A few weeks after her outing with Jubilee and Kitty, Rogue decided it was time to approach Scott about including her on missions. Despite the alcohol-influenced decision for her to ask to be part of the team, Rogue had woken up the next morning, hangover in full swing, and still knew it was the right path.
As she reflected on the night out with Jubilee and Kitty, she realized that not only was seven months a long time to go without her friends, but it was also a long time to go without drinking. Aside from a few beers with Logan, and the shared glasses of bourbon with Charles when he’d explained what had happened in that world, she hadn’t any other alcohol in that entire time. And her body had paid the price for indulging in the Thai cocktails and a third of a bottle of bourbon. Her mind had felt sluggish, her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her head was throbbing at her temples. But she had taken a long, cool shower, eaten a big plate of greasy tacos when Jubilee had stopped by with declaring that Rogue was in desperate need of hangover tacos with two huge glasses of water, fallen back asleep, and felt almost normal by four that afternoon.
Since her night out, she’d continued training with the others three days a week, and tried to ignore the critical commentary provided by the Wolverine/Logan in her head as she observed the others.
Weak…That’s a move ya should know if yer a kid…This Cyke doesn’t know shit.
Kindly shut up, she snarled at one point. The constant comments were distracting her from her own thoughts. And while what she’d been thinking had been similar to Logan, she didn’t need reinforcements.
Rogue stayed behind after Tuesday’s class, determined to corner Scott to bring up the subject of her joining the team for future missions. She’d figured the best way to broach the topic later with the Professor was to get Scott on her side first. A task which might’ve been easier if she hadn’t kicked his ass the first day in training.
The others filtered out slowly, heading to the locker rooms to shower before their classes started for the day. Rogue didn’t have any classes to get ready for. She’d never had any before her disappearance. She hadn’t resumed recruitment or counseling students either, and she was feeling more than restless with only three days of training to occupy her time. Taking a deep breath, Rogue slowly approached Scott as he finished putting back the mats along the wall and grabbed a bottle of disinfectant to help him wipe them off.
“Thanks, Rogue,” Scott said in appreciation as she started cleaning alongside him.
“Sure,” she muttered, suddenly nervous to start the conversation.
If he says no, just beat some sense into him.
Instead of answering the ceaseless internal commentary, she focused on quieting the growling in her mind. She didn’t need the distraction of Logan’s opinion.
“Scott,” she said clearing her throat. “I’d like to talk to you and the Professor about joining the Senior team on missions.” There. Straightforward and to the point. No need to beat around the bush.
Rogue noticed his eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, but she was relieved that his first words weren’t “no,” even as the rhythm of the spray bottle was disrupted momentarily before he regained his composure.
“Well. I think that’s something we could consider.” He tore off another paper town and sprayed the next mat thoroughly as he moved to wipe it down.
She smiled as she knelt and finished cleaning the stack of mats and tossed the used paper towels into the trash can. “Great. So when’s the next one?”
Scott’s face became still, and her short-won confidence took a nosedive. “I said we could consider it, Rogue. I think there’s still a lot we need to sort out after your...disappearance.”
“My disappearance?” She repeated frowning at him. “But...I thought the Professor understood…”
Scott grabbed the cleaning bottle and paper towels and walked to the storage cabinet that was along the far wall of the gym. He was always ensuring everything was tidy, put away, in its place. She wondered if his need to organize everything extended to her, and if he wasn’t quite sure where to put her in his mind after she’d returned. She had never been close to Scott. They never really had much of a chance to interact much because of his decision to keep her with the junior team. It was no wonder he was hesitant. He didn’t know her before. How could he know what she was capable of now?
Scott placed the roll of paper towels and bottle on their designated shelf and twisted the handle shut to close the storage door, buying himself a few seconds to come up with the words to explain his hesitancy. “The Professor understands what happened to you, Rogue. And so do I,” Scott started.
Rogue couldn’t stop the shaking of her head at this. He didn’t understand. The Professor didn’t understand. Knowing what had happened, and knowing how it had affected her were two entirely different things.
She hadn’t for one second been able to escape the reality of the world she’d been forced to leave behind. She was reminded of it in Kitty’s shit-eating grin, in Remy’s voice, and in the constant reminder in her own head of a surly and overly protective Logan. Rogue had been working hard at shoving his personality behind a thick and heavily bolted door in her mind, but he was good at escaping in her weakened moments; the blurred line between sleeping and waking, a wandering thought about the feel of his roughened palm against her skin, or the piercing reminder of how he’d looked at her before shoving her through the portal.
