Damaged by Plumb
Dreaming comes so easily
'Cause it's all that I've ever known
True love is a fairy tale
I'm damaged, so how would I know
I'm scared and I'm alone
I'm ashamed
And I need for you to know
I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say
And you can't take back what you've
taken away
'Cause I feel you, I feel you near me
I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say
And you can't take back what you've
taken away
'Cause I feel you, I feel you near me
Healing comes so painfully
And it chills to the bone
Will anyone get close to me?
I'm damaged, as I'm sure you know
There's mending for my soul
An ending to this fear
Forgiveness for a man who was stronger
I was just a little girl, but I can't go back
She waits until the sound of glasses tinkling together in toast downstairs is loud enough to mask her exit. She slings her bag over her shoulder and stares at the window, silently.
She can't think past the mind-numbing fear, is surprised she can hear over the thundering of her pulse, beating so strong and so loud in her ears. It feels as though her brain is shaking with the thudding tempo of it, pressing against her skull for brief moments then jostling away. She rubs her forehead, slowly. Then turns and heads for the back stairs.
She feels like she's living in slow-motion, moving as though through thick molasses, and she tries to push herself forward, force her steps to quicken, but that molasses is still there, slowing her down, trying to hold her here.
But she won't be held.
She finds herself in the kitchen, at the base of the stairs, and has no idea how she got here, can't remember a single step she's taken since she left her room. And that, above everything else, frightens her.
That lack of remembrance. Because while on one level she wants it -- more than anything she wants it -- on another she can't bear to forget, because forgetting is almost like saying it didn't happen.
So she's in stasis. In that middle, in-between place that she's been all her life. Not a woman yet, but never a child; intelligent enough to hide when she can, but never smart enough to evade altogether.
But she has a chance, now, to move from that boggy middle-ground to solid earth. She swallows and can almost feel her larynx scrape against her painfully dry throat. It feels like her world has narrowed to a sliver: the smooth oak of the door directly before her, and she knows -- somehow knows -- that if she can only get to it, she'll be fine, safe. Everything will be made all right, the future will become certain. If... if she can only get to that door and beyond.
She reaches it with a sense of relief startlingly out of proportion to the short walk it took her to get across the gleaming, navy-tiled floor. Her hand rests on the oil-slick smooth door handle, and the house, her dark, oppressive warden, seems to hold its breath -- dense, stale -- as she takes one last look at what she'll be leaving behind.
Solid oak furnishings, plush velvet drapes, carpets soft and dark and luxurious beneath bare toes. She shudders, once, quickly, then pulls the door open and stares out at the darkness that lies before her, the unknown terrors that hide in the thickness of night.
And she decides she prefers the thought of the unknown to the certainty of what's at home.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Her heart gives one loud *thump* and lodges in her throat, then is silent. She closes her eyes and nervously wets her lips. But her eyes, when she turns to look at him, are clear and guileless. She has, after all, been trained by the master of deception.
"Daddy... I'm going to Helena's tonight, don't you remember?" Please please please...
He eyes her, obviously skeptical. "Really. Well now, honey, come over here and kiss your Daddy goodbye."
Thank you, she almost whispers it, remembers just in time. She forces herself to lift her hand from the door handle, notices that her fingers are shaking and curls them into her palm, hoping that he won't notice. That he can't smell fear.
One last touch, she tells herself as she slowly walks towards him. Just one more trial to get through, then you're free.
She is a step away from him when she stops, to steady herself, and then she takes that final step forward, puts her hands on his shoulders and presses her dry lips against his cheek. She can feel the too-smooth texture of his grey dinner jacket, the baby-fine feel of his slightly wrinkled cheek. And knows she's begun to tremble again.
He strokes her hair, slowly, and she thinks that if he doesn't let go soon she's going to vomit on his shoes. Already the familiar feel of bile rests momentarily behind her back molars. It's only a matter of time before it chugs like a locomotive from the back of her throat to her lips.
The hand in her hair is more aggressive and her head is yanked back, painfully. She stares into his eyes, those dark chocolate eyes they share and thinks that perhaps she won't have time to throw up.
She takes the punch fatalistically, absorbs the pain as she's learned over the years to do, but the second, that second hard ram to her stomach fells her.
She's on her side on the floor, and she can feel, dimly, the sharp kicks to her head and her legs and her torso, but her mind has drifted away. She thinks that perhaps this is a dream sequence, where everything is covered with a fine mist, a soft grey that fades to black, and she wonders why then everything is so painful and so very red.
She wakes to a blaring in her ears, over and over and over again, it's so loud and it won't shut off. She tries to open her mouth to tell them so, but finds she can't, and suddenly she feels wide awake, even if she isn't, and the panic settles over like a comforting blanket.
The sound is gone, covered by her thrumming, throbbing pulsebeat, and she knows she can't let them touch her, not again, because she won't survive it, not this time, and she was so close, almost out the door and beyond.
And then something is happening, something strange, something that isn't normal. And it feels like she has gooseflesh and pins and needles and the worst migraine she's ever experienced, and suddenly she has someone else speaking in her head, an unknown and frightened voice in the darkness. And it's also frightening her, but in some strange way it helps, galvanizes her to action.
She sits up, rips off the oxygen mask, her terrified gaze locks onto the medics' equally terrified face, and she can see his lips moving but she can't hear a word. He backs away from her, and she opens the ambulance doors and jumps out, rolls, because with the new information in her head she knows that's what she has to do.
There are hardly any cars on the road, and she runs, runs like the hounds of hell are behind her, and quite possibly they are. She cuts across the woods, woods she's played in when she was younger, and then she's through them, and in front of her is the highway.
She holds up her thumb, glances worriedly behind her, then moves a little closer to the road, so the drivers of the rumbling cars can see her.
It seems she's been standing there forever, and the drumbeat in her ears is louder than ever, when apparently out of nowhere, a camper appears. She doesn't even look at the driver, just opens the door and climbs in. She settles on the seat, surprised to find that her bag is still on her back -- obviously the paramedics hadn't removed it. Now that she's seated, she can feel all the bruises, the slashing cuts, and the pain is so unbelievably intense she wants to scream. But she doesn't. Because she's feeling it. And it means she's alive.
For the first time she looks over at the driver, is surprised to see that he's young, in his thirties, she presumes, with a cigar stuck in his mouth and an eyebrow cocked at her.
"So, where you headed?" he asks gruffly.
She sits back, puts on the seatbelt. She's scared, more now than ever before, and she doesn't know what's happening to her body or her mind, but she's away at least. At last.
"I don't know. Anywhere, as long as it's far away from here," she says, determined.
He grunts and she digs her nails into her leg and stares out the window at the blurring trees, and she can hear that other person in her head, complaining, whimpering, but she tries to block him out, because he's not her. And she's finally free; she got to the door, and beyond.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I meant it as a kind of account of what Rogue goes through... from her home in Mississippi, to Westchester (and this doesn't follow movieverse much so be warned in that regard). Dedicated to: The three lovely people who help me more than they could ever imagine. So Karen, Caroline and Helena, this is for you, because you listened when I needed to talk, helped me through something so bad I cry just thinking about it, cheered me up, have always supported me, and, on top of all that, you give me advice on my fics and improve them tenfold. So thank you, so much, for everything :)