Part 11- ‘Of All The Things To ask…,
‘She killed him Logan…’ Professor wheeled his chair over to the window where the other man stood. Logan’s arms were crossed tightly over his chest and his face was set into a grim look of pensive resignation.
‘I’m sorry old friend, I realise how difficult this must be for you…’ Logan looked up sharply at the direct approach Xavier had taken.
‘Don’t do that…’ he snapped. ‘Don’t go in there,’ he tapped the side of his head, ‘it’s too personal.’ He turned back to the window
Xavier sighed and wheeled himself away, ‘I’m sorry Logan, I don’t mean to probe, but you know… you’ve seen it. The anger growing in her, the darkness she’s no longer able to or no longer willing to fight.’
Logan nodded his head sadly, ‘I thought, if she just let me in…this past year it’s been hard on all of us. But I guess I always knew it had hit her the hardest, and I just waited…’ he turned back into the room looking towards Xavier, ‘I wanted her to come to me, to need me…’
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cool glass, feeling so tired and at a loss. ‘Talk ’bout bein’ a selfish bastard.’ He hated himself for waiting, for wishing her to fall just so he could be the one to catch her, but now, now that she had fallen it was from such a height and it was too far.
He couldn’t help her, but maybe, surely the world’s greatest psychic could? He turned toward him suddenly, ‘Charles, you can fix it right? You can bring her back…’
‘I have tried Logan, believe me, but this is not like it was, when Rogue found herself haunted by the ones she absorbed before she was willing to fight them, this time…’ He shook his head and wheeled further into the centre of the room.
‘What…this time what?’ Logan demanded impatiently. Xavier shook his head sadly, ‘She’s crossed too many lines this time Logan, I can’t bring her back because she doesn’t want to come back.’
Logan knew he was referring to Siren; Bobby had found the girl still unconscious and collapsed on the bridge. As Hank had tended to her physical well being Xavier had probed her mind to see what could have happened.
What he saw had startled and horrified him to such an extent that he had initially slumped forward in his chair, sheer exhaustion coming from Siren’s painful memory of Rogue’s unprovoked attack. He had shut his eyes and only opened them at length to wheel himself hastily out of the med lab, leaving a very confused Hank, Logan and Storm in his wake.
But Logan, who knew of the threat Rogue had issued Bobby over Siren had followed him only for Xavier to confirm every suspicion he never wanted to have.
Xavier sat bolt upright and waited with a halted breath. Sure enough the voice returned and this time both Logan and Xavier were listening carefully. Rogue.
‘Ya know it’s rude to talk about someone when they’re not in the room…and Professor I think Scott needs your help…’
Rogue had returned to the mansion to pack knowing it was only a matter of time before the Professor had figured what she had done to Siren. She had worked the anger out of her system in her fight with the Brotherhood. Now she just wanted to be away, far from the mansion and from the X-Men.
But the things they say about the best laid plans and all that. She wasn’t going to get a clean break, not least because she had done little to deserve one. She had told Remy to wait just outside the mansion gates while she had made straight for her dorm and the bag under her bed.
She didn’t anticipate the figure waiting behind her door, and it was only when she was busy piling clothes into her bag that he chose to speak.
‘I saw what you did, the way you attacked that girl…I saw you Rogue.’ She turned around and came face to face with Scott. He was unshaven, bedraggled and looked as if he hadn’t washed in the best of a week, but he was their fearless leader all the same.
She looked up at him, ‘Ah don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She turned back to her packing. He came closer and stood over her shoulder; she could feel him breathing heavily over her neck, leering almost. This was not good; it had not occurred to her how far grief could have pushed Scott.
‘I saw you…’ he whispered, ‘the way you drained her on purpose, the way you walked away as she dropped.’
Rogue turned around and pushed him back forcefully, ‘Ya know for a man with glowing red orbs for eyes ya sure do see a lot.’
He had his hands around her throat before she could even blink, pushing her back against the wall, choking the life out of her, she was too shocked to do anything but stare into his red shades as his face bore down on her, as his words washed over her.
‘I knew, from the beginning I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you but the Professor insisted…’ He spat the words at her, his face twisted into a bitter snarl. And Rogue despite all the strength she’d found in herself could not at first fight back.
He was confirming all she’d long thought about this place, all she knew they’d long thought about her. They had never trusted her, never accepted her, not really.
‘Is that why ya worked so hard to get me to join huh?’ She pushed him back but he held fast.
