She watched him cry. Nobody else saw him, even though they all knew, or thought they did, how he felt. But everyone always seemed to be able to disappear when he couldn't hold it back any longer and the moisture leaked out of his eyes.
It was in these moments, he forget where he was or what he was doing. All he saw was an empty piece of island rock decimated from the battle with a woman more beautiful than life dying in his arms – by his hands.
She would find him and watch him as he shed tears until the memory finally left him and he shook himself as if waking from a dream. Whether he ever realized she was there, she didn't know. What she did know is, that it was her turn. Her turn to watch over him and make sure nothing else hurt him.
It took a year and a half, but the formula finally did wear off. By this time, Magneto was already building another following and Ororo was making sure the school continued to do well. The uniforms hung mostly unused. Where separated from those, two hung forever encased in glass. Yet in those eighteen months Rogue came to terms with who she was and began to feel like there was a purpose for her after all. And maybe, even a purpose for them all.
But that didn't stop the nights where she cried herself to sleep because she had once again lost the ability to touch skin to skin without endangering the other person. Where she cried because even though she had been able touch, she still wasn't the one for Bobby. The tears were silent and became few and farther in between. But it was something no one could understand.
No one except the man who always had.
He wondered, if she knew he was there outside her door. Making sure no one intruded on her moments of solitude and sadness. He wondered if she even really cared anymore about their friendship and their connection.
It wasn't in him to ask, and probably never would be. But the times when he surfaced from the awful pain of the remembering her death on his hands, and he would smell her scent and hear her politely turn someone away from the door, he knew.
They each watched over the other, because who else would understand them and not judge?
Who else would know that there were no words to make it better? Nothing to be said to make it go away?
Who else would they trust to watch over each other as they cried?
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