Then there were her other concerns since returning. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the difference between her two worlds. The fact that one of them had been driven into darkness because of one seemingly insignificant difference; the decision she made when she was seventeen to leave her house in the middle of the night. That action had altered the course of this reality and forced it down a safer path. But for how long? Was the rise of the F.O.H. inevitable? Were her friends’ lives safe? If they were, for how long? She forced back the sudden vision of Storm’s body spasming violently against the pitted floor of the sublevels of the mansion. The blood bubbling up as she desperately gasped for air that would not come.
“We need to have some more discussions before you’re given clearance for missions.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he said it, and Rogue realized suddenly that she might not have given Scott enough credit. Convincing him that she should join the team was turning out to be a tougher sell than she’d thought. She thought her improved combat abilities would’ve proved her worthy of being on the team, but clearly there were other factors at play. She internally cursed her shortsightedness. She should’ve asked Kitty or Jubilee about how they’d made the team.
“Okay,” she said, trying to focus on her goal. Rogue took a deep breath to clear her mind of the violent memories. “So let’s talk.”
He shook his head. “Not just me. With the Professor too. We’d like to have a full debrief - go over specifics. It may take a while until we get what we need.”
Frustration, both hers and the Logan in her head, ran through her. “Why wait until now to tell me this? Why couldn’t we have started the debrief as soon as I got back?”
“I wanted to,” Scott said tersely, and Rogue took a step back as she thought about Scott’s words and actions. Clearly he’d been uncomfortable with her presence among the team without a proper debrief. But still, he’d hidden it well. The only hint of strain she’d gotten from him was when she’d knocked him to the gym mat on a few occasions. “But the Professor thought you might need some time to adjust.”
Rogue looked him right into his ruby quartz visor, where she imagined his eyes would be. “And you didn’t.”
He didn’t hesitate. “No. I didn’t. I wanted to know what the hell happened. I still do. I want to know about everything that happened to you, where you were, who you were with, what you did. Everything.”
Rogue blinked in surprise at the unexpected honesty, while the Logan in her head snorted. He was pleased at this admission and his estimation of Scott went up, though just slightly. Her sudden reappearance was risky, she might have been compromised somehow, could’ve put them all at risk.
“So what do you know?” Rogue questioned as he started toward the locker rooms. “About my disappearance?” She could feel him physically putting an end to the conversation by removing himself from her presence, and she wanted an answer before he retreated completely. He would know she’d never follow him into the men’s locker rooms.
“Not much,” Scott answered tersely. “I know what happened when you went to go pick up Michael. I know about his mutation and what he’s capable of. And I know you were in another place for the past seven months. Then, a few weeks ago you just showed up here again.”
She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t picked up on it before now. Maybe Scott had a better poker face then she’d given him credit for. He didn’t trust her. It was obvious now. Until he got every single one of his questions answered, she wasn’t going anywhere. With the team, or otherwise.
While the Professor may have seen every second of her time in that other world, it appeared he’d only shared the bare minimum with Scott. And because Scott trusted the Professor, it had been enough for him. But now that she was asking for more, it was time to recount her entire experience. Rogue was willing to bet that she wouldn’t have the option of several nice glasses of bourbon to help her get out the story this time. She was pretty sure indulging in alcohol during debriefs wasn’t allowed with Scott.
“Fine,” she said shortly, acknowledging his demand with one of her own. “So when do we get started?” The sooner she could get this debrief over, the better. Putting off discussing this with Scott and Charles would only be more difficult the longer she waited. It had been a relief to share the personal side of her journey with Jubilee and Kitty. But Rogue had a feeling this time she’d be talking a hell of a lot more about the FOH than her sexual escapades with Logan. She wasn’t overly keen on discussing the Friends of Humanity given her personal history with them. She briefly wondered if Scott knew about the details of her year of imprisonment with Emmett Knox and the Church of Humanity. She’d never overtly discussed it with anyone since she’d come to live at the mansion, and thought it very possible that only the Professor knew the details of that particular story.
Scott paused at the boundary between the gym and the men’s locker room and she saw his jaw working as he considered her question. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll begin tonight. The Professor and I will see you at eight.”