Scott shook his head, seemingly confused his grip on her loosened, ‘I was wrong, but Jean and the Professor they both said there was always something beneath the surface, that the X-men should give you a chance and a home…’
Rogue took advantage of his distraction and pushed him back forcefully until he fell to the middle of the floor. She coughed and fought to breathe normally again rubbing the welts on her neck from where Scott’s hands had held her.
‘I saved your precious Jeannie and your life more than once; I don’t owe you or the X-men anything!’
She watched from the corner of her eye as he raised himself slowly to his feet and pushed his red glasses further up his nose, his jaw line was set tight, and he spoke through clenched teeth with a face contorted into a hateful scowl.
‘It was you who should have died, not Jean…YOU!’
Rogue stopped dead in her tracks and could only stare at him mouth agape. All the fight suddenly drained out of her and she was suddenly aware of the pain in her chest. She had always known it was there, but she’d long managed to pummel it into submission until it resided merely as a dull ache. But now, with his hateful words it came rushing back and it was a knife, a bitter unbelievably sharp knife that cut through and through.
But as with all pain an all wounds that are left to fester, Rogue turned this particular hurt into anger and it now coursed through her veins as a darkness she embraced. Because it saved her, saved her from being hurt by trusting men like Scott Summers who had once told her that she would always mean something, that she would always be a part of a valued team, and who was now wishing her dead.
‘Is that wh-what you…is that what you all think?’ She looked away disgusted and held her hands into tight fists as he barely hesitated before replying with a firm ‘yes.’
Unfortunately for him Bobby Drake could not have chosen a worse time to burst into the room hell bent on revenge for his girlfriend. He shouted some sort of obscenity she barely acknowledged before he aimed a series of deadly sharp icicles her way.
Rogue looked up angrily; Scott’s words still plaguing her mind, her eyes flashed a menacing yellow. As the shards of ice flew toward her she held up her open outstretched hand and concentrated. The ice stopped mid air and she smiled in triumph.
Snapping her eyes to glance briefly at a shocked Bobby she gestured with her hand and instantly the icicles instead headed at a frightening pace for Scott!
With the same hand and an easy flick of the wrist Rogue used her telekinesis to send Bobby crashing into the wall, his head flew back hitting the solid wall behind him awkwardly and he slumped down to the floor unconscious. She turned her attention back to Scott, he had managed to dodge the icy weapons and blasted the rest with his optic blasts but he was out of practise and as a consequence there it was, a large chunk of ice protruding from his chest.
The wound was just above his heart and a little below his shoulder, it was not fatal, at least not yet. Rogue tore off her gloves and approached him as he fell to his knees, his hand pressed over his wound. She stood in front of him and looked down.
‘Ya blame me don’t ya?’ She kneeled down with him, tilting her head curiously to one side. ‘Ya think if ah hadn’t been around to drain her, she’d still be here. Do ya really think ah had a choice…’
She spoke to his mind. ‘She used me Scott, ya know she did. What do we all fear when we die? Bein’ forgotten. And she wanted ya, she wanted us all to remember, how could we forget dear Jean, when she’d implanted all her memories in the walkin’, talkin’ memory bank. She used me…’
‘Stop it…stop it!’ he screamed, ‘She sacrificed everything for us, she saved all of us..!’
But Rogue had him at her mercy now and carried on regardless, ‘Do ya think ah want her in my head, all her memories, her visions, everything she ever knew or felt haunting me up here, she’s turned into that little piece of conscious ah never wanted…why’d ya think ah haven’t really hurt ya yet?’
And then she heard it the words he had been silently screaming all along, the words he forced into her mind, ‘DO IT! Really hurt me…Kill me...’
Rogue shuddered at his insistence and desperation; she stepped back and watched him wide eyed. She could not believe that this was the same Scott Summers, the man they had all looked up to for so long. A man so resolute and firm in his ways that both she and Logan had joked about how annoyingly stiff and straight laced he was and how far that stick would have to be shoved so far up his ass that he could be so damn righteous all of the time.
But they had respected him all the same; because whatever else Scott was he was not one to give up, to speak of defeat. He was always the one who sought the way out, through careful rationale, through reasoning.
Yet here he was demanding something of her that was beyond all reason, beyond a man whose best friend was rationality. This was the reason for his goading, for his hateful words, he was pushing her to give into the anger and end it for him.
