Never cease to amaze me never stopping
To think of anything
I should have fought a little should have wanted less
But who am I fooling?

Falling, slipping
Down this water filled road
Can't stop the fall, can't stop the rain
God, why am I laughing?

-Let it Rain, Silent Iris

---

She never thought it would be so rough.

The way his hands slid against her, his body slid against her, inside her, around her--layers of childish fantasy built on whispers in the dark and nurtured from a tiny flame to a roaring inferno--the delicate threads of a dream torn apart in short, quick thrusts that came a little too fast and a little too hard and nothing like she'd expected.

He wasn't violent, and he wasn't clumsy. But distracted. Detached.

The death of the dream was disappointing.

He rolled over on his back when they were finished, not falling asleep--but not talking either.

She wanted to fill the void with words. Call up whispers of memories, of girlish dreams she'd cherished and hoped for--wanted to take the delicately crafted sentences she'd labored over during nights alone--wanted to tell him what he was to her.

All of them started with, "I love you too."

He didn't provide his half of the conversation.

---

She lost touch the next day.

Not really, of course. She could still touch anyone she wanted to, but she pulled on her gloves and shied away from people who got too close and said that she was having problems keeping her concentration steady.

Logan grunted and looked like he wanted to say something, but the wall of silence that had descended the night before was already impenetrable. Give it a few more days and they'd never speak again.

She might like that.

He might like it too.

She wasn't sure which way she wanted it to go.

---

He waited forty-eight hours. In some ways she was surprised, because even though he wasn't the type to talk over much, he wasn't the type to let things slide either. And no matter how anti-climatic it had been . . . she'd let the love of her life into her bed.

He wasn't going to sit around and let her walk away. Not without saying something about whys.

She didn't know about whys. She didn't know why it was so easy for him to murmur words of longing and passion and need one minute and have everything coalesce into nothingness at the moment that was supposed to be everything.

She didn't know why she cared so much about words when she had what she wanted.

She didn't know why she cared at all.

Maybe she didn't.

She might like that.

He might like it too.

---

"Something's wrong." Blunt, to the point, and obvious.

And detached, distracted. He confronted her in the same way that he'd loved her, with part of him there and the rest--

Somewhere else.

Maybe there wasn't anymore. Maybe that's all there was. Maybe she'd built up impossible dreams and added facets to his character that weren't there.

Maybe she was in love with someone who didn't exist.

"What makes you say that?" Evasive, misleading, and foolish.

He just kept watching her. "You haven't talked to me. You haven't touched me. There's something going on inside your head and I'd just as soon know now instead of later."

He reached out to touch her and she flinched back. She hadn't done it on purpose, but the pain that flashed through his eyes--that was real. It was an emotion and she wanted to see it again, if only just a little.

"I hurt you." It was flat and unemotional and she watched in wonder as he screwed his eyes shut tightly.

Yes would hurt him. No would give him permission to do it again.

In the end, it was no choice at all.

"No. No you didn't."

---

Something inside her withered. Slowly, tentatively, a meandering death of attrition as something bright and beautiful twisted in on itself until gravity worked the subtle magic it was so famous for.

She didn't notice at first.

And then she noticed, but she didn't care.

She didn't care.

She didn't care.

She didn't have to care, because she couldn't really feel it anyway.

Numbness had never been so welcome, had never felt so good.

She was so numb she forgot she couldn't touch.

---

It could have been beautiful.

She wouldn't have noticed.

It could have been graceful, the slide of his limbs against hers, the feeling of being touched and loved and held and caressed and kissed and owned and taken.

She wouldn't have cared.

It was strange, strange that her body could react, could do what it was expected to do as she floated in a senseless nowhere.

She understood his detachment from the first time. Understood how feeling could be washed away in fear, in rejection, in pain and the death of hope. Understood how he had held himself apart, so afraid--so terribly afraid.

She understood his detachment.

She understood him.

It was really a pity he wasn't detached anymore.

It was really a pity she didn't notice.

---

"I hurt you." Déjà vu. And the said it only happened in stories.

She was tired. Didn't really want to talk about it anymore. "No, you didn't."

His hand wrapped around her wrist, wrapped around it so tightly that it *did* hurt, and she winced in spite of the soft protection of her numbness. Winced and made a little sound of pain as his fingers convulsed and his eyes got so hot and angry. "Don't lie to me."

Just enough pain to make her angry. Her body hurt, her heart was numb, and her mind--

She had her pride.

She had her pride.

She had her--"I'd have to love you before you could hurt me. Don't flatter yourself."

Pride.

Eyes flared again. "I won't."

It took less time for him to leave her room than it took for the pain in her wrist to subside.

It took less time for him to leave her life than it took the bruises on her arm to disappear.

---

"Rogue, please."

Jean was getting very annoying. Even with the pillow over her head, she could tell the expression on the older woman's face. Caring, compassionate, worried.

Understanding.

Loving.

"I'm fine, Jean." Gentle lies. Cunningly crafted deception. Beautifully woven misdirection. Uttered in a voice so serene it would make gods weep in envy.

Wasted on a telepath. "You are not fine, and you will /not/ be fine until you admit that he hurt you. And that you hurt him."

Ahhh. Gentle Jean. Good Jean. Caring Jean.

Naïve Jean.

Life would be so much better if she'd just play her part and disapprove.

"I'm fine, Jean." And because she knew that nothing short of truth would placate the woman who wanted so badly to help her, she rolled over and looked her in the eyes. "You know, being what we are--it doesn't change the fundamental rule of humanity. We still live by it, no matter what you'd like to believe."

Bafflement in those strange, hurt eyes. "I don't understand, Rogue."

"Loneliness, Jean. It's not exactly unusual for things to go wrong. Happens to them all the time, why can't it happen to us too?" And because she knew that even that wouldn't stop the hated words of comfort and love, she looked her friend in the eyes. "Ever broken up with a guy, Jean?"

A loaded question. A carefully baited trap.

Jean was too trusting. "Yes."

"Well I haven't." And a smile that couldn't be something born of joy. "Guess it's my right to do it once in my life, right?"

Can't stop the fall.

Shouldn't even try.