Monique backed carefully toward the foyer, glad now that she hadn’t given in to the urge to get close enough to peek through the crack in the door.
Have to get out…it’s not safe here she thought desperately. If I can just get out the door without them noticing…what’s freak-girl’s power anyway?...Don’t they all have some sort of super-power? And the guy…he’s one of them too? What the hell can he do? What if – what if they can read minds? Monique froze as the thought occurred to her. She eyed the office door warily for a few seconds, but there was no movement, only the low murmurs of their continued conversation. They can’t be mind-readers then…they’d be after me already if they were.
As Monique drew up alongside the hallway leading to the kitchen, she glanced down it and frowned. What about the others? I should warn them, shouldn’t I? She shook her head. No. No, they can take care of themselves. Monique spun around and walked rapidly toward the front door, and when she was almost there, her hand lifting up to turn the doorknob, she realized something.
Keys…I don’t have the keys. She cursed herself now for insisting that Todd drive this morning. I don’t have a chance without the car…If I just walk out of here, I won’t get very far before they wonder why I left. I can’t even say anything to the others…what if the freaks have super-hearing? What am I going to do? At this point, Monique’s thoughts were a high-pitched wail in her head. With no other choice that she could see, she headed toward the kitchen.
* * *
A few minutes later, Rogue stopped in front of the kitchen door and swiped her fingers over her eyes to erase the last trace of tears from her lashes. Logan had told her she looked fine, but she knew her eyes were probably puffy and red. Worried about how long Monique and her friends had been left on their own already, Rogue didn’t want to take the time to go check her appearance in a mirror. So she had decided to take Logan at his word, albeit against her better judgment. The man had once told her she looked fine when she had a split lip and the beginning of a black eye. Of course he hadn’t let them last long at all. He had often taken full advantage when her control over her skin was still shaky, waiting just long enough to get her settled in the jet before yanking off one of his uniform gloves and placing his bare hand on her face. It had been almost two years since he had been able to force healing on her like that, and every injury she had gotten since then, no matter how slight, had led to fights between the two of them. Rogue lifted a hand to her right side, her fingers tracing lightly over the row of stitches that she could feel even through the gauze pad and her shirt. Hank had promised to remove them on Sunday, and Logan, who had insisted on accompanying her to each of her follow-up visits with the doctor, had scowled and muttered something about her not needing stitches at all if she weren’t so stubborn.
With a gentle smile at the memory, Rogue dropped her hand back to her side and pushed the kitchen door open. Todd glanced up at her and straightened slightly away from the open pizza box in front of him.
“I hope you don’t mind us not waiting. I was starving,” he said sheepishly, cheese sliding off the piece of pizza he was holding.
“No problem,” Rogue murmured, moving to the pantry to pull out a stack of paper plates. “Here, use these. At least that way ya won’t have to hunch over the box like that.” Todd took the plates and transferred his slice of pizza to one and set it aside. Reaching back into the box, he put a fresh slice on another one of the plates and handed it to Rogue with a wink. She grinned at him and leaned back against the kitchen island as he continued putting pizza on plates and handing them around to the others.
“So what about the professor and Logan? I thought you went to get them for dinner?” Todd asked as he was handing Monique her plate of vegetarian pizza. Rogue frowned at the stilted way the girl’s arm moved as she reached to accept it.
“They’ll be here in a little bit. Logan needed to finish up talkin’ to the professor about somethin’.” Monique’s hand twitched when Rogue said Logan’s name. Rogue turned her attention more fully toward Monique as she took a bite of her pizza.
She’s pale. Wonder if she’s not feelin’ well? she mused as she chewed the mix of pepperoni and cheese toppings. She’s movin’ all mechanical-like, though, more like she’s uncomfortable than sick. With a shrug, Rogue finished all but the crust of her pizza and took a step forward to grab another slice out of the box on the table. As she reached toward it, Monique dropped her own slice of pizza back onto her plate and snapped her hand back to rest in her lap. Rogue paused and glanced up at the girl, confused to see Monique staring intently down at her plate, seemingly paying no attention to Rogue.
