If he'd told me the moon was blue, I'd have believed him. If he'd said I hadn't seen what I had, that it had been an illusion, a manipulation of my mind, or his, I'd have taken it for gospel.
But instead of making excuses, instead of telling me it was all a big mistake, that it's not what it looks like, he stares at me, his hand still gripping Jean's, and his eyes are dark and hot.
They brush over me, almost impatiently, then the fire is banked and the hazel is tinted with a softness I'd never have imagined seeing there. Kindness, oh God, *kindness*.
Jean bites her lip and tugs her hand free of his, and instead of grasping it once more, he stares at me, his eyes imploring me to understand. This is his greatest dream realized, the possibility that Jean Grey could want him, could love him as he does her.
My chest feels tight, as though my lungs have inflated to their capacity and can't release the air, and I step back, stumble blindly until Bobby takes my arm and leads me from the room.
"Are you all right?" he asks quietly, halts our progress when we're far enough away that even someone with Logan's sensitive hearing couldn't pick up the conversation.
My cheeks are wet, dripping with tears that I'd been too numb to feel before but now sear like acid; a rain of fiery droplets that bullet down and leave tiny, individual brands that won't heal over.
I can feel a burning deep inside as memory scorches my soul, billows out to make its way past my rapidly working throat to my cheeks, warming, infusing my flesh with a heat that aches.
My breath stutters out at last, and Bobby pulls me close against his leather-protected chest. My heart squeezes, squeezes, an endless throb of grief for what will never be, and my skin is on fire, flickering with flames that lick and whisper of ways to make the pain disappear.
"Help me, Bobby," I say, my voice hoarse and scraped raw from salty tears and bitter emotion. "Make it stop. Please, just make it all go away."
"I will, Rogue. I'll help you."
And he will. I can see the devotion shining in his eyes, a beacon of blue light, cool and steady, soothing as nothing else could be.
"Bobby," I say, and reach up, press my lips to his and wait for the pull.
It flashes through me, a flaming jet of pure power that incinerates everything else, and I notice, when I force myself to move away from him, that he looks startled.
He drops to the floor, a dull thud, and when his body begins to convulse, to shake from the loss, from what I've taken from him, I cry out for Jean and hope I've interrupted them.
The timbre of my voice is lower, and Bobby scrambles up eagerly in my mind at the tone, rushes to the forefront before I push him down, press my hands over his mouth and quiet him.
Sshh, Bobby.
I pull off a glove, let the leather slap onto the floor, then run a bare hand over my cheek, and the skin is gloriously, wonderfully cool.
Jean runs into the room, catches sight of Bobby lying on the floor like an epileptic in the midst of an attack, and I can see my breath streaming out, frosty and white as the first snow of the season. She drops to her knees beside him, checks his pulse.
"Bobby," she says frantically, "Bobby!" Then she looks up at me, eyes frightened, panicked. "Rogue, what happened?"
I say nothing, watch her watching me, so beautiful and scared and beloved, and my fingers tingle with icy resolve.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan, fists clenching and unclenching sporadically, and I turn from Jean, ignore her frantic calls for me to tell her what happened.
As I walk past Logan, he asks, "Why, Marie?"
And for a moment, I consider answering him, telling him about the agony and the fire and the ice that turned me from lava to stone, but I discard that, because he wouldn't have understood.
So I speak to him in a language he *does* understand. I stop beside him and say, quietly, "Because, Logan, because I can."
I walk away without giving him time to respond, and as I do, my eyes feel like marbles: cold and clear, and empty as glass.
~end~
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Ficlet based on one of Khaki's challenges.