_____
The debriefing room was foreign to her. Its sleek technology and dark furniture made her feel uncomfortable, like she didn’t belong. Sort of like she was a troublesome messy kid at the clean and tidy adult’s table. Scott’s expression did nothing to make her feel more at ease. He’d come to the debrief fully dressed in his X-Men uniform, and Rogue’s discomfort grew. His actions, deliberate or not - and Rogue had a feeling they were completely deliberate - were sending a clear message; I’m in charge. Answer all of my questions. Don’t test me. His choice to wear his uniform was putting their relationship aside. He was the Cyclops, not Scott. The leader of the X-Men, not her friend.
She took a seat in one of the plush leather chairs that surrounded the briefing room table, and Scott and the Professor moved to the opposite side, though Scott didn’t sit. He stood next to Charles, his arms crossed, looking down at her. Rogue took a few slow deep breaths to calm her nerves and reminded herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong. She wasn’t a traitor. She wasn’t here to betray the X-Men or anyone else. She was a victim of circumstance with a hell of a story to tell, but nothing more.
She looked to the Professor and nodded, signaling her readiness to begin and took fleeting comfort in the small smile he offered her.
“Alright, Rogue,” Scott began in a slow calm voice. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning, when you were at the McMahon’s residence for the pickup.”
“Okay.” She paused for a moment thinking back to those moments before everything had changed. She recalled the cozy details of Michael’s parents’ living room, the warm spring morning sunshine streaming in through the window. The concern she’d felt for Michael as he started to share his thoughts about his mutation. “You know what Michael is capable of, right?” She asked looking at Scott. He nodded once in response and motioned for her to continue. “Well, he also didn’t know how to control his mutation. Remy and I showed up in street clothes for the pickup. The Professor had told us he might be skittish, so we wanted to put him and his parents at ease. We’d only been there a few minutes, talking with the three of them about what Michael could do. He said his mutation was triggered when he was scared, or feeling a particularly strong emotion.”
Rogue closed her eyes as she remembered and recounted the events that led to Rift opening the portal. The sound of shattering glass and splintering wood; the McMahon’s front door exploding inward as members of the Brotherhood filtered in. She’d instinctively moved in front of Michael and his parents, raising her arms to shield them while Gambit had turned to face the threat, hand moving to inside his blazer pocket for a stack of cards she knew he’d brought with him. She remembered the feeling of rising panic as her mind frantically turned over the rudimentary defense skills she’d obtained. But nothing from her occasional training with the junior team was helpful here, and she realized with a spark of anger that she was completely unprepared for this situation. The only thing she could think to do was to try and protect Michael and his family. And so she stood firm, her back to the McMahon’s, her eyes assessing, but unable to counteract, the threat that Gambit dealt with.
When the concussive pulse had moved through her body she’d been as shocked as the others. She’d been sucked through before she could react to the bright blue spiral of light that had enveloped her, Remy’s surprised cry followed her through the portal.
She paused then, feeling guilt rush in as she realized she had never asked about Michael in this world. Had Remy been able to save him from the Brotherhood? Was he alright?
Charles had apparently been following her train of thought and answered before she could ask the question. “He’s here, Rogue. He’s safe.”
She nodded and let out a small sigh of relief. She would ask more about Michael later. But for now, it was enough to know he was unharmed.
“What happened next?” Scott prompted her.
Rogue settled herself back in the chair and met his gaze, ready to proceed, to tell him everything, even if it took all night. “I found myself in front of a destroyed building. It was the mansion. And the X-Men were gone.”
___
Rogue was exhausted. She’d spent hours describing the story of her time in the other world, and was finally making her way upstairs to her room at well after two in the morning. She’d stepped away just once for a short break and to retrieve a mug of hot tea and honey to soothe her hoarse throat.
Initially, she had recounted her time from beginning to end with almost no interruptions or questions from Scott or the Professor. She told them about the incident on Liberty Island with Magneto, the rise of the Friends of Humanity and their various splinter groups, the passing of the MRA, the research on mutants, and finally the takeover of the government and attack on the mansion, the deaths and internment of mutants and human sympathizers. Rogue had explained about the X-Men’s exile in Canada and their renewed efforts to try and restore the government, their diminished numbers and intensive training efforts. She’d told them about the weapons being developed to destroy them, their failed attempts to stop it, and finally, the news of sudden deaths of mutants close to the border.