Refilling her plate and settling once again into her standing position by the island, Rogue split her attention between the inconsequential conversation between Todd, Rachel, and Jennifer and considering what might be wrong with Monique.
Maybe she’s still mad about earlier? she wondered. She was pretty worked up about the mutant conversation. Although after her talk with Logan, Rogue was even more motivated to use mutants as an example in their psych presentation, she decided not to press the issue any further today. She knew she wouldn’t be able to discuss it calmly with Monique at the moment anyway.
The kitchen door swung open suddenly, and Rogue turned her head to look at Logan as he stepped into the room. He studied her face for a few seconds, lingering on her eyes and mouth, and then dropped his gaze to her plate. His eyebrow quirked up when he took in the pizza crust, and with a slight smile, he stepped forward and snagged it off her plate. Eating half of it in one bite, Logan turned toward the table to get his own plate. Shoving the rest of Rogue’s pizza crust into his mouth to free up his hands, he almost missed it when the girl sitting at the far corner of the table tensed. Curious, he scented the air, but all he could smell was hot bread dough, cheese, and cooked meat. Figuring that she was just touchy around him because he had called her a bitch earlier, Logan mentally shrugged it off. He piled the remaining half of the pepperoni pizza onto his plate and moved to stand next to Rogue again. She glanced down at his plate.
“Pig,” she said softly, a gentle smile curving her lips. Seeing that she had finished her second slice, Logan grabbed her plate and dumped the second pizza crust on top of his mountain of food and slid the empty plate underneath his own. He returned her smile as she brushed crumbs from her hands.
“Haulin’ around this carcass of mine takes a lot of energy, darlin’.”
Rogue snorted. “Piotr doesn’t even eat as much as ya do,” she argued with a laugh.
“What’s the joke?” Todd asked curiously with his mouth full, dribbling grease down his chin. Rogue watched him swipe it off quickly with his napkin.
“Piotr’s a giant. Almost seven feet tall and all muscle. He makes Logan look like a runt.”
Logan growled deep in his chest at the word, reminded of how Sabretooth loved to taunt him.
“Funny thing is,” Rogue continued, glancing over at Logan with an amused smirk, “Logan weighs more than he does.”
“How the hell does that work?” Todd asked in an appropriately surprised voice. “I mean, Logan’s a big guy and all, but the other guy has almost a foot on him, right? That’s so weird – you ever been able to come up with a reason?”
As Rogue continued staring at him and grinning, Logan realized that she wasn’t going to answer Todd’s question.
“Heavier bones,” he muttered around a mouthful of pizza, glad that Rogue was still able to smile despite their earlier conversation. He hadn’t exactly been worried that she’d be weepy all day – she was tougher than that – but he had expected at least a few frowns and glowers.
She’s quieter than usual, though, he noted suddenly. Normally she’d be makin’ fun of me, makin’ all sorts of obnoxious comments about how hard it must be to swim with all my extra weight and the like. Stupid of me to think just ‘cause she’s smilin’, she isn’t still havin’ a hard time. I’ll have to get her to talk about it again later.
Rogue was standing companionably silent beside Logan as he continued eating. Over at the table, Jennifer and Rachel were merely picking at their second slices of pizza while the last quarter of Monique’s first piece lay cooling on her plate. Todd, Rogue was amused to see, was in the process of pulling apart a second pizza, this one with sausage and peppers. Sliding two onto his own plate, he looked toward Logan and made a silent “want some?” gesture by holding the box aloft in his direction. Logan grunted and grabbed a couple slices out of the box. Rogue merely shook her head before heading over to the fridge to get a couple beers. She opened them and handed one to Logan and ignored his raised eyebrow as she took a long pull from the second bottle. She had been pilfering beers from his stash long before she had turned twenty-one, and at this point, his show of mild irritation was just another habitual part of their seemingly odd relationship.
