Rogue sat in one of the bucket seats at the back of the jet, stunned by her surroundings. Logan had mentioned friends, and a plane, but -- this? She had imagined a small puddle-jumper, not a sleek, high-tech jet that looked like it belonged on some super-secret military base. And Logan’s “friends” -- they looked like...well, superheroes, dressed in sleek black leather uniforms. One of them -- a beautiful woman with striking white hair -- even had a cape, for Christ’s sake.
Logan himself seemed hardly recognizable to her. He had pulled off his blood-soaked shirts and now wore a leather uniform jacket that matched the others. He was continuing to bark orders like a military commander, consulting the fancy high-tech equipment at the front of the cockpit from time to time.
“Hi...you must be Rogue, huh?”
Rogue jumped. The girl speaking to her seemed like the least intimidating member of the group. She had short brown hair and she seemed to be younger than the others in the jet -- the beautiful white-haired woman, a man with a red visor, and an older gentleman in a wheelchair.
She nodded. “What -- what is this place?”
The girl looked at her quizzically. “Wolverine didn’t tell you?” She paused, apparently taking in Rogue’s blank expression. “I guess not, huh,” she said wryly. “I’m Kitty. The guy with the visor is Scott, and the woman flying the jet now is Ororo. That guy there is Professor Xavier. We’re X-Men.”
Rogue felt like her head was spinning. “Is that something...with the government?”
Kitty laughed. “I think sometimes the government wishes they had the stuff we have. No, we’re not part of any government group. We’re all mutants. This whole set-up is to help people. Mutants who are in trouble, or really anybody who needs it. It started with Professor Xavier. He’s a telepath, and he’s super-rich. He started a school for people like us -- mutants with nowhere else to go, or even those who just need help learning to control their powers. And then as some of the early students got older, they formed this team. I’m kind of a junior member. We go by codenames sometimes too. Wolverine you know. Ororo is Storm, and Scott is Cyclops. I’m Shadowcat.” She reached out an arm, but instead of touching the chair next to them her arm seemed to pass right through it.
“Shadowcat,” Rogue repeated dazedly.
Kitty smiled again. “I guess it can be a bit much to get used to all at once. Wolverine really didn’t tell you anything?”
Rogue felt something sink in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn’t Logan told her any of this? He had only told her about Professor Xavier and the name of the school when it seemed like he had no other choice. Did he not trust her?
Again she looked at him. He and Professor Xavier and Scott were speaking together in angry, urgent tones. They appeared to be fighting about something, something about the Phoenix. Logan’s face was stern, his body tense and fierce in the tight leather uniform jacket. Again, she had the eerie feeling that she was watching a stranger, and she wondered again if she really knew him after all. He had been undercover -- is that what people did when they went undercover? Turned into someone else, and then just turned back like flipping a switch?
“Listen,” Kitty said, interrupting her thoughts. “I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything, but I understand we might be under some time pressure here. Wolverine had us looking into who you really are. And...”
Kitty hesitated, looking down, and Rogue realized for the first time that she had been holding a folder on her lap. She felt her heart thumping in her chest, her body breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Is that -- does that say who I am?”
Kitty nodded. “I’m kind of a computer whiz. With your fingerprints, it was easy enough to find the information. And we had some of it in our systems already, as you’ll see.” She handed the folder to Rogue, who took it gingerly.
Kitty smiled again reassuringly, and tactfully moved back over to one of the consoles, leaving Rogue with the file. Rogue took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She couldn’t help it, her eyes seeking out Logan again. Somehow she had thought he would be with her when she found out who she was. But not this intimidating, commanding, superhero Logan, who was obviously in the middle of some important conversation that couldn’t be interrupted. She wanted the Logan she had known -- the one who had held her, and told her...
She closed her eyes, her heart sinking further. What had he told her, after all? Not that he loved her, or even cared for her. Not who he really was. Just that he didn’t want to leave her, but that he would. He hadn’t promised her anything -- only that he would get her free of Shaw, and he had. He was as good as his word, and now that she was free he didn’t even seem to remember that she was here.
She took another deep breath, fighting back the tears. Don’t be such a baby, she scolded herself. You don’t need anyone to hold your hand. Before she could change her mind, she flipped open the file.
She drew in her breath in shock at the photo of herself attached to the front inside cover. She looked just like she did now, except without the white streaks. Had she dyed her hair back then, or had she acquired them later? She realized now that there was writing at the bottom of the photo. “Anna Marie D’Ancanto,” someone had printed in neat handwriting.
”Anna Marie! You get inside right this minute or you’re gonna get a whupping!” Uh oh, she had been daydreaming again, thinking about asking Cody to the eighth grade dance. She hadn’t realized the streetlights had come on, she was gonna be in trouble...
Her numb fingers flipped another page, to a picture of a little girl, blond streaks in her red-brown hair, smiling up at the camera from between two stern-looking adults. "Born in Caldecott County, Mississippi, to Priscilla and Owen D’Ancanto...”
“Prissy, you need to stop babying her. How’s she ever gonna learn to stand on her own if you’re wiping her damn nose every two minutes?” She hated when her parents fought, she hadn’t meant to be bad, she would try harder...
