Three Months Earlier: The Morning After
Rogue woke to a headache from her crying binge, her hair plastered to her cheeks. She was in her bed, the blankets tucked securely around her. At first she hoped what she remembered was a nightmare, but then she knew she'd only be lying to herself if she believed that. It was all too real. She flipped from one side to the other, now looking out into her room. To her surprise, Scott was asleep in the chair by her small fireplace, one of her extra blankets wrapped around his shoulders.
“Scott?” Rogue called softly.
He must not have been very deeply asleep because he lifted his head almost immediately. He turned eyes hidden by red lenses towards her. “Morning, Rogue,” he muttered hoarsely.
“Scott, why are you in my room?” she asked, latching on to the first question that popped into her mind that wasn't related to Logan or Jean. Or so she thought, anyway.
Scott's lips twisted into something that in no way resembled a smile. “The Professor asked me to look out for you last night. I think he had the idea that one of us couldn't destroy the mansion if we were watching each other.”
Rogue echoed his not-smile. “Ah'm not sure that's going to work,” she answered, the bitterness in her voice a equal to his. “Ah'm still feeling plenty destructive right now.”
“Me, too.” But there was no heat in Scott's voice, only weary resentment. His head fell back against the chair.
The two were silent for a few minutes. Then Rogue asked in a small voice, “What are we gonna do, Scott?” She thought she was done with tears, that there was no way her body could produce any more, but they were creeping back up.
Scott shook his head. “Survive, I guess. Heartbreak's not fatal, so they say.”
Rogue sighed. “They have no idea what they're talking about,” she informed him.
Into the quiet that fell came a mental voice echoing in their heads. *Scott, Rogue, would you please join me in my office?*
*Now, Professor?* Rogue tried to project, along with her desire for a shower.
*When you're ready, but soon,* came the reply before his presence left their minds.
“Ah don't want to be ready for anything today,” Rogue said quietly as she forced her legs to swing over the side of the bed.
“Yeah, me either,” Scott said as he eyed her bare arms and legs. He gestured to them and asked, “So, when did that happen?”
Rogue flushed. “Yesterday. Ah wanted a little time to get used to it,” she confessed.
“And the metal thing?” he asked, wiggling his fingers a little. “Not that I was complaining.”
Rogue matched his dark look with her own. “That was new but entirely welcome at the time,” she said dryly, forcing back the tears that threatened again at that horrible image.
Scott stood up. “I'll let you get dressed,” he said, walking to her door.
“Scott?” He turned. “Do you want to use my shower? After I'm done, I mean,” she stumbled a little over that and blushed.
Scott shook his head. “Thanks, but I'll just go down to the locker room. I always leave a few changes of clothes down there anyway,” he said. She nodded as he left.
An hour later, Rogue headed down to the Professor's office. In a sudden spirit of anger and defiance, she had decided that a show of skin was necessary, so she wore a self-supporting red tank-top, denim shorts that skimmed the top of her thighs, and sandals that she'd once borrowed from Kitty, strappy things that could be worn with tights. She hadn't bothered with that, of course. Inch upon inch of potentially lethal skin was laid bare, begging to be touched. However, she had plans if a certain someone tried. Her hair hugged her jaw in a straight slash, and the requisite war paint to hide the ravages of crying had been applied. Rogue saw the wide eyes as she passed by, although few flinched away. She vaguely recalled touching Scott skin to skin the previous night. The story must have gone the usual rounds. Good. She hoped viciously that it had, in every sordid detail.
The sight that met her when she reached the hall outside the Professor's office caused her eyes to narrow dangerously. Logan, hollow-eyed and leaning against one wall, arms crossed. Scott, leaning against the opposite wall, well dressed as usual but with a haggard face and a look of hatred that didn't require one to see his eyes as he stared at the man across from him. Jean, further down the hall, stiff and silent, still wearing the clothes they had been found in, dark circles under her eyes as she stared at Rogue, who never broke her stride as she made her way to Scott's side.
Rogue spoke only to the man next to her when she said, “Well, isn't this as pleasant as a pit full of cobras.” She laid her bare hand on his for a moment, squeezed for support when he didn't flinch from her touch, then removed her hand and examined the blood red nails that matched her top and her lipstick as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.
“You're telling me,” Scott murmured back just as the Professor's door opened.
“Please come in,” 'Ro said quietly.
Professor Xavier and Hank were the only other occupants, Rogue noted as she followed Scott inside. She barely noticed 'Ro shutting the door behind Logan and Jean. Scott chose a single chair when Xavier asked them to sit. Rogue took the one next to him. She ignored the two who sat across from them.
“We have a problem, I believe. I would like to find a way to resolve this as amicably as possible. Given the emotions involved in this, however, I don't believe it wise to allow you to sort this out on your own,” the Professor said, his voice holding the hint of a command.
Rogue looked at him and raised her eyebrows. It took effort to use both, but she did it. No more single eyebrow raises for her. “Surely you're joking, Professor,” she hissed. “Amicable settlements are the very furthest thing from my mind right now.” As I'm sure you know, Charles.