She smiled softly, earning another quirked brow from Logan, this time a curious expression, as she remembered the time Scott had caught her drinking. It was around 3am and she was only eighteen. Scott, even more stringent with the rules since Jean’s death, had actually been yelling at her, apparently unconcerned with waking the other students and teachers. Rogue hadn’t been able to get in even a single word. Otherwise, she would have explained that she was only sipping slowly at the beer for the taste, having awakened from one of Logan’s nightmares with his consciousness very much present in her mind. He, and Rogue herself, were too agitated to go back to sleep, and his longing to try to unwind with a beer had proven too much to resist. Rogue wasn’t sure what would have happened if Logan hadn’t come stomping into the library just as Scott grabbed the almost empty bottle from her hand and threw it against the stone fireplace where it shattered in a wet explosion of brown glass.
“Go on up to my room, darlin’,” Logan had said without even glancing at her. “I’ll be up in a little bit.” Looking at him, Rogue had been able to tell from the tightness around his mouth that he was good and pissed at Scott, but she had also seen the shadows sliding across his eyes and had known that he, too, had been awakened by a nightmare. She had obeyed him without a second thought, although she was slightly worried about what he would do to Scott. Climbing the stairs to the third floor, she had heard both men’s voices raised in an argument, but she hadn’t been able to make out anything they were saying. When she reached the third floor landing, she thought she heard the dull smacking sound of a fist against flesh, and decided to ask Logan what had happened whenever he got to the room.
Thirty minutes had passed before Logan appeared. He was carrying two open beers and wordlessly handed her one where she sat on his bed watching an old black and white horror movie on low volume. Against the backdrop of shrill screams echoing from the TV, Rogue began, “Logan, what—” but with a slight shake of his head, he cut her off. He set his beer down long enough to pull a long-sleeved flannel shirt on over his grey wife-beater, and beer once again in hand, settled onto the bed next to her. He fluffed a few of the pillows and then slung his right arm around her and pulled her against his side. Rogue, unable to control her skin then, had hesitantly rested her head against his shoulder. She had sat unmoving for several minutes, rolling her eyes up toward Logan’s face occasionally, but he had been sitting stonily silent, watching the TV and sipping his beer. As she relaxed a bit, Rogue copied his behavior, and sometime before her beer was even half gone, she had fallen asleep.
She was alone the next morning, but she knew that it was Logan who had carefully tucked her under the covers and slid off her gloves. She saw them resting on the bedside table next to two empty beer bottles. Smiling as she pulled on her gloves, Rogue realized that Logan must have finished her beer, and she had been amused that despite the fact that he hadn’t seemed to have been paying any attention to her as they had watched the movie, he had still been aware enough of her to know when she had fallen asleep and had kept her from spilling beer all over them.
Coming back to herself with a slight shake of her head, Rogue bumped her hip companionably against Logan’s as he finished the last of his pizza. He looked down at her, yet again raising his brow in question, and she held her hands out wordlessly for the empty plates. He handed them to her and watched as she moved to the table to take her classmates’ empty plates and soda cans and stacked them, along with the used napkins, into the empty pizza box. She carried the whole mess over to the trash and recycling bins, and as she dropped the cans into the bin on top of several empty beer bottles, her mind wandered back just slightly and she realized that Scott had never again expressed any disapproval of her actions after that night.
“We have to go now.” The sudden exclamation startled Rogue and she jumped a bit, the last soda can dropping from her hand to fall with a clang against the other cans and bottles in the recycling bin. Looking over at the table, Rogue saw that Monique was already standing with her purse slung over her shoulder and her books and folders held tightly to her chest. The others were looking at her with slight surprise on their faces.
“Yeah, okay,” Todd said with a frown. He turned to Rogue. “It is almost five, and you said we’d have to leave around now anyway, right? Well, thanks for having us, and make sure you tell Professor Xavier thanks for dinner, all right?” Rogue nodded.