Next was a news clipping. Just a blurb, relatively uninformative. A boy named Cody Robbins had been hospitalized after a seizure. He was now comatose, his prognosis uncertain.
Her mama wouldn’t stop crying. Why did she get to cry? Anna Marie was the one who should be crying. She was the one who was a freak -- the one who had put her friend in the hospital, who had his voice rattling around in her head even now. She was the one whose life was over before it had even begun, and yet the tears were all stopped up, her eyes red and angry and dry as she watched her daddy shove clothes from her dresser into his old Army duffel bag. He didn’t even know her, she hadn’t worn that top in years. “There’s places up North where they tolerate muties,” he was mumbling. “Head up that way. If you stick around here you’re only gonna bring more heartache down on your mama and me.” Her numbed mind couldn’t even grasp what he was saying. His heart was aching? What about her heart?...
She hardly recognized herself in the next picture -- her teenage face thin and sharp and suspicious, her hair straggly and tangled, a placard held sullenly in front of her. A mugshot. Vagrancy, she read. Shoplifting...
She had never been so cold in her life. Her feet were numb, her fingers were numb, even her teeth seemed numb. The green hooded coat had seemed so warm in Mississippi, but the wind up here whipped right through it as if it weren’t even there. She felt like she would never be warm again. “Wanna ride, honey?” She recognized that greedy, calculating look in his eyes. She had managed to avoid rides from guys like him so far, but she was so tired of trudging through the mucky snow by the roadside that she was going to drop, and no one else had come along this road in hours. He must have seen the indecision on her face. He swung open the truck’s door, and the warm air rushed out, brushing over her body, bringing tears to her eyes. “C’mon, honey,” he wheedled. “What’s your name, sweet thing?” She hitched the duffle higher up on her shoulder and swallowed down the bitter lump in her throat. “My name’s Rogue,” she mumbled, avoiding his eyes as she climbed in...
She wanted to stop, but somehow her fingers kept turning the pages of the file automatically as her mind struggled under the onslaught of memories and emotions. At the back of her mind, the whispers started again. She recognized Cody’s voice now, and the voice of the trucker, whispering dirty things to her, calling her sweet thing...
“Employment History” the next page was titled.
Rogue was refilling the ketchup bottles when Ruby came out of the kitchen, smiling from ear to ear, holding the small plate with the cupcake on it like it was a silver platter. A tiny candle sputtered on top, melting the icing. Carl pulled off his stained apron, a smile creasing his weathered face as well. “Happy graduation, sweetheart.” She should have known they were up to something, they almost never both stayed past closing. Rogue shook her head, laughing, embarrassed at the spurt of pride she felt. “It’s just a G.E.D.,” she protested. “Don’t talk it down like that,” Ruby said, poking her. “Just think. Community college,” Carl said in wonder, the way some would say “Harvard,” or “Yale”...
Another page and she knew what Kitty had meant by her being already in their system. How could she possibly have forgotten?
The librarian was giving her dirty looks again, but he would just have to deal. They didn’t close for another fifteen minutes, and she had to get this essay just right. Her part-time job at the stables was the brightest part of her day, and getting a degree in veterinary medicine would be a dream come true. She still doubted that any place would give her a scholarship, but rumor had it this foundation gave preference to mutants. Maybe that’s all it was -- a rumor. How would they know, anyway? It’s not like the application asked if you were a mutant or not, and in this political climate that’s not something you just offer up. Besides, mutant or not, would they even consider someone like her? Her juvenile records were sealed, but she still just had a community college degree with a few more distance learning credits from the local university. And it sounded so fancy -- the Xavier Foundation Scholarship for Exceptional Students...
And there it was, a copy of the acceptance letter, but brand new and crisp, not stained and tattered like the one she had received had become, now stuck up on the refrigerator in her tiny apartment. She had had such trouble believing she had gotten the scholarship that she had carried the letter in her pocket for the whole first year, expecting someone to ask her for proof at any moment, opening it up and just looking at it every time she felt like she didn’t really belong...
“Marie! Marie!” Damn, she couldn’t pretend not to hear that. “Marie!” Gretchen caught up with her, out of breath from running. “We’re all going to get a pizza and take it back to my place to study for the chem exam. Come with us for once.” Marie shook her head, hardly breaking her stride. “I’m sorry...I’ve got...this thing...another time maybe...” She hurried away. ‘Coward,’ one of the voices in her head taunted. She sucked in a deep breath, pushing him back into his box. She wasn’t a coward, she wasn’t, she was just being smart. It was too dangerous to let anyone get close. People would start to ask questions. She turned the key, opening the door to her empty apartment. The silence seemed deafening. ‘Alone,’ the voices seemed to taunt -- or was that her own voice? ‘You’ll always be alone...’
It felt like pressure, building and building in her head, the voices growing louder and louder, and then suddenly there was a snap and the voices were unleashed in an overwhelming onslaught -- yelling, screaming, taunting, pleading. Rogue closed her eyes against the blinding pain, barely aware of the file falling from her nerveless fingers. The other people in her head were so many, and she was just one...she was drowning, and tired -- so tired, it would be so much easier to just stop struggling...
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hi all! Sorry for my maudlin last chapter notes -- there may have been some mojito involved there too. Thanks for the reviews...they are much appreciated. Here's the next update!
Chapter End Notes:
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