By the end of the first time through, she’d managed to avoid any discussion of her personal relationship with Logan. Then, Scott had asked her to repeat entire sections of her experience. Then she was asked to go into further detail about the Friends of Humanity’s coup against the government, their situation in Canada, the daily training sessions, and the mutants who remained with the team. And she’d been forced to discuss Logan’s relationship with the X-Men.
She felt uneasy at Scott’s apparent interest in learning more about Logan, but tried to relay what she knew without giving away anything about her relationship. She was worried that Scott would want to know more about who trained her, and try to seek him out, especially after a quick glance between Scott and the Professor as Rogue described Logan’s role on the team.
Finally, after more than six hours, Scott had thanked and dismissed her from the debriefing room. She’d stood, stretching her limbs and rubbing the tension out of her right shoulder as she left, taking the empty mug with her.
She made her way to her room through the quiet halls of the mansion, eyes bleary and gritty feeling, grateful she hadn’t run into anyone on her way back. Rogue fell into bed, too exhausted to change out of her clothes, and fell into an uneasy sleep, the reality of the world she’d left behind flashing behind her eyes.
She woke abruptly. Her heart pounding as the harsh tones of her alarm forced her eyes open, even as the remnants of the dream were still echoing in her blood. She darted her hand out to silence the sound and closed her eyes tight, cursing the existence of responsibility and desperately tried to slip back into her dream.
Rogue could still feel her body pulsing, could feel the throb of want running through her. The feeling of warmth and sex and Logan. It was the first time she’d dreamed of him since she returned, and she didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay with him in the distorted reality of her memories. It had felt so real, so incredibly real and it was already slipping away.
The parts of the dream leading up to the sex had been a wandering mess of nonsensical stories that were an amalgam of her own thoughts, as well as those from the others she had absorbed. There’d been something about her flushing her purse down the toilet - which definitely had to be something from her own brain, escaping from a Russian prison, an ice storm, and then finally him. In the dream he’d had no memory of who he was, but somehow, he’d seen her and become who he was supposed to be - Logan. It had been a blur of sensation and that warm pressure and fullness that came from having someone deep inside you. It had been possession and sadness and desperation. Her fingers still remembered the warmth of the skin she’d traced between his knuckles, a small smile gracing her lips as she saw how much it affected him when she touched him there. There’d been a harshly uttered promise, and she didn’t know if it had been him or her. She had been full and fulfilled, and had felt herself spiraling inside her own mind as she gripped him closer to her, losing herself in the intense physicality of the dream.
She took a deep breath and focused on the last wisps of the dream. But the harder she tried to grasp them, the thinner and more elusive they became. Finally, she opened her eyes and faced her new reality.
He was gone.
___
Weeks passed and Rogue felt herself become re-accustomed to her surroundings. She had a routine again, and while she still hadn’t been given access to join the senior team on missions, she was still training with them. The voice of Wolverine/Logan inside her mind hadn’t become any less painful as time passed. His constant warnings about training, that Scott and Charles weren’t doing enough had brought her to a difficult decision. She couldn’t move on while she heard him whispering in her ear. She couldn’t let him go. And so she had started to slowly, painfully, place his personality in its own secure box in her mind.
Rogue wasn’t able to stop him from infiltrating her dreams during the long dark hours of night. But she could control his influence during the day.
Her meditation habit had been neglected since she returned, and she could feel the cracks in her composure and control as a result. The practice of meditating before bed had become crucial as she dealt with her memories and emotions. Not just hers, either. She had Logan and the other Victor whirling around in her head now too, in addition to the others, and she needed to maintain the barriers that the professor had helped her form.
Weeks turned into months, and still Rogue hadn’t been given clearance to become a member of the senior team. She had retold the details of her story to Scott three times now, and had begun to harbor a suspicion that Scott was asking key questions about the Friends of Humanity for a specific reason. She’d told him everything she could remember about their rise to power, but he gave the impression he wasn’t satisfied with her answers. Rogue didn’t know what else he was looking for, but she was beginning to think it wasn’t something she could offer.
When Scott had asked her to come to the debrief room for a fourth time, he had awkwardly asked her about when she’d runaway from home, and what’d happened afterward, before the X-Men picked her up in Missouri. Rogue had been stunned by this request, and blinked rapidly as she tried to piece together why he was asking.