“Ah’ll walk ya out.”
“No need,” Monique said quickly. “We know where we’re going.” Jennifer and Rachel exchanged confused glances as Monique swept from the room, but they hurried after her without question. Todd gave a silent wave to Rogue and nodded to Logan before following after them.
Rogue glanced at Logan, and seeing that he was scenting the air, she asked, “Anything?”
“I can’t tell,” he groused. “All I can really pick up is the damned pizza.”
Rogue chuckled a bit as she said, “Well, Ah’m not too worried about it. Ah think she’s pro’ly just miffed at me for somethin’ we were talkin’ about earlier.”
“Maybe,” Logan conceded. But he was frowning nonetheless.
* * *
Several hours later, Logan was back in the kitchen looking for more beer when Scott found him.
“The professor told me what’s going on,” he opened.
Logan took a long drink from his beer before answering. “Yeah.”
Scott huffed, actually huffed Logan was amused to note, before asking, “Well?”
Deciding to string him along, Logan merely arched a brow and said, “Well what?”
“Dammit, Logan! This is one thing you shouldn’t be fucking around about!” Scott slammed the side of his fist against the wall and glared at Logan.
Straightening to attention, Logan returned the glare. “I’m not fuckin' around. Rogue said no, so we’re not doin' it.”
Scott thumped his fist against the wall again, lighter this time. He opened his mouth as if to reply, but closed it again. He was now absentmindedly tapping out a slow rhythm against the wall. He opened his mouth again, and this time hesitant words made their way out.
“You know I’ve never interfered with anything between the two of you s-since shortly after Jean…” Scott trailed off and cleared his throat. “You made it clear to me that you wouldn’t tolerate my influence in Rogue’s life, but I think you might be doing her a disservice if you give her what she wants this time.”
“Look, bub,” Logan snarled, “it’s my responsibility to see that she gets whatever she wants or needs to be happy. I told you that years ago, and you agreed to butt the hell out from then on.”
Scott nodded. “I know I did. I don’t think either of us was thinking very clearly at that point in time though.” It was as close as Scott had ever come to acknowledging the feelings Logan had had for Jean. He cleared his throat again. “But if you give Rogue what she wants in this situation, it won’t bring her happiness in the long run. You’ll just be letting her hide a bit longer. And what happens if the MRA is passed? You don’t think she’ll regret not stepping forward now? You don’t think she’ll feel guilty for the rest of her life wondering if maybe she could have made a difference?”
Logan grimaced and flipped Scott the bird, but he nodded. “I’ll talk to her. But if she still says no, I’m not gonna push it. And if you say or do anything to pressure her, I’ll rip your guts out through your ass, got it?”
“Got it,” Scott said almost cheerfully.
* * *
Sunday found Rogue and Logan sitting in the medical lab waiting for Hank. He was supposed to remove her stitches today, but apparently he was running late. The lab was silent, although the tension between its two occupants was reaching an almost audible hum.
“Oh, quit poutin’, Logan!” Rogue snapped when she couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“I’m not poutin’,” he said sullenly. Rogue merely raised an eyebrow in response. “Shit. Fine. I am poutin’. But you didn’t have to yell at me like that, darlin’.”
“Ye’re right,” Rogue readily agreed. “And Ah am sorry Ah yelled at ya.” Logan accepted the apology with a nod. “It’s just…Ah’m scared, Logan. What ya said this mornin’ about regrettin’ not doin’ anythin’ to stop the MRA, ye’re right. Ah am worried Ah’ll regret it, but Ah’m more scared about what happens if we do do it.”
“You know I’ll always take care of you, darlin’.”
“But ya shouldn’t have to, Logan! Ye’re always takin’ care o’ me, and the only reason ya ever have to is because Ah’m a mutant. Ah’m scared what’ll happen to ya if we do the interview and things get worse because of it!”
“I know, darlin’, you said that yesterday. But you need to know that no matter how bad things might get, whatever the reason, I want to be the one takin’ care of you.”
