Rogue made an appointment for the evening the very next day. She had wanted to start right away, but Emma had insisted that the process would take all of her strength and that she should get some rest. It was then that Rogue realized she didn’t know what time it was and was shocked to find that it was only a quarter past noon. On a Wednesday. The students were in class, including her friends. They would be notified that she was conscious and physically fine after the last class. Emma had also guaranteed that she was not to be disturbed until Friday morning, after her first meeting. She would also be moved out of the wing reserved for the female students room and into the teacher’s wing, in the room next to Emma’s. Scott would come down later and help her pack before any of her former roommates came in. His room was on the other side.
She wasn’t expecting to find anyone waiting for her, now knowing why no one had come to her yet. But when she got to her room, she caught the familiar scent and a small part of her wanted to turn and run. The rest of her was angry. She would have to deal with this now, before she let it build up anymore, and so she turned the knob and went in.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Hey, Darlin. How you feeling?” Logan asked softly, his gaze meeting hers as soon as the door opened. He was laid out across her bed, his hands behind his head, stretching the white shirt tight across his chest and stomach muscles. It was a scene she had daydreamed about, once upon a time. Something she had often fantasized would actually happen to her. But now, it only made her angry. “You wanna take a seat?”
“What I want is for you to get the hell out of my room.” She scowled at him, her voice hurt and frustrated, thick with a southern accent that had began to disappear when she left home so many years ago. “Just why are you in here, anyway?”
“Thought I would see how you were doing. You’ve been through a lot lately, and I wasn’t sure that you still wanted to see me.” He sat up slowly, his shirt relaxing, but his jeans tightening. She was surprised to see that she really felt… well… nothing. It really wasn’t doing anything for her anymore. “I guess I’ll go now.”
He stood up then, getting to his feet with those slow, languid movements that she wasn’t sure he knew he did. Must have been one of those things that came natural to him. Like fighting and fucking. He walked past her just as she inhaled and she caught his scent, still the same. A mixture of earth and wild. The smell of a man who had seen just about everything there was to see. The smell of a wanderer. But there was something else, now. A sadness that hadn’t been there before.
“I know you loved her, and I’m sorry, Logan. It had to be done.” She said as she heard the slight squeak of her bedroom door opening. It wasn’t something that she could change, something that she would take back. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have to feel for the man, even if she was angry at him.
“Yeah, I loved her.” He said slowly, closing the door again. For a second, she wanted to believe that he had left, but, when she turned around, he was staring at her, leaning against the door. “But she wasn’t everything. I thought I could do it, what needed to be done. I thought that I could save her. But I don’t know what would have happened to me after that. I’m sorry you didn’t get your cure.”
“Yeah, well, Xavier always said that we had these abilities for a reason. Maybe this was what my abilities were for. You know. Maybe this was what I was meant to do.” She looked down at her hands, still bare, still exposed. With any luck, she would find out what had happened that would hurt her like this. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
He was taken aback by her abruptness. He hadn’t expected this confrontation so soon. She hadn’t been this forward before, but, maybe she had realized that being coy was a waist of time. “You seemed to be taken care of. I didn’t think I was needed.”
“That’s bullshit, Logan. Why didn’t you come to me? You were outside my door. I knew you were there.” Her brows furrowed and her body tensed, as if she was preparing to pounce. “You’ve never let anyone in your way before. Not when it came to something you knew you had to see to personally. Why weren’t you there when I woke? Too busy drowning yourself in a bottle?”
“I wasn’t there because it didn’t look like you needed me.” He snarled back. What was he supposed to tell her, though? She was right. That was something he should have taken care of. Instead, he let other people do it for him. “Fuck you, Marie.”
“Don’t call me that. You have no right to call me that, anymore. She’s gone, and it’s all because of you. She gave up her salvation to save you. She sacrificed every hope and dream she ever had, for you. She’s fucking dead now, and it’s your fault.” Rogue could feel her blood pressure rising, could feel the pain in her heart becoming sharper. Could feel her soul heating. “You fucking killed her, Logan. You screwed up when you set Phoenix free and killed the one person who was willing to sacrifice everything for you. How the fuck does that fucking feel?”
“Marie, darling, you need to calm down. You need to breath.” Rogue couldn’t see what was happening, but Logan could. Her hair was swirling behind her, the white streaks appearing to be a halo. Her body was slowly producing a red flame. Her eyes were darkening. She was losing control. “You need to get a hold on yourself.”
He could hear banging on the door behind him, and knew in his heart that it had to be Scott and Emma, not to mention the other members of the X Team who didn’t quite know what was happening in their home. But he found that he couldn’t move to open the door. Couldn’t control himself. He watched the woman before him twitch her eyebrow, and he was three inched off the floor, hovering. It was like he was being magnetized.
“You killed Jean. You killed Marie.” Her voice, intermingled with one he had heard before. Phoenix’s voice. He couldn’t help but wonder who was in charge now. “Your actions killed Xavier and so many different innocent people. You made me into what I am because Marie loved you and didn’t want you to have another blood stain on your soul. You weren’t even there to make sure we were ok. We were alone. Do you know how cold alone feels?”
He found that he couldn’t even move his jaw to reply. She was controlling every bone in his body, using a power that was forced upon her by the man he had saved her from. She smirked at him, walking closer, and he could feel a pull that he hadn’t felt before. She was using the gifts of one of the most powerful mutants of the world against him, and she was better at it. “No, you wouldn’t know. You spent all that time alone, wandering from town to town, looking for a past long forgotten, a past better left alone. Different fights, different brews, different women, and yet still alone. That was cold. Colder than what most people have felt. Even colder because of those nightmares. But nothing is colder than waking up from a coma you were put into to save everyone who has ever meant something to you, everyone that you have ever loved, who excepted you when no one else would, and finding yourself utterly alone.”
He felt it then, pain unlike any he had known before. Pain even worse then what the nightmares of the labs forced upon him when he closed his eyes. Pain that forced a scream from his throat as she went about began to rip every ounce of metal from his bones and tare it through his skin.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Wanted to get this out by X-Mas. I am trying to do at least one chapter a day, but I have had a couple of family emergencies. This is for D. God, please let him pull through.
Chapter End Notes:
With any luck, and depending how busy work is, I might have another chapter up before tonights over. Cross your fingers!!!!!!!!!!!