Somethin’ ain’t right.
She didn’t need Logan’s comment to figure it out. She’d come to that conclusion all on her own. The F.O.H were up to something, and Scott and the Professor were worried.
Rogue had looked at Scott appraisingly as he waited for her to talk. If something about the Friends of Humanity was troubling the leader of the X-Men, Rogue was sure as hell going to do anything and everything she could to help stop them. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, took a deep breath, and talked. Recalling the memory of her year of hell wasn’t as difficult as she thought it would be, and she had long suspected the Professor knew all about it. But scanning someone’s mind and hearing the firsthand account of torture were two different things, and she noticed Charles’ somber expression deepen as she continued.
Rogue had haltingly told Scott what happened to her the night she’d run away from her parents’ house. The van, the men in masks, the syringe. It wasn’t as painful to tell as she’d thought it might be, and thought that maybe her telling Logan about it all those months ago had helped ease the pain of betrayal somewhat.
“Fanatic,” Rogue said as she described Emmett Knox’s behavior. “Utterly committed. He truly believed what he was doin’ would cure me. And he had the charisma and power to convince my parents…” Her words trailed off as she fleetingly thought of her mama and daddy. She hadn’t seen or spoken to them since the night of her last dinner with them, and she felt a bitter hurt run through her at the thought that they’d never even tried to look for her since she’d escaped. How could anyone do that to their own blood?
Rogue’s feelings of unease grew as Scott had clenched his jaw and dismissed her without hearing the end of the story, and her suspicions that something was going on were confirmed when the next day at lunch Jubilee had let slip that there was an upcoming recon mission at a newly discovered F.O.H headquarters. Rogue had turned away to hide her reaction while Kitty had told Jubilee to zip it before she said anything else about the mission. Rogue shifted back in her seat to smile at her friends, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong. But there was a roiling feeling of wrong in her gut, and she kept thinking about the difference between her two worlds, and how they weren’t at all that different.
She decided to leave the mansion for the day, unable to see her friends getting ready for a mission that she knew she could be an asset on. After pushing the remnants of her lunch around on her plate, Rogue had excused herself, and headed toward her room to grab a jacket and her phone before she headed out. But as she rounded the top flight of stairs that led to her room, her eyes caught a sudden movement to her left. She froze, her body tensing in preparation for an attack, and she turned slowly toward the railing where she’d seen a flash of blond.
“Rift,” she whispered, her body relaxing as she recognized him.
He took a hesitant step toward her, eyes downcast. He wasn’t afraid of her, was he? She didn’t have that much of a reputation anymore, not since she’d learned control over her skin. Maybe her disappearance had stirred up some new story about her. Something a new kid would have no idea of being able to sort out. She knew first hand how the rumor mill around this place worked.
“Hey,” she muttered as he stopped a few feet from her. “It’s okay. What’s wrong?”
Watery blue eyes stared up at her, a frown etched on his face. “How can you say that?” he asked quietly, voice tight with unshed tears.
Rogue had no idea what he was talking about. She frowned back at him and swept a stray strand of hair back from her face as she studied him. “How can I say what?” she responded, entirely unsure of where this conversation was taking her.
“How can you say that it’s okay?” he said in a strained tone.
When no additional explanation was offered, Rogue let out a small sigh and took a guess at what was bothering him. She turned around back to the top of the stairs, sat down, and motioned for him to sit, patting the slightly worn wooden step next to her.
He sniffed as he slowly came over to join her, running his long sleeve across his leaking nose.
“You know,” Rogue began as he sat next to her, doggedly avoiding her eyes and rubbing his thumb and forefinger along a worn spot on his jeans. “When my powers first manifested, I put my boyfriend in a coma.”
Michael slowly looked up at her, eyes widening. “Really?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yup. For three whole weeks. My mama and daddy were so pissed,” she said the last part laughing, startled to feel a lightness as she told Michael about what had happened. “They were furious I’d had a boy in my room.”
She let the last line sink in and was rewarded with a small laugh. But then he shook his head, shaggy blond hair flying with the movement. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
Rogue shrugged. “Maybe. But doesn’t make it any less true. I know what happened wasn’t your fault. I’m not mad. We all do some things we may not like when we’re scared. But the most important thing for you to remember is that you made a choice.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen!” he said vehemently. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
“Hey,” Rogue said reaching for his arm as he made to stand up. “I know that. I do.”