“Why?” Rogue whispered despondently. “Ah’ve never once done anythin’ fer ya, Logan.”
“Yes you have,” he returned firmly.
Rogue snorted in disbelief. “Like what?”
“You trust me.”
“How does that count as doin’ somethin’ fer ya?”
“Nobody else has ever trusted me. And I can’t blame 'em for it,” Logan said honestly.
“That’s bullshit!” Rogue hissed furiously. “Ya damn well can blame ‘em fer it! Everybody’s always lookin’ at ya like an animal with no loyalties or conscience, so as far as Ah’m concerned, they aren’t worthy o’ yer trust either. And what the hell are ya grinnin’ about?” Her last sentence was an irritated shriek.
“You.” No matter how hard he tried to stop grinning at her, Logan couldn’t help it. Her glittering eyes and flushed cheeks and the look of indignation on her face were all for him. For as long as he could remember, nobody had ever cared enough about him to get that emotional on his behalf. “You say that you haven’t given me anythin’, darlin’, but here you are yellin’ and almost stompin’ your little feet all because you trust me and care about me.” The grin finally faded from his face. “Nobody else has ever cared like that.” Logan shrugged uncomfortably. “You said that people look at me like I’m an animal; truth is, darlin’, I don’t care what they think anymore. You’re the only one who makes me want to act like a human being instead of like an animal.”
“Ye’re sayin’ Ah gave ya yer humanity?” Rogue asked cheekily.
“Got it in one, darlin’,” Logan snorted. “You tamed the wild beast.” Her giggle brought back his smile. “There’s somethin’ else you gave me, you know.”
Rogue titled her head quizzically. “What’s that?”
“Your name. You’ve never given your name to anybody else, Marie.” Logan swallowed twice rapidly. “That’s always meant more to me than I can say.”
Rogue began blinking quickly, hoping that she could keep the tears from spilling over. The last thing she wanted to do was reward Logan’s honesty and vulnerability with tears. The man could never handle tears, she knew. To distract herself from her emotions, Rogue went back to subject that had caused their earlier fight.
“Do ya think we should do the interview, Logan? Ya never did give me a straight answer yesterday or this mornin’.”
Logan shifted his weight on the flimsy rolling chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “If it was just me, darlin’, no. No, I wouldn’t do it. It’s a lose-lose situation. Do the interview, everybody finds out I’m a mutant. Don’t do the interview, they’ll probably pass the Mutant Registration Act and everybody finds out anyway. Just might take a couple years longer.”
“And since it isn’t just you? How does that change anything?”
“We do the interview together, there’s no guesswork. We know when and how we’re exposed and we can plan accordingly to make sure things go as close to how we want it as possible. Minimize the risk to our safety and also minimize the chance of separation.”
“A preemptive strike,” Rogue mused, borrowing from Logan’s tactical knowledge that had never faded entirely from her mind.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“Let me think about it a little longer, sugar?”
“Course.”
At that moment, Hank strode into the room with his odd lumbering gait. He looked a bit frazzled, his blue fur actually standing on end in some places.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I had a problem with my blow dryer,” he admitted sheepishly.
Rogue and Logan stared at him stupidly.
“Yes, anyway,” Beast rumbled, “let’s take a look at those stitches. Lift your shirt please, Rogue.”
Hank was amused to note as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves that Logan quickly averted his eyes when Rogue lifted up the bottom half of her blouse. Concern for a lady’s modesty was certainly not a quality he would have thought to attribute to the Wolverine. Hank leaned in to take a closer look at the stitches high up on Rogue’s ribcage and ran his gloved fingers over the puckered pink flesh of the scar beneath them. He stiffened when he head a growl inaudible to anyone without enhanced senses off to his left. Glancing over, he saw Logan observing his actions with his lips pulled back slightly over his teeth, his entire body tensed in readiness. Interesting, Hank thought, making sure to lower his gaze in a submissive gesture as he turned back to Rogue’s stitches. Wonder what set him off?
