“Hey--”
Her soft voice stilled his hand on the door. He quickly turned to be met with a pale angel’s face. Her eyes were wide with worry, her lips parted in anxiety, one long brown lock stuck to their moistness–the same face she gave him right after their car accident.
“You runnin’ again?”
He shook his head, feeling extremely stupid of himself at her demure smirk. He looked down at his feet so she didn’t see the relief flash in his eyes. For a few seconds he thought she was going to cry.
“No,” he shrugged. “Not really.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself and preparing an answer to give her before he finally met her bottom-less eyes. “I have some things to take care of up north.”
She faintly snorted under her breath, not in the least bit fooled by his line. But still she didn’t call him on it and just swallowed her words. Since she didn’t bother keeping up the pretense of his crap neither did he and he nodded in surrender.
To break the thick tension he reached out and ghosted his finger across the phantom stripe falling against her cheek. She shrugged and gave him a small smile. “I kinda like it.”
His face visibly darkened as he held back the unwarned rush of tears that suddenly threatened to break his facade at her attempt to assuage him of any guilt. However it seemed to do very little of it and he could only nod in response, not willing to trust his tightening voice.
The quick play of emotion across his face failed to get past her and it was enough to strength her own resolve and find some sort of backbone for her courage. She took a deep breath, swallowed her pride, and looked into his haunted eyes with her strong ones. “I don’t want you to go,” she declared, not caring how thin the ledge she was stepping onto was.
He took a quick sniff, unconsciously wanting to remember everything about her in that moment. Spurred on by her show of strength he knew immediately what to do. He didn’t see the fleeting smile on her face as he reached for the dog tags around his neck. With a yank they came off before he gently took her hand in his and let the metal fall slowly into her palm. Then he tucked her fingers securely around it.
His fingers lingered on top of hers. “I’ll be back for this,” he promised even through the sandpaper than seemed to line his constricted throat. His hand didn’t release its grip, nor did his eyes leave hers. He stayed locked onto her for what seemed like forever both trying to communicate and hoping she understood. With one last sad smile he turned around, not dropping her hand until he was half way out the door.
She watched his blurred retreating figure until she couldn’t see him anymore. Than she just watched the door he left through, some how completely unmindful of how heavy her hand was growing with the old tag weighing it down.
“Rogue!” Kitty busted into the entry way, giggling. “Come on, Rogue. Bobby needs you! We’re kicking his butt three ways from Tuesday without you there to bail him out!” The stoic stance of her friend’s back finally registered and her giggles died down into a soft pant. “Rogue? ...You okay?”
“Fine,” she answered, finally looking away from the door down to the object in her hand. “I’m fine,” she nodded then whispered, “He’ll be back.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
For some reason this sort of turned out as an extend, much more elaborate version of "Exile". I dunno, I guess the bunnies were cousins or something.