I don’t know your name,” Carol called from the kitchen.
“It’s Rogue.” While she knew that she sounded gruffer and less grateful than she should under the circumstances, she didn’t want Carol to question the name that was admittedly a little odd.
However, Carol just gave her an amused glance. “I’m sure all of your friends call you that, but what’s your real name?” she asked as she began to apply a blessedly cool ice pack to Rogue’s bruised face.
Rogue flushed a little. Hardly anyone used her real name anymore. It didn’t feel like she was the same person, not that girl everyone had called Marie. That girl hadn’t known anything about the real world, no matter how much she thought she knew at the time. It seemed silly to admit to being that person, somehow.
“My name is Marie,” Rogue reluctantly admitted.
Carol smiled. “Marie was my mother’s name. I’ve always loved it.”
Somehow that made Rogue feel better, although she couldn’t begin to explain to Carol why she was no longer Marie. Carol seemed so normal, a nice woman living in a little apartment in a small city, even if she had done a fair amount of ass-kicking to rescue a girl being raped. She was probably a nurse or something like that. It seemed like taking care of people was second-nature to her. She hadn’t hesitated once in the short minutes Rogue had known her.
Rogue felt a sudden headache stab her between the eyes. She winced, and Carol asked her what was wrong.
“My head,” was all Rogue could manage through the searing pain. It felt like her brain was burning to cinders in her skull. She was paralyzed, even though all she really wanted was to curl up in a ball and will the pain away.
Carol put her hand on Rogue’s forehead in concern. At first, Rogue didn’t feel the pull through the pain that was traveling from her head to the rest of her body. When she realized what was happening, there was no way that she could stop it. She tried to choke out a warning, but it was too late. She was helpless to do anything but lie on that sofa and be washed away by both the overwhelming pain and the sensation of absorbing the woman kneeling next to her.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rogue was strong enough to pull away. She watched in horror as Carol collapsed beside her. The helpful woman’s face was gray, and her lips looked bloodless. Rogue scrambled to the far corner of the sofa and stared in horror. She struggled to accept the brutal truth being forced on her even as Carol’s mind battered at hers, seeking to take control. The cure had failed. The part of Rogue that wasn’t attempting to suppress the strong mutant she’d just absorbed howled in fury. They had promised her freedom, and now it was taken away again in less than a heartbeat!
No time for thoughts of revenge, though. Rogue straightened as much as she could with her ribs on fire and fell almost automatically into the meditation she’d been taught by the Professor to help her suppress other personalities inside her head. The battle was short, but it drained what little strength she’d regained through the absorption. Carol’s personality was locked away in the deep recesses of her mind for the moment. Rogue could feel her struggles to get out, strong and painful at times, and it was almost more than she could handle to block out the woman’s entreaties to let her go. That way lay madness.
It was time to concentrate on getting Carol some help. Rogue looked around frantically until she found something to cover her exposed arms. A sweater hung on a set of pegs by the door. Rogue slowly levered herself off the sofa, mindful of her rib, then hobbled over to the pegs and quickly pulled the bright blue wool over her skin. She wanted to cry at the thought of covering up her skin again, but it looked like there was no choice. As she walked back over to Carol, she wondered distantly if mutants all over the globe were regaining their powers. Things were going to get interesting again if they were.
Lifting the woman was incredibly easy, despite her pain. The information that Rogue had absorbed from Carol finally broke through her panic. Carol had been a mutant. She was able to fly, had super-human strength and was invulnerable to injury. *Except when a power-sucking mutant comes along,* Rogue thought bitterly. Now it was at least useful, though, that Rogue absorbed the powers of mutants as well as their thoughts and energy. She might be able to get Carol help in time.
Still carrying Carol, Rogue rushed over to the French doors that opened onto a small balcony. Using Carol’s memories, she quickly rose into the air and began to fly towards the mansion.
It’s a good thing this city isn’t very big, Rogue thought. It was disorienting to fly over buildings she knew should have been familiar. Carol’s memories, much stronger than any others she had ever absorbed, made it easier to navigate, but there were still several times when she had to drop below the tree line in deserted streets to get her bearings.
It was surreal to fly instead of walking or driving. The growing part of Rogue’s mind that was Carol reveled in the feel of the night air on her face, the sound of the wind blowing past and the beauty of the stars that seemed close enough to touch. The part that was Rogue thought the ground was a little too far away for comfort.
Carol’s breathing was very shallow when Rogue landed at the doors of the mansion and slammed them open accidentally. “I have to watch myself while I have her strength,” she muttered as she flew up the stairs to Dr. McCoy’s room.
Heads were popping out of the doors as she passed. Wide eyes followed her flight down the halls. Logan, Dr. McCoy, and Storm were already out in the hall, running towards the commotion in a reaction to what they thought was an attack. One look at Rogue stopped them in their tracks.
The sight of them waiting for her sent tears streaming down Rogue’s face. The blue skin of Dr. McCoy and Logan’s extended claws only served as a reminder of what she had just lost. She hoped they wouldn’t try to convince her that it was more “regain” than “lost.”
She set down in front of them as gently as possible so as not to jostle Carol. “It’s back,” was all Rogue could say around the lump in her throat. The pain from the beating she had taken caused her to stumble as she handed Carol to the large blue man, careful not to touch him with her bare hands.
Rogue’s mind grew fuzzy as they bombarded her with questions on the way to the med lab downstairs. It was too difficult to answer, to explain it all in any sort of rational manner, so she just shook her head and followed Dr. McCoy. The night was catching up with her with a vengeance. She protested only once, when Ororo helped her out of the sweater she’d taken, but the older woman was extremely careful not to touch her in any way. The last sensation Rogue’s exhausted mind registered was the feel of cool sheets against her skin as she was cautiously helped onto a bed in the lab. She knew she should be worried about all of the exposed skin, but her mind shut down on that thought. After that, a welcome darkness engulfed her.
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