Emma returned to her school in a solemn and mournful homecoming, and found Rogue sitting in her room, at the big wooden desk covered in school papers. Rogue’s eyes were pure Carol-green and the look on her face when Emma entered was all Carol: regret, love, hurt, sadness, despair, and wanting.
It took Emma’s breath away, and she had to shut the door behind her swiftly in order to lean her weight against it, or else her legs might have given out. Lips nervously covered by her pale fingers, Emma asked, tentatively, “Carol?”
Rogue got up slowly, but she did not move like Rogue, and the intent look of focus-on-Emma on her face was not a look Emma ever expected to see on Rogue: devotion, worry, love. “She wanted me to have this: to welcome you home...and ask something.” A nervous gulp, and fidgeting fingers: it was Carol, and she walked up to Emma, standing very close and looking at her, taking one of her hands and just holding it gently.
“What is it?” Emma’s eyes were shining with tears.
Carol leaned in tentatively and pressed her forehead to Emma’s. “I’m yours, Em. Take me back. Please. She’ll let you in, she wants...” A reluctant, bitter and almost hysterical laugh. “She wants to be rid of my emotions and my reckless heroics and my damned morals.”
Emma snorted a little in an unwilling and involuntary laugh. “That’s not funny.”
“Yeah it is,” Carol said, and Emma could almost believe that it wasn’t coming through in Rogue’s voice, but in the playful, lighter tones she knew so much better.
Emma put a hand on the side of Carol/Rogue’s head, her brow furrowing. “Last time I tried this, I went into a seizure.”
“Ah won’t do that this time, Emma,” Rogue whispered.
“She doesn’t have much choice. I’ve got nearly as much control as she does. And I haven’t been trying hard to make her life miserable...yet.”
Emma shut her eyes slowly, and reached out with her mind. She gasped a little at the sheer ease and warmth of the welcome; something from Carol.
It took about an hour to complete the transfer, before Rogue finally broke away with a hoarse gasp, her whole body shuddering. She stumbled to the floor and landed in a sprawl, her eyes open wide as the bright shards of green in her irises dimmed, looking at last more natural and ceasing to all but glow. Rogue wrapped her arms around her head and curled her knees to her chest, one more shudder wracking her body as a muffled yell died in her throat.
Emma watched in awe, still dazed and slowed down faintly by the weight of two psyches. “Are you alright.”
Rogue stayed curled up, holding her head and gasping for breath as her arms trembled. “Never. Again,” she panted vehemently, and coughed, rolling onto her side on the floor with a groan. “Oh gawd, my head feels like an implodin’ supernova of pain.” A sharp gasp and her arms finally loosened from around her head a little. “But empty. Finally goddamned...just me an’ the ghosts, thank every deity ever condemned by the Catholic church.”
“Don’t you mean ‘confirmed’?” Emma asked, but was unsure if that even made sense.
Rogue slowly lowered one arm, and pushed herself up into a sitting position with it. The other arm lingered, hand pressed to the crown of her head. “No. Condemned. Ah can cover more gods that way.” Her eyes were tight shut. “Painkillers. Painkillers. My kingdom for some painkillers.”
“I’ll get you the good stuff,” Emma promised, opening the door. “And Rogue...thanks.”
“Emma? One thing.”
“Hmm?”
“Ya can be cut by adamantium,” Rogue said sagely.
Emma snorted, “Yeah, but he didn’t know that,” and shut the door behind her.
Rogue smirked a little, through the throbbing pain in her skull, and looked at her hands: bare of gloves, covered in faint scars, long-fingered and strong, but elegant, and deadly. Briefly, she imagined having her knuckles torn open by metal claws, but she knew that with Carol’s powers still permanent, adamantium couldn’t cut her.
It was hard to think far past the pain, but she was able to deduce one clear point: it was time to visit the X-men and see them with eyes other than Fury’s. Another touch, another earth-shattering series of chaotic events in her mental landscape, another huge change in direction.
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