He frowned as he settled back into the wooden step next to her, fingers back to worrying against the fabric of his jeans.
“What I meant,” Rogue continued, “is that you made a choice to come here and be with us. To learn about how to control your ability.”
“Oh.” He was silent for several seconds as he appeared to ponder her words. “Well how do you know I can?”
She could hear the doubt in his voice, and could relate all too well. She’d spent years trying to learn how to control her skin, and the personalities of those she’d absorbed. It hadn’t been easy, it had been a lot of damned hard work and sweat and tears. But it had been worth it in the end. She was stronger for the struggle she’d gone through.
“Because I’ve seen you do it,” Rogue said calmly. “How do you think I got back here? Magic?”
She saw the light of understanding dawn in his eyes and smiled.
“Me? Another me?” his voice was excited now.
She nodded again. “You,” she confirmed. “And you were pretty good too,” she added remembering the other Rift’s calm movements as Logan had asked him to open a portal. “You got the hang of it there. You know what that means?” she prompted.
He grinned back at her. “That I can do it here too.”
“You can do it here too,” she echoed. “We good?” she asked raising an eyebrow at him.
He threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly for a moment before scrambling up. “Thanks, Rogue,” he said sheepishly before turning away and trudging back down the stairs.
Her own words echoed in her ears as she continued down the hall toward her room. You can do it here too . How much of a hypocrite was she? She was ignoring Logan’s request; to find the other him.
Yeah, well, learning to control your powers and going to find someone to take the place of your dead lover are kinda two separate things.
She wrapped her arms around herself with her last thought and grabbed a forest green jacket from her closet and stuck her cell phone in her back jeans pocket. She needed to get out of here and clear her head. There was too much swirling in her head and the noise from the students preparing for their afternoon classes wasn’t helping.
She stepped back down stairs, out the front doors, and headed toward the garage lockbox where she knew Scott kept the keys to the mansions’ car collection. Rogue located the keys for one of the Jeep Wranglers, and decided to leave the soft top off as she headed out for a long drive, intent on losing her thoughts in the beauty of the burgeoning fall landscape. She tilted her face toward the warmth of the sun as she drove while the wind whipped at her exposed skin, chilling her. She drove an hour before she stopped, finding a scenic overview that boasted flaming colors of orange and red on the hills in and around the road. Fall was such a beautiful transitory season, the earth preparing itself to sleep while the sun’s rays slowly lost their intensity and gave way to longer nights. She sat there staring at the changing light for several hours, lost in the turmoil of her thoughts.
A sudden gust of wind had her smoothing her long hair back from across her eyes. She’d started to become accustomed to the sight of the platinum mixing in with the darker strands of her hair. She swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat as she thought of the other her and how she’d gotten it. A scar, Hank had called it when he’d first examined her upon her return. But how could it be a scar? Didn’t you have to heal for it to be a scar? She didn’t feel healed. She still felt raw and open. Her mind flashed through Logan’s memories of seeing Marie on top of the Statue of Liberty, hands chained to that machine, hair flying about her face as the machine’s magnetic field grew and expanded, her face contorted with pain, and a shudder that had nothing to do with the cooling air ran through her. She’d died in that world. Twice. How would she avoid that fate here? How would she help her friends do the same?
Her thoughts turned to the recent sessions with Scott and the Professor. What would it take for Scott to trust her? To let her join the team?
Her phone rang as the sky settled into velvet darkness, the stars not yet shining their brightest, the moon not yet risen. She groaned slightly at the stiffness in her muscles as she reached for her cell. She’d sat staring at the sky for longer than she’d realized. Her heart sped up as she recognized Scott’s name on the caller ID.
“Rogue,” he said without preamble when she picked up. “We need you back here.”
Twin feelings of fear and elation ran through her as she answered, “On my way.”
____
“They appear to be far more organized than we thought,” Scott said from his position at the head of the table. He and the others were still in uniform, and Rogue assumed they’d been instructed to go immediately to the briefing room after their return. She was the only one in street clothes, and she felt like the odd one out. Still separate from them.
Scott was leaning over the smooth sleek surface and made a quick motion of his hand which transferred the surveillance photographs from the recon mission onto the main display in the center of the room.