“They can come out, right, doc? Ah can’t see ‘em too well,” Rogue said in irritation, and leaning back, Hank saw that as Rogue was holding the bottom of her shirt up, she was mashing her right breast flat in an attempt to see the mostly healed injury. As a result, she was pushing the swell of pale flesh almost completely out of the V-neck of her long sleeved shirt. The volume of Logan’s growling increased a fraction, and when Hank looked at him this time, he was astounded to see a faint blush on Logan’s cheekbones. He couldn’t entirely stop his smirk, but he cut it off quickly as Logan’s scowl deepened.
“Yes, Rogue. They’re ready to come out.” Hank prided himself on the professionalism that allowed him to keep all traces of mirth out of his voice. As he carefully snipped the row of sutures in Rogue’s pale skin, he scented the air surreptitiously. What he learned had him grinning inwardly. Judging from the aggression rolling off of Wolverine, I think it’s safe to surmise that he has chosen Rogue as his mate. I don’t know why he would be so defensive otherwise. Casting another glance at Logan, Hank saw that the man had once again averted his gaze from Rogue’s exposed flesh. He snorted mentally. I don’t think he knows it yet, though. If he did, there wouldn’t be anything in the world that could keep him from looking at what’s his.
* * *
On one of the rare occasions since Rogue had started college, Logan wasn’t dropping her off at campus. Some errand for the professor, he had said, and suggested that she take one of the cars on her own instead of waiting for him in case he wasn’t finished in time. He had promised, however, that he would be done in time for lunch, and since Rogue only had morning classes on Monday, the plan was for her to go back to the mansion and wait for him there. She was distracted as she pulled into one of the parking lots near the academic buildings, going over the lunch choices. Maybe she could talk Logan into going to that new diner in town and then they could catch a movie. She knew he hated going to the theater due to all the smells – spilled soda, burned popcorn, even the scent of warm film wafting down from the projection room – but he would usually indulge her for one of the shorter movies. Unfortunately for Logan, that meant that he had ended up sitting through numerous romantic comedies as they were usually shorter than the run of the mill action flicks.
Rogue was smirking to herself as she opened her door and leaned across to the passenger seat for her bag, thinking about how uncomfortable Logan had seemed during the last movie they had watched together. She couldn’t for the life of her remember the name of the movie, or even the plotline; all she remembered was how Logan had continuously shifted his weight in the uncomfortable folding seat as the actors delivered cheesy dialogue and humorously frantic kissing scenes. He had been on his feet ready to go before the last scene had even faded to black. Rogue shook her head as she climbed out of the car and clipped her keys to one of the straps on her backpack; she should probably give Logan a break today. Just the diner would be fine.
It was because of Rogue’s absentminded musing that she missed the crowd of people moving swiftly toward her.
As she pushed the car door shut and started to turn around, she felt hands grip her shoulders and spin her around, slamming her back against the car. Her bag fell to the ground and the small vehicle rocked sideways on its tires, the metal frame groaning a protest. The dark-haired young man who was now leaning his left forearm across her collarbone was a stranger.
“What—” her question was cut off when he launched a meaty fist toward her face. His arm against her chest prevented her from dodging completely, but she managed to twist away just enough that what was intended to be a direct hit to her left cheek ended up being a glancing blow along her cheekbone. The student’s fist slid past her ear and crashed against the window behind her. She barely heard the shattering of the glass as she followed his momentum, pivoting around on her left foot until she was behind him. She gripped his short hair tightly and smashed his face against the door frame, releasing him only when she felt his body go slack. She turned quickly to face the rest of the crowd, not bothering to watch as the first attacker slid to the ground in a bloodied heap.
“What the hell is goin’ on?” she yelled at them. Nobody answered, but nobody stepped any closer either. She gauged the distance between her and the nearest potential threat, another male student with muscles bulging beneath his thin t-shirt, to be about four feet. Plenty of space for her to anticipate and avoid – or neutralize – his attack.