Coward. Rogue’s anger found its way to the surface but not for the reason he had wanted, bitter tears forced stung her tears and she hastily blinked them away. Here was another using her, and she was tired of it. How many times would it have to take for her to remember that everyone wanted something, nothing was always for nothing, what was it about her that screamed use me?
She lifted her arms, palms outstretched and watched as he rose from the floor, she held him suspended in mid-air for a few seconds before she threw her arms upwards and watched as he slammed into the ceiling, pinned in a shape resembling a crude cross shape. With his arms stretched forcibly outwards the muscle around his wound stretched, the blood finding its way along the length of the icicle and dripping to the floor.
She was ruthless, forcing his eyes open and forcing himself into his mind she taunted him, ‘How ironic ah’m using your dead girlfriend’s power against you.’
‘Then use it, kill me…’ he whispered, he had taken up the words as some sort of mantra and seemed it was all he was capable of muttering.
She was disgusted, ‘ya pathetic little man, fine ya wanna die so badly…!’
With that she brought up arms down in one swift motion and Scott followed suit, he hurtled towards the ground, both of them knowing that the impact was sure to shift the icicle so it pierced his heart, granting his wish and killing him.
‘NO!’ Rogue whirled to face the new voice just as Scott came to a sudden halt inches from the floor. He released a painful moan of either relief of disappointment, Rogue could not be sure.
Xavier was at the open door with Logan by his side, he had his fingers pressed to his temple and gently lowered the now unconscious Scott to the floor. He turned his attention to Rogue and looked at her intently.
She locked his gaze with his own, suddenly the wheels of his chair shifted into gear and he rolled backwards and out of the room with a haste that had him gripping the arm rests to prevent himself from falling off. His chair skidded to a halt outside the wheels turning furiously.
‘Stay out of ma head old man, ya got no business bein’ up there, besides you ain’t gonna find it gets any prettier…’ Rogue stepped forward menacingly her fists clutched tightly to her side, only for Logan to step in her way with his claws extended.
He shook his head, ‘don’t make me Rogue…’cos we both know I will.’
She smiled then, a genuine look of attachment and something else, affection, sadness perhaps.
‘What do ya want Logan?’ she whispered the words for his ears only, and approached him slowly, her bare hands flexing gently against her side.
‘Stop…just stop. And come back to us …to me.’ That stopped her short; she had never heard him sound so tender, so lost. He seemed to be wearing his heart on his sleeve, like a wound that would not seal. And it was then that Rogue realised just how similar they were.
But she had come too far now, there was no way she could back down. Events, situations, lives had changed too much. And of course Logan already knew her answer; he saw it all in the way she smiled for him, just for him.
‘Too much and too far…right?’ he asked her with a halting breath. He nodded along with her. And of all the things he could have asked her, he had never thought simply asking her to stay would be the hardest.
She stepped close to him now, everyone else forgotten, pressing her lips gently on his, the slightest of brushes, she then whispered in his ear, ‘Sure is a shame Logan, me and you, hell it could have been somethin’ real special…’ she pulled away and smiled slyly at him, ‘but never mind, ya know what they say, there’s nothin’ to make a relationship more interestin’ than a little rough and tumble…’
Rogue looked toward Xavier again, ‘It’s been a hell of a ride Professor but ah guess this is where ah get off.’ He nodded his head slightly and she smiled, ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself; some of us just won’t be helped.’
Turning on her heel she only hesitated for a few seconds before rushing headlong towards the window, she smashed through it and Logan who was at the recess in an instant saw her hurtling towards the ground coming within inches of crashing into the stone before she raised herself up and flew right over to the gates and to a waiting Remy.
Rogue only looked back once towards the room where Logan still stood, only now he had been joined by Jubilee.
‘If I ask will she take me with her…?’ Rogue read her mind and could not help but feel the slightest of pangs at leaving her behind. But she knew it was the only thing to do.
‘Forget it kid,’ Jubilee startled that her thought could have been projected so clearly was leaning forward straining to catch every word Rogue offered her in reply, ‘it’d be best for ya to stick with the X-Men, they’ll take care of ya, it’s what they do. Ain’t that right Logan?’
Rogue smiled at them both as Logan placed a protective hand on Jubilee’s shoulder. And then she was gone roaring away on the back of Remy’s motorbike.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
‘Too much and too far…right?’ he asked her with a halting breath. He nodded along with her. And of all the things he could have asked her, he had never thought simply asking her to stay would be the hardest.
A/N:Deep breath everybody and wave goodbye to the old Rogue.
A/N:Deep breath everybody and wave goodbye to the old Rogue.