Rogue frowned as she reviewed the picture after picture, noting the size and scale of the F.O.H facility the team had surveilled earlier in the day. The building was sprawling and industrial looking, with no visible exterior windows. The sight of it had a chill running down her spine. She had no idea that they’d been this productive or successful in this world, and her fear that they might be heading toward a similar path was foremost in her mind as she listened to Scott’s descriptions of what they were seeing.
She found herself uncomfortably situated between Remy and Bobby as they reviewed the footage, and smiled weakly at Jubilee’s look of apology. Since she’d been an hour away from the mansion, she’d arrived to the debrief late and Scott was already well underway by the time she got here. Before she could protest, Bobby had slid over one seat to his right, allowing her to sit next to Remy. She hesitated for only a moment before pulling out the chair and joining the team at the table.
Clueless as ever, she thought to herself. Bobby probably didn’t even realize that Remy was seeing Jubilee now.
Seating arrangements aside, Rogue wasn’t complaining. It seemed that Scott wanted her to share her knowledge and experience of the F.O.H with the others. And after he’d moved to the last set of pictures showing what appeared to be several hundred armed troops drilling in a field close to the headquarters, he turned toward Rogue.
“Some of you know some of what happened to Rogue when she disappeared. For those that are unfamiliar, she’s here now because she has key information regarding the potential threat we’re facing.” He nodded at her expectantly as he took his seat and Rogue swallowed past the sudden dryness in her throat.
She stood slowly, exhaled sharply, and spent the next several minutes conveying a high-level overview of what the Friends of Humanity had been able to achieve in the other dimension, from the destruction of the government to the mutant and human sympathizer interment camps, as well as her experience with the Church of Humanity in this world. She did her best to ignore the looks of horror from Ororo and Jean as she described what she knew, and finally sat back down, staring blankly ahead.
“Thank you, Rogue.” Scott cleared his throat and continued. “Knowledge isn’t all we’re going to need,” he said as he stood up. “We need to be ready. For whatever they’re planning on throwing at us.”
Rogue felt him staring at her and raised her eyes to his visor, frowning. She had a suspicion that she wasn’t going to like what he said next.
“With Rogue’s and the Professor’s help,”Scott began slowly, moving his head back toward the others, “we’ve been able to identify and locate a mutant who may be able to provide us with some additional assistance.”
Ororo’s calm voice asked the question Rogue was thinking, but thought she might already know the answer to. “What kind of assistance?”
“Training,” Scott answered bluntly. He was avoiding her gaze now, looking at the others to gauge their reaction. “The F.O.H are on the brink of something. And we need to be ready.”
“But why do we need another mutant to help us train? What about Victor?” Bobby said from her right.
Scott answered immediately, and Rogue knew that he and the Professor were determined to bring Logan on board. She felt her heart sink “Victor is unreliable. We can’t count on him to be here all the time. And he doesn’t have any interest in training us.”
Remy shifted in his chair next to her cocked his head at Scott as he asked, “Why dis mutant so special? What they have that Remy don’t?”
Rogue closed her eyes at the coincidental choice of words.
“He knows how to fight,” Rogue answered softly, opening her eyes.
“Remy know how to fight, chère,” he said turning in his chair, cocky grin directed at her.
She shook her head at him, ignoring the causal endearment. “Not like this, Remy.”
A tense silence filled the room as Scott waited for the team to voice any additional questions. Rogue ignored the sympathetic looks on Jubilee and Kitty’s faces, and the concern coming from Jean. If this is what the Professor wanted, she couldn’t stop him. But she’d be damned if she was part of the welcoming committee. Hell, this Logan probably wouldn’t even listen to a single word Scott said. From what she’d known about the other Logan, he preferred his loner status to being on a team. It wasn’t until he’d met…
Fuck, she thought violently as she forced her train of thought to a screeching halt. He wouldn’t.
“Since there are no more questions, here’s the plan for the next mission...”
She sat in horrified silence as Scott laid out the details.
He would, came Logan’s smug reply.
Rogue sat blinking rapidly, stunned at how quickly she regretted her decision to be a member of the senior team.
“So. Guess it gon’ be like old times, eh chère?” Remy turned and grinned at her. “You an’ me out recruiting a new friend.”
Shit.
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Chapter End Notes:
It is insane to think it's been more than 7 months since my last update. After taking just about that long to write this latest chapter, I think it's safe to say the total chapters in this might be extended by a few. I hope you enjoyed the update, and thanks for reading!