Of all the days fer Logan not to be with me, she thought, and quickly scanned the gathered crowd. Her eyes focused in on one thing: Monique holding up a sign with a messily scrawled “Mutants Go Away.” Rogue shook her head slightly, not sure if she was seeing it right. How did she find out?
She had no more time to wonder about it as the muscle-bound threat she had noticed earlier snarled, “Mutie freak!” and leapt toward her. She attempted to deal with him as she had the first attacker, and gripping the fist he threw at her, she took a step to the side and back, which would let his body go sailing past her. Perhaps she should have paid attention to how the first one had fallen though, since now she stumbled on his sprawled legs. She tumbled to the ground, still holding onto the man’s fist, but instead of him passing by harmlessly, his broad shoulder plowed into her mouth and chin. The burst of pain caused her vision to grey for a moment and she was briefly aware of the taste of blood.
Rogue didn’t even think about what she did next, launching into a last-resort move Logan had taught her. She thrust her elbow up in a sharp, controlled movement so that it slammed against the underside of the man’s jaw. There was an audible wet crack and his head snapped back. He slumped to his side and didn’t move. Rogue was back on her feet again in less than half a second.
She was pleased to see that the crowd had taken a collective step back. They had also fallen silent as she had dealt with the second attacker.
“Anybody else?” she growled, seeing flecks of blood fly from her bloodied mouth.
“What are you? What the hell are you?” Monique screamed fearfully, the sign now hanging limply at her side.
“Ah’m a mutant, Monique. Thought you had that figured out already?”
“B-but they never mentioned a mutant like that…they never said that fighting skills was a mutation,” Monique returned in confusion. The crowd was now shifting its attention between Monique and Rogue, unsure whether they should try another attack or not.
“It’s not. None o’ that,” Rogue gestured vaguely behind her toward the men on the ground, “is my mutation. That’s martial arts training.” Incomprehensible murmuring erupted from the crowd.
“Then what – what do you do?”
“Somethin’ much worse than that. But ye’re not gonna see what it is. Instead, ye’re gonna get yer wish, Monique. Ah’m gonna go, and Ah won’t be back.”
Rogue began backing toward her car, now mindful of the unconscious bodies in the way. She carefully stepped over the limp arms and legs and eased open the car door. Quickly kicking her backpack up into the air, Rogue grabbed it and folded into the driver’s seat all in one motion. She pulled the door shut and hit the lock with her elbow as she hurriedly unclipped the keys and thrust them into the ignition. As the car roared to life, she slammed the gearshift into reverse and squealed out of the parking space. She braked quickly and shifted into drive even before the car came to a stop. Her hands began shaking on the wheel and tears rushed to her eyes as she drove away, glancing once in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was going to follow her. In the mirror, she saw Todd standing on the sidewalk in front of the Science building, books and papers scattered at his feet as if they had been dropped there in surprise, and she could read one word on his lips as he repeated it over and over: “No.”
Rogue wrenched her eyes away and focused them back on the road in front of her. It wasn’t until she was almost halfway back to the mansion that she became aware of the air flowing past her left ear, blowing her hair into her face where a few of the white strands stuck to her lips and quickly turned pink. She started laughing hysterically as she realized that during her escape, she had wasted time locking a door that no longer had a window.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey ya'll. Had some problems with the formatting, so if you notice anything funky, try hitting the refresh button.
Here we learn a little more about Rogue and Logan's relationship and history, find out what Monique does with what she learned in the last chapter, and see a bit of action. I'm not going to tell you what kind of action though. ;)
Here we learn a little more about Rogue and Logan's relationship and history, find out what Monique does with what she learned in the last chapter, and see a bit of action. I'm not going to tell you what kind of action though. ;)
Chapter End Notes:
I think I'm going to start posting shorter chapters (I can get them up faster that way), so I'm not sure what you'll see in the next chapter. Definitely Logan's reaction to Rogue's injuries though.