Before Xavier could reply, Scott chimed in, “There really can't be a solution to this that will please all the parties, Professor.” His voice also held that hint of command, learned so well from his mentor. Rogue glanced at him approvingly. Good. They were together on this one. She felt better having an ally.
“What other course do we have, Rogue? Scott?” Professor Xavier asked, glancing at Logan and Jean while the others studiously ignored them. He noted that but did not comment.
“That's easy, Professor. If either of those two stay under this roof, Ah am gone,” Rogue replied as calmly as she could, calling on the Erik in her head to give her tone the ring of steele.
“What?!” That was Jean. Rogue paid her no attention.
“Are you serious about that, Rogue?” the Professor asked, pain in his eyes.
Rogue nodded. “Ah will not live with or fight beside those I cannot trust. I have more reason than most to need that, you know,” she replied.
That was when Scott surprised her. “I'm with Rogue.” That was all he said, but the pain and anger in his voice was enough to make Rogue want to start crying again. She ruthlessly suppressed that, promising herself another good cry later.
Professor Xavier stared at Scott in shock. Perhaps Scott hadn't been thinking about it until Rogue put the idea into words, but now they all knew the younger man was determined not to be under the same roof as the man and woman who betrayed him. Xavier lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Rogue knew he was thinking something along the lines of 'there has to be another way.'
“It's take it or leave it, Professor,” Rogue said. Then she smiled a cruel smile. “Ah'm sure you'll take the good of your team into consideration when you're finally thinking clearly again. After all, wouldn't you like to know how Ah did what Ah did last night?”
“What you did...” the Professor seemed to be looking at something beyond the room for a moment, then his eyes latched onto hers. “How did you manipulate the metal, Rogue? Did it have something to do with how you control your skin?”
Rogue sighed a little, leaned back into her chair. “I'm really not sure, Charles,” she said, letting a little of that inner Erik creep to the surface again before locking it away—loosely. “Ah'm sure after plenty of study you'll come up with something about emotional breakthroughs or some such nonsense. All Ah know is, Ah can now use every mutation I've absorbed...at least to a small degree. It really does seem to depend on how much Ah've taken.” She stretched out her leg and stared at it thoughtfully. “Ah accidentally cut my leg while shaving this morning, and you know, there's not even a scab. It was a pretty deep cut, too.” There. Let him think that one through. The good of the team...The dangling carrot of totally new facets of her mutation to study...
Professor Xavier shut his eyes again, and the others waited quietly while he debated with himself. This wasn't going quite the way Rogue had pictured it would, but so far it wasn't a complete disaster, either. After all, he only had to choose between his chosen team leader and a girl with limitless possibilities now that she could control her mutation or a bitch of a doctor (whom he already had a replacement for) and her bastard of an animalistic lover. What was there to choose?
What, indeed. When Xavier opened his eyes again, Rogue knew he had made his choice, and she wanted to shout in triumph. Instead, she held herself very still, willing the cold of metal to seep into her blood, her skin.
“Logan, Jean, I'm afraid that I must ask you to leave, for the good of the team,” he said, and Rogue smiled to herself, carefully not letting that show. “Scott, Rogue, you may go now. I have the answer I needed from you,” he added.
Rogue didn't need to be told twice. She stood and looked down at Scott. He was staring at his hands where they were clasped in front of him. A small thread of tenderness eased its way through the cold, and so she gently took one of his hands and drew him to his feet, pulling him after her out the door. They were halfway down the hall when she released the cold, and she just stopped. It felt impossible to move a step further. Her head hanging, she tried to remember how not hurting felt. That had to be impossible, though. She would always hurt now. Always.
Scott's hand at her waist startled her. She looked up, saw his eyes through the red lenses as he stared down at her, and then together they walked up the stairs. She opened her door, and he followed her through. She gave him a light push towards her chair, and when he curled up in it she laid the blanket back over his shaking body. Then she found her own bed and burrowed back under the covers. They cried themselves to sleep together, the only sound in the room that of soft gasps for air into throats sore from swallowing tears. They were done with being brave for a little while.
And when they finally emerged from her room two days later at the encouragement of friends who had brought food to sustain them and occasionally offered shoulders to lean on, Logan and Jean were long gone.
Logan tried not to stare resentfully at the woman beside him. He focused on the road before them, the vibrations as tires flew across asphalt. She wasn't any more at fault than he was. They had both managed to fuck up the best things they'd had going for them, and for what?
Logan kept seeing Rogue's eyes as she stared vacantly past him. It was like she didn't even see him anymore. Her voice as she demanded that either they leave or she would reverberated in his skull. The feeling of helplessness when she'd pinned him to the wall with the power of her mind alone, and the sure knowledge that he would deserve it if she pulled all the metal from his bones right there as the man whose powers she used had once threatened to do...that would haunt him forever. That, and the look of her face pressed to Scott's neck, her hand holding his.
He could only drive away with Jean, both of them aware that they were poor substitutes for what they were leaving behind.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
See? I told you I had this one pretty well written. So, for this Rogue becomes Bitch!Rogue. I really had fun with that. Maybe too much?
Chapter End Notes:
Soooo much fun to write...I guess we'll see how "productive" work is tomorrow, right? ;-)